![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Monday Poll - On Further Hiatus
Apr. 28th, 2008 09:18 amHeatwave yesterday. No a/c. No can think good. No poll. Bye bye for now.
Apr. 28th, 2008
Highest light
Apr. 28th, 2008 10:19 amRandom quote of the day:
"As I lived up to the highest light I had, higher and higher light came to me."
—Peace Pilgrim
( Illustrated vision. )
"As I lived up to the highest light I had, higher and higher light came to me."
—Peace Pilgrim
( Illustrated vision. )
Blackberries
Apr. 28th, 2008 11:41 amBlackberries
They left my hands like a printer's
Or thief's before a police blotter
& pulled me into early morning's
Terrestrial sweetness, so thick
The damp ground was consecrated
Where they fell among a garland of thorns.
Although I could smell old lime-covered
History, at ten I'd still hold out my hands
& berries fell into them. Eating from one
& filling a half gallon with the other,
I ate the mythology & dreamt
Of pies & cobbler, almost
Needful as forgiveness. My bird dog Spot
Eyed blue jays & thrashers. The mud frogs
In rich blackness, hid from daylight.
An hour later, beside City Limits Road
I balanced a gleaming can in each hand,
Limboed between worlds, repeating one dollar.
The big blue car made me sweat.
Wintertime crawled out of the windows.
When I leaned closer I saw the boy
& girl my age, in the wide back seat
Smirking, & it was then I remembered my fingers
Burning with thorns among berries too ripe to touch.
—Yusef Komunyakaa
They left my hands like a printer's
Or thief's before a police blotter
& pulled me into early morning's
Terrestrial sweetness, so thick
The damp ground was consecrated
Where they fell among a garland of thorns.
Although I could smell old lime-covered
History, at ten I'd still hold out my hands
& berries fell into them. Eating from one
& filling a half gallon with the other,
I ate the mythology & dreamt
Of pies & cobbler, almost
Needful as forgiveness. My bird dog Spot
Eyed blue jays & thrashers. The mud frogs
In rich blackness, hid from daylight.
An hour later, beside City Limits Road
I balanced a gleaming can in each hand,
Limboed between worlds, repeating one dollar.
The big blue car made me sweat.
Wintertime crawled out of the windows.
When I leaned closer I saw the boy
& girl my age, in the wide back seat
Smirking, & it was then I remembered my fingers
Burning with thorns among berries too ripe to touch.
—Yusef Komunyakaa
That vague, queasy feeling
Apr. 28th, 2008 04:34 pm
| |
8,000 / 100,000 (8.0%) |
I've written or "recovered" 8k and two chapters, but I have this queasy feeling I may have begun this story too soon. The opening has way too much stuff, and some of this prose—from at least eight years ago now—is soooo clunky. Part of me says I should just try to rewrite the whole thing rather than editing the old stuff, but some of it is not bad at all. I think I need to press forward and get the story down, worry about the clean and scrub of prose later. Just like I'd do with any first draft.
I have to remind myself this isn't really a rewrite at this stage, because I never finished the draft and I'm changing and revising as I go. This really is still a first draft. Getting it on the page right now is the only thing that's important.
I am missing something in this opening. Something important, maybe, or maybe I did start the story too early. That's not usually a problem with me. Or maybe I'm just not used to a non-action opener. Or maybe it's just boring as hell.
Time will tell.