Manuscripting

Congratulations to Greg on finishing a draft of his novel, Down Cortez Road (Great title!). I also just heard that one of my Sewanee friends -- a poet -- is also working on a novel. I'm simultaneously impressed and a bit envious of you guys and ladies who can switch genres and write a novel.

Just don't desert us and become full-time fiction writers, please.

I did a sort of double-reverse-switch as an undergrad, from poetry to (short) fiction to poetry, but I've never been able to go back. Maybe book reviews will be a springboard to writing an essay or two down the road, but the big canvas of a novel feels too daunting.

My problem, even just writing short stories, was the inability to devise plots. (That sounds more devious than I mean it.)

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I'm wanting to work on new poems -- to devise some new plots -- but am really stuck in manuscript mode. Feels like I need to get the book manuscript placed somewhere so I can let those poems go a bit more and focus on what's next.

When I interviewed Jay Leeming, he said publishing his first book meant he didn't have to worry as much about those poems anymore; they had a life of their own now. And that's how I feel, or want to feel.

So I'm focused on last (for now) edits on a book manuscript I want to start sending out this fall. Which is its own kind of pleasure -- that staying in a manuscript as long as you can -- but I'm hungry for some new poems too.