Creative Conundrum

I didn't write again today. To be honest, since May 2007 I've written 27 rough drafts. Of those 27 rough drafts, I only like 5, which were all written in 2007. This means I don't like anything I've written this year.

Now my rough drafts are not complete drafts. I usually take 2 days-2 months to finish a rough draft. I put the poem aside for a few weeks and then begin the long, arduous task of revising the poem which can mean 6-10 drafts or more. I feel it's complete when I feel like I can't go an further textually and when I read the poem aloud it reads smoothly. So, I have to feel comfortable with it textually and orally. Once I reach this comfortability I usually will start submitting the poem, along with others of course, to literary journals. Of course, I have often come back to poems years later to continue minor tweaking and sometimes major overhauls. I'm obsessive like that.

So, back to my original thought: writing has sucked for the past 14 months. I don't feel comfortable with what I'm writing. I feel like I'm writing less and less. And I'm not sure what to do about. Oddly, enough my creative conundrum started when Megan and I bought our new home which leads me to a question: how does 'writing space' or 'creative space' affect a poet's productivity as a writer or to put it less capitalistically: does the space in which a poet creates poetry affect the quality of their poetry??? Hmmm...inquiring minds want to know...as do I.


I ordered 8 more 1:64 scale NASCAR cars tonight. I like to believe they're for my son Brayden.