Process

I love the conversations with other poets and writers about process. Today – a good wet and rainy day – is the perfect time to consolidate my field notes.

My process is to write lines, poem seeds, or ideas in my “field note” book. I try to get back to them within the same day – if possible – to flesh them out a bit or write them fully into life. If not that day, as soon as able.

Once the piece is complete it gets copied to my blogs. One blog if it’s poetry, another if it’s prose, another if it is dreamwork. Then I cross out the ones that are transposed to a blog. Before tossing the book, I check to see that there are no sections left that are not-crossed-out.

Today I found a few lines that were not crossed out. So I entered them in my blog – this one was a poem. I devised this method so as to have a digital file system. All my blogs are searchable so I can check to see where an idea ended up if I want to reread something for content or style. Before I do a new book, I search through all my blog based pieces for the theme or concept of the book. Voila. A project or book is born out of the ashes of pen from days gone by.

If you do this several times a week, it does not take long to have a bunch of pieces to edit for the book or project.

The poem from today: http://farsidebanksofjordan.blogspot.com/2024/03/wish-to-remain.html