Maybe Then.

I have  a few minutes right now and I was thinking about all of the minutes I don’t have to do things like write to you and so I thought that it would be fitting to tell you about all of the things I have not been working on lately, because of how few minutes I have.

But first: a caveat.

As much as I like to bitch and moan, life is not particularly hard right now, just busy.

Okay, now that that is out of the way, here is what I have not been working on:

• A 50,000 word Nanowrimo novel. I managed to get about 8,000 words in before I ran out of time. I have yet to run out of ideas or desire. At this point in the month I should be up to 20,0004. I am not. And I’m feeling pretty bad about that. But I will be done with the semester in about 4 weeks, so maybe then …

• Editing the collection of poetry I wrote over the summer. You got to read many of the first drafts RIGHT HERE on this very blog (sorry about that BTW) and I was midway through revising them when my semester started and I ran out of minutes. Right now it is 107 pages of poetry and almost none of it is any good, but I am hoping to get back to it and finish it soon. If you have never attempted to write a collection of poetry, you totally should! Nothing makes you feel like you have no idea what the fuck you are doing quite like it. I want very much to return to it because despite the fact it is a deeply flawed 107 pages, I think it really has a voice and an ethos to it that articulates my feelings about poetry; basically that we should all aspire to be one part Bukowski and one part a non-reptilian form of human being. But I will be done with the semester in about 4 weeks, so maybe then …

• A chapbook of poetry that I started writing about a year ago. It is poetry about economics and capitalism in particular. As you might imagine about poetry in dialogue with macroeconomics, it is a real hootenanny of a thing. It is about 30 pages and when it is done I will be able to submit it out to contests and such, but I need to get it down to its fighting weight first and I just have not had the minutes. But I will be done with the semester in about 4 weeks, so maybe then …

• Letters! So many letters. I am trying not to make a big deal about it (in advance of having my heart broken), but I am in the process of the applying to MFA creative writing programs and that requires writing a ton of letters (1 or 2 for each school). These are “personal statements” or “personal histories” or “letters of intent” or “artist statements” and each one is a little different. I have about 7 more to write. I will be working on these this weekend, so stay tuned for updates about that. This application process has been about a year in the making for me but I still feel like I should have spent more time thinking about it more deeply, however I just don’t have the minutes. But I will be done with the semester in about 4 weeks, so maybe then …

• A photo book. This is a totally stupid idea that I have, but hear me out! The combination of an iphone 6 camera and Instagram has convinced me that I am fantastic at taking pictures of stuff and so I want to put together a print-on-demand book of photos using the website Blurb and which can be sold on Amazon. This will also be a way for me to experiment with this kind of self-publishing. I really need to sit down and gather up all of the photos I have and to start sorting through them. So far I have not had enough minutes to do this. But I will be done with the semester in about 4 weeks, so maybe then …

• A screenplay. For something like 6 or 7 years I have been tinkering with a screenplay about Jesus (but funny) and I really feel like what I need to do is just lock myself in a room for 3 weeks and just write the damn thing. Unfortunately I have not had 3 free weeks. But I will be done with the semester in about 4 weeks, so maybe then …

• A collection of stories. For reasons too byzantine to go into here, the Master’s program I am in does not allow Master's candidates to write a Master's thesis (it’s dumb). However next semester I will be taking a “culminating experience” class that will require I produce a “mini-thesis”, however it is my intent to produce a “full-blown motherfucking Master’s thesis” and just call it a “mini-thesis”. I am going to use it as an excuse to create the kind of super weird collection that I have always wanted to and which everyone has always told me not to. The kind of collection where a 30-page story about D. B. Cooper is sandwiched in between a 126 word fragment about Fyodor Dostoyevsky meeting Ted Kaczynski and a story told entirely in postcards (all of those are things I have already written, BTW). So far I have only been able to think about it in the form of scribbles in the margins of my notebook. But I will be done with the semester in about 4 weeks, so maybe then …

• My perfectly small and beautiful novel. This is the book I have been wanting to write my whole life. Small. Sweet. Smart. Shocking. Funny. Odd. Somehow I have never figured out how to turn those ingredients into a recipe. But I will be done with the semester in about 4 weeks, so maybe then …

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