Happy February! Love is in the air!

It’s crunch time at my day job, which leaves me little headspace for anything else.

A beautiful, windy storm blew in with violently shaking trees and spats of pouring rain. I love sitting in my house listening to a storm — though I am very grateful it didn’t knock out the power in my area.

What I’m Reading

Just started in Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg. I loved the movie and the book is proving to be quite good as well.

I’ve finished  Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon, which is fantastic and has me thinking lots of thoughts that I’ll pool together later this week.

What I’m Writing

I’ve made it halfway through the second chapter/poem of the novel in verse. The chapter was proving more elusive than I expected, but it’s falling into shape now. A sample from the chapter:

the Queen stitched
with numb but steady fingers
the image of her mother’s gardens,
trees jeweled with tangerines and persimmon,
walls cloaked with jasmine and wisteria,
her mother poised like a fae
about to pluck a crimson rose
from its branch, embroidering the mantle
she would gift to her child

Several other poems drafts have also begun to take shape, one of which I’m planning to read at an open mic this week.

Submitted: Four poems were sent off to Poetry Magazine. Woo!

Goal(s) for this week: Finish chapter two. Put another submission packed together.

What’s Inspiring Me Right Now

Community. I love seeing my fellow poets and artists and musicians rock the mic or post some amazing work online. I love seeing their efforts recognized. It’s inspiring and joyful. It’s also wonderful when these fabulous artists share feedback on my work, guiding me in the right direction. The people at Cito.FAME.us are wonderful, as are my lovely friends in my Writing Gang who I met with on Skype last week. I love speaking about words. I love living words.

Where I’ll Be

I will definitely be attending the Cito.FAME.Us Valentine’s Day Party, which will also have a limited amount of open mic readings.

Linky Goodness

Therese Walsh’s post, “Monotasking: The Forgotten Skill You (and I) Need to Re-Claim, ASAP,” fits in nicely with this year’s (for me) theme of minimalism and focus:

“I’d heard that multitasking is a fallacy — that when we think we’re doing two things at once, we’re usually only doing one and not as well as we might believe.”