I've been hard on myself lately. Some days I'm happy to have most of the day to do whatever I want. But others I feel useless and stagnant like an old swamp, all mossy and dark and where nothing really happens. And then I start to compare myself to other writing friends who are working on new projects, and I can't even remember the last time I made a book. (That's not true, it was in 2008.) And I sat down to write the other day, hoping to find that Lorrie Moore's Self-Help really was helping me, and absolutely nothing came to mind besides tired old themes that I've exhausted. Maybe it's time to leave poetry behind, or aside, for awhile and go back to fiction. Seeing and holding the little chapbook in Echo Park today with the little poems written by children reminded me that not everything you write will be a hit. What's more important is that you do write, and I have to remember that.
