20180812.0430

The direction in which I mean to take this webspace remains unclear to me. Given that the other is occupied with sober discussion of things I read and consider, I am not certain that I want to keep using this one to write essays. My essay-voice is pretty consistent at this point, and it seems an unneeded and unhelpful duplication of effort to write more essays here and there; I should focus my essaying there, where it attracts the kind of attention I want it to have. (Indeed, August 2018 has already been the best month for that blog since I left Oklahoma--and there’s a fair bit of it yet to go!) As such, this webspace should remain a sort of creative side-project, one where I put most of my efforts towards genres other than essays. I think it will work better that way.

The issue then becomes one of what genres should receive attention. I find that I enjoy writing poetry, even if the verse I put forward is banal and pat. The limerick cycle was a pleasure to do, both because I appreciate being able to carry forth a longer-term project and because I enjoyed the challenge of playing with that form. I find sonnet-writing also enjoyable, although those who have looked at my sonnets will note that I follow an uncommon rhyme scheme in them (and writing triplets is strangely difficult). Verse patterned on West Saxon models is also a joy, though I note that one recent submission of it got comments to the effect of being too much like prose. (To be fair, I think the commentator believes poetry has to rhyme.) Which will inform a longer-term project such as the limerick cycle, I am not certain; I am not sure any of them will or ought (though I have the notion of returning to a particular strain of sonnets I’ve addressed before, as well as a longer alliterative verse piece that’s been bouncing around in my head for years).

I’ll continue to mull over the matter, of course. I’m not ready to set aside this endeavor, so I have to figure out something to do with it. (It’ll be verse, such as I’m able to write.) And I always look for commentary on what I put out here, hopefully such that I can use to improve what I do as a writer in multiple genres. If I get enough of it, I might even be able to gather some things up and compile them in a way that I can actually support people better for it. I hope to do such things, among others. And I’ve commented enough on other people’s work that I should expect to get some commentary and feedback on mine; indeed, I long for such things, and since I can’t seem to find a writing workshop that I can meet with and will remain in place long enough to do anything, I have to turn all my hopes towards this medium. May they not be in vain!

I can always use additional support.