She's baaaaack .....

(Me, pondering the Great American Novel)

Well, boys and girls, I'm back at La Bloga. And frankly, it isn't because I have a burning desire to write. The opposite, really.   It's been about six or seven years since I have done any concentrated work, although I contributed to two anthologies - one edited by Annie Finch, wrote an essay on Alfredo Arreguin for a collection of his paintings, and set up a website for poetry about jazz.

I pulled waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back because I got sick of the first question anyone asked being "What are you working on?" The answer was "Not much." I started having this immense sense of guilt, the feeling that I wasn't enough, wasn't doing enough. I spent years on "the submit and wait and submit again" merry-go-round and I didn't have the stomach for it anymore. But the guilt closed itself around my heart like a fist.

By the way, during this period finances had tanked to the point where my great masterpiece became staying afloat and keep food on the table.  Maslow before Neruda.
It became a 60 hour a week thing - chasing jobs, interviewing, scraping cash together. Lather, rinse, repeat. Not helpful was "encouragement" to write about living on little money. Believe me, it's boring from an inside perspective, and I choose not to participate in the voyeurism of poverty for the folks clamoring for it, but strangely silent when it came to job leads.

Back to guilt. I'm just coming out of it now...what I decided is to cut ties with most of those people, and stop explaining. My masterpiece - thriving while poor.

I say"no" to my self-image equaling the sum of writing, the daisy chain of my poems. I am I'm much better at giving myself the permission to live my life.

Which brings me to what the hell I'm doing here. I reached out to Em to get back onboard, writing only what I want for myself.

I am interested now in two things: publishing segments of the online jazz anthology here and launching a discussion with writers and readers.