There’s something about autumn that makes me feel as though I’m on an epic quest of self-discovery. Each year, from the first moments of the autumnal equinox, through to the last day of autumn on December 20th, I am filled with inspiration, as though I’ve been plugged into a source of energy and my body can only hold so much.

Yesterday I announced a new project for National Novel Writing Month. Every NaNo event has an option for the organizations members to announce new projects. For Camp NaNoWriMo, you probably recall I intended to write 20,000 words of new poetry in one month. For November, rather than write a novel, I’m going to write 20,000-25,0000 words of new poetry. Yesterday, I went onto the NaNoWriMo website and officially announced that project.

I’ve completed two other NaNoWriMo projects. They’re both fantasy novel manuscripts that I absolutely abhor and don’t intend to use for much of anything. I’m not even sure I’ll continue to use my ideas for my fantasy series at this point because the ideas feel so generic, so typical and common that I don’t think there’s much I can do with them. I might completely start over, keep some of the characters and try to come up with a new plot. We’ll see. But in the absence of another novel to work on for NaNoWriMo, I will, instead, work on poetry.

I considered working on a manuscript of essays, too. It’s been ages since I’ve written an essay (more like months, but whatever) and I do hope to put together a collection of essays in the next few years. But I also believe in following wherever my inspiration leads. If that means stepping away from prose for a time, then I’m comfortable with that. All of the work I do on bettering myself as a poet will also improve my skills as an essayist. No creative writing work is ever done in vain. Perhaps next November I can use NaNoWriMo to write 50,000 words of nonfiction in one month and see where that takes me?

For now, I follow poetry. It connects me to nature. It connects me to language. It connects me to myself. And it connects me to everything that is beyond me, everything spiritual and divine. All writing does this for me on some level, but poetry is the most thorough. It always has been. My grandmother was a poet her whole life. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of poems over her lifetime and self-published more than ten books of poetry as an adult. In her final years, probably the last five years or so, she wrote poetry at a speed I had never seen before. I think she knew she was dying. I think she knew her days were numbered. And I think the poetry she wrote was her way of making something of her soul that would last, something her family could hold onto and cherish.

I wish she could see me in this program now. I wish I could read her my poems the way she used to read hers to me. I wish I could thank her for always inspiring me to write, always making sure I had notebooks and pencils, always making sure I had something interesting to read. I wish I could thank her for encouraging me to read beyond my comfort zone. I especially wish I could thank her for introducing me to the Brontes. She had no idea how much the Brontes have come to mean to me and I never told her. Poetry, education, writing, learning were so much a part of her, they might as well have been her skin or her hair. That’s why I feel they are so much a part of me.

This was a special connection I had with my nana that I didn’t have with anyone else. It was a connection I didn’t fully appreciate. My father has always been an avid reader too, but his tastes have never flowed with mine. And my mother has never been much of a reader. Neither of them are writers, though my mom is a fantastic artist. My nana was really the one person who saw in me a love of writing and fostered that love as much as she could. She gave me writing exercises and writing assignments and paid for me to take writing classes. My parents didn’t ever discourage my writing, but she was the one who always made sure I was doing something literary.

I carry poetry in my body because she carried poetry in hers.

Today I work on more of my essay. Then, I hope to read (maybe finish Pride and Prejudice so that I can start Mansfield Park early) and get some writing done. I’m feeling poetry heavily in my arms and fingers. It’s what I imagine prophecy must feel like in the body of one who has been given divine knowledge of the future. Maybe poetry is a kind of prophecy. Maybe all writing is.