…IS DONE!

I cannot believe it! I actually got the rough (rough) draft of my creative thesis done! All of the poems I wanted to type up for it have been typed up, titled, placed into the Google doc, and organized. I call it a rough (rough) draft because 1) I’m fairly certain there will be other poems I add to this manuscript as the semester continues, and then over winter break, 2) I haven’t quite gotten the manuscript itself titled (I’m stuck on two potential titles), and 3) the manuscript is going to be heavily revised next semester.

But the rough (rough) draft is done. I have spent so many hours on this collection of poems! It’s about 78 pages, long enough to actually be a complete manuscript of poetry, and it really is surpassing all of my expectations for it. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to really organize a manuscript of poems or know when a poem belonged in a manuscript and when it didn’t, but I completely surprised myself. I have actually cut about eight poems from my original list for this assignment because, on closer examination, they didn’t fit. The more I looked through the manuscript, the more I can to understand its organization, its structure, its resonance.

I’ve also gone through and looked at the titles of the poems to see if I liked them or if I felt they needed to change. I’ve actually changed quite a few of them. The manuscript is about 10,500 words, which is incredible because this month my goal has been to write 10,000 words of poetry and next month my goal is to write 20,000 words of poetry. I could (potentially) write another two manuscripts of poetry next month.

I’m just…blown away. The next stage, and this is the one I’ve really struggled with, is revision. It takes me a long time to really revise a poem. It takes months. Sometimes, even, years to really revise a poem into something I feel confident in. I know I won’t learn everything about revision over the rest of this and next semester, but I hope to get enough experience with it to be comfortable doing it on my own. That’s my hope.

I don’t know what the rest of my 10,000 words for this month will include. I don’t know what my 20,000 words next month will include. Maybe some of those poems will wind up in my thesis, maybe none of them will. The great part about revising poetry is that it can and often does include writing new poems. I don’t have to know what this and next month’s poetry will lead to. I just have to be a willing vessel. A lot has happened this year, some of it I haven’t been able to talk openly about, and I can see poetry being a great outlet for those things.

I’m so excited about this. I’ll keep everyone posted as things continue. I wish you love and light and luck in your creative endeavors!