Writing Notebook

     This is my writing notebook. It's just a plain spiral notebook, so I'm not afraid to ruin it. I can write for my own pleasure, and I can bear not to write my best. I can go on for pages and pages, or I can stop in the middle of a story when I'm tired of it (which happens a lot). The drawings on the front are bookish things that inspire me and put me in a writing mood.

      Having a notebook is helpful, but it's not the magical cure for writer's block--I got so stuck yesterday. I think maybe it's time to forage through old things: stories I didn't finish, poems that I forgot I wrote.

Here is one of those old (but finished) poems that started out in my notebook:

Sonnet 1: Memories

What else possesses so much strength

But a Bengal tiger ready to spring?

What else transpires such sweet perfume

But the shiuli blossoms in full flower?

The tiger’s pounce can pin you down

Paralyzing past and future

‘Less you ride the brawny back

Forward through woods by leaps and bounds.

The shiuli flowers at dawn will fall

And drape the ground in honey-white drifts.

Then slowly on the day will plod and

Though they’ll wilt as twilight falls

From sleeping buds new life will bloom.

A snow of flowers will fall again soon.