It’s been a minute! A whole month, actually. March is almost over, and my newslettery poetic blog hasn’t been watered since February.
Oops!
I’m in a cafe in Pasadena drinking cafe de olla. It’s spring break of my first year in an MFA program. I drove a few hours to see family and friends for a few days. Since we last talked on here, I started the month with a flat tire, a birthday, and grading a small hill of college freshmen final essays. I’ve been listening to lots of music. I got my heart broken last week, and then I finished my finals. I’ve been sad. I marched, I met new people, I ran, I drank wine, I moved into a new apartment, I made the space my own, and I had friends over to warm it. I’ve been moving in so many ways.
And I didn’t write a single poem in March. But I did write about 20 pages to finish a novella for my grad school class, and now I have a fully written draft! This is by far the longest writing project I’ve completed—70ish pages—and it took all the creative energy I’ve had over the past month to finish. I’m proud of it, scared of it, and hoping to see it grow.
Wanna read it?
A few caveats: it is still a work-in-progress. There are plenty of spelling, grammatical, syntactical errors; there’s a plot hole or two; there’s parts that could be expanded, parts that could be removed; there’s a semblance of structure and form, but I’m not tethered to it. I ask you read with your heart and allow your eyes to overlook the little stuff.
In case you missed the previous posts about this novella, I’ll point out a few cursory things about it again.
It is fiction! Kind of in the vein of magical realism.
It is not poetry! But I think there are poetic elements to it; prose written by a poet always has a scent to it.
Again, IT IS FICTION! Obviously the story is based on my life, but the events and the characters are entirely made up. Those who know me personally will recognize the elements of truth and real life, but know that it is mixed in with a lot of fictional fluff as well.
I am writing about family, but it is not a story about my family.
There is a “deeper meaning” if you want to ponder the writing, but the meaning is not an autobiographical truth.
Where will the novella go from here? I’ll edit it, revise it, and maybe one day send it out to the literary elite to devour into a commercial crap. My professor told me it has potential for more We’ll see.
Ok. Enough talk. Here it is: the first draft of an untitled novella about a teenager who has nine biological fathers and is experiencing an existential crisis.
Apparently, April is national poetry month, and my next grad school class is focused on poetry. So I better get my shit together. But I know I will—I always do—and I am fortunate to have unbelievably supportive friends and family who offer me the love to do so. Hoping to get back to a more regular Poem of the Week routine and hoping you enjoy the last days of March, and carry words with you into April.
Marchingly, Ricky