{ break.

The hard thing about revising is that I don't want to: it's always hard to know whether the impulse of the revision is true. {Robert Hass

For the first time nearly since I've started writing, oh, about 4 or 5 years ago?, I'm going to take a 2 month break from my writing schedule. Typically I write a poem every 1 or 2 weeks; I can be consistently productive with that, its a pace that I do not feel too rushed or too lazy at. I'm going to take the time to seriously, and thoroughly, REVISE. My manuscript, of course, and various newer poems. I think that with doing 30poems in 30days for both this past November and April, though leaving me with a good portion of work, has left me with an almost overwhelming amount of editing to be done; I don't know if I will try a challenge like that again, though it was an interesting experiment. I'm not naturally very prone to revision--not that my poems don't need it, they very much do, I just feel like in my passion to move forward with my writing I've not given my already written poems the attention they deserve--leaving them perhaps a little bit half-baked, not seeing them reach their full potential. I've never taken a break like this before because I worried that I would not be able to write again if I took that much time off; and maybe that was something to be concerned about when just starting out, everything so malleable and new. At this point, I don't feel like it is something that I should worry me; of course, I won't ignore the creative impulse, should it arise, but primarily, for the months of May and June, I aim to give my work the exclusive, careful editing attention that it needs. I hope I'll be as inspired in revisions as I was in the original writing of these poems.