I think writers are a special breed. Everyone writes. I get that. And some even go so far as to declare that as their profession (catch the slight nasal inflection upon the word “writer”) which is different in perception than being a reporter. There is something to be said for the drug of the craft.
Drug as in the wind blows the branches a certain way, blows a snippet of a line into your mind like candy to be sucked on. Drug as in you are out with friends, in the middle of drinks and the line is ready to reveal itself- you politely duck out and walk in a clipped gait because you don’t want to lose its potency.
So it’s Saturday night. I have been fighting my manuscript, in essence fighting against listening deeper than the surface treatment it has received. Tonight, sitting at a karaoke bar with Tyrone, I told him, “I am overthinking this. I need to just let go of it and the order will all fall into place. The poems will show me how they are talking to each other.” We sang (he: “The Promise” // me: “Umbrella”), we drank, hell we even made friends with a girl named Tressa visiting from Vegas and screaming with the rest of the bar in collective pitch to Four Non-Blondes “What’s Going On?” I had every intention of meeting up with Kenny for a late night movie / early birthday celebration. And then the urge hit, the need for the drug, fingers opening the laptop readily.
So after months and years and final days and hours, the draft of the MFA manuscript is now finally put to bed. Draft still because as Tyrone said, I “like to expound upon the work from the work.” How right he is. And yet, may I not be Goya in this.