There comes a point in a writer's career (do I really have a career? another post...) where the idea of a book haunts them day and night. You have tons of questions (Is my writing good enough? Will someone publish me? How do I go about editing? etc.) and you go through a roller coaster of emotions. I have been toying with the idea of a book for over a year. After almost 13 years of writing, I figured it was time. 

I will save this for another post, but I do have a lot of challenges with creating this book. From editing my work to who to trust with the product, I have been a mess. I've stalled several times. As a matter of fact, I'm stalling now even after taking a big step (you'll see in a moment). Each step is scary. 

I already have a title (Late Night Feelings) and a possible cover. All I need is to choose my content and go through the act of editing and formating the darn thing. I had someone who was beginning to help me, but he jumped ship (dunno where the hell he is, only Facebook lets me know that he is occasionally alive). so finding someone who I can trust with the project is also holding me back (I need feedback and another eye to help me edit and format).

For inspiration, I went to the Chapbook Festival at the CUNY Graduate Center last month. I saw books in so many formats. It gave me so many ideas on how I could distribute my poetry. But then with so many choices, I was stuck again. I thought to myself, "You need to jumpstart this idea somehow. It's the only way you'll start putting this book together."

My opportunity came at the end of a workshop I attended at the festival. One of the editors from Poets & Writers Magazine (my dream magazine to write for; you know I got her contact info!) demonstrated how to create a pocket-sized book with only one page of paper. Well how to fold it at least. The pages she had already had random prints on it. It was so easy! A lightbulb went on after that demonstration.

A couple of weeks later, I chose eight short poems. I went online to the P&W site and learned how to layout the page. I printed out a few copies at work and BAM! A pocket-sized sample of what's to come for Late Night Feelings.

The title of the sample is called Bitten in the Wake of Dusk: Anticipating Late Night Feelings. I recently have gotten into instagram when the Android verison came out this month. I took one of my instagram photo and made it the picture for my cover. Included two poems that have been published in online lit mags and the rest was material that I haven't shown anyone before (well maybe one person has seen these poems).

Take a look at the picture for the cover!

Before anyone says anything...I know I have to post the rest of my 30/30 stuff up. Don't worry, it will be here by the end of the week. Today, however, is a special occasion. Today I am helping Fiona Robyn celebrate the beautiful things in life, inspired by her new novel "The Most Beautiful Thing".

For today, Tuesday April 24, the Kindle version of the book is being offered for free. You don't need a Kindle to read it, just download the app on your phone or PC. You can also join a slew of bloggers like myself for the "My Most Beautiful Thing" Blogsplash. It's nothing complicated, just tell the world about your most beautiful thing through writing, photos, video...whatever way you want!

Since I am in the middle of the 30/30 challenge, I am going to write a prose poem for my most beautiful thing.

This is the year I choose to be lonely.

No more loose tongues on West 4th.
No more liquid courage to cure my ails.
No more late night texts buzzing in my ear.
No more pulling you into corners,
straining my eyes to find your light in the dark.

I cut off all ties from what ifs, if onlys, and semi-regrets.
I will not depend on you to fill the hours.
I won't look for your meaningless banter.
I will stand by myself on street corners and
wait for the sun to graze my cheek instead. 

I'll take long walks on Coney Island Avenue and
buy myself a bouquet of flowers for everyday you did not.
I'll pick up new habits, bury myself in new hobbies.

I'll take up knitting.

Search for every color you bruised my heart.
I'll stitch up bundles of soft yarn around
this discarded body you left a long time ago.
I'll warm up this plush heart, these yearning limbs
and point at myself in the mirror, whispering every day
"You need to sweat her."

I'll keep myself warm morning, noon, and night.

This is the year I choose to love me.

baby, i said hey.
baby, i said what a day!
you said baby, howare you?
i said boy, you have no clue.

This morning
     my soul told me: look
               to your roots, 
not at the heart.

Home will be tangled
            in your sheets again.

From tongue to eye, all rolled under cheek, poem lust is anywhere the skin is soft and the soul is sweet.

Momma said there'll be days like this,
It won't be the end of the world.
Tell that to my aching heart who shuffles 
back and forth to the tracks each morn to eve.
I constantly have to remember that trains go back and forth.
I got to go jump behind the wheel to move forward.

I used to start 5 A.M. shifts
in the shadows of their slumber.
Coffee black as night, soul sweet as sugar.
Now that my bones are a little weaker
and
my heart beats a little slower,
I rise with the sun
under the shuffling of 9 to 5ers.
Milk on my tongue, soul slouched,
I'll never have coffee in bed.
The sun is still shining.

I find myself going back to the same topics in my writing, even though I no longer feel the same way about them. I'm writing love poems for someone I feel very differently about now than I did a year ago. I am still not writing poems for someone I do love dearly. I even format a lot of my poems in the same way now.

What's happening to me?!

I think I have entered a comfort zone. I think.

I say that I think because there is a part of me that is comfortable with my topics, my form, and so forth. 

There's another part of me that says there is a lot of unfinished business in my head and in my heart.

Some of my material in the past two years has had one person in mind the majority of the time. The poems I have written in the past two years, well some of them have been my best. Some of them were just for venting. Regardless, they have had one person in mind. 

I haven't been writing poetry for a while. Between work and home, I have neglected my craft. With National Poetry Month,  I am now pushing myself to write poems. I'm pushing myself to write anything these days. But now that I am writing daily for the month,  I find myself going back to this person in my work. Here's the catch: I don't feel the same way as I did a year ago, yet I am writing the same feelings. The new ones aren't even a factor right now.

I can't say that I no longer care for this person. I do. But the reality of it is that the situation has changed, both in my heart and in real life. However, I think there is a part of me that is unresolved, bitter, and wants to still scream out the bit of desire that resides in a corner of my heart. Like I said, it's not that I no longer care for this person. I just don't care for the situation. 

Part of me fears that people who know the story will see my latest poems and be like "Well this again?"

I want to set it straight, I'm unresolved. Not active. Just unresolved.

Just like with my issues with not writing about my love. I have before, don't get me wrong. But I think that I am worried about disappointment. I invest so much time in other ways into my relationship that I think by not writing about it, I have reserved a space in my life that won't be affected, should the worst happen.

I really do have issues. 

I'm even comfortable in writing in the same forms now. I don't want to sound stupid if I try to write a certain type of poem.  I fear failure.

Or I'm too comfortable.

It's easy to write about someone who isn't even in your life right now, just because you have before and it's worked. Same thing goes about not writing about someone. Or writing a million haikus just because you can, not because you need to write one. It's too easy to get stuck.

Hi, I am stuck. I need a jumpstart.

That's why my first poem of 30/30 hit a topic that I am usually scared to write about. I am TRYING. But my community of trusted writers went from 1 to 0, so I am truly going through the motions alone.

That's another issue however. What I really want to know is how do I finish my business, open up, and become a little more daring once again? Do I just write what's in my head and risk having an audience who is turned off by my material or do I force my way into new topics and risk having the same result?

How do I become unstuck from the comfort zone?