Poetry Manuscript 2.0: Finding the Point, Again

At the corner of 4th and Inspiration (ahem, I mean Cooper) . . . guerilla art NY-style

As you may recall, dear and patient reader, I set out in 2010 to put together a manuscript of poems for publication. I had uprooted roots for the Nth time July the year before and found myself jobless, (mostly) friend-less and searching for purpose. My daily sifting through Netflix and the previous night’s DVR’d television shows just wasn’t cutting it in the Grand Scheme that I’d dreamed up as “My Move to the Big City.” Of course CityBoy was around, endless optimistic and supportive, but I needed vision, a goal, something outside of myself, to push through or towards.

In April 2010, I participated in NaPoWriMo (the month-long challenge to write a poem a day) and found myself really engaged, looking forward to getting down to writing each morning, fortified by a stiff cup of coffee and some peanut butter toast. I wrote something like 22 poems that month, a ridiculous spectacle of poems, many of them bad or simply atrocious, but I found something too that month–the renewed pleasure in writing, the words just coming, bad or good, across the page under my fingers, that image or idea sprouting like a long buried seedling into proverbial life. 

My 101 Things (aka the Day Zero Project)

In my renewed efforts to be a good netizen (Internet + citizen = huh huh, get it? sorry, dumb things amuse me), I’ve been checking out the blogs of those kind souls who either “like” one of my blog posts or, gloriousness of gloriousnesses, decide to follow my blog. I ran across this fascinating piece by sarah on the go! about the 101 Things in 1,001 Days phenomenon (hereafter known as the 101 List).

I’m a pretty life-long lister, though the advent of the smartphone has curtailed this dramatically. In the old days, I carried a paper calendar (what?!?! yes, paper) which was filled with doodles and appointments and to-do’s that I then dutifully carried out and crossed off. It was an idyllic time when you could look at two largish pages of paper and see your whole week. Now I’m scrolling endlessly on my iPhone screen, trying to see what I have going on on what day.

But back to the 101 List…this seems to be a pretty nifty little thing/community/time suck/planner. The idea, for those old farts out there like myself who hadn’t heard of the dang thing until Monday, is that you create an account (I know! Another user name! Another password!) and get list-happy, either picking things others have already picked or making up your own list of 101 things you’d like to accomplish in 1,001 days.