Okay, after the Workshop announced next year's summer classes yesterday, I got thinking about my application, for which I need a manuscript of 10 to 12 new poems, postmark deadline March 1. And March 1 next year is a Friday, and I don't always have time on days that aren't a Wednesday, so for me the postmark deadline is really February 27 ... At any rate, I took inventory of what I have written this year so far, and I immediately became depressed: As of today I have only one new poem that I could possibly use. Other than that, I have one amazingly lame first draft for a second poem, one prose sketch for a third poem, one vague idea of a fourth poem, and nothing at all for the rest of my manuscript (except, of course, a solid wish to write more poetry).
In 2012, I ended up revising the last four poems of my manuscript during the late morning and the early afternoon of Wednesday, February 28, and I felt like a complete idiot when I mailed the manuscript later that same day. Of course, I did feel blessed when, in spite of having been so irresponsible, I still got in, but it also made me think again that the poems would have been a lot better if I had worked a little more on them.
So this year I really, really want to work all year on my manuscript.
I want to have 15 to 20 good first drafts by the beginning of the Christmas break.
And I want to spend two months revising after that.
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