turns out you can't fight time / but you can race her
hell is never other people
I started using a paper journal again in the past week or so.
I've tried to journal off and on throughout my life and I've always given up for one reason or another. Mostly because I'm weirdly self-conscious about my handwriting– it's bad. Like. Really bad. Every time I'd go back and read old stuff I'd wince at just how bad my handwriting is and stop reading; which, y'know, defeats the purpose.
There were other reasons. I had a bad habit of buying pretty notebooks and then would never write in them because they were too nice. I'd start a personal diary and then get sick of my own shit and stop. (This is not a feeling I've managed to escape, broadly speaking.) I'd start a writing journal and then get frustrated that so little of what I wrote ended up as full, complete-on-the-first-draft pieces, and a lot ended up not being usable elsewhere, and so I thought journaling was just a waste of time; because if I can't get it right on the first try, it's trash. (This is also not a feeling I've managed to escape, broadly speaking.) And I felt like I had to take journaling seriously in order to do it at all, and I have trouble getting new habits to stick. (This is also not a... well, you get the idea.)
Objectively, having a paper journal is good for my writing practice. I'm trying to set up a workflow that fits how I work and, realistically, when I work. Right now it looks like this: paper journal to get stuff onto a page; then if there's something there, a first draft in Notes app; and then if the poem's got the juice, a second and subsequent draft(s) in Scrivener.
In trying to journal again, I made a deal with myself:
- I'm allowed to not care if it's legible
- I'm allowed to not care if little of it ends up in finished poems later
- I'm allowed to get hella personal with it even if it's not a diary per se (and anyway: I'm a post-confessional poet, the line between poem and LiveJournal post is drawn in brackish waters now)
- I'm allowed to cross my old stuff out and make alterations; in other words, I'm allowed to not be so damn precious about my writing
- I'm allowed to fuck around and write stupid shit
- BUT– that means I gotta fill up these books
I had a really bad mental health week last week, culminating in one of my worst (and scariest) dissociative trauma episodes in a long time. Maybe ever? Somehow, I managed to keep journaling through it. Writing isn't therapy, but it can absolutely be therapeutic. Having that journal handy ended up helping a lot, even when I wasn't actively writing in it. It served as a vital anchor point during a moment when I really wasn't sure who I was anymore.
I'm not going to share any of the pages from over the weekend. I'm keeping what I wrote, but it's hard to read. Some of it is honestly kinda scary. Maybe a line or two will end up in a poem, someday, if I need it. But I'm choosing to believe that it's ok to write things that don't have a life outside of the journal. Some shit can just stay in the Notes app. In the same way that journaling kept me linked to who I was, reading it later will help me remember context. A map showing me how I got here– just like my old journals sitting on a bookshelf in my room. The hardest work happens in the margins.
Anyway:
Updates
I'm going on tour this weekend!
Kyrsten and I are heading out on Thursday; we're reading on Friday, then hitting up a Waffle House and loitering until the wee small hours. I'll be back in town on Saturday– in time for That's Poetic!! later that weekend– while Kyrs and co. keep it rolling through the Rust Belt. Come see me at my first tour performance at The Attic On Adams at 7pm ET.
We've had one, yes...
... what about second unpublished manuscript?
(I'm almost finished with a first draft of chapbook. I'm not ready to talk about it yet. But it exists.)
Commissions Open
Money is exceptionally tight right now and existing as a trans person is kinda scary... I mean, all the time, basically.
I have a Ko-Fi page. I'm offering commissions on poems– $5, plus add-ons, plus a tip option if you'd like. (You could also just send me money, but I'd honestly rather write you a poem for the trouble.) ONLY if you can spare it. But ESPECIALLY if you can spare it and you're cis.
I try to keep a short turnaround time, but I am going on tour, so I might need a few extra days.
What's Bridget Reading
Battalion Shaped Girl by Temperance Aghamohammadi
I caught her book launch reading last week at The Whistler and, no joke, she gave one of the most emotionally intense art experiences I've ever witnessed. Make no mistake: she IS The Moment.
What's Bridget Listening To?
I've turned into a Lucy Dacus girlie. Please forward your complaints to Kyrs.
Other People's Poems
Got a chance to catch Philip Kenner read at PO Box earlier this month. This is from BOYSTUFF, a chapbook comprised of an entire heroic crown of sonnets. It's good. Really good.
Love you,
Bridget