As part of the preparation for the next workshop, I've spent a good deal of time over the last two days reading lots and lots of poetry looking for the perfect writing sample to share with the group. I couldn't get away from it and thankfully so. I went to the Write Around Portland offices to look through their files of writing samples and don't know how long I was sitting there, flipping through page after page of really good stuff.

Poetry feels thoroughly alluring right now, not only because I feel drenched in it, but because it seems like a good though difficult antidote to writing a novel. I look at a line and think, hi words, I remember you. You're that stuff that makes me shiver and boil.

But I can't let myself drift too far. I can feel how, if allowed, I'd scrap the whole book and fall back into coddling and cursing half a dozen phrases, temporarily blissful in my most lyrical form of procrastination yet.