Well, November flew by and I sucked…and not in a fun way! I had been all excited about the November novel thing and I wrote absolutely NOTHING. I have plenty of excuses: I was burnt out from work because October was a tough work month; I had a lot of poetry events I wanted to hit so that sponged all my creativity; I needed some down time; my friends kept pressuring me to hang out…I’m sure I could come up with more excuses, but there really is NO excuse. All serious writers know that (aside from personal or natural disasters) time MUST be set aside for writing regardless of anything else or it’ll never get done.

Now December is creeping in and I know that I MUST get focused. I still haven’t sent my completed manuscript out to ANY publishers and I have four, not just one or two, mind you, but FOUR solidly outlined ideas for novels. Work is SERIOUSLY getting in the way of my writing, but, until I can pay the bills with my writing, I don’t have a choice. And paying the bills with my writing means I have to make the time NOW, to actually finish AND submit!

SO in December, I will be doing my own novel in a month. I don’t know which one I will write…whichever one calls to me the loudest when I sit down to start on December 1 (though right now all my characters are whirling around in my head screaming to be heard). I will be posting excerpts on this blog site and twittering my word counts to motivate myself. I will be getting up an hour early every work morning to write before anything else interferes. AND I’ll be hosting ‘write-a-thons’ for this writer group every Sunday…I might end up writing by myself, but that’s okay!

Now to wander away from that and to post something fun and controversial…everyone knows that’s what I love to do! I have been thinking a lot recently about friends. There are all kinds. I have co-workers who I keep at a certain distance, but I respect them and consider them friends. I know people in the poetry world…poets I only know marginally, but attend many events with and consider friends by association. I have some really great friends in this writer group who have put up with my outspoken wildness and will still talk to me and read my stuff (which has been uninspired at best recently). I have friends I meet while I’m out and about…the kind of friends that you hang and party and relax with and that come and go in frivolous spurts. I have a couple friends that I’ve known for years and who I rarely see, but keep in touch with and probably always will.

Then I have other friends…the more dangerous kind…the opposite sex. (Now don’t act surprised, you knew I was going somewhere edgy!) Those are more difficult to balance. I’ve had more than one of those try to push for something more and once they tried to cross that line, they couldn’t go back. I’ve had more than one of those respect my boundaries physically, but try to exert their will on me in other ways (some men just can NOT stop themselves from thinking they can freaking tell me what to freaking do)! I’ve had some great ‘friends with benefits’, but, try as I might, it seems that always shifts the wrong direction eventually…though I’ve not regretted any of those dalliances…yet! (and I am in the market for one again) Then there’s my best friend and lover who lives 100 miles away…we both crossed the line between fun and love and now we can never go back and we can never move forward. Our friendship has shattered us utterly.

SO, my point is that friendship comes in all shapes and sizes. It rewards us and punishes us. Usually, it’s a great thing, but in every type of relationship there is a turning point…a point where people become better friends or lose a friend entirely. To make friends, and keep friends, a balance has to be met and maintained. This poem (you knew that was coming too) is about what happens when a friendship shatters…how sometimes someone pushes you too far and the pieces can’t go back together.

Push me
too hard
and
i crack,
splintered
pieces
skittering
across
the floor.
Back me
into a
corner
and
i react,
spluttering
shrapnel
‘til only
shards
remain.