Restarting Poetry.

There's a poetry contest that closes in two weeks, on May 24th. I had it in mind to try to enter, just to make myself do it, with no expectation of anything coming from it. The prize is $500 and publication, which is a pretty substantial prize. Tempting. 

But I don't think I can manage it. I'm trying. I really actually am. I'm trying to sneak in writing here and there, which works better with poetry than with my Giant Horrible Unfinished Mess of a Book. But it's going too slowly. I need another month. Maybe two? 

Although I joked on social media this evening that a fountain pen's chief usefulness to a writer was the opportunities it presents to procrastinate, I'm finding that picking away at stuff, even with procrastination, isn't a bad way to go about it. Poems get scared away easily. It's best to sneak up on them. 

This not, however, a fast way to get much writing done.