If you are a regular follower of my blog then you know that I have been working on a novel rewrite for months…and years. When I wrote the shitty first draft of this novel (thank you, Anne Lamott), my daughter Emma was two years old. Now she is fourteen. True, I have not worked on it continuously. I’ve taken years off! I’ve done other things (teaching, raising kids, writing poems). But this novel has never let me go.

Today I came across the story of another writer’s journey and once again was reminded that I’m not alone. I don’t have permission to share the excerpt, which is from the class I’m taking, but in a nutshell, she spent 16 years getting her first novel published. (You can read more about Laura Drake at her blog. I’m reading her romance, The Sweet Spot, because it’s been so highly recommended by Margie Lawson.)

Sixteen years? Laura Drake says it’s been worth it. I remember something my sister Kathy (who used to read about one romance novel per day) told me many, many years ago when I wanted to go to college. “It will take four years to get a degree,” I told her. “I’ll be thirty years old before I get it!”

We were talking on the phone, one of those ancient landlines with the big buttons and the twisty, long cord. There was a pause. And then Kathy said, “How old will you be in four years if you don’t get the degree?”

August is poetry postcard month, and though I’ve resisted the temptation for a few years, this year I’m back at it, thanks to timely pressure from my friend Carla.  Here are my excuses.

1. I’m teaching a class this summer.
2. I’m busy with my daughters in the summer and any semblance of a routine is blown.
3. I’m rewriting my novel … still.
4. I’m TAKING a class (which sounds like madness, but more about this in a later post).

Carla didn’t argue, she just kept sending me little email reminders until, in a weak moment, I sent my name and address into the organizing forces. And I got about 300 names and addresses back! (I have to send to only the 31 below my name.) I went through my office and pulled together postcards from trips and a bunch of special photographs (with a large index card taped to the back, photographs make great postcards). I put a couple of poetry books and a bunch of 33 cent stamps in a folder. Pens. Etc. And I was ready to travel.

Some years ago, of course, this practice fit smoothly into my “one bad poem” practice. This year, with a new book out, I’ve been more or less resting on my laurels and not writing new poems. (I’ve been busy, okay?) The first few postcards I sent out were pretty lame. But I’ve gathered momentum as the month rolls along. As I’ve learned and relearned throughout my writing life, doing a little relevant reading, and sitting and staring at a blank page with a pen in my hand turns — eventually — into writing.

Here’s the poem I drafted yesterday. I make no claims for it, but I like it. This version was too long to fit on the postcard, by the way.

Imagine the trees are knowing,
not in the conjugal sense,
but sentient, beings as aware of pain,
of love, of longing as you
or me. When I was a horse-crazy girl
I was told that horses don’t feel pain
the way humans do. Then, a mother
of infants, I was told not to worry,
The baby doesn’t feel it the way we do.
I never believed such tripe,
perpetuated by people numb
in their own ignorance. Place your hand
against the trunk of a maple,
or run your finger down the map
of a big cedar. I’m not asking you
to become a tree-hugger like me,
just your hand. Just stand there.
Of course the tree feels.
Believe that the sap is equal to —
greater than — your own tears.
Ask yourself, What am I feeling?