ROW80 check-in 10

Gack! One week left of this round of ROW80! =*o

My progress this week:

• As I write this post, I'm about 30-60 minutes of writing time away from a first draft of my next VoiceCatcher article, which is due to my editor tomorrow.
• I've started writing the poem for Josh Hewitt.
• I've started drafting the blog post on rubrics for my friend Kim.
• I've talked to a few people about "Unborn" and have some ideas for revising it.
• I began brainstorming my goals for ROW80 round 2 (starting April 1).

That's about it. Well, related to writing, that is. I mean, I could tell you about grocery shopping and getting new brakes and stuff like that, but that's not really what we're here for, is it?

A couple things I did prior to this week but had forgotten to mention:

• Two Thursdays ago I went to a reading at Rain or Shine and heard three middle school students and their two writing group facilitators read. What struck me most was how clearly influenced the young writers are by what they usually read. I thought it was pretty neat.
• A week ago today I attended a reading at Stonehenge Studios, where I ran into Willa Schneberg, about whom I wrote this article, and where fell in love with the poetry of Jodie Marion, who read from her chapbook Another Exile on the 45th Parallel and who also happens to have three poems in the Winter 2013 issue of VoiceCatcher.

I only mention attending these readings because one of my goals moving forward is to become more involved in the local writing community, and one of the ways to do that is to attend readings like this. Plus, okay, I'm going to be reading at Rain or Shine in May, and I figure my third reading will probably happen at Stonehenge via the open mic they offer at each month's poetry reading. But I get all hot-flashy and stomach-twisty when I think about that, so let's not dwell on it.