It's a Book!

Or at least, it's going to be a book. Right now it's a couple of file folders and a Word file, entitled The Book of Knots and Their Untying. It is also the latest addition to the Aldrich Press, whose editor, Karen Kelsay, offered me publication Monday. Now I have a raft of new tasks:  develop a cover photo (the above photo is the first mock-up, but I'm not done yet); solicit blurbs from the more esteemed poets of my acquaintance (two refusals already, well, I didn't have to wait very long); get ready to set up readings once I get a publication estimate.

And also try to answer in my heart:  is it good enough? Am I a good enough writer to have a book? I have had reverence for books ever since I knew what they were. I was never a kid who scribbled on printed pages. I thought Doctor Doolittle was real because he was in a book. (Okay, I got past that one.) Maybe a writer is one who writes, as a dancer is one who dances. Maybe good enough needs to be replaced by what W.S. Merwin said in an interview about artists:  "Now is the time to do what only I can be doing."