Sunday, May 16, 2010

At the beginning of the year I posted a to-do list. Since my birthday just passed, I thought I'd revisit it and figure out a summer to-do list.

WRITING TO DO: Summer, 2010

Poetry
1. complete the manuscript for Habit of Doubt, or whatever it ends up being called
-needs more poems about mom, Huntington’s Disease testing, Sword of Damocles, etc.

Short Fiction
1. develop Solum stories collection
2. place Solum stories in good print journals

Novel
1. finish a draft of Clay
2. finish Zombietown & place

FINANCIAL TO DO Summer:
1. pay off smaller student loan

ETC. TO DO Summer
1. read 100 books
2. lose weight

4 comments:

Glenn Buttkus said...

Happy Birthday C.L., and may many more skip by with the joy and verve to this one. The poems that you have written about your mother have been very touching, emotional, strong imagery relative to her health issues. Love to read some Sword of Damocles stuff, kind of twisting the gloom and doom into a Bledsoe gumbo. "Solum stories" is a puzzler. Solum is defined as, "the upper layers of a soil profile in which soil formation occurs." Have you created a new writing form from your Riceland days? Are you speaking philosophically and poetically, or literally?
Very ambitious to consider finishing up two novels and still finding time to make love to your wife and read 100 books. No time for photography or going to films it seems. Do you garden in the summer? I have been on a slow weight loss program from the first of the year in preparation for my late June retirement and new lifestyle. It is going well, slow peeling, slow loss, ever spiraling back to smaller pants sizes and
svelter profiles. Good luck on your to do list.

CLBledsoe said...

The Solum stories are about a family of farmers. I haven't published very many of them online. Here's one: http://www.pedestalmagazine.net/gallery.php?item=3850

The 100 books is over the course of the year. It is all ambitious, true. I'm a workaholic, though, and once I have a little time, I hope to actually get some things done. Luck with the diet...

Glenn Buttkus said...

THE AUNTS was a good read, sir.
It had those Bledsoe echoes of
actual family history, the memory of soil under your nails, the mother who is ill and absent,
the father who has changed so much secondary to that reality. Not that I know you, except through your writing, your poetry, and your comments--but the story felt so personal, so tingling with accuracy. Thanks for sharing.

CLBledsoe said...

Thanks Glenn. It's one of my better stories. Pretty close to true.