In other news . . .

Not a lot really. I’m having something of a day off from Ida and Squizzy. I’m a little confused as to what I’m trying to achieve, so a little time out may be helpful.

In the meantime, it seems these projects, when started, just won’t go away, or leave me alone. Not complaining, but gee, they persist.

You may recall (or not, not an issue) that some time ago I started a project where I was writing to lines and phrases from TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, following up from my trio of collections – A Love Poetry Trilogy (in which I used Eliot’s Prufrock as the inspirational source for Rescue and Redemption) to see if something interesting might emerge. My working title for the project is ‘A Magpie Sings‘.

This time, I decided that I would try to use all of the Waste Land poem, not just a portion. A very big project.

It all went swimmingly for awhile, but I found that, by the time I had gotten into the section titles ‘A Game of Chess‘, I had veered into personally uncomfortable waters – very much in keeping with the original, I suspect – and my writing slowed to a trickly, and then a complete halt.

For several months I held the belief that the project was over – incomplete, but concluded. Nope. Silly me.

In fits and starts, with inconsistent tenses, first person and third, it has over the last few weeks progressed. I penned poem #150 this morning and concluded whatever it is that I was doing through the journey of ‘A Game of Chess’. Something in the region of 500 pages, and halfway to completed (should I manage to keep it going).

I’m hopeful of a fresh burst with this new section – a new focus.

Which is fine and I am enjoying the idea of starting anew, as much as I despaired of ever getting anywhere with what I had started. My suspicion – and I find it a little ironical – is that my ambition and struggle with this project will not be published, even when finished (though I promise to mention when and if it reaches that happy point. It is a little too much mish-mash and meander and subjectivity, I think, to warrant being turned loose in the wild.

I thought though, that it could do no harm to share where it is up to.

I really can’t emphasise enough how releieved I am to have finished ‘A Game of Chess‘.

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