A reminder: Even the best writers need to put in the time...

Interview excerpt

Enjoy this brief excerpt from Writers Relief, part of an interview with two-time United States Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, author of eleven full-length collections of poetry.


Excerpt:
What is it about writing poetry that gives you the most joy?

It happens when I am sitting with my notebook, picking away at a poem, and suddenly something wonderful unexpectedly rushes in from my blind side and I exclaim, “Yowie! Did I just write that?”

Your most recent book, Splitting an Order, had an incubation period of approximately ten years. Do you write every day? Can you talk a little bit about the intersection of patience and the writing life? What else would you like us to know about your new book?

I do try to write every morning, and I fail to write anything of merit maybe twenty-eight days out of every month. But on a couple of days, I might write something that I think will have some endurance and mean something to other people. If I’m not sitting there with my notebook when the good ones mysteriously arrive, I’ll miss them completely.

Something to keep us humble and a reminder to feed the daily writing habit.