rj, you understand me perfectly. And I like the way you characterize laziness here. It resonates with my own experience.

And the question I often ask myself is, “What’s behind the ‘laziness’?” Sometimes, I think it’s fear. Fear of stretching out, fear of being vulnerable or exposed, fear of committing oneself to something big, like writing, and then finding out later that your idea wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, or that your novel, into which you poured time and energy and missed experiences, just isn’t right to help you make it to the next level. Because, then what?

Thanks for reading 🙂

You’re welcome 🙂 Glad it’s not just me!

I have the same experience every so often, when I’ll re-read an old nugget of something and get inspired! And yes, pre-writing is exactly what I meant 🙂

That’s a great point, Byron, and I think the opposite can happen to us when we’re having a hard time being confident in the work. Writers find writing more difficult than other people do. (Didn’t somebody say that?)

As you say, good writing is difficult. If you’re not experiencing difficulty-in the idea stage or elsewhere-it might not be all that good. Thanks for reading, as always! 🙂

That IS exciting. It also shows that, even though you’re finding some improvements you can make, your poetry is standing the test of time quite well, which means it’s good poetry. Congrats on rediscovering your work and making it new!