On taking writing goals seriously and staying connected to feral feminine energy
Ever since jumping back into revisions for my poetry manuscript in May, I’ve been working consistently and deliberately. 99% perspiration, or something like that.
In addition to daily care and tending, I’ve dedicated large portions of time to it during summer trips: a June tenting trip in the Adirondacks, a writing weekend at a lake in July (also in the Adirondacks) and, most recently, a midweek visit DIY writing retreat in Ogunquit (my happy place):
During these months of intense revision (which I hope to bring to a close in September 🤞), I’m proud to be showing up for the writing thing I want most right now: publication of my debut poetry collection.
I’m also tired! LOL So it was nice to feel encouraged by something I read in Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar Substack from an interview with writer, author and teacher Chloé Caldwell. Caldwell said this:
My dad passed away last December, and he was in the top three closest people to me over my life. He used to have a phrase he used with his guitar students: ‘You get good at what you do. If you practice guitar, you get really good at guitar. If you don’t practice, you get really good at not practicing.’
I love this phrase because you can apply it to every single thing in life, in ways both literal and abstract. If you write, you get good at writing. If you look at Instagram, you get good at looking at Instagram. If you walk, you get good at walking. If you swim, you get good at swimming. If you write, you get good at writing. If you don’t write, you get really good at not writing. If you look at Instagram, you get REALLY good at looking at Instagram.
Friends, I’m really good at looking at Instagram. But this summer, I’ve also become really good at revising my manuscript, practicing faith in my process, and gaining strength when it comes to the prospect of sending the collection out to presses. Again.
And, in case I forgot how much I needed to hear Caldwell’s message (“you get good at what you do”), the universe gave me this quote at the end of August in the form of an Instagram post (of course LOL):
If someone followed you around for a week, would they believe you were serious about your goals?
The honest look in the mirror was intended as a reflection on health and fitness goals, but it also works for creative life, and it bookended my August with twin literary equivalents of “you are what you eat.”
Even though Current Carolee is taking writing goals seriously, that’s not always the case. Future Carolee is likely to falter, so I’m documenting the quotes for reference in the coming months. And maybe you need them, too.
I also want to bring out in them or add to them some feral feminine energy.
A brief aside… Perhaps not coincidentally, feral feminine energy is central to the journey of the speaker in my manuscript. Let’s light some candles literally and figuratively to bring it into the world — the energy AND a manuscript that celebrates it. 🕯️
Now back to why I bring it up in the first place… I can get really good at the “doing things” part of writing. (Exhibit A: the recaps that end these monthly posts.) I tend toward auto-pilot, and the making of lists and checking off items on lists can easily crowd out the heart and soul of writing. Of what I do. Of what’s at stake.
The ferocity in me — the witch, the feminist, the hippie, the one who feels, the one who loves — sometimes loses oxygen. This isn’t due to logistics like time or space but to comfort. I’m gooooood at organizing. I know what I’m doing. It’s a space I’m confident in.
It’s harder to step into other spaces sometime, including those that evoke and reveal the wildness I love. But this helped it resurface recently: “Everybody Scream” by Florence + The Machine.
Hello, energy I want to bring to my manuscript and my poems! 😎 When I heard the song and looked up the lyrics, I thought it might be an ars poetica, and I still think it dances on that line.
Here, I don’t have to be quiet
Here, I don’t have to be kind
Extraordinary and normal all at the same time
But look at me run myself ragged
Blood on the stage
Collider and other articles about the song position it as being “about” the singer’s lifesaving surgery and subsequent healing. For sure, it does that work. As does writing, for me. Even though I hold my feet to the fire with craft, writing is healing. It saves my life.
So! I’m declaring “Everybody Scream” by Florence + The Machine my witchy writing song for fall. Could anything be more perfect on the heels of my writing attitude song for summer – Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do”?
I’ll end here with notes — and photos — from August’s creative activities. Remember, if this kind of thing doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip it.
Thank you to the people who’ve been letting me know they find these recaps inspiring. In at least one case, another poet is borrowing the approach for her own accountability, and I’m delighted. I started drafting poetry goals and plans years ago inspired by January O’Neil, and I’m excited to be paying it forward a bit.
AUGUST 2025 WRITING
- Continued revisions of my Gertie manuscript
- Free writes X15 (mostly related to finding fresh lines for poems in the manuscript)
AUGUST 2025 ART-MAKING
- Paused for another month to focus on my manuscript
AUGUST 2025 BLOGGING
- Completed a post re-capping July creative life
- Worked on upcoming posts, including resources listing sonnets and “Thirteen Ways” poems (going live soon!)
- Added new poems to existing blog post lists
- Created and published an Instagram carousel to promote the September poems in my Poems for Every Month post
AUGUST 2025 INSPIRATION & ADMIN
(I could have placed these under their respective art or writing categories, but I’m trying to be honest about if I’m consuming inspiration more than I’m doing the work.)
- Daily Morning Pages
- Ass in Chair Collective (an online creative co-working space) X3
- Created and published an author website: caroleebennett.com
- Organized bookshelves
- Binge-listened to Han Vanderhart’s Of Poetry podcast on my travels to and from Maine (8 hours each direction)
- Madwomen Fall 2025 workshop X1 (first week of the semester!)
- Zoomed with my private “Second Best Witches” writing group X1
- Created new “writing process journal” as a central place to keep my writing goals, tasks, subs, etc. (This replaces a prior document where I tried to combine art and writing; now that document is just art.)
- Artist date into the Catskills with Jill Crammond ⬇️
AUGUST 2025 READING
- The God of the Woods (fiction) by Liz Moore
- Modern Poetry (poems) by Diane Seuss
- Invisible Strings: 113 Poets Respond to the Songs of Taylor Swift (poetry anthology) edited by Kristie Frederick Daugherty
- The Alcestis Machine (poems) by Carolyn Oliver
- Locomotive Cathedral (poems) by Brandel France de Bravo
AUGUST 2025 SUBMISSIONS, PUBLICATIONS & EXHIBITIONS
- Organized submission notes/deadlines for manuscript contests and open reading periods
- Organized submission notes/deadlines for journals and lit mags
- Received news from lit mags: one acceptance (yay!) and two rejections (including a personal one with an invitation to resubmit)
- Submitted poem packets to literary mags X3
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