Whenever I hear a great poem, my simpler part thinks, Hey! I know all those words! Why couldn't I have known to put them together in that order?! It seems so obvious now...

In fact, whenever I think of how I will eventually write something halfway decent, it becomes clear that the task is just a problem of probability - a great poem, a great novel, is waiting, jigsaw-like, to slide together from all the words I know, after I scatter them across the tabletop. There are a ton of word-orders out there waiting to be found. This is writing. But then, the task becomes so much more complex. More simple and at the same time, more complex. Maybe that's the source of all my frustrations and hesitations. My poetry professor last winter told us, Sure, there're a lot of ways you can go wrong in a poem, but there're also a ton of ways you could go right.

Which leads me to vocabulary and ruts. I find myself using the same words to describe different things. I like 'trajectory' a lot. I apply it to a whole slew of things. ('Slew' is a word I don't often use.) Phrases like 'I find myself doing etc etc.' is also popular.

Maybe I'll meditate more on these useless things later. I need to start me two pages of response.