Okay, well I've switched to weekly archives and that seems to have solved the problem for now. Eventually I'll switch back to monthly though because the weeklies just take up too much space it seems.

So I got a new notebook. Sounds boring, I know, but I never publish any poems on here that I didn't write down in a notebook first. This one will be my 12th I believe. Give or take. Hell I'll just say this is my thirteenth notebook cause that sounds cooler. "The Thirteenth Notebook", oooowooowoooh, there's gotta be a bad Steven King movie in there somewhere. He he he. See, the thing is, most writers are weirdly picky about how they collect their work, especially when it comes to their fun, 'sketches' stage. Some don't even use notebooks anymore. They just go straight to word processing, which is more logical if you can type faster than you can scribble. And most of us do. But i can't do it. I've tried, and it works just fine for prose and essays, but not for poetry. If I miss that intimate, earthy, pen-to-paper stage, my stuff comes out sounding totally hollow and meaningless. I have particulars about what kind of tools I use too. The pen must be, as often as possible, black, preferably a medium ball-point or fine-tip felt. It has to have a sensual, smooth glide over the paper. the final loops on words look better with a juicy blot or fading sweep. If this can't be found however, any pen will do in a pinch. The notebook, on the other hand, I'm more picky about. It must be lined paper, because I have a tendency to bend my lines up or down at the end without a guide. Usually I get the kind lined on both sides of each sheet, but I also like the kind with blank backs to it so that I can do sketches in the same notebook that I write. It has to have a hard cover so that I can write on any surface, especially my lap. And it has to have a coil spine so that I can clip the pen inside it for easy transportation, and so that it opens flat, with the cover bent round to the back to keep things conveniently efficient. Sometimes I get cheap office supply store notebooks if it meets all of these criteria, but this time I splurged and got a fancier one. The cover is made with black recycled paper and a silver engraved image plate on the front. Very pretty. I used to have this habit of annointing new notebooks with scented oil, preferably patchouli. I think I'll do that again with this book. MMMMMM, notebooks.