I shoulds of me

I should be working on my freelance jobs.
I should be writing my nanowrimo novel.
I should be unpacking the too many boxes in my dining room that have been there for a year (OK longer, but I tell myself it is only a year) since they moved out of storage and I ignore them as if they were schizo ghosts I shouldn't be hearing or seeing (I think individual boxes are starting to hum themes from Holst's The Planets).
I should be packing for my trip to Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach for the family reunion/launch. (Note: Don Pettit is my husband's brother-in-law and very fine chronicler himself from outer space to his ice down under adventures.) And I should be recharging my good camera's battery and packing the tripod because we get to go to the night viewing. Since it is a night launch, if it launches on time, I hope to get some great shots. I wonder if I should bring something to suggest size, as in a troll doll to photograph on the tarmac with the mongo rocket behind it?

But no, I am back to writing sonnets for a crown of sonnets sequence. Seven sonnets where the last line starts the next. I've picked the perfect obsessive yet deeply varied subject, marriage. I am not used to writing in form and it really is hard. I showed one to my friend Chris and after the encouraging bits he wrote, "there are a couple of moments where the syntax gets a little stilted to get the rhymes in the right place," which is a really nice way of saying I'm writing like I have marbles in my mouth. To do what I consider a modern sonnet I want it to read aloud like it isn't in form (no sing-songiness) but show its chops on the page. Wish me persistance because luck is not what sonneteering is about. But then again, neither is a novel. Word by word by word.