I have friends that collect things. Pat collects Pears. Diane collects Hippopotamuses. Linda, Pigs. But what if you really don’t collect the things that others think you do? If you have one or two things, does that mean it’s a collection?  How many do you have before it is?

My mom has an ‘accidental’ collection – a glass menagerie (drum roll…).  During a trip, she picked up a blown-glass animal as a memento.  Someone saw it, concluded that she liked glass animals, and she was inundated with them for several years until she cried “Enough!”.  I have one, too. Cat stuff. I’m becoming that little old lady that has cats and cat things all over her home, in spite of my protests.

I do collect mugs. I work with truck drivers, and through their efforts have a mug from each of the United States.  I have mugs from vacations, businesses, colleges, and newspapers  -  a total of around 160.  Most are in boxes, and I rotate my displays – but I get out the holiday mugs at appropriate times and use the business ones in my office. 

Once when my parents were visiting, I heard Dad going through the kitchen cabinets searching for a coffee mug. I pointed to the 40 or so that were on the shelves on the wall. He wasn’t sure if he should use the collected ones or not. Actually, that was the whole point.  It’s a collection that is useful!

Do you have collections of things in your house?  Are they ‘accidental’ collections, or did you set out to accumulate them?

How about in your writing?  Have files and files of essays, short stories, or poems that you have accrued over the years?

Have you considered a chapbook?

Chapbooks are small collections of these things.  There are different versions of how a chapbook got its name - some say it’s because they were cheap, others because they were distributed by traveling salesmen, called Chapmen. (Future blog, perhaps?)  But the parameters haven’t changed much through the years.  Poetry chapbooks should contain approximately 30 poems and, traditionally, a chapbook has 30-40 pages, so these numbers should guide you .  They should also have a theme.

My chapbook, Having Fun, is so named because I have fun when writing poetry. It is a collection of award-winners, and I wasn’t going to use them for contest entries anymore, so I decided to make a book. Does Award-Winning, or Fun, count as a theme?

I have two others in mind on definite subjects, but writing 30 poems on the same thing, all at once, is  problematic for me. So as I write I categorize the poems. Maybe I will complete the threads soon.

The focus of a chapbook can be simple – humor, romance, family matters, etc.  But even essay or short story chapbooks should have one.  Let the page count guide you when determining content. I’d use works of various lengths, though, just to give it punch.

If you haven’t published yet, maybe a chapbook could be your first thing.  Collect your essays, stories, or poems, and categorize them. Find a common thread.   Above all, Have Fun!

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