Brightening into April - GloPoWriMo

Spring in Finland. There's a sense of the mood lightening, but we've just been hit with 20cm of snow. It's supposed to warm up next week, but I'm not holding my breath. I am changing my winter tyres on Monday, so I am whispering a few words to the weather spirits to stop with the snow.

I'd forgotten it's GloPoWriMo, Global Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo, even though I've started Angela Carr's writing prompts course, A Pagan Place. I've managed to write something every day, even though I'm back to work. The course is brilliant, based around Irish mythology, but the prompts include music, other poems and stories often inspire something totally unconnected. I don't expect to continue to write every day, but I like having the prompts for the days when I do get a chance. 

In today's prompt, I especially liked this poem by Mahmoud Darwish though my writing was inspired by the Big Country song In a Big Country.  I don't usually listen to music when I write, but have been stuck on a Big Country loop today. 

My writing group Helsinki Writers has produced its first anthology of members' poetry and short fiction. We're still figuring out the technology and formats, but we're very proud of the writing. We've done other smaller activities such as writing poems for events and recording our work for and with other organisations, but this was completely our own project and, to be honest, it was difficult to organise and produce. Those who did the work were unpaid and put in a lot of hours, but we're happy with our first attempt. Please check it out. 

Another bit of writing news, my Finland-inspired poetry collection Invocation Against Winter was short-listed for the Cinnamon Press' 2025 New Voices Award. Congratulations to all the finalists and winners. I don't usually try competitions, so it was nice to be recognised. It's also encouraging since I'm still sending out my collections to poetry publishers. 

I need to go shovel my drive and soak up the bit of sun we have today. Enjoy. 

Rewriting Memories and Poetry Colllections

Summer is winding down, I only have a few weeks before I go back to work. I want to just wallow in it a bit longer, enjoy the lack of routine, the untethered flow of hours. The kids need a bit more structure but fight against any attempts. We're still going to the lakes, picking blueberries, working in the garden, enjoying the slow days.

The youngest wants to go camping, but it never works out like she thinks. She wants to build a fire and eat marshmallows but forgets the rest, the forest without screens, with insects and uncomfortable sleeping bags. But she's looking forward to it, so we'll give it another try. The boys already opt-out of stuff like this, so it will probably be just us girls. The boys have decided they don't like that sort of things, though the last time they came they enjoyed it. It's funny how we rewrite memories. 

I said in my last blog that I had started writing some different, fresher material. This has coincided with me going through all my poems and retiring poems that I didn't feel were strong or good enough. Most of these poems were not in one of the two or three collections I have in progress, so it was easy to just pack them away in a Retired Poems folder. I might go back in the future and have a look at them to try and refresh or reuse some of the material and I know they're still there if I want to use one or two, but it feels good to shift them out of sight. 

I write a lot, see note about having three collections going, but many of the poems I write are good enough on their own, but don't work well with others or my style has changed and I just don't find them as appealing anymore. I then went through the collections and had a cull as well. I didn't take out as many poems, but I changed the direction of one book, so I did need to take about a third away. It feels liberating to pare things down, to turn towards this new direction. 

I have one of those collections with a publisher, but it's been stalled for four years. In the meantime, I've rearranged and edited it over and over. It's better, certainly, but it doesn't make the wait feel any better. It's just so frustrating, not knowing when or if it will happen. I don't know if I'd be happier to have the collection the way it is, basically better, or to have it earlier, so I can move on. I sometimes feel like I'm still stuck in that place where the collection inhabits until it's published as I keep revisiting the poems as I edit. It will be nice to be free of them, in a sense. Until then it's a waiting game. A wading game as I move through the poems, just up to my ankles, occasionally plashing about.

My writing group is having its third annual retreat in two weeks. I'm looking forward to it. I have to drive, but besides that it will be just hanging out with people I like, writing, talking writing, eating and drinking, jumping in the hottub. It's a blast and I always manage to write a poem or two while I'm there. The day after we come back, I'm off to work. So that will be the end of summer, a proper send off. 

Autumn Scramble

I'm not used to this working full-time thing. OK, almost full-time, as I had Thursday off from school as it was a half day and it's cheaper to get someone already on site to cover for a couple of hours, but otherwise I slogged it out with preschoolers all week. They are exhausting. 

Then the weekend slips by too fast, even with one day child free. I sat and worked on catch-up for my course and poetry all day yesterday and I still feel like I haven't accomplished enough. I've ignored all my housework, so there's that guilt too. There's really no winning. 

I'm trying to write a few new poems to finish my newest proposed collection and editing a poem I've found some new research on. I've never tried to fill in gaps in a collection with poems about specific ideas. It's hard as I usually write more organically, but this collection has a theme of 'strong women' as an over-riding arc and I realised that I need more that follow it and examine it from different angles where other poems I want to include are more loosely connected. 

I don't want these poems I'm writing now to feel forced and I haven't quite got an organic spark for this latest one. So I'm tip-toeing around it, writing notes about images and a few lines, but at the moment it feels very telling and unfocused. I have a deadline for the end of the month I'd like to meet, so need to get it finished. 

The sun is finally shining after a rough, rainy week, so I hope to go out to the allotment today. The girls have been selling my excess courgettes this week and want to see if any others are ready. I have had a serious glut of them this year. They grow to marrows so quickly. The kids are tired of courgette bread and the veg in pasta sauces. I have a freezer full of grated courgette as well. I was surprised anyone bought them as they aren't a traditional Finnish veg and most people I've given them away to haven't known what to do with them, but they shifted over a dozen of them at fifty cents each. I'll try and get as much in as I can before the wet gets to them, but I think the plot is winding down. I still have a lot of winter digging to get started on. 

So much to do, but I'd rather have that problem than the opposite. Make the most of this harvest time. 

Looking for Distractions

End of second full week of school and I've only been able to work at the school two days because of a cold. It hasn't been bad, but our city has regulations that any sign of illness and you have to stay home, students and teachers. 

So I've been home since Wednesday and now I have three kids down with it. Luckily, they changed the rules about getting a negative Covid test before returning just on the day I was scheduled to get two of us tested. I cancelled, as I'm sure this is just a summer cold. Half of us are almost recovered, two are just starting and my last healthy child is lording it over us all, forgetting she always gets these things the worst of any of us. It's going to be a fun autumn. 

Writing-wise, I'm working on a new collection. Not that my short Scottish collection that's been scheduled to be published this year is anywhere near seeing the light of day, nor has my Finnish collection been picked up by anyone, but it's giving me something new to focus on. In spite of my recent posts about self-belief, I'm still struggling with mine. So I'm snuggling up with my daughter's crepes and writing poems about strong women, forgotten women on another wet Sunday. 

And reminding myself I am one. No word on the job I interviewed for, no word from my course supervisor. I'm going to get the kids' dad to come over and watch those still sick on Friday as he's working from home and distract myself with work. Everything feels like a slog at the moment. 

Gearing up and Down Sizing

The schools have started back and we're in that transition period where the scheduling begins, the afternoons fill with hobbies and lessons and we shuffle them around until we can manage. My morning are quieter, but without a flow yet. I am still running around and catching up on errands, so haven't found a rhythm to fit my poetry in regularly. And being a substitute I'm always slightly on edge waiting for the phone to break into the silence. My interview is also coming up this week, so it's nipping at the edge of my mind as well. 

One thing I've started this week is reviewing my poems in consideration of an A5 page size. Suna Afshan at Poetry Birmingham Journal made an off-the-cuff remark on Twitter asking those  submitting to stop formatting poems in A4 docs. It caused a flurry of tweets of confusion, ah ha moments, discussion and it got me thinking. Print magazines and collections do mostly print in A5 or a similar size, so it makes sense. Though most also seem to ask for submissions in A4 (even PBJ), so maybe the industry needs to rethink things as well. 

I do often look at potential collections from that format, but I have never considered using that size to type my poems from the beginning. So it's thrown my work in disarray. I've changed all my potential collections and my rough draft files to A5 and am looking at how it changes the lay-out of the poems. I'm not rewriting many yet, but it is making me see things differently. 

I've noticed my newer poems do run shorter and fit in A5 comfortably for the most part, but my upcoming collection is mostly older poems and is sitting at over the page limit at the moment. I need to find out what size and style of font my publisher uses. I don't mind splitting a poem over two pages if necessary, but three or four lines dangling over looks wrong. I'm unsure what to do about those extra 5 pages I've suddenly gained.

Of course, for online magazines it's less of an issue. Magazines and competitions usually specify A4 and around a 40 line limit, but my lay-out is running about 28 lines to a page (2cm margins top and bottom, 11pt Arial font for text and a 16pt title.) One of the benefits of being trained in editing at a small magazine is I learned little tricks to make a poem fit on a page, how to lay out a book so it looks good, but I won't be able to do that with my collection being published.  

It's a small thing really, but I feel better using the A5 format from now on. I'll still write my poems first in my notebook, not caring about length or format, but it will be a consideration when editing and designing collections. And, of course, I'm definitely not suggesting that poets should write to please editors and to fit publications, but it helps to know how a poem will look on the page and if we're using A4 as our template the printed product may not look how we imagined. 

I'm also trying to get back into reviewing and reading poetry collections, so I read a few poems every night before bed, the one time I can be sure I have time. I have turned back to Fiona Benson's Vertigo and Ghost which I started last year. This is one of those collections I wish I had written, but not lived. Such beautiful writing that tears me apart emotionally. Even the more gentle ones about parenthood and the poet's fears connected with raising her girls in this difficult world when other mothers are leading their children through unimaginable dangers in the hope of finding safety and shelter dig into all my tender places. But Part One which is considers the mythology of Zeus in modern terms, as a serial rapist, is more of a punch to the throat. Benson plays with the words on the page, mixing modern language with ancient stories and uses a kind of interview format to give voices to the victims, Io, Callisto and others, as well as bragging, bravado-puffed Zeus. It goes much further than Yeats' 'Leda and the Swan'. Difficult to read as it doesn't shy from blunt emotion and descriptions, it is an important voice in these times when 'Me Too' is not a thing you wish to say, but it needs to be heard. 

I've been commissioned to write a review for a poetry collection late in the autumn, but more about that later. 

I'm off to edit and later enjoy some late summer sun. 

Going Home

First day of holiday and the kids and I have started the gingerbread house, made our annual Christmas decorations and I've lost my patience with their fighting, but I haven't written a line of poetry or done any editing on my collection. I've done none of my poetry reading either, so no review this week. This impossible balancing act of life and art. Even when work is taken out of the mix, I can't keep on top of it all. Tomorrow, we need to get out of the house, so I need to try and fit in some work in the morning or afterwards. I must get back into the habit.

When my babies were little and we were struggling with their sleep habits I read somewhere that it takes six times as long to break a habit than to make it. It's so easy to not write a poem a day, not squeeze in the time to write or edit around work, but to build up that habit again is more of a struggle. It requires force of willpower to not take the easy route and turn on the telly after the kids go to bed, to not stare at a screen without writing something useful on it. 

So I've cracked open the collection tonight, stepping into the cold Scottish rain again of my poems, the hard gray stone and cups of tea. The images I draw together for the cover. Wool and sand, loch and Glasgow streets. Touching the words I've written again. It's like going home.

I'm looking forward to seeing this chapbook, but there's a sense of regret to finish it, to close the book on things I've been working on for almost two decades. Also to not be publishing the whole collection, though these are my favourite poems from it. And the poems I'm not publishing are more difficult to face just now, stepping back into the muddied waters of my old relationship which I'm happy not to ford just now.

I'm moving slowly back into the words, to find my way through them again. 

Getting Through the December Slog

I've been substituting most of the week for a class of first graders with a couple of high need kids and even though it's only half days compared to working with middle school, it's much more exhausting physically and mentally, so you can imagine that I haven't had much chance to write or think poetry.

I did spend some time on the free stock photos sites, trying to come up with images that could be used for my poetry book cover or at least inspire my editor to find a cover. It's strange, I don't have any clear ideas for a cover image, but I do have a mood board type of thing with images I conjure up when I think of my Finnish collection. It has actually been a bit of a time suck, but requires less mental energy that doing a final read through/edit of the collection. I hope to get everything pretty much sorted to send to the editor during the Christmas break.

Except maybe the author photo, I'm chickening out on contacting the photographer who offered to do it, in the hope that she contacts me. I'm out of spoons for that particular endeavour. But it might be easier to organise in the new year after the kids go back to school or so I'm telling myself as an excuse.

My hard copy of Abridged: Kassandra has arrived and it's more beautiful than the virtual copy, each image really accentuates it's accompanying poem and the paper quality really feels good in my hands. It's a pleasure to flip through and read the poetry selected. Definitely worth supporting this venture. 

And this week I've read Melissa Fu's Falling Outside Eden by Hedgehog Press. It's a lovely, gentle collection, a conversation sometimes urgent, sometimes full of acceptance or regret at untenable situations. I founds myself totally lost in those moments, in small beauties of eating watermelon or watching snow fall, the deeper well of watching a relationship fail. The collection allows us to enter Eden, knowing from the beginning it will eventually fall apart. Subtly crafted and weighty with beautiful language, another smashing collection from the Hedgehog.

The last week before Christmas, so much to do and no energy to accomplish most of it. I hope this time of year is not being too tough on you. 

Roller Coastering

It should be a verb, shouldn't it? It's been one of those weeks where I feel like I'm going to be sick from the ups and downs of my new work career.

Last Tuesday I had a Skype interview for an internship for a start-up social media company. It was for a position as a Content Writer, writing articles about travel and expat life, two things I am interested in. I was offered the post, but in the end turned it down because a) I wasn't happy working for 6 months for no pay, especially after I read a review of the company that suggested that they only took on a stream of unpaid interns rather than paid staff and b) I didn't enjoy the technology side enough to really want to use up time I could be getting other work churning out articles that used less of my writing skills and more of my ability to link to other sites. It may be a choice I regret, but I feel like I've been true to who I want to be.

A nice affirmation that I've maybe made the right decsion for me was that on the same day I turned down the offer an editor rejected some poems I had sent in for their online journal, but suggested, having seen my link to this page, that I might like to write a guest blog instead. Unpaid again, there's a blog post in the future about working for free, but it's a single article on a subject I'm more interested in and in a style that's more comfortable to me. Details to follow when the blog goes live.

I've also been working for my first editing client here in Finland. So hopefully things are going more in the direction I prefer. Small steps.

As a break from the less creative work, I've decided to take some of the extra poems I have rattling about and create another collection. My Scottish and Finnish books are still sitting at various publishers and could be for ages yet and I felt like I was missing out on good opportunities that were floating by. This collection moves beyond culture and place and looks more at the individual's attempts to come to define themselves as they come to terms with their struggles.

I find something really satisfying and almost meditative about putting together a collection, sorting through poems to find ones that fit my theme, figuring out an order, editing and then trying to write a synopsis to bring the whole idea together. I love carrying the rough draft manuscript around, editing each poem and shuffling through the pages. Holding close the warm knowledge that I made this, each word knitted together as a poem and then each poem layered to make a book. Hopefully they build upon each other to create a strong whole. The chance that it will get accepted is slim, but I enjoy the process in a different way to writing. 

It's good to have a break from the slog of reality with something you love. 

Letting Out that Held Breath

You know when you've been holding your breath for a long time and you finally let it out and take a slow breath in. You realise how good it feels, it almost goes to your head, the beauty of it. Then someone comes along and kicks you in the gut, taking that breath away just for a moment. It hurts, but it reminds you that breathing is the best thing ever. Even so, you can't help holding it still for small moments because you're afraid someone's going to take it away again. Yeah, that. It's been that sort of complicated, exhausted week. But I'm taking the occasional deep breath and am ready to move forward full of new energy. Soon it will be easier.

I've continued with my two GloPoWriMo courses and am trying to write at least one poem a day. Some days I manage both, some like yesterday when I had my first day of teaching in forever I managed nothing. So today I made up by finishing one draft I had started and sketching another rough one. It feels good to keep the momentum going.

I had a dream last night that the publisher I sent my collection to last year had recently responded, but my email had a secret, unsearchable folder it was hiding things in and I couldn't read it. I hate my technology nightmares. Waiting a year for a response from a publisher is not unheard of, but it's so frustrating. I sent a query last month which I also haven't received a response from. I don't know if there is a problem with my emails or if they're just too busy to respond or what. I also don't know if I should send another query to their general email. 

I've sent my collection this week out to another publisher as I've kind of given up hope. I think it's the third publisher I've tried since I sent to the original one last year. To be honest, I've given up hope that my preferred publisher will accept it. It's been a tough year, especially the last six months and I did find myself clinging onto the hope of an acceptance, but I realise it was silly and I need to try other places, lots until I find someone who wants to publish it. So exhale and move on. 

Winter Warmer

I've been busy on Wendy Pratt's new course, but am also dipping in and out of Angela Carr's challenge to continue writing for 100 days. She's given us a list of 100 verbs and we can try and use them to write a poem. So some days I'm sketching out two poems in the morning. 

I'm still finding the Poems to Save the World course difficult. I'm not good on writing a social commentary or on current events, but I've managed a few that I will continue to work on. But I have a pile that I've set aside as dross. Maybe I'll have another look at them once these courses stop. I really haven't had much time for editing. Wendy's suggested finding a strong metaphor to hang our discouse on, but I'm struggling with that and having it feel so unpoetic, but hopefully I'm hitting a few marks with my writing. 

But I have had another two magazines accept my work, one online and one in print. Unbelievable really to have so many this early in the year. I'm getting used to online magazines, but I still prefer print. The rejections are still coming in and I need to catch up with my new submissions. I've had one publisher reject my collection as well, but these smaller acceptances are keeping me going through this long winter. 

Not in the Mood for Resolutions

I believe my in-laws have thrown out almost all the copies of my poetry book, link on the side. We had taken them down from our loft in Scotland and packed them up in boxes, but there was a delay in getting someone to bring them to Finland, so my other half's siblings helped seal up the boxes properly for collection. I guess the boxes were too heavy as when they arrived here, the books had been taken out. I assumed they would be stashed for us to sort later. 

My other half just returned from a trip to Scotland where he could find less than ten copies of my collection and none of another book that had some of my work that I had produced myself through my old publishing company. My sister-in-law said they had cleared out a lot at my father-in-law's house where the boxes had been stored, so I guess they decided to recycle them.

I'm gutted. Why would you do that? Throw out copies of someone's work. I understand the boxes were heavy and they wanted to clear my father-in-law's house out while he was in hospital. I had suggested they might want to take a few extra boxes to spread things out as we had packed them, but hadn't tried to move them afterwards. But just to decide that my books weren't worth saving is offensive. I don't even know how to bring it up with them. The distance makes it difficult but also the fact that they don't appreciate books of any sort really and don't understand the work, time and money that went into those books. 

So I have less than a dozen copies of my book. I had hoped to have a cheap sale of the books once they arrived, so spread them around before the hopeful publication of my next book. But they're pulp.

I was going to think about resolutions for the new year in this post, but I have lost any impetus for that now.

I'm still moving along with Angela Carr's January Write Off. You can still join in, but clicking on the link where she has posted her list of prompts and I think she's still accepting people on the Facebook page, you just jump in on whatever day it is. 

I've sent out my first submission and also received my first rejection from another magazine. 2019 is rolling apace, I guess.

Writing Stats for 2018

Just as the new year gets started, here are my writing, submissions and publication stats for 2018 and for 2017 to compare. 

2018

68 new poems
finished 5 previously started poems
94 submissions to magazines, 8 to book publishers
65 magazine rejections, 9 book rejections
10 acceptances
15 poems appeared in 7 publications, 5 online
6 acceptances awaiting publication
48 blog posts

2017

19 new poems
finished 9 poems
65 magazines submissions, 12 to book publishers
45 magazine rejections, 10 book rejections
7 acceptances
1 book competition long-list
17 poems appeared in 8 publications, 4 online
21 blog posts

It's the first number I'm proudest of, 68 new poems written this year, most in the last quarter of the year due to Wendy Pratt's online writing course. I've done my best to continue without the course and I'm happy with how well I've been able to keep up, I've written 13 poems since the course finished. 

Having so many new poems to send out for consideration has helped up my submission numbers. I'm still only getting around a 10% acceptance rate, but more submissions equals more acceptances, even if only at one out of ten gets accepted. Considering I have 43 submissions awaiting adjudication I'm hoping that my acceptance numbers will be up next year as well. 

The publication numbers are never reflective of the current year because many print publications accept work but then take months or even up to a year to publish. Online magazines are often quicker, though I have a few from earlier in 2018 still waiting to appear. The six acceptances awaiting publication already show next year's numbers will be better. 

The Poetry Bloggers Revival Tour challenge has helped me increase my blog writing. I'd like to keep that up in the new year, so I have joined the Poetry Blogging Network for 2019 which is a follow-on of the PBRT. I've had a lot more views on my blog as well, down to joining the challenge, but without adding up monthly totals which are difficult to figure out, I can't say for certain what the numbers are. 

I've also finished one poetry collection and am almost done with the second. I am writing so many new poems that I keep wanting to shoehorn them in, so need to have a serious read-through in the next few months and finish it off. I've also done a lot of work on my novels, including rewriting the beginning of my old novel. I have this idea to sort out some issues in the new one I need to work on, so I hope to get back to that in the new year. I'll come back to my resolutions for 2019 later.

It's funny how much I enjoy seeing the numbers add up even though I'm not very mathematically minded. It reminds me how much effort I'm putting in and that there are some rewards to that effort.

For anyone looking for a prompt based poetry challenge Angela Carr has started one for January, link here.  It's free and there's a Facebook group to post your work if you wish. I'm going to give it a go.  

So welcome to 2019. I hope it has a lot of good things in store for all of us.  

A Poem A Day and Blogging

If you had told me six months ago that I could write a decent draft of a poem a day, I would have said maybe as a fluke, but never regularly. I've always written very slowly, shaping and tinkering, but my recent online writing courses have taught me to trust my instinct and to just dive in to my writing.  Keeping writing practice as a daily activity helps to make it possible, like keeping the writing muscles limber. I've turned about 10 out of the 17 non-course prompts I've done into poems, some still pretty rough drafts, but some already submitted to magazines.

I'm finding my prompts from various places: newspaper articles and books I'm reading, places I'm at, websites that have daily prompts. I like to have someone else pick my prompts as otherwise I try to find ones that fit my preconceived ideas about what I should write about. I prefer when surprises appear in my writing. 

Reoccuring themes have been showing up, often to do with Scotland. I'm debating whether I want to add the poems I've written to my Scottish collection as they are part of the themes there, but while they're still being considered by publishers I'll just leave them. 

The poet Luisa A Igloria has been an inspiration in my daily writing. She has written and posted daily poems for over 8 years. She shares them on the Via Negativa blog which she shares with Dave Bonta who also writes daily. And while I'm sure she finds that not every one is good or worthy of publication, she has managed to produce four full length collection and 3 chapbooks and has won lots of awards in that time so it can be worth-while to write daily. I now have enough for at least one more collection after my Scottish and Finnish ones, but there's no obvious thematic flow so I'm not trying to put anything together right now.

Dave Bonta also does a weekly round-up of the Poet Bloggers Revival which I joined up. I'm not included in his round-up, but it's nice to read briefly what other bloggers are writing about and sometimes follow back to the original blog for more. It's interesting how he can often find themes stretching across the world to various poets. 

I'm quite chuffed that I've managed to keep up my weekly blogging this year. I might have missed one or two when on holiday, but otherwise, even when I was feeling quite low, I managed to write something. It gave me a goal to achieve, something to feel like I was still writing even when I couldn't produce a poem or a line of fiction. 

Less than two weeks before the kids finish for Christmas, so hopefully I can keep things going in that time and then ease down for the break. Take care.

Chasing My Tail

I don't know where the week has gone, but I know I haven't written much. I've spent the morning making cookies for my daughter's Christmas fund raiser, so that gives you an idea of the kind of things I've been up to. I don't think I've done a single prompt since I wrote my last post, until I managed one today while I waited for my son at the physio.

I'm missing the flow of the poetry writing course I've been doing, editing while waiting for the next prompt to appear in my inbox, writing on that and then reading the other poets' submissions before I post my own rough draft. I just haven't been able to get myself into a similar rhythm this last week on my own.

I did send my Scottish collection out to another publisher with a heavy heart because it feels like admitting that the other publisher probably won't take my collection. I know this is a possibility anyway because it's unlikely that I'll get an acceptance from my first submission, but I do like to cling on to a bit of hope. I like the look of this other publisher as well, so hopefully something will come from one of them soon.

I've been chasing up a few submissions the past few weeks, ones that were over six months or even a year with no response. One admitted it had been 'buried in our process' so they're hoping to get to it in the next few weeks and another that I've had to chase through social media is going back to check and see what's happened. Others haven't responded so I'm assuming that there's an issue with the address or they're too busy, so am submitting those poems elsewhere, if I haven't already.  It's amazing how much an up-to-date website can help writers submitting their work. A note saying you've fallen way behind in your reading or that if you haven't heard back from us in six months, feel free to submit your work to other journals, is so helpful when you're waiting for responses. 

I try to double check email addresses and such before sending queries as I have had times when they've changed procedures or closed the magazines after I've submitted and my poems have fallen into a limbo. It's a frustrating process. You don't want to annoy the editor with query letters too soon, but it's nice to not be wasting your time, tying up poems for six months or more if they've lost a submission or never received it.

I've had a few poems published in the short poem journal Shot Glass Journal. It's nice to see the magazine strives to have a mix of US and international poets. Enjoy.

Prompting Myself

Though a lot of my writing books are still annoyingly in a loft in Scotland I still have a few that have writing prompts and suggestions for writing exercises. This week I've been trying to pick one a day to do a writing practice with.

This week has been crazy with appointments for the kids so I haven't done one every day, but I have managed four and will hopefully do another today.

One issue I've discovered is I that I can't just pick a prompt that appeals to me, I need to just pick one at random or if it's in a book that has them daily, pick the one for that day. I was trying to find prompts with a subject I had in mind, forcing them too much to fit into my idea and it showed. I'm going to try and be more loose and open with my prompts in the future and hopefully this will take me to unexpected places with a lighter feel to the writing.

I'm still editing my Finnish collection, changing the order, reading it out-loud as I edit, adding poems. I've also started writing my blurb for it which I always find difficult. How to sell yourself without it feeling forced or cheesy or unnatural, without falling into tropes or cliches?

Besides the blurb, I love the work required to bring together a collection. Tinkering to improve poems that are already done. Trying to establish an arc between the poems, weeding out the ones that don't fit. Bringing it all together. I'll print it out soon and give it another look at ordering and read-through. It should be ready to send out in a week or two.

But then there's a question of what to do with it. My Scottish collection is still at my first choice publisher. I could send this one out to some of the other potential publishers, but it feels a bit wrong. Publishers usually want to publish your follow up books, so ideally it'll come out with the same publisher.

It is also in a sense chronological with my other books. My first book, already published covers years from 1988 to around 1994/5, the Scottish collection covers years 1993-2010 and the Finnish collection covers years 2010 to the present. It would feel off to me if the Finnish book was published before the Scottish one.

I'm crazy, I know. In reality, I'd be happy if either was accepted for publication, but I'd really like the Scottish one to be published first. I guess I'll finish the Finnish collection and go from there. Maybe it's time to send out my Scottish collection to some other publishers.

Winding Up Autumn

I've managed to catch up a bit with my writing from a prompt a day, 17 out of 30, and I'm back to at least sketching out a poem every day if not writing a good first draft. So that's encouraging and many of us will continue to write once the group is finished, so the sharing of our efforts will continue for a bit on the Facebook page.

Many of the poems I've been writing have been working from the problems I had a few months ago that put me in such a dark place. It's cathartic to be able to work through some of those emotions and the fall out to what happened. There's still things I won't touch on, but the end of summer and autumn in full force seems to be a good metaphor for the time. I've been grouping these poems into a rough collection just now, though I'm not sure where they'll take me in the end. 

I'm struggling with the oncoming winter darkness. I work to my UV sunlamp most mornings, but I still want to curl up on the couch under a blanket and hibernate. I have no energy for fiction at all. I'm enjoying the burst I've been getting from these courses for my poetry, but untangling the mess my novels have become seems like too much work. The new novel has become too complicated, I can't figure out how to express all the character's motivation. It's never enough for my readers, they either want more dramatic complications or less. 

So I think I need a break from fiction. Wendy Pratt's next online course won't be until January and it's a more intense, limited numbers course. Then February will be back to the original set-up. I'm torn whether to do the January course. I like the daily prompts, but this will be two weekly assignments which will get some close reading from Wendy instead. I guess it won't hurt to try it and it will give me something to focus on until February. 

I've been working a bit on my Finnish poetry collection. I think I have all the poems, just trying to sort format and editing. I still haven't heard about my Scottish collection's fate at the publishers.

So I keep on moving on. 

October - Back to Poetry

Wendy Pratt's online course started yesterday and there's been a flurry of writing and reading poetry about autumn. It fits right in with the weather and mood here. I'm already enjoying her daily prompts and am writing about autumny things we did at the weekend; walking in the woods, open fires, harvesting apples and pumpkins. 

The switch back to poetry has been welcomed. I've been working on my Finnish poetry collection. I have it whittled down to 74 pages currently and am reading it through and editing, rearranging, thinking about themes. See this previous post for more ideas of how to prepare a collection. It's early days yet, I'll see what I write for this course before I'm ready to say it's totally done. 

I'm still waiting to hear from the publisher who has my Scottish collection. I'd like to say I don't think about it, but I give it a small thought every night as I'm trying to fall asleep. I want to hear, but I also don't want to know if the news is negative. It's been almost six months which isn't unusual, but if difficult after the excitment of finishing the collection and sending it off. I could send it to more than one publisher and I probably will after a while, but I wanted to try this publisher first as it really felt like a good fit from my research. 

October 4th is National Poetry Day in the UK. Check out this link for local events and also check out local libraries, community centres and bookshops. 

Enjoy.

Harvesting

The weather has definitely switched to autumn here, lots and lots of rain, temps cool enough to put on the heating, a desire to light a fire and wrap up in blankets. So it feels like time to start making plans and preparing. Harvest time.

Halloween is the end of the old year in the pagan calendar. I'm not a pagan, but I've always like this idea. My birthday is near Halloween so it's always been my new year point as well. For me autumn is a time to take stock, to prepare for the new year, to gather in resources and provisions for the winter. To finish old jobs and start new ones.

Life has given me a jolt and I've needed some time to curl up and reevaluate things from a distance. The same applies to my writing. The last week was quiet, but now I want to really begin to move forward.

I'm hoping the new course will give me lots of new poems to work with in October, but I also want to look at my Finnish poetry collection at terms of how I can start shaping it. I have enough poems as the moment for a full collection, but I need to reassess it in terms of theme and direction. See if I need to fill in any gaps or start from a new direction.

I'd like to read through the first 8 chapters of my second novel, the point where I've reached with my writing group, and see if it flows coherently. There's a worry from my writing group about pacing and development, so I need to look into that.

With my first novel, I need to brave looking at it again. I set it aside after rewriting the beginning as it needed time to set in my head. Now I need to read through it and see if it works and go forward with the rewriting if I'm happy with it.

So I'm taking small steps forward and it feels right for where I'm at just now. 

Submitting a Poetry Manuscript

This follows on to my previous post on Bringing Together a Poetry Collection.

It's been 10 years since my first collection was published and my mind is a bit rusty about how it all happened. I don't remember how long it took or how many publishers I submitted to. I have notes of submitting chapbooks and samples for what is now my Scottish book in 2003, but I don't have any reference of submitting my first collection until 2005. I do remember I ended up having two publishers interested. One finally admitted he couldn't commit to it and gave it up while the other eventually published it in 2008.

Now that I'm prepping a new collection to submit, I thought it would be a good time to go over some suggestions for submitting a larger work to publishers. This is for poetry, the rules and guidelines for novels are very different in some ways. And I am aware that things might have changed in publishing in the last 10 years, so always check the publishers' guidelines and follow them closely. 

First of all, have some sort of publication record. As I've mentioned before poetry publishers want to see that these poems have appeared in magazines and journals, that other editors have liked them, that you are a writer of some merit. I've had poems from my collection published in 24 different venues. Hopefully that's a good indication of my publishablity. 

Make sure you have a completed collection. See my previous post for hints about how to do this.  Written, edited, formated, proof-read, the whole shebang. I've been waiting months to finish a final poem for my collection. As much as I would have liked to start submitting my book before it was done, I know that it's bad form to send an unfinished collection to editors and then try and shoe-horn the last poem in or make large changes to it after they've accepted or even worse, while they're considering it. 

When I worked in publishing you'd be amazed at the amount of times poets would send a reworked collection in for us to replace the one we were currently considering. I know the waiting times can be long and it's tempting to look over the collection again, but it will really annoy an editor if you try and make changes while they are still reading your work. I occasionally change a line or word here or there, but they'll sit until the collection is rejected or accepted. Rejected I can submit the new version to the next publisher. Accepted, I'm sure there'll be time for fine-tuning.

Make sure it's a good as possible before you even consider sending it to a publisher. If you can get a trusted writer or editor to proof-read before submitting, even better. You want it as ready as possible, no typos. Some editors like to edit the collection themselves, but others won't do more than proof-read, so make sure it's exactly how you want it. No one will appreciate delays while you change the order, add new poems or do major editing. Set up a table of contents. Make sure the poems are nicely set out, one per page in a good-sized, readable font. Usually single-spaced, 12pt in Arial or Times New Roman.

Do your research. Check out the publishers' websites, buy or borrow copies of the books they've published. Do they publish full collections or just chapbooks? Do they accept unsoliticted material? Do they publish your genre? Do you like the poets they publish and the look of their books? How much help will you get with marketing and sales? And in my case, do they publish work from non-resident writers? The more time you spend weeding out publishers you don't match with, the better chance you have of finding the ones you do. It will save you unnecessary rejections and possibly money in the future.  

Write out a synopsis and/or an artist statement to give the editor an idea of what your collection is about and your own writing history. What makes your collection special and saleable? Specify any themes or over-arching imagry you want them to be aware of. Sell yourself and your writing. Mention any publications, awards, mentoring or training you've had. Treat this as a professional job application. For a poetry collection I would keep it brief. With novel synopses you need to explain the plot, but with poetry collection you should be able to sum up the theme of the collection in a paragraph. Your biographical note or artist statement should be about the same length. Think about the blurbs on the back of books, you want to grab the reader with the first line and get them intruiged enough to want to open the book. A synopsis should do the same thing.

I would include these in your query letter for poetry collections. Keep it to one page to introduce your book and yourself. 

Pick out a selection of sample poems from the collection. A lot of publishers just want a query letter with 6-12 poems to give them a taste of what the collection is about without having to wade through 60+ poems. Sometimes all you have is a cover letter and 6 poems to convince an editor your collection is worth getting a serious look. So pick your best and most representative poems. If there are themes or series within your collection that are important, make sure they are represented if possible. Each publisher has their own requirements for how many poems and what they want synopsis-wise. Follow the guidelines. Address the editor specifically.

Check and see if they want hard copies or will take email queries. Check if they'll accept simultaneous submissions. Most poetry publishers will as they know their reading times can be long and the chance of acceptance low, so are happy if you want to sent to multiple publishers. Inform them immediately if you're work is accepted elsewhere.

Double check and proof-read everything. Make sure you have copies of everything before you submit. If you're posting snail mail, make up a SAE (self-addressed, stamped envelope) so they can post you a response or specify if you want to hear back via email and they can recycle your copies. Keep track of where you sent things and when. 

Don't be in a rush. I sent my submission to my eventual publisher in 2005 and it was over a year before they accepted and then another two before we were ready to publish. Keep writing in the meantime. Keep submitting the poems to magazines.

Don't get frustrated. It was a slow process to write the collection, to edit it and prepare it, it will probably be a slow process to find a publisher. Take any feedback you receive with good grace and consider it well. Rejection doesn't mean the collection is bad, it just wasn't right for that publisher. Do not write to the editor and question them or rant at them. Accept your rejection with good grace. Have a private strop, a cry, a drink - whatever you need and move on to the next opportunity. 

Good luck if you've gotten this far in your poetry career. I will try to keep the blog updated of any news I have on my own collection. 

Hard Graft

The past few weeks I've had blog posts lined up for Monday morning, but the past two weeks have taken their toll with illness for the kids and myself, so this week I've had to start from scratch.  

I'm still feeling drained, but I'm still pushing through with the work: writing, editing and submitting. That last poem for my Scottish collection is still lingering, though I'm just doing small edits. Once I have a week of looking at it every day and making no changes I'll consider it done. 

I'm steadily rewriting my second novel. I submit about 1500 words a week to my writing group and then rewrite it according to their feedback. It's a slow process, but because of the haphazard way I wrote the first draft it's the best way. I'm having to stitch the various threads of the story together, expand a lot and figure out the motivation for some of the characters. It's coming together slowly. 

I've submitted my first novel to two competitions, a publisher and an agency so far this year. It's my goal to get it published in 2018. I'm getting a bit frustrated at the amount of entry fees I've paid for this novel over the past years so am trying to find publishers with calls for submissions or competitions with no entry fees. When you're not currently earning much it seems a waste to keep paying £15-£25 an entry. I've also been submitting a chapbook of poems from my Finnish collection to free competitions and calls. 

I fall between many categories in competitions. I'm a woman, but am not in any other minority grouping, I'm not even considered an immigrant by most standards. I'm over 45 so often am excluded from a lot of competitions aimed at younger writers, but I'm not old enough for the senior competions. I am not resident of an English-speaking country so that often goes against me as well. Finding a free competition for a novel or poetry collection/chapbook that is open for non-residents, over 40s and not a member of any minority bar women is really difficult. Especially if I add the wish of being published in the UK rather than the US. I just feel my writing is a better fit for the UK and I have more of an audience there, though I have tried a few poetry chapbook competitions in the US recently. So my choices are limited which is why I still pay for the occasional competition. 

Trying to get published is an uphill battle, hours spent writing, rewriting, editing and submitting, but as it's only part of the goal of writing it's worth all the hard work. My ultimate goal is to write something I'm proud of, that I want to share with others and that they will hopefully enjoy. Fingers crossed this will happen soon.