Look at Everything Twice - Editing

I had a job interview this week. I was struggling getting over a cold, overwhelmed by what I had missed at work while I was out, so I really didn't feel it went well. However, my boss told me afterwards that I undersold myself. I'm pretty sure I sold myself as a babbling idiot, so that's hopefully true. 

When I'm asked a question I'm not totally sure on or not prepared for, I just start talking and then find my brain running behind going, 'What the hell is she on about? Somebody stop her!' Luckily, it was interviewing for the job I've been doing for the past two years on a temp contract, so they know I am not an idiot, though maybe also know I'm prone to babbling. 

This is why I feel comfortable as an editor, especially of my own writing. In writing my poems, I often don't know what I'm saying until I have the meandering mess of it down on paper or screen and can sort it out, clean it up, take out the waffling that isn't needed, the details that are just too off the wall or unclear. 

I do the same thing with emails, write it all out then edit it appropriately. I have, in the past, sent out those in the moment, emotional, unfocussed, unedited emails and it never ends well, so I always try to pull back and look a second time. 

I may have mentioned on this blog before that idea as my best piece of advice every given me, 'Look at everything twice'. It was said to me by a Holocaust survivor I met when I was working in a bookshop in my small university town. She came in some Sundays to buy the big papers and chat. One day as she was leaving, she grasped my arm and said this and it's always stuck with me. 

I've never considered the phrase in terms of my love of editing. I've always just thought of it as take a moment to appreciate what's around you, the small things we overlook. By looking twice at anything, we understand it better and our place in it. We should spend that extra time to consider what we're seeing, doing and saying. 

This applies to our writing as well. Slow down and consider. I need to do that when I speak as well it seems. 

I'm still doing the GloPoWriMo - the Global Poetry Writing Month - write a poem a day challenge. I've had a few days that I've managed to get a good basis for a poem, others were I just have a few stanzas with interesting images, but no connection at the moment. I'll give them second looks after the challenge is over. 

‪Day 12

there is no full retreat

climb out of honesty

and disconnect like an island

I insist that the earth tilts

in my favour for at least one day

Day 11 

i loved you in flannel

before grunge

bookending my school crushes

from first grade to high school

you sketched a perfect circle

without me

Day 10 

this landscape is where I fall to my knees

wishing for more

the season as thin as a line drawing

trailing the marks I leave behind

‪

Day 9 a snippet inspired by a typo on my son’s Shelley essay. 

Explode the Monstrous

Peel back my skin and see

how I’ve tied my sinews into knots over you.

I’ve offered my eyes to the ravens

and cast the bones,

but I cannot give you flesh.

‪Day 8 

the darkness expands

unpacking overheard whispers 

muffling me 

in a heavy blanket

I carve out worm-space

to shoulder myself free

‪Day 7 

hands dancing over desire lines 

of whipcord flesh

pickpocketing the mystery

the awe of you

Some fun ideas in there I'll enjoy playing with later on. How are you getting on with the challenge so far?

Autumn's Brewing - Scotstober 2023 and When the Readers Don't Get A Poem

October is my month, my favourite month. Autumn in full swing, brazen colours and spice. Wet and slowing down. I bake, I cook, I begin to build a nest to hibernate in. It's also our autumn school holiday, so I've actually been able to do all those things which is more difficult when I'm working.

October is also #scotstober month. Scotstober is a challenge to learn and use a new Scots word every day. Here's the Twitter post for this year.  I love it, some are familiar to me, and some are new. I have done various takes on the challenge, sometimes finding poems that use the word, other times writing my own few lines. This year I'm doing the latter and creating a poem using some of the words. I can't keep up with all 31 words, but it's Day 22 and I have most of a poem written. 

As with most of my Scots poems, I prefer to use words I've heard in context or am comfortable with. Some words in the Scotstober challenge are older and not used much, so they don't feel right in my poems. So as I'm bringing this together as a poem, I'm changing some words to suit me. I'm grateful for the inspiration Scotstober brings.

Here's my Scotstober posts from my Mastadon and Twitter @grimalkingerry accounts. 

Day 20 and 22 - ablow and glower - below and to stare angrily.   

ah hunker doon ablow thi storm, 

thi glowerin cloods   

Day 13 fuil - a fool

a fuil thinkin

at thi year birls back on itsel

swallies its ain tail

ah micht hae growed ruits

but ahm no staundin still

Day 11 - marra - marrow

in mah marra ah ken this endin

it faws frae mah een,

frae thi birks an thi lift

an it faws tae me 

tae find mah new beginin.

Day 7 hunker - to stoop or to submit to one's circumstances

hunkerin doon aneath thi storm

bieldit but waws an a ruif 

arnae an acceptance o hame

Day 6 ettle - to try, to strive

ahm ettlin tae no sing thi same thrain,

but thi rain an its pebbly sklyter

drouns oot mah will

Day 5 faur - far

mah vizzie flits faur aff

intae thi next saison 

when gowd dees in cauld an banes

ruggin at thi braes

Day 4 - stamagast - astonished or disappointed

ahm stamagastert at thi leafs shift

ilka October, ilka year

thi claik lik a skelp av thi clock

Day 2 - doon - down

ahm fawin doon

wirds ah cannae unnerstaund

lik stanes in mah shoes

Day 1 - fain - happy or glad.

 

ah cannae pertend tae be fain

tae see thi snaw ootline thi trees

So I am writing, which I haven't really been doing lately. Not a lot, but a little bit as often as I can. However, the poems I've been working on haven't done too well when I've workshopped them with my main writers' group and another smaller online group I've joined. 

Sometimes I bring poems to workshop when I know there's something not right and I can't quite figure it out. A few sets of new eyes, often those who don't write poetry themselves, can help to unravel the problem. 

There's always a big pause after I read, but I'm used to that as poems can need more time to be digested than stories. But with one poem recently, the silence was longer than usual and weighted with the feeling of 'we don't get it' that I sometimes get when I read to this group. 

That's why I brought the poem, I was afraid it's too dense or obtuse, that the connections I've made are too close to my own thinking and not as obvious as I'd like for a public poem. So I get as much feedback as I can and then take it home and work on it. This particular poem has gone to the group twice and is still not hitting the mark. 

It's harder to get that dead silence when you think the poems are done, that they work. I had that happen in the online group with a poem I love and think works. It's not a subtle poem, I thought. There is an added layer if you know the book mentioned in the subtitle, but I didn't think it was necessary to the understanding. But they're not getting it and I now am debating whether I need to edit the poem and make it more obvious or hope that it's not as hidden as the readers suggest. 

I always tell the people I teach and other writers in writing groups that in the end the piece is your own, you make the changes you want. This doesn't always apply as fully when you want to get published, especially if you're working with an editor. The poem or story is leaving your side, it has to be able to exist on its own without follow-up questions. 

But you also don't want to spoon-feed the reader. I, at least, want them to work a little, to read closely, to make connections, to problem-solve the work. If they don't immediately get it, will they move on to the next poem in the magazine or collection and never give that poem a chance? Or will they slow down and do another read to find the gem you think you've written?

When do you draw the line and either say I'm not changing my poem or give in and make it more accessible, but lose your feel for what is right with the poem? When do you write for your audience?

Enjoy what's left of your October.

Slow Motion

The end of summer is always difficult, even this year when it's hung on much longer than usual. Things have been hard lately, at home, at work, with the kids, with me. I have no motivation for anything besides getting through work and keeping things ticking over at home. My new job is going pretty well, but some days it's too much, a steep learning curve. 

As a result, I haven't written much, even though autumn is sneaking in, my favourite time of year. Usually, I'm writing tons connected with the change of season, but I'm just half-heartedly editing the poems I was working on over the summer. A few moments here and there towards my goals.

I've started a series of poems on Finnish animals, really animals in Finland as none of them are particularly Finnish, hares, cranes, elk, magpies. I haven't written about the norppa seal or reindeer, animals I connect with Finland, though I might. The creatures I've chosen take on a Finnish persona, though they are animals I know from elsewhere. I'm mixing my love of nature with my focus on belonging to a place. The animals are guides, gods or representations of myself, moving through Finland with the will to understand, if not accept, the world around them.

These new poems have made the Finnish collection change again which is intruiging. Its early incarnations were about me struggling to adapt to living here in connection with my family, hanging on to the remnants of my life in Scotland. As I said, these new poems are not necessarily about accepting my life here, but more just listening to the voices of Finland more intently. Stepping out of myself for brief wanders.

All this sounds like I'm writing a blurb for the book, but it's nice to sort out my thoughts on it. And who knows, it might be useful someday as a blurb.

I'm not submitting as much as I usually do either, focussing more on sending manuscripts to book publishers for the inevitable rejection or just radio silence. I can never tell if publisher

My poem 'Sisu and Jag' has been published by Sídhe Press in their collection Glisk and Glimmer. I can't wait to get a look at it.

It's a three-day weekend, the leaves are starting to fall and even though I have a 10-year-old sleepover happening tonight, I'm going to try and chill for the rest of the weekend. Maybe even do a bit of writing. 

Take care. 

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. 

The Struggle to Return

The snow and cold have come back as I worried they would. February was snow free until the last week when we got dumped on. My kids are finally getting a chance to go cross-country skiing with their schools. That and ice skating are part of the curriculum here in winter, but they are past the point of enjoying winter activities. The light is back and we're all ready for winter to be over, but we'll spend this month crawling ourselves away from it towards spring. Everything is so gray and frozen here, it's hard to summon up much enthusiasm. 

Now my uni course is finished, I'm trying to get back into some writing routine. I can carve time in the weekends to write, but I'm unfocused. One of the paid projects I applied for didn't happen, so I'm waiting on the other and have several unpaid opportunities coming up, but instead of writing something towards them, I spent most of yesterday morning chiselling away at one poem.

I'd written a poem with a slight scientific, theme and I had been looking at the Fibonacci sequence and trying to incorporate it somehow. I discovered yesterday that there is a poetic form based around it, the Fib poem. It's a simple, non-rhyming form which appeals to me. I'm trying it with word count instead of syllables as I'm lazy and am having enough trouble making it fit without having to break it down into further complications. It's coming together, but I haven't written anything new.

I've often taken writing courses as a way of boosting inspiration and getting back to writing daily. I might look into my regular ones and see what's happening there. Until then I just need to pick up my pen and get scribbling. 

I had three poems appear in Issue 7 of Flights, an e-journal back in December that I'm not sure if I shared. It's great to be included with such impressive writers. And also in December, I had three poems published in the Sunday Mornings at the River anthology. 

This is available also as an e-book which I've never been fond of, but I'm seeing them as an affordable way to buy books I would struggle to afford or to have posted due to Brexit nonsense, so it's allowing me to read more recent books which is always a good thing. Though I've discovered that poetry doesn't always work on a phone screen, the lines get enjambed wrong at least not at the magnification I need, so will need to read poetry texts on my computer.

Back to the grind. Enjoy. 

Zineton and Scotstober 2022

This weekend feels a bit like the last hurrah. University starts soon and I know any free time I have will be focussed on that. The weather is beautifully autumnal, leaves glowing with sunlight as if it's putting all their energy into one last show. It's infusing the poems I'm trying to write. And I'm writing which hasn't happened much lately. 

This weekend is Zineton, a 48-hour challenge to create a zine. Helsinki Writers are having their second go at it. I've discovered a fun AI art site Wombo which is making it even more interesting as I really don't have any talent for visual art. So I'm writing a couple of poems for that and waiting for the other writers to send me their work. Then the rush to put everything together begins. 

One of my pieces is inspired by #scotstober, which introduces one new Scots word every day in October. I also joined in that challenge last year where I found poems or snippets of poetry that used the Word of the Day and expanded it to share a bit about the writers. Here's a link to the first of a series of blogs where I shared my Twitter posts and more information.   This year I don't think I'll have the time for that. The poem I'm writing in Scots doesn't use the words but is inspired by them. I'll maybe write a line on Twitter about the WotD when I remember. 

And to finish off, here's a link to the recording of members of Helsinki Writers (Leah Martin, Csilla Csépke, Saara Kahra and Gerry Stewart) reading their poems on the theme of Under the Surface. Thanks to the support of Helsinki Open Waves and CAISA where the poems were recorded. It was an amazing experience for the group.