AI Trigger Warning

A member of my writing group asked last night what we would think about them bringing a story that AI had translated for them. I have to admit my gut clenched and I immediately voiced my negative opinion. 

But I get it. As an international group, most of our writers have English as a second or third language, but we ask that everything shared with the group be mainly written in English. It is difficult to write comfortably in a language that is not your mother tongue. I use translation software regularly just to get through my daily life in a country where I don't speak the language well. I use spell check in my own writing as a backup for my own skills. I have however tried to turn off all the AI add-ons with my word processing software, emails and other apps, regularly write -ai when doing a search on the internet. I am very aware it still invades every part of my online life.

The thought of AI working its way into a group that is focused on the craft of writing scared and upset me a bit. 

I work with middle-school students and the reliance on AI to help them learn from both the students, teachers and administrators scares me. I constantly have kids asking me why they need to learn Maths or other subjects when they can just ask their phones to do it for them. I'm running out of answers. 

While our admin is telling us to use AI to do lesson planning, the school has banned phones and have had to find various ways to lock down the tablets the lower and middle school students use from going to sites that gather data. GDPR is the law in Europe. Teachers are having to find ways around kids using AI to do their work for them, going back to paper and pencil in many cases. I see the results of children growing up with the internet and AI, students without learning needs being unable to tell time on an analog clock, remember basic times tables and maths skills, unable to spell or to trust their own abilities to write a paragraph, to analyse a poem. 

Non-native speakers are taking longer to learn English because they rely on translation software for both reading and writing. I've seen student write a whole paragraph or more in their mother tongue and then paste the translation into an assignment and insist they had written it themselves. They no longer see the line between themselves and the software. 

But this is about creation and crafting. The writer had written the story themselves in their mother tongue, but wanted to share an English version for the group's feedback. As the conversation advanced they said they had translated the story first themselves, then asked AI to translate it too and then compared them. They said they were very similar. They then asked the AI to mark areas where it didn't appear in native English and then merged the two versions to improve the English. The line gets blurrier and blurrier. Did they write the English version, did they translate it?

I said I'd rather see the writer's original translation and we could support them in terms of highlighting areas that could be improved to native English usage. I said ideally I'd prefer what I say to my English learner students, use software to translate the occasional word or phrase, but try to write/translate it yourself. Use the language you have. That's learning the craft of writing; sculpting the story, the poem from the writer's own imagination and skills.  

It opened an interesting discussion. We have a lot of tech people in the group who had various opinions on AI. We discussed how using AI feeds the big LLMs, how companies had used writers' work to teach AI without permission and ways we use AI to support our writing. We also wondered about the future. Is this like the Industrial Revolution where we just find a way to implement a version of AI into our lives to improve them or would there be a backlash as we see it is harmful or will we welcome our robot overlords with open arms? I know I will be one of the first up against the wall. 

The group probably needs to come up with a policy of whether we would be open to reading work that had a large input from AI, in terms of creation, editing, translation or refining, but it felt too big a task last night. I asked, jokingly but not joking, for a trigger warning if AI is used, like we ask for difficult topics. The group has always been open to reading all things, but ask to know if a piece has the potential to upset people. To be honest, AI has the same affect on me. 

Do you have an opinion on AI and creative writing or translation?

Part of my students' class poem, no AI was used in its creation, though Snoopy helped a bit. 

The Switch from Summer to Autumn

Summer's heat is lingering here in Finland, but autumn is coming up fast. Cooler mornings, the birch turning gold overnight, geese starting to move on in long, noisy threads. My favourite season, but it's always tinged here with the knowledge that winter won't be far behind and will last too long. I should probably get out and do something in the nice weather while it lasts, but there are never enough hours in the weekend.

Being back at work has meant I've fallen out of the habit of writing regularly. I don't have the time to write every day, so I end up spending a lot of the weekend catching up. I've sat down this weekend with no ideas and haven't produced anything, unsurprisingly. Ideas come to me easier when I spend a little time writing, if not daily, regularly. I've edited, submitted and generally sorted some things, but I miss having something new percolating in my head. I'm unfocused and tired from doing too many other things, including 4 parent-teacher conferences in one evening. Hopefully, I'll be back in the swing of writing next weekend.

This week, I've also dealt with the recording the Helsinki Writers Group is doing for Helsinki Open Waves, liaising with the technician and the 3 other poets. I can't wait to hear the final product, it sounded so cool even without embellishments, but the technician was going to try and add a soundscape behind our poems. 

We had a rough theme, Below the Surface, but we each went our own way with it. When we brought them together there were overlaps and echoes of each other's work that we hadn't planned or expected. It can be a repeated phrase or image or sound though all the poems' subjects are very different. We shared our work briefly in the writing and editing stage and I find those chats often bring a poem to fruition. What you can't quite reach alone is nurtured through sharing it with others. The group has a few poets now, after a long time of me being the only one and these collaborations are so much fun. 

I've also been recording a poem this weekend on my own for The Storms Journal. I have a poem in the first issue which is currently being launched. It's not easy to record at home when you have 3 kids around and cats who are either yowling, chasing things about or have decided mid-poem is an excellent time to purr on your lap. The free online launch is on 10 September. Join us. 

I'm getting used to recording myself, not as bothered by the sound of my own voice. Still not keen on it, but I don't cringe now unless I make a clanger of a mistake live. I haven't done a live reading or open mic in ages. Need to find one, maybe with my writing group. 

Take One: Recording Poetry

Autumn has hit Finland hard. I love it in the now, but it's always the upcoming season that dampens my enthusiasm for windfall apples and cool mornings. However, we're glutting on crumble, spices, the changing colours while we have a chance. 

Yesterday, I recorded a new autumn poem with my writers group, Helsinki Writers this weekend as part of a Superwood Festival project a local university has organised. It's one of a series of poems my group is providing as audio for a forest walk. I was nervous about professionally recording. It's almost ok in my quiet house with no one watching, but reading in front of my friends and a handful of students was a bit nerve-wracking. But it's a well-paid gig, so I jumped at the chance. It was a lot of fun to work with the other writers and come up with separate poems on a similar theme that worked with each other. I'm excited to hear the final project. 

Even though it was a bit strange to hear my voice played back to me, they made it sound pretty good, even in the raw form. And the experience wasn't that scary. My poem was one of the longer ones, but I managed to get through it twice and had one small mistake early on for each of those versions, so it wasn't too bad. They managed to take one line out of one version that was said with better emphasis and put it in the other take which was better overall. So I'm happy with my end.

It was interesting to write a poem that I knew would primarily exist in audio form, to think about what I could say easily and what could be understood from sound alone rather than the words on the page. I made a lot of changes once I started to practice reading it aloud, words and phrases that became tongue-twisters next to each other, images that would be lost unless given space to breathe. Hopefully, it will work, but it's hard to know until hear the poems next to each other, cleaned up.  

My writing group is brilliant, we've been sharing our drafts, conferring on proofs, offering advice, working out running order. We're all from different backgrounds, so we had one person with more experience in performance, myself and another writer have a bit of experience in reading work (though I'm not good or comfortable with it) and some complete beginners, but we all managed to do a great job and have fun. I've been talking for ages about having a workshop on reading your work, so hopefully this will happen so we can take advantage of more chances like this. I'll hopefully be able to link to the recording once the event is over. 

Other positive notes, one of my poems is appearing in the new edition of the The North magazine. The North is one of those established magazines I've been trying for years to get into, so I was chuffed when they accepted one of my recent poems. There are so many established and new names to check out in each issue, I can't wait to dip in.  

I'm equally pleased to appear in a newer magazines like issue 2 of the new Glasgow-based magazine Wet Grain. Smaller magazines offer less well-established writers a chance to shine, so I never rule them out. I like being involved at the beginning of what may turn out to be a big name later on and to follow writers from early stages in their career, but I've been around long enough to do that. lol. 

I've also had a poem published in the university-themed anthology The Worst Best Years published by Acid Bath Publishing. Fun to remember those distant times, good and bad though it's somewhat a relief that they are over and I can write about them without the stress of living them.

I'm excited to see what else this season brings. Enjoy September in its colourful glory. 

The Light is Starting to Return

I seem to only be able to find the energy and focus to write my blog when I'm on holiday. Day to day life with the kids and a full-time job is exhausting. I've also taken on a small editing job which requires focus when I just want to relax, but we're getting there. I'm waiting on my final grades for my course and considering starting a new one in the autumn, but at the moment that feels like a big ask. But my job is only until the end of this school year, so I might have more time on my hands next year. Or maybe not. 

I'm writing, here and there, editing pieces that have been hanging around 'in progress' for the last year or longer. My Scottish collection is up in the air. The publisher is struggling with the changes Brexit has brought to the publishing industry as well as personal issues and everything has been delayed and delayed again. I'm just trying not to think about it because I'm sure my living in the EU is going to throw up new problems when my book is considered. 

My writing group went through a rough patch and has re-emerged a bit bruised, but hopefully stronger. I am grateful that we're managing to reshape the group into something of which we can be proud. They have been a lifeline over the past year, even if only virtual and I would have hated if it broke apart.

Spring is coming, I'm sure. I can see it, patches of dead grass reappearing in the garden, but find it hard to put much faith in it's promise. Covid is getting a stronger foothold here in Finland and while we're trying to get the vaccine out, it's a slow, painful wait. There is that chink of light slowing expanding.

I've had a few poems published while I've been dormant here. I'm very grateful to all the time and hard work all these editors and their staff have put in to produce these issues. I know it's not easy. I've been wallowing in memories of my experiences in publishing in Edinburgh and though it's very rose-coloured at the moment, I do remember it being very difficult and rarely rewarding from the day-to-day perspective.

Severine has published my poem 'Fever'. 

Poetry and Covid have published three of my poems that resonate my feelings about, you guessed it, Covid. 

Literati Magazine has published three of my American poems. 

I appeared in the inaugural issue of Tír na nÓg and joined in with an online launch which was a lot of fun. 

Sideways Magazine has also shared one of my poems. 

Writer's Block Magazine published two of my poems and were a great help in bringing one to fruition. 

Mooky Chick published my piece 'The Cailleach Wakes in Finland' and it has found the perfect home. 

And Porridge has published one of the poems closest to my heart 'To Be Six in Your First Italian Gelateria'.

I've dipped in and out of most of these issues and am amazed to see so many people still writing, still working away amidst all this uncertainty, myself included. It reminds me that though the present is exhausting and time-consuming it will bring fruit, maybe not not, but soon. 

Seasonal Changes

My garden is a gold splash of autumn, my favourite season. Apples thudding onto the unmowed grass, the buttery sun catching the red leaves of the maples. I have an urge to tidy and gather in supplies, inside and out, to finish harvesting my allotment and ready it for winter, to clear the flower beds of debris, to pack away tools for my winter hibernation. 

With words, I've been kicking through my poems like fallen leaves, noticing a gem here, a spoiled windfall there. I edit a line, I submit a few poems, slowly. There is no urgency with my work, though I know time is running short there as well. My course starts up again tomorrow, I have a book review due in a few days, but I layer words a few at a time, waiting for them to build up into some rich mélange. 

My writing group is planning to go back to face-to-face meetings next week. I can't attend the first one, but with our second wave starting, I have to admit I'm nervous of jumping back into that part of normal life. Not all of it has to do with the virus. I've enjoyed having an online side of my writing life. I've joined mentoring, virtual book launches and workshops in the UK along with my local writing group from the comfort of my home. Being in Finland I wouldn't be able to take advantage of many of these opportunities without the impetus driven by the various lockdowns around the world. 

It's less stressful being online when you have kids and unreliable support, but I also find the social side easier. Seeing everyone in front of me, having to unmute to take my turn makes it easier for me to read social cues. I'm probably still awkward and too vocal, but somehow it's easier to step back and take a moment than when I'm caught up in the pressure of being surrounded by people, trying to find the right time to speak up.

It's a toss-up. I'm afraid online events will dwindle again and I'll be isolated here in my corner of Europe, but it will be good to try and make more local events, now that I've made some connections.  

We'll see what the next few weeks bring, infections are ramping up here, more restrictions coming along. I may not get the chance to see my friends for long, so should maybe jump at it, even masked up. 

Enjoy your week.  

Dipping Back into Poetry

Some weeks, I feel myself moving further and further away from poetry, in order to earn money and care for my family. This isn't a lament. I've been very lucky to be able to take time off to raise my young kids when they needed me, to have a partner who supported me and to be able to use that time to write and build up a publishing record.

But occasionally I do see a ship I'd like to be on sailing away in the distance, a writing course I'd like to attend, an opportunity I cannot even consider. I wave to those lucky enough to take part and I turn back to my substitute teaching, my editing jobs, my attempts to re-train so I can improve my chances of finding work. There's a shadow of regret, but I have always liked a goal, moving towards a purpose, so I hope to make the most of this change of direction. And hard work, I relish a challenge, physical or mental, especially one with people on the sidelines saying I'm crazy for considering it.

I've been accepted into my SEN course, but I can't enroll properly because of someone technical glitch. It doesn't bode well for taking an online course. I'm still waiting to hear about my other course. I also need to figure out if I can teach, study and keep up with the kids. 

But I'm still keeping my toes in the poetry waters, writing occasionally, submitting, attending my poetry group. I've had a group of poems accepted by The Blue Nib this week, so I have that to look forward to. I could never give up writing completely. It always finds a way into my life. 

I've written the starts of two new poems this week. I feel like I'm writing in slow motion. I haven't finished any poems I've started this year and only finished 10 from last year. After writing everyday for so much of last year and writing so many poems, it's harder to get back into the flow. Once I actually clear my desk of work and admin, it's difficult to turn my head towards writing. The less attention I give it, the more I have to work at making time for it, to remember to take out my notebook rather than my phone, to not give into the tiredness on Friday night after work and go to my writing group where I usually have a bit of time beforehand to write. 

I'm back to where I was a year and a half ago when writing was work. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but it didn't come naturally, each line had to be pulled from me and shaped, rather than just me falling into a rhythm of writing as soon as I sat down.

Difference is, I know what is possible now. I couldn't believe then that I could write a draft of a poem daily, that it could be easy. Now, I know I need to make the effort to slot it in on days when I'm not teaching. I should also try to adapt to writing in the evening when the kids are in bed, but it's never been a natural time for me to work. But I've proven that this old horse can learn new tricks, so it won't hurt to try. 

I need to take advantage of the kids being out for another hour or so and do some proper writing. Enjoy the beginnings of spring. 

Stepping Up

I've said several times on these pages that I needed to be brave and do more poetry readings here in Finland. I've also mentioned the yearly poetry event here in Helsinki, Runokuu, Poetry Moon. I've been unable to motivate myself to actually take any steps forward to organise a reading for myself, so Runokuu has been nice enough to make an online application form for this year's event. 

I'm still trying to convince some of the poets and spoken word writers in my writing group to do a larger event with me, but I've applied individually to promote my chapbook which will hopefully be published this summer. It's not a guaranteed event, but I'm happy that Runokuu has opened this process to make it easier to apply. The form is in English and Finnish which is a relief as I think the one year I managed to write an email in English to the organisation, offering my help in whatever way they saw fit, I never received a response, possibly because of the language. 

Besides my group this week, sketching out the beginning of a poem in one of my breaks and submitting to one journal, I haven't managed much poetry-related. Besides Twitter. I have filled my Twitter feed with a mix of magazines, established and emergent writers. Some just comment on the world, many promote their books and readings, some post snippets of their writing, some post poems written by others that they love. I enjoy the latter most. I don't buy as many poetry collections as I should and getting them in the local libraries here is almost impossible if they were written after Shakespeare. So reading online journals and poems selected by other writers is my way of keeping in touch with the poetry world and the writers I enjoy. I can fit it into small pockets of time or scroll by if I don't want to head down a specific rabbit hole. 

It's the skiing holiday break here in Finland. There's been no real snow in Southern Finland this year and we're getting pummeled by the tail end of Storm Dennis, so it's still a very wet, black winter/ spring here. 

But I'm relieved to not be teaching for a spell. I have two editing jobs to finish this week which is exciting and exhausting. I've spent this weekend reading a virology doctoral thesis out loud to make sure I understand as much as I can and don't miss any grammar issues because I don't understand what is being explained. I'm learning a lot, but my eyes, throat and brain are tired. I've broken the back of both projects, so hopefully I'll be able to turn to poetry a little more as the week goes on. 

A Bright Light on a Dark Brexit Day

I haven't had any time to commit to writing this week. I've been subbing full time, trying to sort applications for courses and I've been chasing a new editing client and continuing a project with a previous client. 

But Friday evening, Brexit Day, I managed to stay awake past dinner and go to my writing group for the first time in three weeks. It was great to see the regulars, catch up with a returnee I haven't seen in a year or so and meet the newbie. I shared a couple of poems I liked, but knew weren't quite working and got helpful feedback, so hopefully I'll find some time this weekend to tweak them. 

I forget how much I enjoy the camaraderie of other writers, especially foreign writers here in Finland. We're a good mix of nations, last night there were British, American, Hungarian, Romanian and Jamaican writers attending. We usually have a Finn or two as well. We went out for a drink afterwards, to talk shop, politics and just generally blether. We may not agree on everything politically and I was grateful the conversation did not turn to Brexit, but I feel we can actually debate and break open subjects that touch on writing, teaching, literature and being immigrants.

Though the other writers and I are on different paths in our writing careers, there are few poets in the group, it's nice to have a small community to share worries, successes and struggles. If someone asks, how do you decide when a piece is finished, there are lots of different points of view and stories shared, poems that get rehashed to death, stories that never get finished. They understand. I'm so glad I've managed to find this in a place where I can't properly engage with the local literature because my language skills just aren't up to it. Even if I can't make it every week, I know it's there when I have time. 

I'm not sure how Brexit will change things in the UK, in Scotland specifically and here in Finland. There's this sense of dread over the social media posts from my Scottish friends back home, from the British immigrants I know here. The closed minds that have initiated Brexit are having their moment, but I hope that some sort of balance will quickly be established.  I hope Scotland gets independence. I hope the hate that started all this doesn't continue to gain momentum in the UK and in Europe.

I'm not British, not European, but my children are. They don't understand Brexit and what is being taken away from them, but I do. They don't see borders, nationalities, they don't worry about immigration regulations, residence permits. Finland, Europe is their home. They have Finnish friends and friends from all around the world and they don't separate them except by which language they speak. If asked, they don't know if they're British or Finnish or where their friends' families are originally from and don't see why it would be a concern. I want to keep that acceptance. I want them to find a place, a group of people where it doesn't matter where they're from, but they can share a common passion in their interests. 

Only time will tell.

Take the Good with the Bad

I've had five poems published on the Dodging the Rain online magazine. The site is beautifully laid out, but I also like the fact that they publish a larger selection of poems from each poet and the poems I've read seem to flow so well together and it gives a really immersive feel for the poets' work. I'm pleased to have my work included.

I'm feeling even more isolated than with my last post, Twitter may not be good for me. It does have its good sides; finding out about calls for submissions and upcoming opportunities, but often I cannot take advantage of the grants, readings, etc, because I'm in the wrong place. I'm not bothered by other poets' successes and actually enjoy seeing them, but my lack of a local writing circle and opportunities being an English poet in Finland means I don't have those chances myself. But I'm trying not to wallow and figure out ways to help myself.

Writing has always been a more solitary occupation which I'm fine with in terms of the actual process, but social media means that writers can connect and share their experiences and opportunities through blogs and places like Twitter. 

I'm enjoying being part of the Poetry Blogging Network, reading different blogs and seeing how we're alike in so many ways with how we deal with issues that affect writers and artists. I enjoy my writing group when I can attend, though that's been more difficult lately and things will quiet down over the summer. I need to find a way to find out about and be more involved in local writing events, readings, book launches, but it's difficult with my toddler Finnish skills. I'm considering organising something myself, but it's still just a thought at the moment.

But enough of the negative, my American Submittable magazine submissions keep getting rejected, but a slow trickle of UK acceptances continue to come in. I've had more acceptances and publications this year than I can ever remembers, so I am thankful and will keep chugging on. 

My April GloPoWriMo Assessment

April is finished, thank goodness, it's been a tough month for a variety of reasons. Now I can do a review of my efforts over GloPoWriMo, the Global Poetry Writing Month - my attempts to write at least one, sometimes two poems a day for my two online courses. 

I wrote 22 poems that I consider done or almost done and 12 poems that still need a lot of work or will probably never make it past draft stage. There are also some drafts that I couldn't see going anywhere, so I haven't counted them. That's just over 30, so I'm very pleased with that. Some days I wrote nothing, some I wrote two, but I sat down regularly enough to have a poem-a-day for the month. 

Forcing myself to write a rough draft of a poem a day has pushed me to not avoid difficult subjects, to delve deeper into moments that have weight for me, but might not necessarily be an interesting telling on the face of it at first. I have pushed myself to write even when I'm not in the mood or don't like where my writing is going. Sometimes just ranting on the page or exploring those emotionally charged subjects helps me to deal with them in a healthier way than bottling them up and letting them fizz inside me until I explode over nothing. 

The online courses have also allowed me to join in a wider virtual community of writers, in the UK and Ireland. We support each other in the rough draft stages, but we also celebrate when we have poems published and do a bit of networking when opportunities come up. It's nice to see familiar names in journals and know that you will also be remembered when they scroll or flip past your work. Being so far away from my writing groups and publishing work in Scotland, from the collectives I spent so long finding my space in, it's reassuring to have that sense of community again but also to not just be a lone voice in the writing darkness. 

I've gone back to one of the online pages that the tutor has left open for former participants and will continue to try and write a daily poem draft there to keep up my momentum and to keep my mind focused. Writing daily has also meant I have more poems to submit, so am getting more work published and have a better chance of being seen by publishers. Just need to find one to take one of my collections. 

It reminds me a lot of my friend who decided to try running to lose weight. She didn't necessarily enjoy it, but after a few days she liked the idea of keeping track of how many days she had done in a row. It became an obsession with her, not to miss a day, even if that meant mostly walking or going on a treadmill, she did her run every day. Last I heard the number was in years rather than days. She's run a few marathons, lost tons of weight and now really enjoys it. Sometimes it's something as simple as watching the numbers that keep you going. I don't track every day I write, but I do track how many poems I write each year, how many I submit and how many get rejected or published. I enjoy seeing those numbers tick upwards as well as finishing a poem and knowing it works. 

I hope you find whatever works for you, to keep you writing. Keep on trucking. 

A Voice Not Taken

Last week was our skiing or spring holiday for schools, so all the kids were home most of the time, often with extras. I tried to keep up with my daily prompts, but  I didn't get a chance to blog. And while my writing routine was sadly out of whack, I did manage to write all except one of my poems some time during the day. The one I didn't manage is because I haven't thought of an approach to the prompt and haven't had the time to just free-form write about it until I figure something out. 

I've gotten a few rejections over the past two weeks, but no acceptances. One magazine The Seventh Quarry published two of my poems in their latest edition. Nice to have that drop into my post box, I just need to find some time to peruse the work.

I workshopped some poems in my writing group on Friday and took a poem that I had a very specific question about. The prompt I wrote it for was to use a photograph taken in a war zone and write a poem where we use the voice of one of the people in the scene. I chose a photo from the 1960s in Northern Ireland from this collection, where the family are all dressed up walking past razor wire and a British soldier with his finger on his rifle's trigger. I chose the young girl's point of view. 

The poem I wrote was ok, but needed some tweaking, but that wasn't my main question to the group. I wondered whether it was appropriate to assume to understand that person's feelings, thoughts and motivations from a picture and to write a poem in her voice. I felt uncomfortable trying to imagine how she must have felt, having no connection with the Troubles or Northern Ireland. 

One person on the course suggested it was cultural appropriate to put on these 'voices' without a true understanding of the situation and the people we were depicting. And I kind of get where they were coming from. It didn't feel right to pretend to understand that girl. I had imagined she was scared and worried and just want to grow up in a non-threatening world and while I probably wasn't totally wrong, but at that time there was so much going on under the surface that I could never truly comprehend. Maybe she felt protected by the soldier rather than threatened, maybe she agreed with their presence, maybe he was just like a policeman on the beat to her.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get my writing group to really discuss this subject really due to lack of time. In the end, I think I've decided to put the poem aside. It doesn't feel right, I wouldn't feel comfortable sending to a publisher in Ireland or Northern Ireland where I send a lot of my work. So it'll go into hibernation. Maybe I'll see a way around my issues at a later time. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for imagining to be other characters or to use other voices in my writing and have used imaginary characters or people from my family's past before. But this issue is so layered and sensitive and volatile that I don't think I could write from their point of view, just as I couldn't imagine being a person of colour or to have a disability or major illness and do them justice by pretending to understand what they were going through. 

It's an interesting prompt to try and take on the voice of a character other than yourself for poetry. We do it all the time for fiction, but poetry seems to lean more towards the intensely personal for the author. I would avoid attempting it with this sort of subject matter, but taking a mythical, fictional or historical figure or a totally made up character can help push your awareness of this writing style. Give it a try. 

Slow January

It's cold. Bitter blue skies, Finnish cold. I hate it, but it's a good excuse to sit under blankets with tea and write poetry. About hating the cold.

Not much else going on this week beyond the usual attempt at a poem a day and submissions. I've written around 12 poems out of the 21 prompts for Angela Carr's course so far. I've missed a few days due to lack of inspiration or lack of time, but I'm happy with my efforts. I've also signed up for Wendy Pratt's next online course which is called Poems to Save the World. It will have a more social-minded theme than I'm used to, but it could be a good challenge for me as I don't usually write that kind of poetry. 

I made it to my writing group on Friday after a few weeks away, it was full up with some new faces as well which is nice to see. Probably full of new year's resolutions to get back into writing. I hope they stick around. I got some good feedback on my poems. 

I've also sent some poems to Helena Nelson of HappenStance  Press as part of her reading window for subscribers where she will give feed back on 6 poems (3 if you're abroad). Her comments are always very helpful and insightful. The window is open twice a year and it's worth the small subscriber fee. Subscribers also get a discount on purchases from the press. 

I took advantage of my subscriber discount to buy Gerry Cambridge's The Dark Horse - The Making of a Little Magazine, about his work editing the Scottish/American literary magazine which has been around for almost 30 years. 

I worked briefly with Gerry when I was in Scottish publishing and it was lovely to read his memories of some of the writers I also had contact with during my time, Philip Hobsbaum, Edwin Morgan, Angus Calder. It was like being back. He also has great insight on the processes of running a magazine, right down to his thoughts behind his type-setting choices. It kind of made me miss the work, but I think it's probably rose-tinted on my part. Publishing not an easy job in any sense.

Hope you're warmer than I am.

What I'm Reading Now and Ticking Along

I'm still trying to do the daily prompt and one way I'm getting ideas is Karl Ove Knausgård's book Autumn, a collection of vignettes written to his unborn daughter about every day items. He writes about apples or jellyfish, badgers, plastic bags and labia among other things. It's a quiet, meditative book, nothing shocking or earth-shatteringly beautiful but it has a lovely reflective feel to it and sometimes the language is hauntingly beautiful and melancholic. I carry it about and read it in short bursts in waiting rooms. There's three more in the series that I might get, following the names of the seasons, but it really makes me want to read his My Struggle series which is also autobiographical.

Anyway, I'm occasionally taking the subject of one of his sections and using that as a prompt for my own writing. Sometimes I get a poem, other times I just spend the time writing with no final output. I like the fact that I'm keeping up with writing practices, not every day, but often enough that I don't feel like I'm wasting my writing time. The poems are still coming, not daily like with the course, but one or two a week which I'm happy with. 

Otherwise, it's just back to the normal writing, editing, submitting, attending my writing group. I'm only working on poetry though we had a craft week on Friday discussing dialogue. We did a short writing exercise and it reminded me why I'm not working on my novel right now. I just can't get a feel for it at the moment, the characters just feel so tangled up, I can't get a hold on them or their motivations. So I'm happy to continue on with my poetry until I see a way out. It's still percolating in the back of my head, but I'm not really giving it any paper time.  

Enjoy your week. 

Post-Course Slump

Once the prompts stop, there's this emptiness. What do you do in the morning if you're not trying to write to a prompt? How do I start a poem on my own again? 

Silliness, I know. I have a bunch of books to look up my own prompts from. I can still sit down every morning and write regardless. I have been trying to when schedule permits. But there is a sense of loss when a good course closes down. The pressure of deadlines, the camaraderie of the other students' responses, their own writing and the discussions of writing in general, the push to write.  

The community is what I miss most. Writing is a solitary pursuit a great deal of the time. Finding a good writing group or course, one that fits your needs, your schedule, your style can be difficult. Writing groups can go for years at a slow trot, but sometimes you get a really good mix of people who just click, who know how to respond and encourage you to improve your writing and it's like a burst of adrenaline. 

Once the course stops or the writing group ceases to be as useful, what is a writer to do? Find another course or group, continue to slog on until you can build up your own momentum. 

I've created writing groups from members of courses that have really worked well. In Scotland we had a good fiction group that was formed after a course. It lasted for several years until we moved abroad. We met once a month and shared full chapters. It was a really positive and creative atmosphere. It's been nice to see a couple of the members get worked published since then. 

I'm slogging on until February when the next course begins. I decided against the more intensive course in January because it is more structured, but starts with the basics. While it never hurts to go back and reexamine the fundamentals, it's not what I want to do right now. If you're interested in the course, check this link though be quick as it has limited places and a high interest from members of the previous courses.

I've written 22 poems from the 31 prompts from this last session. I may continue to revisit the ones I haven't completed yet over the next week or so, but I'm pretty happy with that number. I'll continue to tighten those poems up and send them out for submissions. I'm also still working on the my new collection. And still waiting on the old.

And I might even crack out a prompt or two of mine own, just to keep the juices flowing. 

Backtracking - Rewriting Fiction

My second novel was written with no plan, no plot in mind. Just a setting, a character and a question. I let the character travel through her world to find an answer to the question. After the first draft was done, the question had been answered but it wasn't so important to the story anymore. Other questions, problems appeared, new characters became a focus as well.

My second draft has been trying to explore some of the ideas that developed later in my writing and to work in these new threads from the beginning. I've submitted my rewritten chapters to my writing group over the past year and we've reached Chapter Eight recently. Again, my readers asked new questions, showed interest in minor characters, struggled with aspects of the story. So I've been going back over the first seven chapters to makes sure it flowed and there weren't repeats or continuity errors or just problems.

I've also asked another writer to reread all seven chapters together. The problem with submitting 1,500 words at a time to the group that there is often long gaps between sections, as in the summer when I went on holiday, and not everyone can attend every weeks, so readers miss out on parts. Having a reader go over everything up to a certain point can give you good feedback on flow, pacing and development. 

I'm doing the same for another writer as he has also submitted about four chapters of his novel and we've both had the same sort of feedback about slow development. Our group mostly contains fantasy, science fiction genre pieces, so our two novels which are literary fiction, mostly relying on character development for their action rather than fighting or physical activities often feel slow. It's been helpful to get feedback on how things are working so far. 

And now that I have his comments I'm going over the chapters again. I'm also pushing forward with the next section for group this week. Until I get a firmer handle on the story, I'll continue to go back and rework as I move forward. It would have been easier to have a strong plot sorted before I started, but I can't always work that way. For me fiction develops from a grain of an idea and grows, expands as you learn more about the characters and the place you've set them in. It's one of my favourite things about the genre. I'm willing to take the time to move slowly back and forth over my story until I feel it's ready to face the world. 

Rewriting After Rejection

I love to edit my work, I'm always tightening pieces and trying to bring out their best. In the rewriting stage especially, I take on reader's feedback and consider it when working on my novels or poetry. So it's not unexpected that after a big rejection like I had last week that I’ve been looking at my first novel with new eyes. 

Or maybe clearer eyes. I often know when a piece of writing isn't working, but finding a way to fix it is more difficult. I was partially aware that my first novel had some problems. It's not a mainstream novel and my unusual style is difficult for readers to become comfortable with: too poetic, too disjointed, the main character in too many pieces at the beginning to connect with. For years, I have been unable to find a way to approach this without losing how I saw the novel. 

I spent a lot of time last week pondering this. I did some simpler editing based around the problem of using a first-person narrative, too many I's, the sentence structure too similar, but the bigger issues continued to haunt me. How to make the beginning of the novel more approachable, but not lose my poetic sense of the novel?

I'm not sure if it's going to fix the problem, but I've decided to give it a go. I'm taking a person from the main character's past who is referred to in flashback scenes and bringing him forward and building a foundation from which the main character can fall into her disjointed state. I'll try to reduce the scenes from what is now the beginning, so that they are shorter and hopefully by embedding them in the foundation it will feel less of a jump for the reader. 

It will involve writing a substantial new chunk for the beginning and doing a lot of rewriting to make everything mesh. 

I'm not totally chucking my original. It might still find a home at one of the other publishers where it languishes in a slush pile. And I might hate the rewrite, so will want to go back to the original or start again from there. 

When the feedback is negative, it's not necessary to immediately jump to rewriting. Sometimes you have to valiantly cling onto your novel or poem with all your might until you find the right magazine or publisher. But if there's a niggling feeling that they might be right, it's worth exploring other options. Or if the same feedback comes back time and time again, you might need to admit it's a problem that needs to be fixed. 

Sit back and let the readers' comments and criticism sink in. Some questions to ask yourself. 

Is there a basis for their comments? Can they back it up with examples?

How will it improve the piece: help the readers' understanding, improve the saleability, etc?

How much does it change the original concept?

Is it a fix-it from the reader?

How dramatic and time-consuming is the change?

How do you feel about changing this?

I've mentioned 'fix-its' before when I was writing about criticism from writers' groups. It is when a reader suggests how you should 'fix' a problem your piece of writing. I am wary of these because the reader makes it personal, fixing the story to their needs. Sometimes the suggestion is good, but I prefer when the criticism is more about what they feel doesn't work, rather than how to fix it. I want to figure out my own way, do it in my style. Point out my story needs more suspense or hooks, don't suggest I should have my character get pregnant or have her mother abuse her. These are real life suggestions I've received for my current novel. Comments from readers can sometimes be very blunt. 

I've been sitting on this finished novel for ten years with the feeling that it wasn't quite right and that it wouldn't find a market as is. I'm at the stage where I'm happy to consider playing around with other ideas. 

In the end, it's your story or poem, you have to be proud to send it out, to see it with your name on it. 

Well, back to the rewriting. Best of luck. 

Three Years On

I'm useless at waiting, so need to distract myself.

Going back to look at the first posts in this blog has reminded me how far I've come in the past three years since I reminded myself I AM a Writer and that I should just get writing again. I had been wallowing, delaying, allowing myself to be distracted, putting in the minimum effort and receiving no payback.

Three years on I'm writing regularly, sending out submissions constantly, in a writing group, applying for grants. I've finished my poetry collection, sent two books to publishers (hence the waiting) and am actually feeling like a writer again. It has boosted my confidence in myself and in my writing. 

I've had to remind myself to sit down and write, just like I have with students before. Not just that first few weeks, but over and over again the past three years. On days when I just want to crawl back into bed, after a big pile of rejections, when I want to sit on my phone in waiting rooms instead of pulling out a pen and notebook, when I have a million other things that seem more important. I need to make the time.

I try and treat it like a job where I'm required to go to my desk every week day. Weekends with all the kids home is just too difficult, but I still manage sometimes. I set myself goals: the 100 rejections, my to-do list, to finishing my collection, bringing a section to my writing group when I attend and then rewriting it the next week. 

I still have setbacks, where I'm frustrated by so few acceptances, by the lack of inspiration, by my slow progress. I kick myself and go back to the words. Just spending time, writing without worrying about where it will lead is often enough to get me going again. 

It's been slow forward movement, but I hope that I can keep it up and soon begin to see more positive results. I'll keep pushing forward and try not to get bogged down in the waiting. 

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. 

Creative Writing Degrees - Are They Worth It?

When I was a lass in the United States, looking for a University to call my own, there were no such things as creative writing degrees or MFAs and such. 

Well, there were, but I didn't know about them, didn't know I would be interested in that sort of thing in the future. They were definitely there: the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop has been around since 1936 and it's just down the road from where I grew up and the University of Montana near where I went to University is even older. I had never heard of them or any creative writing degrees.

I wanted to be a writer but had been thinking along more practical lines. I signed up for a Wildlife Biology major with an English minor. I wanted to write for National Geographic, be the next Farley Mowat. OK, maybe not exactly practical. After a year and a half of this, I realised for various reasons that Wildlife Biology was not the field for me and switched to an English major. The University I attended didn't have a creative writing degree programme, but you could focus your degree electives on creative writing (or pre-law or education). So I doubled my focus on literature and creative writing. I attended every workshop and lecture I could fit in, every reading held in the town. I joined a writing group through the University. I loved it, but by the time I heard about creative writing degrees, I was looking more to leaving the country rather than continuing my education. I signed up to a literature M.Phil in Scotland and the rest is history.

To be honest, looking back on my writing then I think I would have struggled to get a place on a MFA. My writing wasn't really that good and the programmes available out there were few and elite. Or so they seemed. 

So I slogged away on my own, writing away every free moment I had. I had no real goal in mind, I just needed to write. I craved it, and used it to remember and celebrate the good times as well as sift through difficult situations. 

I was lucky enough to work in publishing early on where I got a first-hand look at rejection and publication from the other side. This gave me the confidence to start trying to get my poems published.

Around the late 90s, I realised how popular creative writing courses were and how they could benefit writers. I couldn't really afford a course, I needed to work, editing, waitressing, freelancing with teaching and other things. I didn't have a lot of free time. I slowly started getting my work published, took the occasional evening course, joined lots of writers' groups and workshops over the years and eventually began to teach them. 

All the time, I was glancing at the creative writing degrees popping up in Scotland, first St Andrews, I think, and then Glasgow and Edinburgh. I saw the success of writers connected with these programmes and wondered if it would be worth my while to join one. 

Doing a creative writing degree, at any level including a PhD, has its major benefits. First of all, you suddenly have a tribe. No more the lonely writer in the garret. Well, yes, writing is still a solitary activity, but you have workshops to share your work, events to attend, like-minded people to talk to and most importantly teachers and mentors to guide your writing. You can get a bit of this from writers' groups and working hard to be in the literary scene, but walking into an already established programme saves a lot of hard work. 

The tribe follows you once you've completed the course. There are literary magazines that focus on publishing students and alumni of certain writing programmes and 'who you know' is as important in the publishing world as it is in any other field. Friends and colleagues promote and recommend each other, of course they do. 

You also get time to focus on your writing, to really break it down to learn the underpinnings of poetry and fiction and to discover and develop your own themes and interests. You write analytical essays on your own work as well as literary examinations of other writers. This time and focus can be so beneficial to improvement, but I'm sure it can also lead to burnout. I know after spending 3 years dissecting writers I loved to learn their techniques in my literature degrees, I sometimes grew out of love with them. It must be more difficult if it's yourself and your own work. 

In a degree course, you get used to criticism and rejection as well. Not every piece will be perfect and you'll learn to recognise this and hopefully how to avoid or repair the problems probably faster than a self-taught writer. Good teachers will give a balance of support, encouragement and criticism. 

There are negatives, of course. Degrees can be expensive and in no way guarantee success. It's not just writing your own poems or stories, you have to read tons of other people's work, and do proper essays and thesis just like regular university degrees. That's one thing that's put me off. I don't want to go back to university after having done two degrees already. I want to focus just on my own writing. And just because you walk away with a MFA or whatever in creative writing it doesn't mean your writing is good or sellable. 

And just because the tutors and lecturers and visiting writers are hopefully established and experienced it doesn't mean they will give you the best feedback for your writing. They are human and have their own interests and styles which may not mesh well with yours or with teaching in general. I've attended workshops from 'names' that were a waste of time because the visiting writer was drunk or had something else going on which were not helpful to giving feedback to novice writers. I've been shouted at, and had poems torn apart in public with no consideration for my inexperience. I've also had poems praised to a false level which also didn't help me in the future as I thought I was good when I really needed more critical guidance. 

The explosion of creative writing degrees over the past 30 years also means your tribe becomes your competition. Universities continually churn out new 'writers', but publishing houses are publishing less, rarely taking on new names. With the internet, e-books and on-demand publishing anyone can publish their own books, so chances are you will be lost in the crowd if you self-promote. Jobs for writers like writer-in-residence or creative writing teaching posts are rare and highly competitive and with the economic downturn community groups and arts funding agencies are cutting back on supporting them. 

I know a few writers who have done very well after finishing their writing degrees, but I also know that they were good before they started the course. I'm sure the course improved their skills and saleability but was it necessary to help them along? I'm also sure that lots of graduates from these degrees drop off the map. You'll find examples on both sides of the aisle, those who have succeeded after creative writing degrees, those who have done so off their own backs and those who have failed whatever their background. Would I be doing better in my own career if I attended a creative writing programme? No one can really say. 

It really is a personal choice. Creative writing degrees can translate into other careers, the skills of improving your writing, and being able to read, analyse, comprehend and critique written text are essential in many careers. So it's not necessarily a waste to attend one, but it's also not always the most beneficial move. It might be the boost your writing needs, but they are a huge commitment and not for the faint-hearted. 

I'd love to hear from those who have a creative writing degree. Did it help or hinder you? Would you recommend it?