Breath and the Poet

I've been thinking about the poetic breath this week, how poets use punctuation and line breaks to direct the reader. I've been reading my own collection out-loud, listening for mistakes and difficult phrasing, but also how the speed of the poem is directed by these little internal controls. I've also recorded a couple of poems recently which requires you to slow them down even more for clarity. 

A poet in my writing group said he uses line breaks like punctuation, but then we noticed he used both randomly in his poem we were discussing and when he didn't pay attention to it, it lead to confusion for me. I'm not sure if he'll change it, but it was good to discuss.

Some poets are hyper-aware of how they use punctuation and line breaks to add emphasis and control how the poem is read. I enjoy this, read their work out-loud, measuring how I read to their layout. Short or long lines, big pauses and smaller intakes of breath, commas, full stops, line ends, it lends life to the poem that isn't always felt on the page.

I'm wary when reading other poets' work of placing my values on how they create pauses for breath in a poem. I read a poem this week that seemed so badly broken up for no reason that it made it painful to follow, sentences broken repeatedly across stanzas it seemed just to keep the two stanza format going. It made me wish to hear the poet read his own poem, so I could understand how he envisioned the poem. 

It's worse when editing, so if I query a comma or line break in a poem, I have to stand back and look at it without my own poet's lenses on. Usually, I discuss it with the author just to make sure it's not my voice I'm imposing on their poem. 

I often tell my writing students to use their layout and punctuation wisely, keep line endings strong so the image or sound carries to the next line, unless you're making a point by breaking it on a less poignant word or mid-sentence. But I realise that this is a personal thing, not every poet follows the same rules, just like some poet like to capitalise each line of a poem, mid-sentence or not. 

And I'm aware I'm not always great at it myself, sometimes I get caught up in the image or how the format is working that I forget to listen to how my poem sounds when it's read. Sharing my work out at my group is often most helpful just because I hear where it's going wrong with the line breaks and rhythm. Having a dramatist in the group is also beneficial for this as he is quick not notice stumbles as well.

It's something to play with, to ponder, to challenge oneself with as a poet.

For a GloPoWriMo challenge, focus on the breath in a poem. Pick a moment where breath is essential or obvious and write about it for 15 minutes. You could try and reproduce that feeling of breathlessness after a run or the faltering proposal of a shy teenage asking for a date or the adrenaline-fueled excitement of a rave. 

Then take some time reshaping the poem, so you direct the reader's breath as they move through your sentences. How can changing the line length, adding pauses through punctuation or line breaks affect the reading of your poem? Can you control how it's read or where the emphasis is placed? 

In GloPoWriMo news, I've started a few poems this week, but not every day as expected. Some days it was just scribbled notes, other times I've managed to sketch a rough draft of a poem. 

I've taken to using poetry as my 'pause. be.' time. Our school counsellor runs a lesson where she teaches the kids breathing and calming techniques. I take myself into a corner a write poetry as a way to decompress. I've never been able to meditate as my brain is always firing at full blast, so this seems a good compromise. 

How's your GloPoWriMo going?

April is the . . . Month - #GloPoWriMo

It's Global Poetry Writing Month again and while I probably won't be able to write a poem a day this year, because of work, but I'm going to give it a try. I've only written a few new poems this year so far, though I have a huge pile of rough drafts from previous years I've been working on. I'll be happy with any new poems started. There's no pressure to be creative daily, so I'm going to see how each day goes. The snow melting and the air scenting of spring is enough to make me want to try.  

So here's a prompt for the week to begin with, inspired by Kelli Russell Agodon's (@KelliAgodon) tweet about T S Eliot's early drafts of The Waste Land. The final draft started his cycle with 'April is the cruelest month . . . ' but is it? 

Use this line as a jumping off point for a writing exercise. What does April mean to you? Is it the cruelest month or does some other emotion overrule April? What month is the cruelest, if not April? What do the months' names evoke to you, their etymology or just your personal relationship with them. Look at each month individually or just focus on just one. 

There are more prompts available on NaPoWriMo website. You can also use the online collection of the The Metropolitan Museum in New York as inspiration. Get scribbling. 

I'm also going to be doing more editing in April. I'm working with poet Willie Gowans on his new poetry collection Glimpses which includes evocative illustrations by Ann Terris. It's been nice getting back into book design and editing. Strange and fun also to be working with Zoom to go over corrections as Ann is in Scotland and Willie in England, but it's becoming kind of second nature now after a year of virtual lockdowns. Hopefully the bursting of spring will give me more energy to bring it to fruition. 

I also hope to get back to doing a few book reviews in the spring as well. The sun always fills me with high hopes. We'll see how it goes. Enjoy the brighter weather.  

Corona Virus Week Four: Filling Time

I almost forgot about this. I haven't lost track of time due to the kids' schooling and their obsession with Easter, but it's trying to keep all the new things I'm juggling. To stay on top of so many projects, my studies, little jobs around the house and my daily writing.

I've managed to keep up so far with my poem of day challenge for GloPoWriMo. I've written eleven first drafts, some about our Corona Virus isolation, but a few other subjects have popped up. It's strange how you can sometimes fine a new way to approach a familiar prompt. I've had the prompt 'green' about four times now in various challenges and I've usually managed to come up with new subjects to write about, sometimes hitting it in a roundabout way like the green-eyed monster of jealousy. It's nice to get back into the flow and it is just that. I often don't have the time and head space to try and write until the evenings, but they just come, lumpy and rough, but I've managed to get the shape of a poem down every day so far.

I need to make a video reading of one of my poems for an upcoming online journal launch. It's nice that the magazine has found a way to launch in this situation and that for once I can 'attend', but I'm not keen on recording myself reading a poem. The audio one I made last week for my poem in Not Very Quiet was difficult enough. I'm not a comfortable reader, so trying to appear natural and calm while I record myself and try and remember my poem will be nerve-wracking. And also finding a quiet space to do it with a houseful of inquisitive and noisy kids will be almost impossible. If the wind would stop blowing so hard and cold, I'd consider doing it outside. I'll link of course once the launch happens. Try not to laugh.

For my poetry writing month poem for this week I thought I'd stick with women from Scotland. I came across Kathleen Jamie through her nature writings before I found her poetry. Her book Findings introduced me to a different side of Scotland while I was first living in high-rise flats in Glasgow. Her poem 'The Tradition' taken from her collection The Bonniest Companie finds a connection with me on many levels, not only it's connection to the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014.

The Tradition

For years I wandered hill and moor
Half looking for the road
Winding into fairyland
Where that blacksmith kept that forge

Who'd heat red hot dragging links
That bound me to the past,
Then, with one almighty hammer-blow
Unfetter me at last.

Older now, I know nor fee
Nor anvil breaks those chains
And the wild ways we think we walk
Just bring us here again.

I'm dreading going back to school work on Tuesday, it's been a nice break with the kids, working in the garden, on crafts. I think we're all tired of the isolation and I've seen a lot of people easing themselves out more due to the nice weather and holiday. The shops were jammed when I went for my weekly stock-up and to the hardware store for repair supplies. I'm afraid we'll see an upturn in infections and deaths in two weeks time. Listen to the guidance and be safe.

An Adventure Begins

I got my wish, even in the midst of a bumpy week with accident, injury, horrible language tests and difficult classes I've managed to get back into the swing of writing, by sticking to a rough routine. Not daily, but when I sit down something comes out. I'm not keeping up with my course's daily prompts, but I have managed most of them. 

We've turned our Halloween pumpkin into a bird feeder and the kids, cats and I are loving it. We've even had a woodpecker come to visit among the normal songbirds. It was cold and snowy for the first part of the week, just a dusting, too much for my liking. Now it's rainy, silver drops hanging off the rowan berries. More my idea of autumn. I'm glad to have a few mornings to scribble at my kitchen table and watch the birds with the cat trying to sleep on my computer. 

My publisher (how great is it to say that!!) Hedgehog Poetry Press sent out my Author's Pack this week to prepare for the publication of my chapbook. So now I'm equal measures terrified and excited to begin work. So much to do, finalising the collection, writing my blurbs and biography, even finding a photographer to take an author photo. We're looking at a summer publication date and I hope to get to the UK to do some readings, so that all needs to be sorted as well. I'm not even sure where to start, but will start whittling down the jobs one by one. 

And we're off.

Creeping into Winter

I have to admit that without the structure of a daily prompt I'm struggling to keep up any momentum with my writing. Even on days I have no outside work, I can't focus. I've been sending out submissions, but new poems haven't been happening and I've barely looked at the ones that need finalising.

I've started a new online daily prompt course this month, but so far the prompts haven't been able to kick me from this doldrum. I'm taking notes and trying to form ideas, but they just don't have any momentum or inspiration behind them. 

It doesn't help that the weather has turned here. The beautiful colours of autumn have been replaced by wet, brown mud and dark skies. We had a couple days of bright frost, but that just reminds me of what is coming. After ten years I still dread the coming cold darkness. It makes everything difficult. I'm at that stage of just wanting to wrap up in wool and hibernate for the next 4 months. So that's what I'm doing tonight, sketching notes on the couch with my cats and a blanket, chocolate and red wine, the rain blashing against the windows. 

I do believe that writing a poem draft a day is an exercise that you have to keep up or it does become a struggle to get back into the rhythm. I sit down currently and my writing feels stiff and lethargic, but I'm continuing to push myself, writing in small silences like this. Hopefully it will loosen up soon.

Scattershot

I've been lucky enough to be asked by poet Paul Brooks to take part in his poet interview series on his blog site, Wombwell Rainbow. Check it out, he's putting up new interviews every day. He's also looking for poets to interview in the future, so contact him via the website if you're interested.

His questions about the inspiration and motivation behind my reading and writing really got me thinking and were strangely echoed in my Finnish language tutorial this week where I had to discuss why reading is important and how it inspires us. Trying to verbalise this in a second language was just marginally harder than for the interview. That's when you learn you don't know the Finnish for inspire, explore and adventure (inspiroi, tutkea ja mielikuvitus). But I didn't even know the Finnish for vocabulary - sanavarasto, a stock or warehouse of words, so I still have a long way to go.

I love breaking words apart, especially words in foreign languages, and learning their etymology and usage. The idea of having a word warehouse in my head feels like the perfect analogy, the words all stored in various boxes and filing cabinents. I'm sure the organisation is an absolute mess, like most of my real-life storage, items organised by need, use and more random connections rather than some systematic method. When I lived with my parents I kept my library card in a laundry basket in the basement. If someone moved it, I could never think where it should sensibly be, but I could always find it with my way. Our own systems work.

So when I look for the word 'door' in Finnish, I know I'd be shuffling through files of Scottish Gaelic to find it. I was just watching a video of the Scottish Poet Laureate/ Makar Jackie Kay reciting her poem 'Threshold' to the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 2016. She mentioned that in Gaelic they say 'dùin an doras' for 'shut the door' and that took me back to learning Gaelic in Glasgow, so many years ago. 'Open the door' was also one of the first phrases I learned in Finnish when my son shouted it over and over at nursery when it was time for me leave. These memories pile up on top of the word 'door' in a wonderful scrapbook.

It's also how my writing works, I start with a prompt, specific or more general and I just follow it where it leads me, jumping from one image or connection to the next. I might look at crafting a poem from the idea of shutting the door in several languages just from writing that paragraph. My poems have begun to cross over into Finnish and other languages more and more as I shuffle through the collected images and memories in my brain while I write. 

My brain is a bit scattershot today. It doesn't help that we're on the last week of our ten-week summer holidays and I'm tired of having the kids home, of having to organise things for them, they're tired of all their friends being away, of having so much unstructured free time. We're sick of each other's faces, but they also want me to be involved in everything. I can't sit and write for longer than 2 minutes without someone asking me how to pour melted white chocolate into a straw to make a fake pen or for money to buy a can of spray whipped cream for the waffles they must have for dinner even though it's lunch-time.

I know I'll regret losing this time when they go back to school and we have to wake up and go to sleep and do everything to a schedule. When I have to pull out my calendar to slot everything in, even time to write. So I'm trying to enjoy these last unstructured days with them and with my writing by starting another poem-a-day course for August on the theme of summer. 

Best wishes for your summer. 

Finding Balance

One word that kept coming up in my recent mentoring discussion with Angela Carr was 'balance' and it's a word I use a lot in my creative writing teaching as well. We as writers struggle to achieve balance in so many different ways.

A poem or story hangs on many fine threads; imagery, background information, action, language, emotion, and the author attempts to keep them all balanced between what the reader needs to understand the piece and what the author themselves desires of their work. If the language is too difficult to follow or the emotion not well-presented or if the writers tells too much, breaking the threads, the connection to the reader can be lost. 

A balance between what is presented on the page and what the reader sculpts from the words in their own mind. A balance between what the author wants the reader to see and what they can lay out with words. All these things carry the weight of the writing and relying too heavily on one or not giving enough attention to another can throw off the poem or story. 

Once I get past the initial rush to lay out images or the plot, I love the fine tuning, the balancing of all the finer points of writing, playing with the language, weighting words by their placement, drawing out imagery. I try to keep the reader in my mind, what they need, how much I want to lead them and how much I want them to run off on their own with my words. But also giving precedence to what I want the poem to do and say. It's a delicate act of balance above the poem while stepping within it. 

Sometimes it works and sometimes I focus too much on what I want, the 'thing' I'm trying to make the poem do that I force it into shape and it shows in its reluctance. This is when I need mentors, writing group companions and other readers to step up and tell me something isn't working. I find it so helpful to have these dialogues because I am mired deeper within my own writing than another reader and often I cannot see where the problem is, even though I may have a sense of their being one.

So even though criticism can be hard to take, it ultimately can help you achieve that balance your writing needs. But it's never easy. 

In other news, three online magazines have featured my work recently The Stockholm Review of Literature which I just stumbled upon, ink, sweat and tears and The Honest Ulsterman. The latter two I've been trying to get into for a while, so was overjoyed when they found something they liked. I'm still wandering through the issues and there is a wide variety of authors and styles to choose from, so I hope you find something you enjoy. Thanks to the hard-working editors and their staff for offering such great opportunities to get writers' work out into the world and for accepting my poems. 

Just a reminder that GloPoWriMo - Global (or National if you're in the US) Poetry Writing Month starts April First and runs the entire month. One of the challenges is to write a poem a day which until this autumn I never thought I could (see links for my thoughts on this two years ago) so I'm going to step up to the challenge, but because I'm an idiot I've signed up for two online writing courses in April - one with Angela Carr and one with Wendy Pratt, both of whom I've mentioned here before as I've done several courses with them. 

Both courses have limited places and are filling up. There is no pressure with either tutor to write a poem a day or to share them on their private Facebook pages (visible only to the writers on the course and the tutor) but they are guaranteed to have a good positive atmosphere and the daily writing prompts are a good way of getting your writing brain working. They both have a small fee, check out the links. 

I have no preconceptions that I'll be writing two poems a day, but I figured between the two daily prompts I should come up with at least one good first draft daily. And anything I don't manage during the month, I can use to keep myself writing afterwards. I hope you think about joining one of the courses or get involved with other GloPoWriMo events, check out the website listed above for activities, prompts and local events. 

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. 

Working Through It

Another tough week. I've tried to focus on the daily writing prompts as a way of getting through it. Some days it worked because the prompt clicked with me, other times I couldn't see past the fog to focus on the prompt or anything at all. But I'm trying to be present at my notebook and computer every day possible. Even if I scratch nothings before giving up. 

I haven't been able to write much about the things going on lately, even in my journal, but I see it sneaking into the poems I'm writing. I'll let it simmer, reach out tendrils when it needs to as I try to work my way through it, in my head and in my writing. 

I have written 20 new poems this year, 12 through this poetry course with another 7 still in progress. That's one more than last year already. So I'm considering the course a success. For a tenner, it's been totally worth it. I will probably take the next one in October which will possibly be about autumn and aging which feels appropriate for the turn in the weather and my emotional mood. I feel I've aged a lot this month. 

I need to get back into my fiction, however. All this focus on poetry has slowed down my work on my current novel. But my writing group is back to a quieter, more serious venue, so I hope to return to bringing my novel sections rather than poems which seemed more appropriate for a busy cafe. Unfortunately, most of us are working on novels or longer fiction, so getting through 4 or 5 longer pieces in a night is difficult. Poems are quicker to discuss and they're getting better at it as most of them are not comfortable with poetry. 

Step Back or Set Back

Sometimes when the writing is going really well, flowing along, life intervenes with a hard smack. I had been writing every day furiously, almost completing a poem a day, working on the fiction as well, but something bigger and more important came up and I had to stop without warning. It felt like all my momentum came smashing up behind me and dropped into emptiness.  

There are times you have to stop and turn your focus away from your writing. There's no point in beating yourself up and adding to your stress. Step away, put your energy where it is most needed. Using regular writing practice as a way of waking yourself into writing means you have the skills to pick it up again. It may take time to bring yourself back up to a good speed, but a break doesn't have to equal an end. 

Writing can also be a way to deal with these big problems life throws at you. I'm not ready yet, but writing out throughts can help sort through the various sides of dilemmas. You can address letters, rants, poems to your present or future self, to the issue itself, to the other people involved or keep a journal of the difficult time. You can also burn everything afterwards if it's too much to hang on to or face again. 

I'm slowly crawling back. I've written a few poems, but some mornings I just sit and stare at the screen with this darkness of the other thing overwhelming me. But I know the words are in me and they will wait until I am ready and they can help pull me through.

A Break and Returning to Routine

I've had a friend visiting from Scotland for half of last week and while I did very little work while she was here. It happens and is to be expected, better yet plan for it.

A break from your writing routine can be a good thing, but only if you remember to push back into it afterwards. Take advantage of the rest and change of scene and people and use the time away from your routine to stimulate your writing. It's easy to slide into being lax, so you must be ready to start back right as soon as possible after your break. 

A change of location is often good. I usually write in the kitchen, occasionally in waiting rooms or cafes. In the past, public transport was a good place for me to write, the monotony of the rhythm and the views if it's a regular trip, but also sense of movement and the flashes of scenery and people. I rarely go on buses now because I am reliant on the car to get the kids to their various venues, so a half hour of scribbling notes to the stop and start hum of the bus while I was heading into town to meet my friend was enough to stimulate my poetic juices which have been buried under fiction for the past few weeks.

I also get a burst of writing adrenaline from talking to new people or ones I haven't seen in a long time, even if it's not about writing. I've had four days of talking to people I haven't spent time with in months or even a year, visiting places I rarely go to. Along with the unusually warm, sunny weather the past week has been a wonderfully exciting change of pace.

So this morning was the disappointing drop back into stressful mornings of getting everyone to school. But after the kids are finally at their various schools, I return home to silence, breakfast, tea and my writing routine.

I should be outside, enjoying the gorgeous weather, I should be sorting out my allotment, I should be cleaning up the house after it's been ignored for four days, but I'm hiding from the birch pollen and writing in the kitchen. Sometimes I just have an hour or two, other days I have longer. I can choose whether to focus on poetry, fiction, submissions or research. I set the rhythm, but the routine is familiar and comforting.

I'll need to look into setting a new routine soon as the kids will be off school at the end of the month. We have a few weeks of summer camps and the littlest still in nursery, but after Juhannus, mid-summer, regular life shuts down in Finland for the slow summer crawl.

The kids will be home all day and I'll struggle to find time to write between finding things to entertain them and catering to their needs. My hope is I can get up relatively early with them and write while they eat and potter around on their screens. Then we can go out in the afternoon and have a quiet early evening at home where I might get a bit more done. We'll see how well it goes.

Enjoy the fantastic weather, if you're getting any, while it lasts. 

Pushing on with GloPoWrMo

I was hoping to get all inspired with Global Poetry Writing Month and work on some half finished poems or start new ones, but I really haven't had a chance to focus at all on poetry, needing to turn back to fiction and my novels. I was finally able to get back to my writing group so had to prep my submission for that and then edit and rewrite the section a few days after their response.

I also submitted a query letter to a publisher for my first novel and received a request to send them the first 50 pages and then the whole novel, so I had to quickly proof-read that and fight my printer to send out a hard copy. 

Now I have a builder with a min-jackhammer working in the room next to where I write, so poetry has taken a bit of a back seat this last week.

But it's never too late to start on new writing. I've found an old file with notes that could be developed into a poem. I've also taken a prompt from Judy Reeve's The Writer's Book of Days and begun to just free write around it with the theme of my notes in mind. 

It always amazes me to watch stream-of-conscious writing happen, especially my own. How my thoughts jump from one subject to the next, the dark corners I explore without meaning to, the jewels that are exposed in the process. The questions that come up are often too difficult to explore in one piece of writing, but are worth using for more writing practices even if I never do anything with them. 

Students who have never done this sort of writing are often worried when they go off theme, but I believe that is where you find the truth of what you want to write. I don't believe you should push a poem to be something you want, when your creative voice is demanding to say something else. It's been my experience that those words will continue to try an come out as much as you want to ignore them. 

I need to listen to my own advice. The dark corner that was revealed with this last writing practice should be explored, but I will do it in my own time. Difficult subjects or moments don't have to be broached immediately and definitely don't need to be shared, but it's worth doing some private writing about them, to see where they take you. 

My list of 'Things I Want to Write' I made back in January is almost all ticked off. I have one poem that's almost finished and one that's still in the sketching stage. I have a vague note about a poem I'd like to write in the future, but not ideas about how to approach it, so that will be transferred to a new list. So I think that will be part of my focus for my writing practice tomorrow, a new 'To Write' list. 

What are you doing for GloPoWrMo?

Writing Pack Rat

Sorry for the radio silence, I've been ill with bronchitis and my computer has been at the shop, so I've been doing the bare minimum.

Since I've been working from my portable hard drive instead of my laptop I've come across some old files I'd forgotten: my Master's dissertation, back-ups of various versions of my books, downloads of notes from websites I'd joined. I've realised I am a writing pack rat, I keep everything. The older I get, the more I hoard.  

It possibly comes from working at the publishers in Edinburgh. While I was there we started putting a lot of the company's materials into the archives at The National Library of Scotland. Old letters, print-outs of old issues, artwork, everything. A relatively well-know Scottish author also died while I was there and we were involved with helping to sort his writing estate for archives. It made me realise how interesting and possibly important it is to keep your work, all the various bits no matter how insubstantial they seem as they build a long-term picture of yourself. 

I've been keeping a journal since I was eleven. I have more than a dozen books between here and our loft in Scotland, ranging from my pre-teen angsting to moving to Europe for the first time to becoming a mother to today. I have an appalling memory and having all these books has been helpful over time to help me fill in blanks from my past, but they are also just interesting. I love going back and looking up what I was doing 5, 15, 15 years ago today. A lot of people I know throw out their old diaries, but I revel in remembering the good and difficult times and also the person I was, warts and all, and how much I've grown. 

I also have kept writing notebooks where I make rough drafts of poems and fiction. I'm pretty sure in my loft, which some day I will empty and bring over here, I have old unfinished stories, poems and novel drafts. Most writers I know hate their early writing and dispose of as much as possible, but I mine through old work for ideas, I reread and laugh at my crazy ideas or poor style. 

I have a file on my computer where I was writing a diary of my gardening work over a couple of years. I have downloads of notes when I first noticed my son having some physical health issues and was sharing it with an online group. I have also started memory books for my children. I am obsessed, I admit it. 

I said in an early journal that I was writing for my future grand-daughter even though I thought I'd never want kids. Now, I don't know who I'm saving all this for, beyond myself. Maybe my children will never be interested in who I was as a child or a young adult, in how my writing developed over the decades. I doubt a National Library will ever want to archive my work. Maybe I will turn it into something, an autobiography or something in my golden years. But there it is, a mountain of paper and Word files, my life in letters. Waiting and growing. 

Making Writing Fit into Your Life

Last week was our half-term spring holiday and all the kids were home for most of the week. Luckily I had my blog post written because I know that even if they give me a bit of peace I don't write well with others in the house. 

My kids are not quiet by a long shot and even if they're playing nicely they are shouting, singing, stomping. They demand a million cups of milk (just one child), need someone to break up disputes, to help them fix or find toys, to put on plasters and remind them to eat or clean up one mess before starting on the next. They need regular exercise and getting out of the house. Damn, they need a lot of supervision.  

I love my kids and the chaos in some ways, but I like to write in silence. I was berated recently in an online group because I said I didn't listen to music when I wrote. Really, do people need such strong opinions on everything? I don't listen to much music in general besides in the car, but even background music distracts me too much to focus on my writing, especially poetry.

Over years of writing I have developed various routines that have changed with my circumstances. I used to write on trains and buses when I was commuting a great distance for work. When I lived in Greece I woke up early and sat at the window looking out over the sea before going to teach all afternoon and some evenings. I love to write in cafes and museums when I'm at home and when I'm travelling.

I've always written in notebooks and for the last 20 years or so with the same type of pen, but have recently widened this to include a laptop for fiction. Transferring pages and pages of scribbles can be quite time-consuming and that has become the biggest problem of my life since having kids: finding time for my writing. 

I was once many moons ago granted a bursary to finish my first novel. So for a short period, I became a full-time writer, or my version of it. I went to my allotment first thing after I woke (not early though, let's be realistic) and after working there for a bit I wrote in the greenhouse or if the weather was nice in the fresh air. Then I would go home, have lunch, write some more and then type out all my pages. I would also edit earlier chapters. Then it was time to be a grown-up and sort dinner, etc. I loved it, the rhythms of my days, the amount of work I could churn out, the sense of purpose. 

Now, I average about 3 hours a day if I'm lucky and that time has to include things like cleaning the house and prepping food for meals. I write my blog, write and edit poetry, my poetry collection and novel. I also submit work to magazines. I don't have time to linger among the brassicas before writing a chapter and then spend 2 hours typing it out again when I return home. I write poems between making soup and doing laundry. I submit poetry before I pick up my son for physio. I write in the physio's waiting room. I have a regular half hour of writing practice in a gluten-free bakery's cafe while waiting for my kids to finish their music lessons. I've written a lot of rough drafts in that cafe in the 4 years my son has been learning the guitar. 

It's not my ideal, but I have to make it work. I will never get back to those heady days of being a full-time writer. I'm lucky I don't have a full-time job on top of the kids at the moment, so I can carve out those three hours here and there. 

I carry my notebook with me everywhere and sometimes even write notes on my phone. I try to be strict about my writing time, don't browse on my phone until I've done the specified time. I keep a pen and paper next to my bed as I sometimes get ideas for lines or structure while I'm drifting off.

I know what works for me. I write at the kitchen table because I'm usually having to jump up to sort something on the stove. I also like the light in that room. I write first drafts of poems in my notebook over and over again until I have a strong basic structure. Then I type it up on the computer. I don't listen to music unless I need to get the feeling or the lines of a particular song for my novel. Then I listen once before heading back to silence. I work in spurts, taking short breaks to do something else, usually cleaning or maybe check FB for five minutes. I switch a lot between what I'm working on, so can do poetry, fiction and submissions all in the same morning.

It's taken me a long time to work out my writing habits and I've had to adapt and start over several times. You have to find what works for you. Try different locations, even around your own house. You don't need a desk, but sometimes it works best. 

Try different mediums, paper, laptop, large whiteboard for plotting. Try silence, with music or telly on in the background. Try long and short blocks of time. Write while communting or in places you wouldn't think of like waiting rooms, in soft play or in bed. 

Try different times of day. You might think you are a night owl, but by the time it rolls around you are too mentally exhausted to write anything of quality. So try early-ish in the morning, before your family awakes, before work. Or try after dinner when everyone's occupied by their own things. 

Make time for it and be flexible.

Back in the Saddle Again

Writing a weekly blog is as difficult as I thought . . . thanks for all the readers who have come through the Poetry Bloggers Revival Tour. It's pushed me to keep going. I've also read some really interesting bloggers in the group, so I'd definitely recommend wandering through the list on the link above.

My scheduled writing time last week didn't go to plan, but that's not unusual. I got a page written when my son showed up in a panic and I had to help sort his problem. Once we managed that, my daughter's lesson had finished and that was the end of my writing time.

I went to my writing group though which is always a boost to my writing mood. I also edited and rewrote my submitted chapter to my group's helpful comments. I wrote a film review for my other blog. I'm still chugging away at the two poems I need to finish and I found two images in my head that are probably the beginnings of something or a couple of somethings. So the week wasn't a total loss. Sometimes you have to accept the little wins, they can lead to bigger things.

For me, the more I write, the more the writing comes to me. It's like priming a well to get the full flow. So I scribble a few minutes in waiting rooms and cafes, at night when my thoughts are all over the place even though it feels like nothing will come of the half-coherent pages. 

Today I sat down at my scheduled writing time and wrote 3 pages, most of it the beginnings of a poem from one of those ideas that was percolating last week. I also managed to write out a new list of things I want to write: a few poems to finish, but also ideas for 3 new ones. 

My poetry is a slow process, sometimes I'll write a line or two on a poem in a day or tweak a few words or structure and that's it. I once submitted 2 poems for a themed anthology and the editor, a bit of a legend in American poetry, said he wanted 10 pages for my submission, so could I whip up another 8 in few weeks. I was amazed he thought that was possible, but everyone's process is different. 

I like having several projects to work on at one time, so I can move about a bit when the inspiration slows up. I also switch between fiction and poetry, writing and editing, blog, personal and creative writing. I may not get as much done as someone who sits for hours on their novel or turns out poem after poem in a day, but I've found a writing process that works for me and sometimes that's half the battle. 

I finally feel like I'm ready to push into 2018 properly. 

Getting Out of a Rut

Getting started writing again after the long Christmas break has been difficult; moving past all the admin I need to catch up with, organising the family, the gray weather and a general feeling of malaise and being unfocussed. I haven't been able to attend a writing group in ages because of illness, cancellation, house guests. All just excuses, however legitimate they may be.

It's easier to edit, to submit to magazines, to write this blog, to do organisational work. It all needs to be done, but for my own writing mental health I need to be putting new words on a blank page. I have the time, a new notebook waiting for me, two poems I need to finish, but I have no new ideas and no motivation.

What is your motivation? It's not always clear. Some writers require a goal to aim for: the next project, a deadline, a collection to finish. I have those. Some are pushed from behind: a need to say something, a character that demands to be heard, a poem ready to be born. This is how I ususally work, but I'm not feeling the pressure at the moment. So I need to step out of my normal routine to shake something new loose.

How do you find motivation when it's lacking? Writer's block is the grand, scary term often used. It can be a problem for some writers. Sometimes when you finish a piece, it's hard to get going again. I find that after I finish a draft of a novel, I've run out of energy to start something new. I do need some time to relax and reset my mind. I've reached that point with my poetry. I've basically completed all the poems I had planned, so am scrabbling around for new ideas. 

Even mid-project when the writing has been flowing well you can just stall. It can be your brain sabotaging your work by being overly self-critical or just anxious about what you're trying to say. Then you just need to ignore the voice of your internal critic and just keep writing. 

Sometimes the piece you're trying to write just isn't working and you need to take a step back to evaluate. You can let it simmer unheeded for a bit and work on something different, but if you leave it for too long it can be very difficult to get started again. You can also try turning it upside down and approaching it from a totally different angle. 

There are lots of writing exercises to help push past being stuck or writer's block, but it starts with putting those first words down. They can be gobblygook to begin with, just to grease the engine a bit. Scribble them on a piece of scrap so you can immediately throw them out so you're not burdened with the idea of them having to be perfect or even readable.

Write lists if you're not ready for full sentences yet. List your character's favourite places or their favourite music and then the next day pick one of those to write a simple scene with. Take that list of 'what I want to write' and bluntly write the synopsis for each one, five or ten sentences as if you were telling a friend what your next poem or story is going to be about.

Write about why you can't write. What's holding you back? Rant about the Blue Monday, gray January weather. Go off on the fact that you have a mountain of ironing to do or you haven't translated yet another medical report from Finnish. Tell how you've painted your character into a corner, that their actions aren't believable, that you've fallen out of love with them. Try and find solutions, even ones that are implausible and fun just to get you out of the rut. Have an angel pull your character from their conundrum and take them on a 'this is your life' type adventure. Write your suddenly boring character as if they've just arrived on the scene; someone exotic and mysterious. Get to know her again from scratch.

Play with words: write down ten verbs connected with one occupation (like mountain climbing: scramble, hoist, perch) and ten nouns connected with another (DIY: paint, hammer, drywall) and 10 adjectives from another (cooking: moist, rising, fried) put them together in grammatically corrected but crazy sentences and then try and turn them into a poem. Find 10 new words from a dictionary and use them in a writing practice.

Rewrite a poem or scene where you're stuck from a different character's point of view. Describe the event from the end first. Rewrite a poem by replacing every verb and adjective with its opposite.

Give yourself deadlines or word limits: a poem a week, 1500 new words by next writing group. Arrange writing dates with a friend to write new material and to share it afterwards. Schedule yourself strict writing time, no screens, no answering the phone. Pen and paper and an hour to write. Go someplace unusual and write as if you were taking snapshots of the place.

Think about what pushes or pulls your writing along. Sometimes revisiting old techniques work, other times you need to discover new ones. 

Good luck and wish me some too. Tomorrow I have scheduled writing time and will take one of my prompts books with me to see if I can reignite the spark. 

Away from the Desk

After a week of feeling like I've had no time to work due to appointments or illness, I've sat down at the computer to realise I have 3 poems hiding in the mess of scribbles I've been doing in my wee pockets of free time.

I've been taking my notebook out more and more when I have a moment and doing writing practices, just stream-of-conscious writing not part of a poem I'm working on or my novel. I start with describing interesting details about the scene around me and then just let my mind wander, follow any thought I get attached to. If I get stuck for ideas I go back to my 'I Want to Write' List or notes in my writing journal. If I have more time, I go through these practices and write out lines that work or have potential and start to expand on them.

One of the poems is connected with notes I made earlier on my third culture theme. I sifted through the lines that were good and started to shape the poem. I must have rewritten all of it or some sections up to three times in the 45 minutes I had while I waited for my son to do his guitar lesson. Typing it out today I realise this poem is pretty much done, though I will leave it for a while and then go back and tinker with it before I'd consider sending it out for publication.

The other poem about my trip to Ireland to do genealogy research is only partial but it has a direction now. Again it comes from a previous writing practice. 

The third poem is from random writing I made while sitting in a seaside cafe for an hour before a meeting at the hospital. I started with the scene but then got caught up in the conversation of two girls across the very small room. They were American and Australian, travelling the world, very loud and full of their youth. The poem is about me looking at them from a position of 'been there, done that, now older and my priorities have shifted'. It is almost done as well.

I've been struggling with lack of inspiration and material, so feel quite chuffed with myself that I've managed to get so much accomplished from a week when I thought I hadn't been able to sit down and write. 

One thing I love about my craft is that it is portable; you can sit anywhere and write. Laptops and tablets make it easy to write out and about on the computer, but I still prefer my journal and pen for practices. Less of a sense of needing to be correct, no spell checker or automatic editing, emails or alerts popping up. 

As a teacher I constantly pushed for my students to take up the habit of doing writing practices, sit still for at least 10 minutes and write about anything. These can be the fodder for future material or can just be a good way to making writing part of your life. 

I had fallen out of the practice because until this autumn I always had a child with me that needed attention. I love being able to go to cafes on my own now and just curl up, soak up the scene and write. I like a bit of activity and people around me, but not needing to be involved with it. And cake is also a good incentive. 

Museums and outdoor places are also ideal for being witness to the buzz of life but to also be able to single out any detail that takes your fancy. Find a favourite place, go to new and unusual haunts, places that clash with your style or theme. Embrace the silence or immerse yourself in chaos. 

And write. Let your mind wander and follow with your pen. Don't edit yourself if you go off topic or seem to say silly things. This is a practice, it's supposed to be rough and disorganised, it's supposed to delve and engage in fancy. 

If you get stuck, start to describe something near you or jump to a prompt like 'I remember' or 'I wish' or if your a fiction writer use your character to remember, wish or try to forget something. Use some of the conversations going on around you, pick up words from the text on the newspaper next to you. Borrow, embellish, expand, adapt. Enjoy. 

Have a good writing week. 

Rewriting and Second Drafts

In some ways I love rewriting and editing my work. With poetry I'm always tinkering, a poem for me is never done until it is published in a book. Then I don't look at it again. But as I'm trying to get it published in a magazine or anthology, I'm always changing a line here or a phrase there, sometimes overhauling the whole thing if I really feel it's not working. It’s fine work, but finite, close-up and intimate.

With fiction rewriting is hard work. I edit as my paying 'job' so I don't mind rereading things, fixing grammar and syntax, but it's a big step from writing a novel to that final editing stage. First drafts are hard work, but fun: pushing to the finish, seeing where the characters take me, the satisfaction of completing a chapter or the entire novel. 

But then it's not really done, it's tens of thousands of words that need to be re-examined, picked apart, enhanced, tightened, expanded, reworked before you can just correct grammar and tidy it up. I usually set a novel aside when I finish the first draft and then come back to it when I feel fresh. There is a sense of exhaustion and relief when you complete and the thought of going back to it to start again is something I face with dread. Until I get going.

With my second novel there was a 6-year gap between my first and second drafts. I'm not sure when I started writing it but in 2008, according to writing journals, I was working hard on it. I finished the first draft in 2010 and went back to it in 2016. Not all novels go this way, my first novel was much quicker and one continuous process with shorter gaps. 

Part of it was the unusual situation I found myself in: moving country with a young family, being heavily pregnant during the move, trying to settle into our new country and language with a newborn and a child who was struggling with previously unknown special needs. I couldn't focus on anything longer than a few lines of a poem at a time. I looked at the novel contemplating revision at least once, but couldn't summon the energy required. 

So when my youngest started nursery and I reread the novel properly for the first time in years, I realised I still loved the characters and could see the potential in the story, so I knew I was ready to start the second draft. Reworking a novel is almost as hard as writing it, especially the way I wrote this one. This novel didn't have a plot when I sat down. I had a setting, a main character with a question I needed answering and a format I wanted to work in. I wrote each chapter with no plan other than what the characters wanted to do. 

My novel has two narrative points of view from the same character, one as a teen and one as an adult and I alternate between the two. It was hard to write the adult POV as I didn't know the answer to the teen's question which was the crux of the story. I knew her choice would have repercussions on her adult life, so allowing both timelines to evolve simultaneously meant I was writing the adult sections blind for the first chunk of the novel. 

As you can imagine it didn't flow smoothly. When I started the adult narrative was going to be a minor reflection of the events of the character's past, the bulk of the action was taking place when she was a teen. But when I sat down to start to stitch them together in the rewriting stage I realised that the adult section as as important and needed a great deal of catching up, expanding and elaborating, so I've done a lot more writing with this edit. 

Rewriting also has to fill plot holes and sort what seemed like minor problems in the first draft. Yesterday I was doing some research on things I hadn't examined properly and realised that my timeframe for the teenage part of the novel doesn't work. I wanted it set in the spring and early summer, but I now realise that may not work without giving up some ideas I had. You can't change nature or deadlines and as both play important parts in the timing of the novel, I'm going to have to have a rethink about some important elements. 

Rewriting is frustrating, challenging, time consuming, enjoyable and invigorating. I work on print-outs, on the computer and in my notebook, depending on what sort of work I'm doing. My first draft was 65,000ish words, my current count is 88,000ish. I still have a lot of writing to do before I can get to the tightening stage. It's a slow intensive process, but each step reveals a lot about the story and myself as a writer.

So time to post this and get some real work done. 

Fiction and Poety

I mostly write poetry, but I have written/am writing 2 novels. I've discovered I can't write short stories. Not sure why, they just never work. I've never really tried much else except journal/diary and blog writing.

I have another novel idea percolating, but it's still nowhere solid enough for me to really start working on it, but I do write about it occasionally. I have two writing journals: one where I write whatever I'm working on and one where I write about my writing. 

This second journal is all about my novels and contains ideas, sketches of plotlines, information about characters, details about their past. I also ask questions and remind myself to expand and write about certain things. Often I just journal about what I'm currently doing. I have misplaced the one I used for my first novel and my first draft of my second and I miss it terribly. It was the chronicles of writing those first novels: raw, hopeful and frustrated. I hope it's stashed in the loft in Scotland as I hate losing writing. 

Fiction and poetry writing are very different processes for me. When I was working on the first novel I got a SAC grant to write it and it was almost like a full time job, I wrote every morning for hours, then had lunch and went to the allotment and spent a few hours there, sometimes writing if the weather was poor and then I'd come home and type up what I wrote and did some rereading and editing. Then it'd be time to make dinner. I did this for a month, I think and I really enjoyed it, but it was hard work. Editing and rewriting the first draft was even harder. I need longer blocks, much more time and commitment for fiction.

Poetry I can do in small parcels of time. I rarely sit and write a whole poem or finish one in a day or even a few days. I write a line or two here, go and edit another poem that's still in progress. I do some free writing around the subject and then pick out the good phrases that could be used as the backbone of a new poem. Poems take months, sometimes years to feel solid. And then I still reexamine and edit them a bit before I submit them for publication. 

Rewriting and editing happens as I write poetry, I'm always tinkering with lines, where I usually leave big edits in fiction until I've finished the complete project. 

Two books I'd recommend for getting started with writing is Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and John Gardener's The Art of Fiction. They are very different in style, but both equally useful in their own way. 

Goldberg's is more to do with starting from scratch and getting into the habit of writing. It's good if you're a beginner or if you have a project you're starting. It's less about technique but more about state of mind and getting your bum of the seat. She's more 'spiritual' about writing, but is still all about doing the work.

Gardener's book is more about craft: technical and more academic. It starts with an essay and then moves to common problems and techniques. It also has a section on plotting which I found invaluable as it's not my strong point. 

You have to be wary about buying and reading books about learning to write. I don't believe anyone can teach you, but they often can give you inspiration, direction and assistance. But it's easy to spend a lot of time (and money) buying and reading these books rather than writing. 

I prefer the more practical books that have lots of exercises or writing prompts. My favourite for myself and for when I was teaching creative writing was A Writer's Book of Days by Judy Reeves. It had a hundreds of prompts that worked for poetry and fiction and could be used to just get into the habit of writing but to also work on a piece already started. 

I've actually just put it in my basket for my next book order as my copy has been in Scotland for 7 years and it has now been revised so a new copy is definitely needed to help me get back into the swing of things.