inspiration, Writing

Looking for Something …

When a writer is in between projects, or has let one thing rest, and is working towards thinking about it again, and deciding what might do next, they may be looking for the inspirational thing that will pump up the volume, and get them going hard again on their writing. They may look like they’re not doing anything at all, but deep inside their head, there could be mighty ‘thinks’ going on, unknown to the rest of the world, and unknown even to them.

analysis blackboard board bubble
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

It can be a time of ‘fluffing around’, doing little bits of writing, bigger bits of totally non writing things. Gazing at clouds and trees and birds may occur. The dog could be let outside, and let back in again, with resultant non-literary work a welcome step aside back to the ‘ordinary’ world.

Then a thought may come, and another, and suddenly that half-written novel or poetry collection springs back into life and the words may flow as strongly as a flooding river! That time can be a glorious one of inspiration, and words, all flowing together in beautiful ways!

If you have ever been in this wonderful time of “flow”, you will understand, if you haven’t been there yet, if you keep on writing, it is sure to happen at some stage, perhaps when you are able to give uninterrupted time to your writing. Sometimes, afterwards, it might feel like the words were written by another person, but take joy in it all, these may be the finest words you have ever managed to write!

Or there may be some bits of dross, stuff that doesn’t make sense to you, but keep on with what you’re doing, it might all come together at a later time. Look for any gems of inspiration, and who knows, it may be that what you wrote is actually a quite different style, that might take time to come to terms with.

If you’ve been writing poetry, perhaps your brain decided to write a novel when you weren’t paying attention, in that state of flow. Look at your work, your words, and prepare to keep an open mind about what you’ve done! 20190618_142947

I find Nature inspirational, the trees, the blue sky and the clouds, lovely!

 

Writing is a strange thing to do, a solitary thing, working alone, as you prepare something you’d like to share with multitudes! So keep an open mind, as I said, and always be prepared to trust your writer’s brain, when things really take off, you never know where you might end up. Sometimes a writing prompt can work like this, you’re given something random to write about, and Bang!, something beautiful happens with your words!

This is what inspiration is, you can’t guarantee it will come, but you should make the most of it when and if it does! If you have a story of a time you were inspired, I’d love to read about it, leave a comment here, and tell us about it!

poetry, Uncategorized

On Poetry Competitions

The writing group I am the President of, has been running an annual, national poetry competition right from the time the group began, back in mid 2005. At the time, I was working part time for my local council, as a community worker.

My role was to try to bring about aspects of economic development to the community, and the poetry event competition was all a part of an event taking in the whole of the region where I live, with many towns being involved.

I now longer do that job, the funding ran out, and I moved into the volunteer realm. I enjoyed doing what I did for payment, for sure, but found some of it stressful. Now I’m doing similar things as a volunteer, the pressure is very much lessened.

So poetry competitions … The number of entries my group,  the Adelaide Plains Poets receive, is on a steady rise, in the main, and the overall quality is going up and up, in the current three sections – Open, Secondary Student, and Primary Student. This year, we have a larger entry for the Primary Student Section, because of work done in particular with one local school. This is certainly a good way to increase poetry submissions, if you talk to students and teachers in their schools, they will feel more willing to get involved.

I think we will do more of this, perhaps getting started on it earlier next year. Connecting with schools is fun, for many people. I certainly enjoy talking to a class about poetry, because I love poetry, and I’m working to increase the level of love of my favourite writing genre! If I can engage students, and help them to love poetry too, then I’ve done a good job!

Some people don’t have a lot of money to spare for fluffy things like poetry. That is why our group doesn’t charge for students to enter our competition. We also have a low charge for the Open section, and the fee is structured in a way that encourages a higher number of entries, without sending anyone broke.

We currently charge $10 for the first entry, then $5 for any subsequent entries. This is for the Open section only – students are limited to only one poem each. There has been a lot of variety in the way poets have interpreted the theme of this year’s competition. This is important for a poetry competition, a broad theme will engage more poets, as they consider how they think on the theme.

I have been able to speak to some of the people entering our current poetry competition and have been happy to find so many lovely people who thank me for providing them the opportunity to ‘have their say’, about something important to them. This helps to make this task even more enjoyable.

Then, when the winners are announced we will all find out which poems struck the judges as being ‘the best’. I spoke with both of our judges today, and was pleased with the things they both said. This is the first time we have had two different judges, one fo rthe adults, one for the youngsters, and I feel this has been a good move. It is a different task, judging the poetry of Primary or Secondary school students, compared to judging the poetry of adults, after all.

Finding out who the winners are, and hearing their words will be an exciting thing indeed! If you have ever thought of entering a poetry competition, I say go for it, as long as the entry fees aren’t too high, and the possible prizes are suitably high. Poetry is a fun thing to write, and these competitions could potentially be very rewarding, if you’re good enough! Comparing your own poem, with the winning poems may be just the impetus you need, to make your own poetry shiny bright and perfect!

But beware, there are some ‘competitions’ that are blatant rip offs. The fees we charge are reasonable, but some competitions have far higher fees, for very little possible recompense. Leave those ones well alone!

If you have anything to say about poetry competitions, leave a comment, I’d love to read your thoughts!

 

poetry

Multiple Copies are Great!

I had an accident today, and deleted all of the poems in the file n my laptop that is my poetry collection that I want to send off to a publisher soon. My intention is to have some other people read the collection, and give me feedback. If I couldn’t get give them the poems, they wouldn’t be able to do that. I wouldn’t be able to send it to a publisher, either.
 
I nearly freaked out, but I took a deep breath, got myself a calming (?) coffee and searched my laptop, for help. I found some of the relevant poems in emails I’d sent to myself, and that worked for finding some of them, and then, hooray, I found another copy of the file, on my laptop, an earlier one I’d emailed to our PC, to make a photocopy,  that had almost all of the poems in it, phew!
When I say ‘I nearly freaked out’ it isn’t true, really. I did take a big breath, and get that coffee, but I would have looked calm to anyone present. I methodically considered my options, and worked away and cutting and pasting, taking poems from various places, and putting them in a new file.
Did my work with looking at Stoicism help me with this? Hmm, I think it may have. I felt quite calm, once the initial ‘oh no!’ feelings calmed down. Once I was sitting again, coffee and laptop present, I worked at it all afternoon, and got it done. I went outside, let the dog out and back in, and she and I both had lunch, but I did a good afternoon of work on it.
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                 Missy slept through most of it, she’s calm like that, most of the time!
It was an interesting chance to look at these poems again too. I did some editing, making several of the poems better, and I added two new poems, and took out two other poems that I felt were too weak. So this ‘disaster’ was actually a good thing after all. I will remember that, and keep calm and work methodically if I ever need to work like this again!
This laptop is still new to me, and I’m very much in the learner stage with it. Using the home PC is easier for me, but of course, I can’t take my PC with me anywhere, and I can’t sit on the sofa with the PC comfortably on my lap!
So now that I have the poetry collection put together in the one file on my lap top, and the other copy there too, marked as Do not delete, it should all be fine. I’ll send that document to the PC tomorrow, and then hand that hard copy on for the review of others.
I’m so glad I found those versions, that’s for sure. And I think this collection is looking far more publishable than my most recent one, that was rejected. When I looked at it again, once I was over the hurrumphing angst of rejection, I could see that it was a bit of a mess, with little to say. Some of the poems were ok, but that isn’t enough, just some …
In this new collection, all of the poems have interesting things to say, and they blend together in good ways, in my opinion. I hope my readers will back up my thoughts on that, and if they don’t, that they will be able to give me pointers about where any failings are.
Giving a poetry collection to others feels like giving your newborn to a stranger, in some ways, but of course, that is something that all writers have to do, if they want to have their words read. And only a strange kind of writer wouldn’t want to be read by others, surely?
What do you think? About having readers before sending off to a publisher, and about how it feels to let your ‘babies’ go? Please leave a comment, if you have something to say about this!
poetry, writing exercise

A Small Workshop

I’m a writer, and like many other writers, I find a variety of ways to go, as a writer, beyond just writing books. I write poems, I write articles and blog posts, such as this one, and I also do writing workshops, sometimes paid ones, other times just for a community group perhaps.

This workshop is one I am going to be presenting at a group that meets regularly in Gawler, a town I spend a lot of time in, even though I don’t live there. Many of my friends live in Gawler, and my writing group meets every week, in a lovely, historic hotel in Gawler.

This workshop is happening at a community centre, not a hotel, but that’s still a good thing. Anyway, this is the Workshop, take a look and give it a go. Feel free to ask any questions you have about it, in the comments section.

 

Workshop – Loved Little Things

Writing simple little poems can be easy, if you scale back what you want to write, and just stick to closely watching one small aspect of something you love, or love doing. It may be a hobby, for instance knitting, and you could write about a favourite item of clothing you’ve knitted in your past.

Or it could be cooking, and you choose cake making as your topic, and perhaps write a poem about a kind of cake you like to make. I used to enjoy making muffins, and I’ve written about vegetable muffins in the past, I think. I was very ‘into’ vegetables, in a former line of volunteer work – I was a Community Foodie, teaching people about healthy eating, and cooking.

Nature is one of my favourite things to write poems about, and the poem I’ve got on my notes here today is about a little part of Nature, the ant. I used rhythm and rhyme in my poem, but that isn’t necessary, it’s up to you to choose your poetic style. Or if you’re not in a poetic mood today, any form of writing will be fine,

You might write a small note about your small thing, or perhaps write a letter to it, or about it. Any kind of writing will be fine. So take that small part of the thing you love, and insert yourself, and your thoughts and wondering into the piece of writing. Think about how you relate to, or gain joy from, your loved thing, and write about that.

This little poem was one I wrote last year, think it was, after seeing a line of ants on our front veranda, and then over the course of a few days, realising there was always a line of ants in exactly the same spot. I thought it was an interesting little thing. I am a poet, and as a poet, I find myself looking, seeing, and finding many little bits of not much, that can broaden out, and become something – a poem.

Make your small piece your own, make it quirky, make it cute, make it something you’re proud of, or something that makes you small to yourself. Just write it!

 

macro photo of five orange ants
Photo by Poranimm Athithawatthee on Pexels.com

Ant March

 

Ants are marching, tramp, tramp, tramp

Ants are busy, gathering food

Ants are climbing, up that ramp

Ants in an adventurous mood

 

Ants on the veranda, ants on the lawn

Ants are spreading all around

Ants near that sheep that’s just been shorn

Ants up a tree, ants on the ground

 

What are they up to, those little ants

Will they bite if they get the chance?

I’m going to keep myself well away,

We’ll meet up again, on another day!

 

My poem is a rhyming poem, with the first two verses using this rhyming scheme: abab, cdcd, with final verse eeff
Can you see what I mean there with the term ‘rhyming scheme’? The letters refer to the rhyming final word in each line, ‘a’ is the words tram and ramp, ‘b’ is the words food and mood. and so on. I hope that makes sense for you. And I hope you get some nice small poems about ‘Loved Little Things’!

 

 

Carolyn

 

Carolyn Cordon, writer, poet, blogger, newsletter editor

poetry

Working On My Next Big Thing

I know I’m actually supposed to be writing a novel, but I have to admit to myself that I’m not a novelist, not really, at heart, and in my mind, I’m a poet. So that said, even though I have a partly written novel in need of further words written, and some kind of sense made of the various written sections, I am not feeling committed to seeing that novel in print, even though I’m still thinking about the characters.

I’m a poet, so these past few days, I’ve been working on putting together my next possible poetry collection. I’m still conscious of my undue haste in trying to get a different poetry collection published, and had it rejected by the chosen publisher (deservedly so, I agree). But this collection, I hope, won’t be rejected, I like this collection of poems.

Many of the poems in this new collection are very new poems, there are no poems dragged out from years ago, and I’m enjoying the idea of getting some things I’ve written in draft form, in the past year or so, ‘scrubbed up and polished’ to be fine poems, living up to my hopes when I first came up with them.

This new collection is contemporary, dealing with people, for the most part, with a few animal/nature related poems, that may or may not make it to the final collection. I’ll wait and see how I feel about that much later on. My previous poetry collection was all about the animals I’ve known in my life, from pets, to wild animals to the creepy crawlies around where I live. I enjoyed putting together that collection, titled “Tense and Still”, It would be great if this current work in progress could be as good as, or better than that one.

One thing I’m definitely going to do this time, is to have other poet friends read this new collection, to give me feedback, before I send it to a potential publisher. That’s one of the reasons the previous ‘collection’ met such an ignoble end, it was a mish-mash, a jumbled mess, that looked exactly like that, it indicated a confused person, who didn’t pay enough attention to, or care about her work and words on that occasion.

This time will be very different. I have a title I’m fond of, that others have agreed is an arresting title for a collection. I have quite a few poems I feel are exceptionally good, I have a bit of a strand of meaning running through the ideas in the poems, and I feel I will be able to hook the poems to the strand, so it flows along in good and poetic ways.

At the moment, even though I have the poem titles in a particular order, I am not set on that. My next step, after looking for and typing up another few poems I have around my papers/notebooks, is to print out all of the poems, and have a good read of them all, and make piles of related poems.

Then I’ll leave it for a day or so, then take another look, think about it all, and see if I feel I’ve got a collection that ‘works’. Then I hand it over to those few poet friends, for feedback. I’m hoping that within a year, this will be a poetry collection, written, submitted, and published, then launched.

Keep an idea here, for further news. And please feel free to ask me about this process, if there’s anything you’d like to know.