writing a poetry collection – Carolyn Cordon

OK, that mad but fabulous month of daily writing prompts is over now, so that means I’d better get stuck into doing some proper writing, I think. And in fact, today I’ve produced some more words to go into my most important work in progress, the first of my Cosy Murder Mysteries. Or is that actually the most important? Maybe the poetry collection is more important? Oh dear …

Actually, it isn’t an either or thing at all. The two different things are different genres of writing, and are both at very different stages of completion. One is almost ready to hand out for possible first reading, and feedback, the other is barely begun, and many, many months from having anything to give to others for a first read. I can work on both of these things, one in the morning, the other later in the day, perhaps.

I have almost enough poems written for the poetry collection, because February was a full on prompt wriitng and responding to prompts month. I intend going through the list of prompts I posted on this blog every day in February, and I will write new poems, for any of the prompts I haven’t yet written anything in response to.

If I was asking others to respond to my prompts, I should put my money where my mouth is and respond too, shouldn’t I? Yes, I think so! And for anyone interested, this is the full list of my Fabulous February Writing Prompts. If you missed it last month, you can have a look, and use it as a resourse the next time you need a writing prompt!

My Fabulous February Writing Prompts
(one for every day of February 2020)

1st Rush

2nd Star

3rd Maybe I will, or maybe not …

4th Next

5th Never

6th After

7th Yesterday

8th Because

9th When the time is right …

10th Mine

11th Asleep

12th Trees

13th Superstition

14th Some things I love …

15th Knowing is one thing …

16th Senses

17th Could you ever?

18th Friendship

19th It’s getting closer! Are you ready?

20th Underneath

21st Philosophy, finding meaning for being

22nd Vision – looks can be deceiving

23rd Inklings – much in small hints, and intuition ? maybe …

24th Reasonable action, beats thoughtless reaction

25th Lies

26th Open or shut

27th Worthy or worthless?

28th The American Sentence – read about it for this day –

29th Prove it!

So I thoroughly enjoyed February, with the fun of the prompts, but I’m going to get some real writing done in March, in both my Cosy Murder Mystery series – (the first book), and my next poetry collection. If I keep on with as much passion and effort for these two things, as I put into the Writing Prompts in February, there’s no telling, what I can achieve! Good things though, I’m sure about that.

And about the Cosy Murder Mystery series, I was listening earlier today to a webcast seminar thing, which indicated there was no point talking to an agent about a piece of fiction, a book, until you had written it, and tidied it up and made it as shiny and bright as you possibly could. That kind of put a dampener on my enthusiasm, but not for my book, but for the thing I was watching and listening to.

If I have to get the book written, I was wasting my valuable time, listening, and instead I actually wrote a bit more of that Cosy Murder Mystery book. This felt like exactly the correct way to spend my valuable time! So from now on, every morning after breakfast will have some time put toward one or the other of my book projects, and all will go well. That’s how it feels to me, anyway!

Do you have any thoughts about any of this? Feedback is always welcome, that way I don’t feel like I’m talking to no-one! I love receiving comments!

So February is over now. I no longer ‘have to’ post a new writing prompt on this writer blog of mine, and instead I will be actually writing some prose of my own, primarily. Sure, some poetry will be written, because I can’t help myself. I’m addicted to those stripped back words, I admit it!

I will be doing the weekly writing prompt thing that I’ve written about previously though, so new writing ideas will still be emanating from this blog, as well as other writing related things. It would be good if I can get a decent bit of my first Cosy Murder Mystery story written, so I can post an excerpt of it here …

I learned a number of useful things in February, as I posted the daily writing prompts, and responded to them myself. I learned that having a daily program of writing, every single day, makes it a habit, and the writing simply comes along, because that’s what I now do after breakfast, every day.

I also learned that if you post every day, you definitely increase the number of readers you get to your blog! I sort of knew that, and now have the proof, right there in my blog stats. And I’m getting more likes, and a couple more people are writing a comment here and there, in response to what I’ve written, or the fact that I’ve written something.

Connections are always good, for writers! People interested in the written word, who like what you’ve written, great! And I’ve been expanding what I write, exploring things, doing new things, and that’s gone well too.

I’ve found also, that having prompts, leads to the feeling that what I will be writing has some kind of purpose, and so I put more of my attention into getting it right, as well as getting it written.

And putting the word out about the writing prompts made it feel like it was something I had to do, so I kept it up, easily, it was just what I had to do in the morning, once I’d finished having my breakfast. Get up from the table, go to laptop, switch it on, and post the writing prompt. Done.

Yes, I’ve enjoyed this, but my next writing mission is to actually get a much larger prose piece written, an actual book, in fact a series of books. And once that first book in the series is written, time to get onto (or back onto) the second book in the series. And get feedback on the first book, edit in response to feedback, and then work at getting it published, another form of writing-related fun!

And then theres that new poetry collection … I have nearly seventy poems for it, I think, and I have a few of the prompts from February that didn’t end up with poems written, so I’ll have to get that all done. A job for later on today, I think. I have time for that right now, so I’ll get it done, right now.

I am going to post a new writing promt still, but it will be happening only once a week, probably on Monday, so this isn’t the end really, it’s the beginning of something easier, and less of a ‘burden’. Not that it was actually a burden to do these prompts, I enjoyed it. But my prose didn’t happen, when I want it to get going … Poetry/prose. Prose/poetry … I can do both, if I give myself the necessary time for both, which is why the once a week prompts are happening instead of daily ones. All good!

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