All sorts of busy

This week I have been focusing on writing more accessibly. This is because it has been levelled at me that I sometimes disappear off into obscurity and risk losing the reader. This made me quite sad for a while. I took it really personally and at the same time thought sod-off I'll write how I damn well please! But then once I had simmered down I realised that the critics were probably right, at least part-right, and that some of my writing would benefit from being less puzzling. I worked on one particular poem, writing out in long-hand next to the poem what the story was I was trying to tell. I then compared it to my poem and did realise that a lot of the images/lines I had used were surplus to requirement, and more importantly muddying the water. So I took it all out and rewrote the poem in a very dry obvious accessible way. At this point it was too dry and so i tried to take it back to where there is a little mystery. I have no idea how it will be viewed now. perhaps too obscure still? Perhaps I went to far and now it's just dull? This time I will remember that there will be people who like things that require a bit of work as well as those that don't. I'll find out tomorrow.

I have also been trying, with unknown success to juggle writing for pleasure (see above) with writing for work. I have two academic papers to write and three presentations. These are all required by mid-December. I don't mind the volume, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to separate my two brains and write for these totally different purposes, in totally different styles. it's quite a challenge. In my academic work, prose wouldn't be too appropriate and in poetry the word-hoard I have developed from my work has led to the obscurity issue. Finding a balance between the two at the moment is the challenge. As is generally finding the time to write and work and read and critique and be original and be inspired and all that! I can't remember the last time I had a thought to myself. Don't get me wrong, I love writing and I love work but the two are too far apart at the moment, yet I can't really see a way it could be any different.

I do now however have my beloved desk back at home. No longer in the garage. It's now in the living room with printer, tablet, scanner, laptop books etc. The problem will be the TV directly behind me. We also have new shelves for the books that are breeding like rabbits. This has to be it though - in a small flat, 3 bookcases and 4 shelves is plenty and I may need to have a clearout next time. Although how do you grow a library when getting rid of books. Is it like the idea of having your hair trimmed regularly if you want to grow it long? Hmm.

Another new week starts soon

A dubious 48 hours this weekend. But I have been busy critiquing work for the online conference. Since I started writing poetry, I find it hard to string together full sentences. This is exacerbated by the frantic emailing I tend to engage in: broken thoughts, quick sends. Anyhow, the intention to improve is always there. Everything I have to say tends towards niceness, and I don't think this is approved of - I get the feeling that what staff want is a bit of blood sport. Curious, how they forget that we still have to see eachother when the conference is over. The fact it's online is really just to make the dept. feel like they're doing something innovative. In all likelihood we'll get together in the pub and talk about it, as we've already done before it started. I doubt it'll get vitriolic and argumentative, requiring us to 'take it to the (online) cafe'! But what do I know? I just think I like these people. I like their writing. I like my own fragile sense of self esteem, please don't crush me - there's always hare coursing if you really must.

From Ty Newydd to the bay

Retreat! Retreat!

So, the writing retreat is over. I didn't write as much as I'd hoped I would. Mainly thought about writing. I also seem to have sold myself on the idea that I could write a novel after all. Well, I was unconvinced but one of the tutors liked the idea and thought it had legs. This was the fatal bellow of gas into the idea. It's now buoyant and tied to me like a helium balloon at the wrist. I am determined not to run with it. Maybe just little bits now and then amongst the poetry and flash. Something to tinker with..... or maybe it'll take over my life. Like new ideas always do.

All in, the week was enjoyable and helpful. Getting to know people better is always good, and time out to indulge yourself in writing is a treat worth accepting. I would like to go again.

I learnt a few interesting things not specific to writing. If you have a scientific background and cannot answer a simple question like 'What's a box?', it may reflect badly on you. Just don't even attempt it. Also, knowing a bit about geology is not the same as knowing a bit about particle physics or the statistical likelihood of a royal flush. Then there is writing with Cabin Fever which is like writing with the Flu. I have reviewed my scraps of paper and firstly they don't amount to much and secondly they don't seem to have been written by me! But this could be a good thing...

Don't go to the seaside if you don't want to write about the seaside again. Simples.

Learn when to socialise and when to write. Trying to do both simultaneously may result in you coming across cold, withdrawn, arrogant and maybe borderline autistic. Never engage in a rocking chair competition before bed or within 12 hours of eating. Likewise, introducing a theory of biscuit ratios should be saved until you've been drunk with these people.

Don't be the only poet in the village. Go write a novel or something. And while you're there be someone else for a change -I find it quite difficult to separate the self from poetry but branching out in to prose allowed for a whole new town of people to emerge from my head. Quite a lot last week, I was a man. How nice.

Rejection - oh, how I will lament

uuurgh rejection again. I know this is the way things go, but really someone needs to write a book on creative writing rejection. In fact I might. It will be structured like this:

The Deflation Period, where you just want to print everything you've written and burn it. If you could be bothered that is. But as it is, you just want to pretend that you never liked writing anyway, it was just killing time and you really have more pressing things to get on with anyway. Like work.

The Post-Denial-Denial Period, convincing yourself that maybe switching writing genres will help. "Maybe I should start writing horror..."

The Alternative Pastime Period, deciding that actually you spend too much time writing anyway and that you've always fancied something a bit different, just not had reason to get round to it, see clay-pigeon shooting or long-distance swimming.

The Rehab Period, it should come sooner but always arrives late in the day when you're on the cusp of lighting the fire, or buying gym membership (the previous stages may come in quick succession).

The Melancholic Poet Period (protracted). Everything is dire. Several denial stages later you concede that it was all a defence and you do like poetry, you like it too much. It's a cruel lover. It's beating you but you want more! So you write-about how melancholy you are. About how life is just one tiresome Lancastrian winter. About the sorrow of the blackbird and your cold black heart. Aside from these crass examples, you may actually find you have written something half decent. Or at least you think so.

The False-Confidence Period. You have re-entered the atmosphere. Breathing poetry again. Someone says you're OK, so you write again, write beyond melancholy. Convincing the cruel lover that you can change, you will be better. Everything is a found poem. Every half-conversation is a story kernel. It's wonderful, it's magic, it's falling in love again....

Then you make the fateful mistake of submitting something. They tell you 'best of luck placing them elsewhere' and like a soggy balloon, seconds after the pinched end is freed and the air has rushed out, you find yourself deflated again, completing the circle, face down on the carpet, drawing in the Hessian!

Flasher

I've decided to take a brief reprieve from poetry and focus instead on flash fiction. At least for a week or two. I've been anxious to get back into prose for a while but keep wriggling out of it and doing a bad job when I sit down to exert myself. But now seems like a good time with the MA residential coming up when we'll be encouraged to write outside our comfort zone. I have this horrible feeling though that if I abandon poetry even temporarily then I might lose the knack - or the poetry muse may abandon me for deserting her first! I wonder whether having a break will be useful - get me thinking differently. I was certainly running out of topics I was interested in writing about in poems. Somehow, flash fiction allows for more tangents and weird connections across ideas. I could be wrong, but I haven't mastered that in a poem yet. I also like conversational style in flash, but not in poems (where I prefer something a bit....tighter...)

The problem I am having is a rush of too many characters all at once. Too many scenarios. Too many half-heard conversations and moments to document. This would never usually be a problem, but with so much work on, I barely have time to get to know any of these characters before my confidence in them deserts me and I put them aside while I get on with something pressing like the mountain of reading for class, or cooking dinner, washing, sleeping!