Category / Reflection

by pollyebull

2020: new decade, new opportunities, new courage

The new decade has started well in the land of creative writing. I’m still focusing on poetry as per the goals discussed in my previous post. In that post I also mentioned a published poem which I failed to link to: Lost smugglers.  Thank you to Bridget Holding and Wild Words for the opportunity and support.

My poetry course began last week at CityLit and I can tell it’s going to be great. The tutor is the wonderful Joanna Ingham who has recently published a pamphlet called Naming Bones (ignitionpress, 2019). She got us straight into memory, emotions and anaphora in the first class, which was fascinating and useful. And she’s assigned optional homework that I am absolutely going to do because I love homework.

Another new endeavour recently has been the organising of a new meetup group: Queer Poets. I am very excited about our first get-together this upcoming Friday evening at the Rose and Crown pub in Kentish Town. People are welcome to share poetry, join in a constructive feedback session and then enjoy a social together. I’m very much looking forward to meeting everyone and being in a creative environment with fellow poets.

I have also recently moved into a different flat which has so much natural light my vitamin D levels are probably through the roof, despite the often grey sky. The space is so beautiful and has really been conducive to reflection and poetry rewriting.

All of these new beginnings have boosted my confidence and courage, and I am pleased to be starting the new year on a positive note.

 

 

by pollyebull

Rewriting and consolidation

At the moment I am struggling with focus and discipline related to creative writing. I’m not going to be too hard on myself because the summer was very difficult emotionally. I’m actually glad that autumn is here, which is unusual for me.

I’m looking forward to the literary nights starting again and I’m hoping that will spur me on. I don’t need to keep writing more and more introspective poems, flash fiction experiments or hectically scribbled ideas for novels. I need to dig deep and work on rewriting what I already have: the hard part.

Besides the literary nights, I’ve been wondering about other actions I can take to get me to do the hard work: back to a writing group, enter more competitions, sign up for a poetry course, splurge on a writers retreat, send poetry to the whatsapp poetry group, create a poetry collection to self-publish,  contact agents again….? All of these actions would help motivate me to put some work in.

I think for now I will focus on the first literary night coming up in a week. I will choose one poem already written and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse; I will go one step at a time back to the creative discipline, as the leaves turn golden and start to fall.