Archive for the ‘Art’ Tag
I am here. Writing awesome poetry.
So, it’s April again. Last year around this time, I was sick, planning a wedding, and working hard to rearrange my life in preparation for a move to the Midwest. There was no way I was going to get any poetry written last year.
This year, I’ve got an office mostly to myself during the day, I’m healthy, lawfully wed, and have no plans to move again for at least 20 years, if not longer. It’s a happy place. I have no excuse to not write a poem. Every. Single. Day.
And, on April 4th, I’m happy to say that so far, so good. I’ve been focusing on writing fiction this year, so it’s a nice change of pace to start writing some poems for 30 days.
I am still working on the David Foster Wallace/ 3 Dollar Word poems project, so I’ve got lots of fun words stocked up as prompts. But I’ve got a lot of life experience from the past year or so to draw from as well. Of the four poems I’ve written so far, only two are big words, the other two are pure inspiration. I can do this. Yes, yes I can.
And so can you! Go out there, get writing!
The Orange Chorus (Photo credit: FreeWine)
To read the poem, click here:
http://thepotomacjournal.com/issue13/Poetry/Peterson.html
My poem Greek Chorus was recently published in The Potomac Journal’s winter issue. It was great to see this poem in print for two reasons. First and foremost, it’s been awhile since I’ve gotten something published. Life has been pretty hectic with the big move to Michigan and a new routine, so I haven’t been submitting as much as I have in years past. So it was a big help to jump start my motivation to get submitting and writing again to see this poem up at the Potomac.
This poem also reminds me a lot of what I left behind. I wrote it after a particularly bad episode during my illness last year kept me in the hospital for the weekend and prevented me from attending a Dire Literary Series event in Cambridge Mass. Joking with friends who attended, I said next time I’ll just have them escort me in an ambulance and I can read from a gurney before being wheeled back to the ambulance. A close friend of mine replied, “That seems doable, they have hospitals in Boston, right?” It was a line too good to NOT put into a poem!
Greek Chorus reminds me how far I’ve come personally, and how much I’ve been able to overcome in a short period of time. As difficult as the past few years have been, I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s given me plenty of inspiration, as well as the strength and patience to be a better person than when I was diagnosed. I thank the Potomac Journal for picking it up when they did, and giving me the opportunity to reflect upon it.
It’s time to get writing! (Photo credit: mbgrigby)
Depends what your expectations are. If you expected me to be golden every single day, then I’m not doing great. If you think any improvement is better than none at all, then I’m fantastic, thank you very much.
In the past week, I’ve written two pretty decent short stories, and I’ve edited about five others as well as two poems. This has given me, all told, about 3000 words. I also do a lot of copy writing for my Etsy store, so that’s given me about 100 words an item, so somewhere between 200 and 500 a day. My freelance work can get me another 500 words or so. This means that some days it’s really easy to meet my goals; I can do it without having to start a new story or poem. Other days, I have to add a project to the list. I find that if I have a specific idea or something I want to edit that day, it makes it easier to stick to my writing schedule. Lists are our friends, people. Learn to love the list.
I’ve submitted material to four places, two of which are new to me, one that’s a contest. I’ve always looked down my nose at literary contests, thinking they were just easy ways for magazines to gain revenue while getting up the hopes of desperate writers who could use 1000 extra bucks in their pocket, thank you very much.
But I know people who have won contests. I’ve received submissions to Waterhouse that included wins in the writers’ bio. It makes me think, shoot, if this person can win something, surely so can I. So, here and there, I’ll enter something.
I’ve also made the decision this year to only submit to markets that pay. Which pains me, it really does, because there are a lot of really great places to publish out there that don’t pay. That can’t pay. At this point in the game though, my dues have been paid. It’s time to move to the big leagues, or so I’ve been told.
So, there we are. I’m getting it done, but I’m not beating myself up about it. Bravo 2013, let’s keep this up.
The time has come to get writing! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
And so another year is over, now is the time I sit back, look over what I’ve written this past year, where I’ve submitted, and, more importantly, the things I did not write or submit.
2012 was not very productive when it came to my writing. The poet who is famed by her friends for submitting material an average of 600 times annually barely cleared 100 submissions. The novel which I began in 2011 has been sitting dormant most of the year, with maybe 500 words added.
In my defense, I did remarry and move 800 miles last year, two events that took up not only a lot of time, but a lot of physical and mental energy. I also did a lot more reading than I had done in 2011, researching for new writing projects as well as giving my brain a chance to soak in something a little less stressful than the reality of court dates and lease signing.
But it’s a new year, all of that is behind us now, we’re happy in our new home, with room to spread out, a sunny yellow office and a table fit for two laptops, plus printer and lamp. The time has come to jump back on the horse and get some writing writ.
I resolve to write at least a thousand words a day. That should give me at least one gimme day, when I write the three blogs I’m responsible for n a weekly basis. It may even give me a day and a half. If I start with those in the beginning of the week, not only will it free up my creative juices for other projects, it will give me a chance to warm up my typing fingers and my brain, still soggy from the weekend.
I will submit something at least once a day. Just one thing a day won’t be as crazy as five a day, which was what I was doing right before I got sick. Even if life throws us another curveball, I can send something once a day. Giving myself this goal will not only give my work visibility, it will also help spur me on to write new stuff, to edit edit edit, and to reach out to others in the writing community.
Paul Bunyan and his cradle. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The first piece of advice I give any aspiring writer is to read. A lot. Every day. Read a variety of things, fiction, nonfiction, books, magazines, blogs, whatever you can get a hand on, for at least an hour a day.
Why? Because even if the writing isn’t very good, you can learn something from it and become inspired in your own writing. If the sentence structure is poor, if there are misspelt words, if the plot is lacking, you’ll probably sit there and say, “I can do better than that!” Hold on to that thought, and once the hour is done, go for it! Write on the same topic, make it better, make it yours.
When the writing is good, take notes. Ask questions of the piece. What makes you enjoy the writing? Try to mimic these techniques. Don’t plagiarize the content. Ever. Play around with the style and themes, try to build on them and make them your own.
And, finally, it’s good to research and read on topics you’d love to write about. This is just as important in fiction and poetry as it is in nonfiction. For example, I never know when I’ll stumble across a new unique word that I can use as a poetry title. I’m currently reading Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s new novel, The Long Earth. In it, one of the characters uses the word tracklements, which are the accompanying foodstuffs used on or around the main course. It’s a fantastic word, and I wrote it down immediately on my vocabulary list.
I’m also reading up on the folklore of Michigan and the surrounding areas, especially the tall tales relating to Paul Bunyan. I have an idea of a story deconstructing Paul Bunyan’s myth in light of modern issues such as deforestation and global warming. I’m always looking for folktales I’ve never heard of before, or to learn something new about the ones I thought I knew, both for my own enjoyment and to use as springboards for new short stories.
What about you? What are you reading, and how does what you read affect what you write? I’d love to hear from you!
The Mics are OPEN!!!!!
Last night I attended my first open mic reading with my husband since we moved to Michigan in September. It took place at the MSU Writing Center in Bessey Hall, on the Michigan State University campus.
We had been invited to attend by members of our writers’ workshop at the East Lansing Library. The group is also sponsored by the MSU Writing Center, and meets every other Thursday. We were happy to see that, as with the writers’ workshop, we weren’t the oldest people in the room at the Open Mic. The performers included several poets, some musicians, and a story teller or two. There was free pizza and drinks for everyone, and each person that got up to read received a t shirt. There was also a raffle drawing throughout the night. I won a 25 dollar gift card to Schuler Books in Okemos, which was a pleasant surprise.
The students were very open and welcoming to two old timers like us. There was a poet who went by the name Logic, about our age, who seemed to be a regular in local writing circles, who had a rapid fire delivery and had everyone laughing and shaking their heads at the way he would spin truth into poetry.
Overall, it was a good night out, and the perfect way to start November, fresh and inspired and ready to take on that novel I’ve been attempting to write for a year and a half. It’s been sitting dormant for about six months, so it’s time to get writing again!
How are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? Any great open mics or writers’ workshops in your area? I’d love to hear about them!
Red Shoes (Photo credit: garlandcannon (on hiatus))
Doorknobs and Bodypaint 2012
Doorknobs and Bodypaint is a great online flash journal, where for each issue the editors set up certain parameters that submissions need to match for each section. For example, there might be a word count limit, a line or phrase that must be used, or a certain setting.
For their most recent issue the guidelines for the Tapas section required a story be 250 words or less, have a subtheme of weariness, and include the phrase, “they’ll burn you”. They not only accepted my story, The Red Shoes, but gave it top billing!
The Red Shoes is an ancient fairy tale where the desire for material gain leads to the protagonist’s demise. She is doomed to dance in her ill-gotten red shoes endlessly until she is worn away to nothing.
In my modern take, the protagonist is seeking an end to an illness, and the red shoes in this case are the medications and subsequent side effects that keep them from rest. It is an internal dialogue jumping, skipping, and dancing between the origins of clichés, exhaustion, and the false promises of doctors.
I was able to draw from my own recent bout with a serious illness in writing the story. Some of the medications I was on would make me restless, unable to concentrate. Writing it out in a flash was pretty much the only thing I could do to gather my thoughts enough to voice my frustrations.
To read my story and to check out the next challenge set for by DK&BP, click here:
http://www.iceflow.com/doorknobs/DOORBODY2.html
“Writing”, 22 November 2008 (Photo credit: ed_needs_a_bicycle)
When people find out I’m a writer, they’re full of questions. They tell me about this one poem or story they’ve written or thought about writing, but they don’t know what they’d do with it after it’s written. Should they publish it? Isn’t that risky, especially if they publish it online? How would they find a place to send it anyway, and how would they submit it?
For all these questions and more, I send them to duotrope.com. Duotrope has a database of 4,360 publications that are currently accepting work. These include both print and online literary journals, publisher of fiction, non fiction, and poetry, paying and non paying markets. Each listing has a treasure trove of information on the guidelines of each publisher, response statistics, and a link to the website for further information.
Duotrope also provides a submissions manager to allow members to keep track of where and when they’ve submitted work. There is a community presence, offering market news, writing prompts, calendars, and in depth interviews with the editors of publications listed. Even our own Waterhouse Review is listed. You can read the interview with fiction editor Gavin Broom and me here: https://duotrope.com/interview.aspx?id=5149
Duotrope has also introduced me to a number of great markets, like Niteblade. In fact, you may be reading this post because of the Niteblade blog train. You probably came from http://idreamagain.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/niteblade-blog-train-stop-15/, and next stop is, http://www.markrigney.net/Rigney/Blog/Blog.html
So if you’re in a rut and don’t know what to write or just need a new market to send your work, please check out https://duotrope.com/index.aspx
Children, flexible in all kinds of ways! (Photo credit: Tony Trần)
As anyone who has read my latest book, Melons and Memory will tell you, my role as a mother is at the very center of my being. More than my roles as a poet, librarian, sister, daughter, wife or friend, I am identified by others as being the mother of my daughter and two sons. The first thought on waking and the last fading off to sleep is how can I improve the lives of my children every day. It’s led to some easy decisions, and to others that were not so easy.
One of those tough decisions was made after my daughter was born. I had suffered from HELPP syndrome, and had had to have an emergency c section as my liver and kidneys began to shut down. She was fine, the healthiest and heaviest of the three, but in the process of giving her life, I almost lost mine. At that point I made the painful decision to have a tubal ligation. While I was still pretty young, I had had three children, I had my girl. The potential for more children was too great a risk to the well being of the children I already had.
Three years later, it’s a decision I’m comfortable with. I see my friends in their pregnancies, hold their infants, and that desire to have another one is no longer there. But in the beginning, it was very difficult to wrap my head around such a permanent decision. So, as I do with all the bumps in my road, I ironed it out with writing.
The poem, “Closing Down the Baby Factory”, was so good, Everyday Poets published it last year, and I’m so glad they did. While the beauty and joys of motherhood are so prevalent in poetry as to almost be cliché, the topic of choosing to let motherhood go rarely gets the airplay it deserves, in poetry or the mainstream media. It’s important that every woman can find herself somewhere in the arts. One of the goals I’ve set for myself in my writing career is to give them that through my own experiences, no matter how sensitive or graphic it might be.
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Gavin Broom and Helen R. Peterson.
Writers are a fickle bunch. By necessity, we grow a tough skin, but we can still be sensitive to criticism, especially from other writers. I’ve co-edited projects with other writers with whom I’d been best friends before the project began, and no longer on speaking terms with after. It happens. So just imagine living and working with another writer. Co-editing a transatlantic literary journal. Lots could go wrong in that scenario.
It doesn’t always work, sometimes when one of you gets a story accepted in that journal that NO ONE gets accepted into, the other one can’t help but ask, “why not me?” But it’s nice to have an extra pair of eyes in the house to tell you when you’re getting it right, and wrong. It’s good to live with someone who understands, when you’ve got the notebooks and pens out, when the laptop is turned on, they shut the door, take the kids out for ice cream, and give you your space for a few hours.
Gavin and I have, so far, made it work. We were friends when we started working on Waterhouse together, and we’re still friends. More than friends in fact. We look forward to seeing how our life together is reflected in one another’s writing from now on, and seeing how working so closely together will improve the Waterhouse further.
We invite you to share this journey with us, by keeping an eye on this blog, the Melons and Memory Facebook page, and the Waterhouse Review ( www.waterhousereview.co.uk ). Let’s enjoy this ride together!
mspetersonexplains
Ms. Peterson Explains it All: A Writer's Journal 