Poetry – Page 59

In my opinion it’s always good to keep things in perspective and an important time is when you feel as an individual that you’re under pressure. It doesn’t matter if it’s self-imposed, just as it can be a lot of the time being a writer – it’s still there bearing down on you. For many years I’ve dealt with pressure by imagining how my case would match up to the circumstances that somebody else is dealing with. I know it’s extreme, but if we go back to the days of gladiators I think we find a time where pressure on the individual was as real as it can get.

Rome - Collisseum 33 — The Collisseum - Rome

My photo above shows the Collisseum as it looks now with it’s representative piece of rebuilt staging at one end. Yes, it’s nice to get some idea of what it might have looked like, but the key area for me when I took the picture was the area below, where all those waiting to fight or be sacrificed would be spending some time. Now that for me represents real pressure.

What’s my point, apart from stating the obvious? I don’t believe that those of us who like to call ourselves writers produce a good result unless we put ourselves under some pressure. Okay, I’m not suggesting I strip off, grab a trident, a net and go looking for a fully grown lion. I apply my own pressure by keeping more than one project on the go. Invariably it’s three short stories but at the moment things are a little different.

I have the novel writing competition I mentioned in my previous post, of which I’m now pleased to report I’m in control. I’ve completely re-worked Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of my chosen entry, ‘Hawk, A Human Hunter’. For the first time I’ve now also written a synopsis, which I found more difficult than rewriting the story. Those two chapters and the synopsis are saved and stored for a week before I revisit them. I’ve decided to get my mind focused deeper into the plot by continuing with the next logical chapters. That should keep the story uppermost in my mind even if it’s not the competition chapters.

I’m also working on a short story for a web-based competition and a sci-fi short story and synopsis for another web-based competiton. I wrote a poem yesterday about emotions and one today about the changing seasons. I haven’t written poetry regularly since December. I may ration myself to one or two verses a week so I can concentrate on my storytelling. Apart from being creative writing in it’s own right I’ve found that writing poetry serves two other purposes for me. First and foremost, it gets the brain cells warmed up and working. Secondly the practical aspect of typing out the work gets me settled onto the keyboard in preparation for my other projects.

Apart from writing I’m delighted to report that Carmen, the fellow writer I’m mentoring is doing particularly well. Her own writing has improved considerably in just a couple of months but her proof-reading of my work is demonstrating that she has that all important eye for detail we all wish we had. I must admit that I sometimes find things like figures slip through the editing net. Those occasions when in my haste to write or rewrite I overlook ‘3’ when it should be ‘three’ or ‘four thousand’ when it should be ‘4,000’. I’m getting better, but Carmen is proving to me I am still careless on occasion. So I’ll take this opportunity to say a big public ‘thank you’ to my distant friend.

In between all the other activities, like any writer worth his (or her) salt, I’m also reading. I’m about half way through ‘The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,’ which I downloaded onto my Kindle a few days ago.

NaNoWriMo Certificate — Reminder of an achievement

For those interested in statistics I wrote:

55,460 words organised into 16 chapters and an epilogue in 29 days.

The finished product is a first draft so would need a lot of work to bring it to publishable standard but I’m delighted to have completed the task in the allotted time. It felt today when I posted my final work for verification as if I’d completed a marathon – and I’ve done that twice so I know it’s an accurate analogy. There was that same feeling of elation and exhaustion but spread over a longer time period.

My first attmept at a novel (A LIFE OF CHOICE) which has gone on for years will now get a major revamp. I’ve always thought of the adage, ‘write what you know’ but up until recently I’ve taken it too literally with that story. In my NaNoWriMo story, ‘HAWK, A HUMAN HUNTER’ I found myself easily slipping into the zone each time I worked on it. The characters became living, breathing people. Some I liked, some I despised.

Whatever happens to HAWK, the novel, this has been an invaluable experience and I’m more pleased than I can say that I attempted … and succeeded in completing the challenge. An entire, structured novel written from scratch inside a month.

It seemed only right and fitting that I used my freshly claimed certificate to adorn this post. Having read about the National Novel Writing Month Challenge over the last couple of years and decided it was beyond me, this felt like the right time to try it. The ingredients for a novel may be similar to a short story but the scale of the project is the major difference. My idea from the outset was to use a tight timeline even though it was a novel. In my opinion it would generate pace but only feedback will tell me if I was right.

To relax I’m now going to write a poem about the experience and tomorrow I’ll start a fresh short story.