Organising the Month – Poetry Gigs

What will tomorrow bring? TWO poetry performances, one at lunch time and the other several miles away in the evening.

 I had great fun adding events and gigs into my brand new desk diary in glittery pink pen! 🙂 Each week there is something for me to get my teeth into, this month alone over 9 performances and a job interview and about 3 submissions planned and in addition to this a new weekly poetry challenge.

Tomorrow I am performing at Library of Birmingham along with Jan Watts and others in an event she has created for lunchtime this year. In the evening I am heading off on a new venture to a venue I have never been too, invited by a poetry friend of mine. The slots have all been booked but I am hoping that I may be able to sign up for an open mic slot – if not I am more than happy to sit, listen, absorb and enjoy and book myself in for later in the year.

 

So tonight I will be sorting material and perhaps writing some new poems.

The Write Year – Review 2013

This has been the first year of my venture and I have accomplished lots, a solid foundation for the next 15 years and beyond!

The Write Year Review 2013

What a year it has been!

I started with intent in January and by February had discovered local arts groups and opportunities. By April I had booked workshops and continued to attend events and classes. I participated in both NaNoWriMo Spring Camp and NaPoWriMo in April and wrote over 50,000 words on my non-fiction manuscript, a book about coping with depression. A collection of 30 poems were produced for National Poetry Month. Throughout the year I wrote short stories and poetry and made submissions, I had one poem published. By the Summer after the July NaNoWriMo Summer camp, in which I wrote a series of short stories, I took August off and caught up with some reading.

Then in September I made an amazing discovery – I realised that poetry was my way back into this writing world. A genre I can write. The creative calling I was meant to follow. I met an amazing group of local poets and joined the Poetry Society Stanza group and started to learn how to edit my poetry – I have always been better helping others than managing on my own. By October I took one brave step back towards the mic and for the first time in 15 years I performed my poetry. I got the taste for it and packed many events and performances into the last quarter of the year. I also secured a writing job in September as an assistant writer (a voluntary position which will hopefully lead to paid work as a lead writer across regional groups in the future.) I thought I had this job and later discovered in November that the charity organising the Writing Squads had changed the system and were requesting formal applications. I sent one and have an interview in January.

In October I also (finally) managed to make it to a festival – after missing all of the festivals on my list this year. I met some more amazing people who have become friends and contacts. Everything I saw inspired me and I learnt a lot, bought a lot of books and went to my first book launch.

And of course this blog, started on the 4th January 2013 which has grown beyond belief and in itself has opened up opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.

January:

Started this blog, (2 followers)

writing research

started my adventures in Blogland and started working on writing challenges from other blogs

submitted two non-fiction life writing (short excerpts), a flash fiction and a short story

 

February:

Blogging (26 followers)

Research

Flash fiction Jeffery Archer Competition/ Project

submitted poetry to Magma Magazine and a short life write excerpt

 

March:

Blogging (72 followers)

enrolled onto NaNoWriMo Spring Camp and dug out an old non-fiction manuscript from the 90’s (former writing life) to work on

submitted poetry to Cinnamon Press

developed a book proposal for a title that was snapped up during the process (non-fiction)

made a second attempt at a proposal on a less familiar subject (Non-fiction)

poetry to Abridged

poetry to San Francisco Literary Journal

entered poem in Girl’s College Competition Cambridge

wrote a monologue

 

April:

Blogging (162 followers)

The Blog receives awards: Best Moment, Leibster and Shine On.

Participated (and WON) NaNoWriMo Spring Camp adding 54000 words to the non fiction manuscript

attended regional NaNowriMo Write In Meets

NaPoWriMo completed in this month.

Attended a 1 day workshop in Comedy Writing with Keith Lindsay

Booked Writing Children’s Picture Books (short course) for May, with Clare Belle

Signed up with Ohio State University to complete online Rhetorical Composition II course

 

May:

Blogging (220 followers)

Attended a Writer’s Network Meeting

As a result of opportunities at that meeting signed up for a scriptwriting workshop

attended 2 courses and studied for a 3rd online (must have been mad/ eager…)

Rhetorical Composition II

started Scriptwriting/ writing for theatre workshops with Alan Harris (weekends for 3 weeks)

started Picture Book Writing course

submitted an Urban Fantasy Short story (my 1st attempt at this genre)

 

June:

Blogging (267 followers)

Rhetorical Composition II

Picture Book Writing course

Intended to go to Cinnamon Press Picnic and Book Launch – sadly missed due to weather conditions and energy levels.

Attended first SCWIB meeting – Picture book manuscript critique night – very helpful pointers for manuscript

Signed up for the next NaNoWriMo Summer Camp

 

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

I will update this post when I have access to all the information 🙂

Review of December 2013

 December has been a fantastic month to end the first year of my 16 year plan (now 15) … as far as performing most events take a break over the holiday period and the last one I had booked into was after I fell ill with a winter bug so I missed it and I sadly also missed the only pre-arranged Christmas Social with a bunch of poets in the city. Fortunately though being ill and bed bound before Christmas meant that when the few days of family and festivities arrived I was actually feeling well enough to enjoy it!

December was the month I got back to writing my Action Plan and made some submissions to poetry anthologies (fingers crossed!) I also attended book launches and poetry events – you can read more about these on THE WRITE YEAR page. I finally feel like I am doing what I should be doing and I believe in what I am doing and what is being created. I have hopes and plans for 2014 to continue this success and growth – although reading through the review of the year once I found my feet I didn’t do too badly! 🙂

It has been a wonderful year and I hope you have enjoyed reading all about it.

Big thanks for following the blog and my initial dancing steps up the yellow brick road.

 

 

I wish you all health and happiness for the new year ahead – here’s to 2014 

New Year, New You – Writing Resolutions

 You may have created some new year resolutions and some of these promises to yourself may well be about writing. Have you thought on focusing on writing resolutions?

Have a think about what you would like to achieve this year.

How will you achieve this?

What will the end of 2014 look like for you, the writer?

 

Here are my resolutions – feel free to commit some of your own down in response to this post.

I am working towards a collection of poems for a pamphlet.

I am starting work as an Assistant Writer with hope of having a position as a Lead Writer in 2015.

I am going to have a big presence on the Performance Circuit in the hope of being booked for guest spots by the end of the year.

I will submit poetry for publication.

I will write some short stories for competitions.

 

 

Happy New Year 2014

I hope you all had a fantastic New Year’s Eve and that you are ready to grasp the possibilities of 2014 with both hands!

 HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

Mr G and I spent the afternoon and evening with friends and then came home to see the New Year in and thus avoided kissing strangers or being swamped in vast seas of drunken revellers… been there done that plenty of times, this was our first New Year in our home and there was something very special about that!

Besides I had my gratitude jar to reveal  (although a tip for next year if you do a jar is celebrate it on January 1st – unless you’re sober enough to read it after Midnight!)

Every small step mattered in 2013 because of where I was coming from, but amongst the bigger achievements were;

 House hunting, buying the house, leaving work, finding new jobs, performing poetry, networking, getting a writing job, making friends with writers, joining Poetry Society Stanza groups, working on manuscripts, workshops, writing classes, online courses and challenges such as NaNoWriMo and NaPoMo, becoming emotionally positive, writing again, getting a poem published, meeting some famous authors, poets and the like, growing crops successfully throughout the year and living with Mr G.   

 

Next year, oopps, this year, I plan to jar up the big stuff!

I also plan to do another challenge I found online. I will post about this later. I have been up for a few hours getting buried in new possibilities as the writing world wakes up again after its December hibernation.