Wasn’t really in wilderness at all, just poetless and writingless, so, yes… wilderness!
Mid-March I just stopped, completely unplanned and unintentional, muse seemed to have left the building and I was physically & mentally drained, all my energy was used up working the daytime and by the time it came to the evening, I was falling asleep an hour after getting home from work.
I decided to let it happen, rather than push on with my performance agenda. I was feeling sad about not writing, but even typing up previously penned poems seemed too much. At the time I wasn’t worried, knowing this time would pass.
There were 5 submission pieces I had scheduled to work on, three poetry nights (Mouth & Music, Howl & Speakeasy) that I missed and a Stanza meeting, due to an important family occassion (which weeks later led to a new poem being penned). All this went out the window and was swapped for work, sleep, real life mortgage hunting, meetings and TV.
I was activiated after 7 days by Mad Malvern Book Promotion events https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/malvern-book-promoters-mad-march-book-promotion-events/ and working for WWM (Writing West Midlands) – who have sent incredibly exciting news this month. The following week I had another week off, missing Hit The Ode and some submission deadlines. I was performing again by the weekend in a charity event at Martineau Gardens ‘Nomad Variety’. https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/nomad-variety-at-martineau-gardens/
Followed by a celebration of WORLD BOOK DAY with two events/readings in Walsall.
https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/celebrating-world-poetry-day/
The only reason I missed a 3rd week of events in March was to cover my transport costs to LONDON, which due to such a hellish journey (a breakdown on the hard shoulder on the outskirts of London resulted in a 3 hour delay, making a three hour journey take closer to seven hours, we were running late as it was) I am hoping to be reimbursed. 
I missed Poetry Bites with Jacqui Rowe, particularly sad not to see Robert Harper’s (Barefiction) full set and missed Jayne Stanton too. The following night I missed Drummonds 42 with Andrew Owens. My Caldmore Community Gardens workshop was cancelled – having already turned work down, I treated myself to a much needed writing day and at least sent a backlog of poetry to David Calcutt for his Natural Histories website.
http://naturalhistoriesblog.com/others-writing/
I also worked on a couple of new poems from notes in my writing journals, from previous workshops with Angela France and Jean Atkin.
On Friday I went to London for Hark Issue #4 Launch and reading – very exciting! Once I had slept all of Saturday in recovery of a 22hour day on 5 hours sleep, I found as if by magic, I had woken up with my poetry muse back! We have been celebrating every since.
LINKS TO FOLLOW
awritersfountain 