A Day in My Writing Skin! (The 1st of the Year!)

Stretches her arms into a whole day of writing!

 

There is no excuse really for this being the 1st day of 2014 dedicated to writing. I go back to work tomorrow and there have been 5 days in the year already. Obviously the 1st is always a bit of a write off (no pun intended!) I did manage to sign up to 52 Jo Bell’s new writing project for 2014 and Mindful Writing at the start of the month.

 

I also registered for the next Hay House Summit, having missed the last one
I spent a frantic evening or two attempting to watch as many videos as I could before they were taken off the FREE resource lists!

 

 

The 2nd saw me attempt 2 poetry events in the same 8 hours, not for the faint hearted and probably not something I will manage again….Poetry For Lunch, & Liz Lefroy’s New Year Poetry Open Mic with Uncharacteristic Largesse.

The best part of Friday 3rd was spent in recovery, asleep! After I made myself spend several  hours updating writing admin, schedules, action plans, excel sheets, research lists and the like.

Saturday was an epically busy day in the real world, as I attempted to squeeze visits to most of the family into one day – having been too ill to see any of them much over Christmas and the New Year (this was similar to attempting 2 poetry gigs in a day, but with less driving and more food)!

© 2013 hearthouse – www.hearthouse.ca

 

Yesterday I had another day catching up on sleep after the mass tour of the family and had just enough time to help out by tidying up the kitchen before I went out to Buzzwords – A workshop with Hilda Sheehan and an Open Mic!

Today I made sure I was up and ‘actioning’ by 8 AM – which is a miracle – as I am not a morning person, especially not after a poetry gig the night before. I have made time allowances for de-decorating the Christmas decs, which are (as per tradition) coming down as it is the 12th night. And some much-needed -to-be-done-before-returning-to-work-household-chores!

I love a day like today, a writing day, even the sun has come and tried to frighten the rainstorms away. I spent the first part of the morning catching up on reading.

I have spent an hour online, researching websites and submissions, I have added two events – a book launch and an open mic to my desk diary for this month and I have subscribed to another mailing list.

I also managed to empty one inbox (the smaller of the 3 accounts) and have caught up with essential emails from the other two. Discovering a terrifying thing, a booking for work that had already been confirmed mid-January, that wasn’t in my diary and so now I have to postpone both an interview and public poetry performance! (Not looking forward to those emails/ calls…)

Off to have lunch and pack up the Christmas decorations.

Then this afternoon will actually involve writing!

A Day of R & R and Planned Action

I wrote this post this morning and then spent the rest of the day asleep!

I am exhausted after my poetry day yesterday (and the late night caused by post performance adrenalin) – I think I dragged myself to bed at 4a.m! I am going to have to start a post performance routine of a hot milky drink and quick costume change into PJ’s as soon as I walk in through the door and bed as soon after if I am going to survive 2014!

So this morning I treated myself to a much needed sleep in followed by a laptop lie in – this is where you basically get up to sort the tech and then crawl back under the covers!

I have spent 2 hours on admin this morning – offline. Sorting spreadsheets (finances – all still outgoing) this will turn around, I will be in a position to pay myself back every penny and now I have the challenge of doing more in 2014 but not using as much self funding as I did in 2013, it’s petrol and transport costs mainly! I spent time on a January Action Plan (only 3 days late!) and have my writing tasks set up in my desk diary – as well as in my electronic action plan.

I have 3 websites to check out and then a short story to conceive, some Haiku poetry to write, I have to organise 2 sets of poetry as I had confirmation last night that I have a spot at this month’s SpeakEasy (hooray) and have two other open mics before that. Plus a mid-month gig that I am desperately attempting to learn my poems off by heart! So that’s the next 3 days sorted.

Good job I am not back to work until next week, I am trying to use the weekend to visit relatives who I was too ill to see over Christmas though, I need to see them before work starts again.

So I have chiselled out some writing time to focus on this little to do list, some of today and tomorrow evening and Sunday daytime. I am hoping to make my next workshop and open mic event this Sunday if I haven’t collapsed in a pile of post-it notes, sharpies and writing by then!

© 2013 Creative Commons

I also hope to complete the review posts in this blog and pass the Dragon Award forward AND we are about to CELEBRATE 1 year of blogging as AWF turns 1 on the 4^th – I started the blog in the small hours and edited a post which meant the first live message went out on the 5^th! So like the Queen, I guess we can have 2 birthdays!

Party hats anyone?

Happy Writing!

A Day as a Writer

You have no idea how excited I am, it has been over 2 weeks since I had a day to myself to freelance and work on my action plan!

Yesterday I only worked a half day and hoped to get producing. However, our internet has been non-existent due to a pesky mouse (of the electronic variety) and actually my online time was spent catching up with emails and blog posts.

I did manage to choose a poem for tonight, but I had hoped to write  a new one.

Now I can!

I have been up and online catching up in Blogland for nearly two hours and it’s not even 9:30 – I plan to spend the rest of the morning working through emails and action plans, peppered with a few breaks and possibly some beckoning household chores!

After lunch I plan to spend some time with poetry pen in hand and later this evening I am going to my second Stanza (Poetry Society) meeting, where I have a spooky-ish poem in need of some help, once polished it will form part of my set for Drummonds the week after next.

I also need to email some writers to ask for permissions for references to their material during our INKSPILL Writing Weekend Retreat (Oct25th-27th)

 

Also – UPDATE of EXCITEMENT

Earlier on this year I submitted some work to Emmapress for an anthology of slightly erotic poetry, turned out I got a little carried away (thank-you EL James!) and my material would have been better suited for an erotic poetry anthology in the end. (Maybe if I am brave enough!)

Anyway the publishers have received a grant from the Arts Council to run a tour during the book launch. I am hoping to go to a performance in Stratford next week and am keeping my fingers crossed for a workshop opportunity in Oxford next month. Which sounds more like a poetry clinic where we take a poem and work on it. But will be perfectly timed to work on some more of mine, well 1, we are allowed to take 1 poem.

And there’s more…. the Stratford show has an Open Mic (yes, you know what’s coming next!) I have signed up – again it is just a 1 poem slot but I get to practise one of my poems for SpeakEasy next month! I only hope they have room for one more.

I need to spend some time this weekend trying to learn the -so-far-set-list off by heart!

Exciting times!

Whilst checking my email this afternoon I have had confirmation of both. A seat & slot in Stratford-Upon-Avon 1 of 6 places on the Oxford Workshop!