Happy New (halfway through the 1st month) Year!

Happy New year!

We made it to 2022, in this exhausting world where everyday we’re grateful to be alive! I hope your start to 2022 has been a quality one.

Since my health issues at the end of 2018, I haven’t really been an active creative. During my treatment I couldn’t write at all. After 6 months I stopped needing morphine, I gradually worked on editing the book which was delayed due to my medical needs. The editing process takes months and by the end of that I had little energy to invest. At this time I was still on over 20 pills a day. 

I struggled with myself, feelings of failing and frustrations of inability all through 2019. It took a further year after I was free from the stick walking and consultants to tackle this. By this point we were tackling the pandemic.

Many creatives suffered. I read an article which explained the area of the brain we use to process/ manage the emotional fallout of a pandemic is where the creativity comes from, so it was no surprise we all suddenly felt empty. I had been staring at my wall/garden in isolation for a year already so I didn’t have to tackle that feeling of having nothing to write about, but survival mode doesn’t lend itself to play and I lost any potential of artistic bliss. 

I desperately needed to escape into words and place focus away from what was happening globally and at home. Thanks to many generous poets I was able to stay creatively buoyant throughout Lockdown, despite a gauntlet of life’s challenges. And I was finally able to write about my annus horribilis. 

By 2021 my m/s was ready but I’ve sat on it for so long that it has become changed. Which was its destiny, but I know it needs to become a priority if it is ever to be completed. 

That’s what I am working on as well as taking on almost full time real life work by way of compensating the devastation to the bottom line over the past three years! I am grateful to have work in these times and to be able to do it. 

I was diagnosed with a chronic disease at the end of 2019 and another chronic condition in the summer of 2020, obviously the NHS was already in crisis before the pandemic, so people with other issues (1/5th of the population, I believe) are waiting for appointments connected to other conditions. The backlog is not something which can be worked through.

I was lucky to see the consultant for all allocated appointments last year. But news like this also takes some adjusting. So in addition to working offline on the manuscript, I am also giving myself time to focus on health and future. 

I am involved in projects which take place over the next two weekends and WLFF (Worcestershire LitFest & Fringe) are planning the 2022 Festival.

I am still here and I am delighted that you are too. I wish you every success and happiness in 2022. Fingers crossed! 

https://vpresspoetry.blogspot.com/p/patience.html

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021

I wish you all a Happy, safe and healthy New Year! I know this year is different, but just think – no sore feet in the morning! Mr G. and I have a few fireworks planned later to wave goodbye to whatever 2020 was. Going out with a BANG!

May this next year bring you hope and joy.

The New Year Begins

Hello – welcome to 2016, I hope it a great year for you, filled with good fortune, you know you can make it happen.

In 2015 my writing life kept me so busy that the blog had to take a bit of a backseat, which I am going to try to balance this year as it is pretty frustrating when you follow a blog and the blogger becomes inactive (inactive at least in Cybersville). Last year my main focus was headline gigs and the manuscript, this year I am now in the fortunate position of an almost fully edited m/s which with a little more work will be ready to bat back to the publishers and then I can concentrate on some new writing.

There are plenty events already filling up the January diary and I have yet to count the total for 2015, I know it wasn’t much below 2014 despite talking about a back seat. There are many mini projects on burners that I want to unleash in 2016. It is also my final prep year for my first Olympics. My focus and goals will reflect this.

In December (it had already sold out) I discovered an Arvon City course which would have benefitted me, unfortunately the grant application date past before I got to the online form filling and now in hindsight, I would rather save for next time. This isn’t strictly true – I am gutted, but having broken a pair of expensive glasses over Christmas, I don’t think I could have managed a 3 day writing retreat. Next time I AM ON IT!

52 –  Oh, you remember, Jo Bell – 500+ poets yadee, yadee – are having a workshop and book launch for the 52 prompt book on the 31st January – and had I been on retreat I may not have made this event, which is in the diary and is a bright way of seeing out January – just as today was a bright day to see it in!

This morning I headed over to Avoncroft for a writing workshop with Claire Walker, which was every bit as good as the last one. I managed a whole poem that just needs a tweak and some other material that has bubbles of promise and it felt extremely good to be back in my writing skin. I took Christmas off – unintentionally didn’t write for 2-3 weeks, I have read and researched and made notes in the ‘carry me everywhere notebooks’, so I haven’t had a total shut down, still it felt amazing to have that pen moving again and in a fresh notebook too!

It was equally lovely to reconnect with poetry friends, I haven’t seen people in a while because I have been off the scene and when I have been at an event, they weren’t and Stanza was early to allow for Christmas so it feels like forever since we were altogether.

My resolutions are all to do with the house I live in and the writing plan will be transferred from scribbles to action plans and charts over the next few weeks.

So all that is left is for me to wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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.