Poetry Wrap 3

A week of poetry; getting it published, reading it, writing to form and performing as a Headline act.

A busy and rewarding week with some full (much needed) writing days.

The first weekend I was without my car and missed The Ort with Debbie Aldous in Birmingham, the end of Cheltenham Festival, Caldmore Writing workshop with David Calcutt and Confab Cabaret in Malvern with Matt Windle ‘Poet with Punch’ and Kurly, who I recently saw perform at SpeakEasy in Worcester, which is where I will have to catch him again when he Headlines.

 

Studying Poetry and Writing West Midlands

I spent time catching up with my MOOC course, writing poetry, reading poetry and preparing this weekend’s writing session for WWM, as Ian is away and I get to be Lead Writer again.

 

Submissions, Publications, Poetry Festivals & Blogs

I submitted to the Seamus Heaney anthology and had a poem accepted, to be published in print form later this year. I booked tickets for the 52 event as part of Stratford Poetry Festival and emailed a couple of poets about Guest Blog posts.

 

Performing Poetry/ Headlining

Performance wise I had just the one gig, it had been a week since I performed and I also (made what I have since learnt is a mistake) took a set with 80% new material to Headline at Permission to Speak, the Scary Canary – a wonderful new spoken word night created and hosted by Rob Francis.

 I was headlining alongside the ever talented Ian Passey, a.k.a Humdrum Express.

http://heyevent.com/event/2141316629340676/permission-to-speak-4-poetry-spoken-word-feature-poet-nina-lewis

I complete my week working with the Senior writing group at The Hive.

Next Week at a glance:

• Mouth & Music Love in the Revolution
• HOWL
• SpeakEasy
• & it is Mental Health Awareness Week

Leave Time for Admin and Research

Hopefully one day, you can add ‘marketing’ to the title listed.

The greatest lesson I have learnt since I relaunched into writing is that Admin and research take a lot of time and both are necessary. I have spent the past few days researching markets and scheduling writing through the diary around life and performing.

It has taken days… I tried an old trick I used to push myself with back in the days of a pile of office work. I worked out that in an hour I had (on average) covered about 5 websites, I basically tried to cover what I needed to find out in less than 20 mins a site, then less than 15, I couldn’t shave any time off this as I was also copying information into files on my computer.

I am only part way through my list and have, as yet, not actually worked on any new writing, which I am champing at the bit to do (eager).

I can now post a review of ‘A Night With Maya Angelou’ with links to Jordan’s review (organiser). I am also dropping in a post about ‘Off the Page’, Jan Watt’s official book launch, attended on Tuesday.

Go read, enjoy!

Writing the Mountain

I love having a weekend free to write, apart from travel notes and a few poems I have not written all week as I was travelling and exploring new places. I have almost made up for the write-less week with over 10hrs of writing and research.

I have a whole list of websites to check and I have found two more writing opportunities. I had already printed a schedule (only took me a month to realise every writer needs one!) now it has notes scribbled all over it and I think I may be forced to put a hold on some projects.

I have already put my main manuscript down for the end of this month as I am now working on a collection of poems and several shorter submissions for publication. My writing notebook is full of scribbled notes and lists. All this work is filling me with positive energy and a feeling that I am doing the right thing. I am just a little concerned that I am going to have to account for every hour of the day until the end of March!

As a result of the busy work schedule, I may not be around too much to blog. We will see.

Putting the writing first for now.

Happy writing to you all.