Tag Archives: artistic temperament

Stirrings of Artistic Temperament

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I think I may be developing an artistic temperament. This is not good, as I am not an artist. I am a word mechanic and rely on calm and orderly conduct, plus a large vocabulary and a metaphorical bag of literary spanners – swapping words in and out and tightening things up as necessary. I don’t do art and I don’t do feelings.

I read through the submission guidelines of a magazine late last night and decided, despite previous decisions to the contrary, that I wasn’t going to submit. They just struck me as a bit sloppy and as I have a limited supply of poetry it seemed a waste to tie it up for three months or more when I could show it to people who would give me quicker responses (and allow me to resubmit it elsewhere).

I never seem to have enough good poetry to go round, so I can, to some extent, be selective. It’s not an approach that I want to extend, because I always feel the need to keep opportunities open, and it’s also borderline arrogance. I’m definitely not so good that I can afford to start acting like that.

However, I do remember from my business days that there are sales you don’t want to make, and sometimes you just need to walk away. In this case there are two other magazines that I can submit to. They are not necessarily quicker, but they are more professional and it is all laid out beforehand without any words like “we aim to”.  That’s a bit like saying “we often don’t”.

This attitude, of course, is partly due to my involvement with haiku and haibun – those magazines seem to be a bit quicker and more poet-centred in their approach. Many poetry magazines won’t give feedback, and say so in their submission guidelines, one editor even going as far as to say that if you want feedback you should go to a writers’ group. I can’t imagine anything worse than sitting in a room full of writers and having to read my work out. Even salad and exercise seem more attractive.

Rainbow – Spring Evening

The photograph is of a rainbow we saw tonight,. Julia go a shot with her phone which showed it as a double but I was just too late. Unfortunately I can’t download the photo she took so you will have to put up with mine.

Friday

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My attachment to minimalistic titles continues.

My tendency to ramble and procrastinate is also well to the fore today. I have started this post twice, done some thinking for two other posts, which may never see the light of day and I have drunk deep from the well of clichés. Sometimes only a well-worn and hackneyed phrase will do.

I’ve just noticed that the evening has almost gone. I have been so busy snoozing and eating our traditional Friday night supper of fish and chips that six hours of my life have just melted away.

Last night, after posting, I settled down to examine a couple of magazines I am thinking of submitting to. One features the more experimental end of the haiku spectrum. I think I’m going to leave that alone at the moment as I’m not feeling particularly cutting edge or experimental. Haiku are hard enough without having to mess about with them.

The other magazine I was looking at tends to be a bit the other way. I spent a couple of hours trying to expand existing haibun to fit the lengthy, multi-haiku approach they favour, and it didn’t work. I then tried writing one from scratch. That didn’t work either.

This is both good and bad news. I have obviously developed a style I am comfortable with, which is good. I have obviously also become too comfortable with it, which is bad. There’s a fine line between developing a style and becoming a one trick pony.

It looks like I may be developing an artistic temperament. I’ll have to do something about knocking that out of me.

On a lighter note, I sat down to write a magazine article last night. Three hundred and fifty words later I finished. That is very short for a magazine article. In fact it’s far too short. It is, however, my typical blog length. It looks like blogging has helped me write regularly, but has developed a habit of writing in 250-350 word chunks. This piece, for instance, will be  three hundred and forty nine words when it is finished.