Tag Archives: rules

It is Done

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The Magpie, Little Stonham, Suffolk

I stuck to the rules and I have three new poems to show for it. I felt like I’d had enough after two, but three is the target. Either three revised or three composed. Being inflexible, and having started to write, I carried on writing, even if the rules would have allowed me to write two and revise one.

Silly as it may sound (I am, after all, talking about writing poetry, not cleaning out a hen house) I am now in need of a rest. This blog post is a rest. Just a change of pace.

Yesterday I deviated from the rules, and things went wrong. The gardeners arrived and did their job. I went out to avoid the first three hours then returned, made cups of tea for us all and got to work. I couldn’t think of poetry so I got stuck into an article I am writing – fact checking and constructing a biography from snippets. It’s coming together slowly. Very slowly.  However, it did fill the day so although I veered off track, I did at least spend several hours in useful pursuits.

Norfolk Flint Wall

Flexibility, as TP just remarked, is key. The rules and targets are to make me work with more focus. If I can fill a few hours with effort instead of frittering my time away all day, it is time well spent and proof that a few rules and targets can help.

I have set targets before, for junior sports clubs and for writing and in all cases I have achieved much more when I plan and write it down. The trick is to make sure you sit down and write something out. I’ve let things drift for the last three years and although some good things have happened, I have to say that more would have happened if I had planned.

I use the SMART model – that’s Specific, Measurable,, Something, Something and Time-bound or Timely (they struggle a bit with that last one). I always have to look it up because I can’t remember the middle bit.  It’s Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Doesn’t really nee a title does it?

I will end up with a table that has magazine names with times and targets in boxes. It fits quite well. The names are Specific, the targets are Measurable because they are numbers of poems, the targets are Achievable, but I don’t actually need a column for that, Relevant is the type of poetry (they don’t all take the same sort of thing) and Time-bound is a good column for the submission windows, though I generally rely on my submissions calendar for that. There’s a lot more admin in writing poetry than the lives of Lord Byron or Dylan Thomas would suggest.

Pictures are from September 2018, a trip round East Anglia.

The contents of the bag

New Rules

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I have given considerable thought to my lack of poetic output recently.

Yes, some of it is due to illness, recovery and natural cycles of productivity. Some of it, illogical as it seems, is because of the worry, which makes me less relaxed and creative. That’s the downward spiral that posh people  call writers’ block. However, after much thought I have to admit that I’m doing more writing about collectables, and I enjoy that more than poetry. It’s easier and does not involve so much dredging through painful memories.  The best of my poetry is a greater pleasure than my best writing on coins or medallions, but on average the article on collectables are easier and involve fewer bad memories.

Recently I have written ten pieces for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire Facebook page. I have also researched and written a slideshow, which took ages. It can take a day just to put the story of one man together. Despite having done a lot of the work previously, the first draft always reveals extra work that needs doing Sometimes, when it’s a new story, it can take the best part of a day.  There were 20 stories in the presentation, plus the general pages on the history and the nut and bolts of collecting. I’m also putting afew articles for magazines together, as some of them actually pay and I’d like to think I can make some of my subscriptions (WP and Ancestry specifically) pay for themselves.

Being naturally idle and disorganised, it is easy to start something new, but not so easy to find enough time. So I have several new rules, which should sort a few things out.

Number One, I am going to do nothing until I have worked on at least three poems. Today I actually did the washing up first, but I couldn’t concentrate with a stack of dirty plates needing to be done. Then I worked on three poems – tightening them up and getting them ready for submissions later this month. After that it was emails, WP comments and, finally, this post.

Next it will be lunch.

After that it will be an article I am working on, followed by planning. My best years as an administrator in junior rugby were always the ones where i planned properly. After a couple of years writing haibun I spent a couple of evenings planning things out properly, which was when I started to be published a lot more. It wasn’t talent. It wasn’t even hard work. It was searching out places I could submit to, and setting targets for how many submissions I was going to make. I need to get back to that. It’s too easy to tell yourself you are ill and you can’t be blamed for your slump, but it’s surprising how much more productive you are when you have a target.

So that’s the two new rules – 3 Poems before other work, and a plan with targets. Simple enough, the complication lies in making myself do it.

I thought the Alf Tupper pictures were well suited to today’s subject.

Slowing Down, Taking Stock

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Things are stuttering along. It is, as before, a zig-zag course towards improvement and today, after submitting my first piece for some time, I am once again wondering why I bother writing.

I’m clear on magazine articles. I don’t do many of them, but I do it for the money.

Poetry is different. I’ve been sent one or two free copies of magazines and have had two certificates, but the rewards of writing poetry are mainly spiritual.

At the moment, I’m thinking of stopping submitting so much. I can dress this up as spiritual renewal or an issue of quality over quantity, but in truth, I’m just getting a bit fed up with some of the editors I have to deal with.

Most of them are brilliant (though even the brilliant ones often turn me down – nobody is perfect) with a positive attitude, open minds and helpful comments.

Others are a bit on the academic side and a touch prescriptive. I won’t get too specific, as they all work hard to produce the magazines we rely on, and I don’t want to criticise anyone personally. However, one or two seem to get their preferences mixed up with the “rules” of writing Japanese poetry forms. Even the various societies, with their panels of experts, don’t produce rules, just guides. These also often edit what I consider to be my voice. I write as I speak, and if I want to use an expression from the midlands of the UK, I don’t see why it needs to be ironed out by an American with an academic background in English.

Meanwhile, there is the group of editors who want to be excited by my submissions. I write about my life. It’s not exciting. I’m unlikely to display the qualities required by these editors.

I have limited time at the moment, and have decided to use it more wisely. One submission has gone. The other, with its manufactured false excitement and linguistic fireworks, will stay in the draft section. Eventually, as it matures, it will be used, or dismantled for use in other work.

But it won’t be sent out this week to curry favour with an editor who wants me to be something I’m not.

My Orange Parker Pen

 

 

When Alliteration Goes Bad . . .

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I’m not sure what I’ve done, but I seem to have a new page when I start WP, giving me the chance to savour the whole WP experience. I don’t just a blog to write and people to see, I now have a few extra buttons and the sense that something random just happened. Good old WP, always something new and confusing.

We will be starting Numismatic Society meetings at the end of the summer, unless, of course, we have to cancel them again. It has been tricky organising speakers but the Secretary has done a sterling job (he is also the shop owner, so I have to say that) and some of the talks do look quite interesting. It will be nice to get back towards normal. It’s a big room and we don’t usually have more than 12 members attending, so social distancing won’t be a problem. The Banknote Society is also starting meetings but their Secretary has decided that they should limit it to ten members, and they have to apply for a place. I can see that causing some annoyance.

As I have said before – people who like making rules have loved  lockdown.

And that brings me onto the subject of alliteration. Apparently I have to practice it if I want to be a poet (another gem from that book I was telling you about). Unless you want to be a haiku poet, where alliteration and poetic devices are frowned upon. Well, that’s what they tell you. In fact some haiku editors are quite happy with alliteration. I’ve even seen it mentioned favourably when they have been picking their favourites. There is no consistency.

Anyway, as i left Julia at work I spotted two magpies in the road – clearly parent and child. The words “fat, fluffy fledgling” came to my mind, but they don’t work well, they are not alliterative, they are just  tongue-twister about a flat fluffy fledgling or, more confusingly a fat fluffy fedgling. I really don’t know what’s wrong with it, but I can’t make it fit a poem, there’s just something wrong with the words. Strange, isn’t it?

Magpie

 

Just a Quick Post

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I went for a blood test this morning – got off to a slightly slow start as I don’t have to take Julia to work this morning, and nearly missed getting a car parking space. Mental note – remember that the spaces are just about gone by 7.30. Despite notices about it not being a car park for staff several members of staff in uniform were either arriving or leaving as I took the last available space.

Two women, talking about how to handle a booking system on a computer, walked straight into the hospital in front of me without pausing to put masks on. Looks like we are back to ignoring the rules, however, as it’s allowable to stage mass gatherings, despite the law, I don’t suppose you can blame them. Once you see one group treat the rules with contempt I suppose we all think we can do it too. It’s the Cumming’s Effect.

I’ve decided to take a neutral stance on the events in London, by the way. It would have been better if the Police hadn’t been so heavy-handed, but it would also have been better if there hadn’t been mass disobedience to the law. All that happens now is that the Police have to answer complaints and write reports instead of doing their job, while politicians posture and pressure groups make an issue of a personal tragedy. Nobody looks good as a result of this.

Meanwhile, I had a swift blood test but needed holes in both arms to find any.

The morning was quite different to the last test morning, just a few weeks ago. Last time the image I took away was a Dunnock singing its heart out in a sparkling silver birch against the backdrop of a bright blue sky. Today it was a Wood Pigeon cooing on a murky morning – grey bird, grey tree, grey sky.

Some days make it easier to be a poet than others.

(Sorry – the pigeon isn’t in a tree, but it was the first picture I came to as I scrolled down and I need to get off to work.)