Tag Archives: writing

Planning

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Peacock on crocus

Today, I messed round on the fringes of poetry. I am no closer to submitting the December poetry than I was a couple of days ago. However, it is familiar territory and nothing to worry about. It is not a matter of life and death. Tomorrow I will make a decision on whether I submit or leave it. I prefer to make a decision rather than just let it drift. Then I must get next year set out, listing all my planned submission dates.

I did, however, do two short articles on medallions for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire Facebook page. It’s not great literature, and doesn’t solve any mysteries, but it keeps me out of mischief and keeps my mind engaged.

Crocus at Nottingham

Today, apart from this, was uneventful. We had brunch (which included leftover sweet potato fries) and an evening meal consisting of a ham sandwich with a variety of leftovers – including frozen chicken nuggets left over from Christmas Eve and various wrinkly salad items. These two meals allowed us to feel like we were cutting back, and still left time to eat shortbread biscuits.

The sunflower seeds in the garden feeder are going down at a satisfactory pace and the fat balls are showing signs of avian attention. The nyger seed, however, remains untouched. We will probably use it to mix in with other things at a later date. My plan is to replace it with a peanut feeder. I think we have an old one hanging about, and peanuts seem to be an attractive food. Meanwhile, I have plans to plant teasel and sunflowers in the garden to provide natural food. We also need some more berry-producing shrubs.

Daffodils

When mum and dad moved into the bungalow, I produced a planting scheme which allowed for cover, security, bird food and year round interest. Their gardener (they had him for years at three different houses) removed most of my shrubs and substituted the normal boring mix he always relied on. They have a variety of shrubs but nothing with spines or berries. I’m going to start making changes, but you should always spend a year in a garden before you start work on major things.

Daffodils

My first project will be to check for the presence of bulbs, once the flowers start. I’m fairly sure that I will be able to get some snowdrops in, if nothing else. After that, it will be a question of waiting for autumn to plant more bulbs. Bulbs, like me, are simple things. I really should have planted some pots of bulbs in the autumn, but there was so much to do it escaped me.

Irises at Wilford

That End of Year Feeling

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Little Egrets – almost in the back garden . . .

I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things. With a new house and wife who is determined to use her retirement to make me do things, I’m going to have plenty to do (we still have to finish moving an awful lot of stuff). However, I want to get back to writing. This, traditionally, is the time of year when I count up the submissions and the acceptances and decide if I have done enough.

It’s tricky this year. I have definitely not done enough but I have had other things on my mind like the chest infection, the trip to urology and the house move. I’m cutting myself some slack here. It’s not been an overly productive year, but it’s not been bad either, and I do have excuses. Of course, I’ve always had excuses, which is why I am in my 67th year with my carefully horded “potential” still intact.  If I’m not careful I am going to go to the grave with the song still in me (to misquote Thoreau).

May, and the end of an era

Last year I had  20 acceptances and 7 rejections. With the one I am sending this afternoon that will be 28 submissions. It compares with 37 for the year before. Because I lost some paperwork to computer glitches (or, more precisely, my ineptitude in backing things up) I’m not sure what my figures are for previous years.

As I recall, I was pushing towards 50 submissions a year at one time and talking about trying for a hundred, because that’s the figure that is often use in articles on writing and rejection. The theory is that trying for 100 submissions (some even try for 100 rejections) stops the sting of rejection, gives you plenty of practice and makes you more industrious. Blog posts don’t count, because there is no chance of rejection. I can, I suppose, add my 23 pieces for the Numismatic Society of Nottingham FB page, as there is a small chance of rejection there.

Admiral Vernon and Commodore Brown – the start of my numismatic writing career in retirement 

However, that’s still a lot of submitting to be done if I’m going to make a serious attempt on 2025.

First I will get the last submissions of 2024 done, then I will start on the plan for 2025.

Pictures are some highlights from 2024. It takes all sorts . . .

 

Words

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Cottage loaves – various staes of success

I wrote two posts after the last one was published, and filed them both. One was about the growing corruption in the world and the UK’s slide down to 20th position in the league tables. The other was about writing poetry. One was boring and the other was boring and self-indulgent.

They ended up around 400 words each and the only thing worth preserving is that out of my last four submissions I have had three poems accepted. I have not heard back from the fourth.

That’s over 800 words I wrote for no real purpose. It’s nice to know I can knock out 800 words without a problem, less nice to know that it does me little good. I really should divert all those words into something useful.

Apple juice

I could write begging letters. I imagine that most of them will be unsuccessful but it’s a thought. I did once, when I was young and enthusiastic, write some letters to newspapers that paid for letters, and did get several cheques. However, it was difficult striking just the right note (a topic of interest balanced with the right degree of outrage) and I soon moved on to doing filler pieces for a magazine that took interesting facts and scattered them in little boxes throughout the text. I can’t quite remember what happened to them – some editorial change that meant they weren’t needed. After that I tried full length articles and short stories but it’s a lot of work for little success in a crowded market, and I had kids by then.

That’s probably the best thing about kids – an instant excuse for everything I didn’t quite do. However, it’s noticeable that my two successful periods of writing poetry fall either side of the kids taking all my time.

I rest my case.

Making cider vinegar

 

Pictures are from October 2015.

 

 

10 Years

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According to WP it is ten years since I registered. They just sent me a message to tell me. It took a few weeks for me to get into the swing of things so my first post was not until the 8th of October. I’ve just had a look at that first month – there are few photos and a tendency to forget titles. Some things don’t change. That month, we went to The Lakes to celebrate our 25th Wedding anniversary.

Guinea Fowl sheltering from the rain under a picnic table.

A lot has happened in the last ten years, but I expect you have noticed that. A lot has happened to us all.

Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, depending on your point of view, I still can’t find much to say. House purchasing has driven it all out of my head. Solicitors, taxation and bills don’t leave much room for other thoughts. I’m just glad that we are doing it now. My parents left their final move until they were nearly 80 and it took a lot out of them. I’m not sure they ever really bounced back from it.

Fortunately I did manage to sneak some time to send submissions out. Life feels a lot better when I have submissions out, even if they eventually get returned. It’s hard to think of myself as a writer when I’m not actually submitting work.

A colourful salad – borage, nasturtium leaves and fat hen.

Bearing in mind some of the things I’d been saying about planning, and trying harder, I sent a submission to a magazine I have a patchy record with. They have already accepted something, so it paid off. That’s really the difference between positive and negative thinking. I could have sat here, avoided submitting and carried on thinking that they “never” accept anything. Or I could, as I did, send a submission and get a surprise acceptance. maybe I’m getting better. Or just luckier.

Yes, soup is a constant thread in this blog. I made Tomato, Pepper and Lentil soup today.

Photos are from October 2014. The cake was for our 25th Wedding Anniversary.

Sixteen Swimming Swans

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Mute Swan – Rufford Abbey

This morning I thought of several poems whilst I was on the way back from dropping Julia off. This is the same time frame where I used to have all my best ideas. My brain is awake but the task of driving on a fairly clear road is not too demanding. At that point thoughts come into my head. I actually had my first idea before we left home, had a second as I dropped her off and had several more on the way home. No pad, no voice recorder, just me repeating things to myself.

When I reached home I noted the ideas down and wrote the prose sections for five haibun. That’s more than I did in the last months – the ones I’ve submitted have all been written for ages and I have merely worked my way through them without originating anything. They have had a few tweaks, and have needed a haiku or a tanka here and there, but generally all my recent acceptances have been written for months. That, of course, is how it is supposed to be. People who know these things advise leaving work to mature.

Mute Swan at Clumber Park

I just looked back and realise that I have had three months this year when I have submitted nothing and that everything I have had accepted since March has been, and been rejected, at least once.

Since this morning I have had two more ideas, though I have not settled to write them yet. Even poets have to wash up and drink tea. One of the ideas is actually about drinking tea.

Swan at National Arboretum

If you’ve ever followed my creative process you will have noticed that things change and I’m more of an artisan than an artist. I don’t really have a creative process, despite what I just wrote. In three months it’s quite likely that the reflections on drinking tea will have become a poem about eating sandwiches. That’s how it goes. That’s how my poem about two swans flying by became a poem about sixteen swans swimming, and was eventually accepted and published as a poem about a cormorant.

If a poet’s studio is a serene place of beauty where words flow and great thoughts are written in flowing calligraphy, mine is more like a backstreet workshop where power tools scream and where things are bolted together roughly and beaten into shape with hammers.

Eventually I will rewrite the one about the two swans flying by.  I liiked it and it contained an idea that didn’t work with cormorants.

Guess what the theme of today’s photos is . . .

 

Introspection, by a Blockhead

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Bumble bee on bramble flowers – Sherwood Forest

Toast and marmalade, tea, emails, WP comments, find my glasses. This latter task would be easier if I had a pair of glasses to help me see. As it is, I have to stagger through a nightmare world where I rely on memory to find the right keys, as the letters tend to simmer and shift when I am trying to type without glasses. Old age, whilst a matter of amusement to the young (I remember, with pain, the things I used to say to my parents, the amusement I gained from each senior moment.)  Those turned into Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and, eventually, not only claimed my parents but showed me a glance of the world that is going to be my future.

At times like this, I think it is an advantage to be shallow, as there would be little to gain from an in-depth analysis of my past conduct and future health. You are born, you fritter away your life, and you die. My main regret, in  a life that featured too much frittering, is that I wasted so much time going through the motions and building a lacklustre facsimile of a career. I should have pursued my original writing ambitions and at least been a better poet, even if the rest evaded me. If you are going to fritter, you should, I think, fritter big time. There is no point in being half-hearted.

Flowers – detail

What is blogging, if it isn’t frittering? No man, said Doctor Johnson, but a blockhead ever wrote except for money, and blogging is a good example of writing without money. We sit, we write, some of us, I’m told, plan their blog posts in advance, and, after all this work, the money is made by WP, a soulless entity with an infinite capacity for capturing writers in its web and charging them for the provision of “new and improved” services. In the last seven or eight years I have seen many new services, but the “improvement” is, as far I can see, is on a level with a Unicorn or a water horse.

This is the first tick on my Friday list. Now I’m off to do the washing up. It’s going to be a long, slow day.

Wild flowers

Chugging Along

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The new blood sample is given, the shopping delivery is confirmed. I have also pulled three poems out of long term storage ( it’s the file next to oblivion) and polished them up. I have  also lined up another six which need a bit of editing. Once that is all done, I will have the nine I need for this month. Then I will need to find a few more for the month after, but sufficient to the day is the evil thereof as the King James Version tells us. Or in other words, I will worry about that as the time approaches. By that time I will probably have had at least six of this months submissions returned and they will be ready to go again.

Writing poetry is probably one of the more sustainable hobbies – nearly as ecological as composting and a lot better for the environment than rally driving. many of my poems are accepted on te second or third try, one on the fourth, as I recall. After that I tend to lose interest in them. I once had one returned for the second time, sent it off immediately, and had it accepted within days. It’s true what they say about rejection, it’s how it fits with one particular editor on one specific day.

Medals of Superintendent A W Tacey of Nottingham City Police – I will be photographing some of his old addresses before the talk. He had a less exciting life that Colonel Brighten (see below) but wsa arguably a much better citizen. When tacey was awarded his Silver Jubilee Medal (the fourth one in the group) brighten was probably still incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs.

Nothing much else happened. I’ve done  bit more towards the September presentation, and it is starting to take shape, but it still feels a long way from coming together. That’s top of my list for next week. I don’t expect that I will come close to finishing it, but I’d like to think I get most of the slides roughed out and in the right order. If I’m honest, I can take it from there without doing much more – most of my presentations are not properly finished and rely on my memory rather than a script.

The problem with this one is that it’s an introduction to the history of miniature medals, with some anecdotes about collecting and a number of stories stories I have discovered in the course of researching. I could easily do 100 slides for it, which will be far too long and will send people cross-eyes. Forty five minutes is my target, about 50 slides, and leave them wanting more.

The medals here and in the header picture, for instance, is the group of medals which belonged to a solicitor and war hero. A solicitor, he had a distinguished war, awarded the Distinguished Service Order twice, mentioned in dispatches three times and given two Belgian medals. In WW2 he commanded a Home Guard District and was awarded an OBE. Between the wars he was caught up in a couple of news stories and in 1932 he was struck off and imprisoned for fraud. He bought a department store in 1952 and was killed in a motor accident in 1954 at the age of 64 – a packed and interesting life.

 

 

Becoming the Boring Bloke in the Corner

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Reverse of the Russian Fleet Medallion

I started writing last night. First I finished editing a piece on a small medallion commemorating the visit of the Russian Fleet to France in 1893. Then I sorted the photos and sent it to the man who manages the Numismatic Society Facebook page. I am such an interesting man.

Then I did 400 words on another medallion – this one features the Prince of Wales on one side (later Edward VIII)  and the centenary for the railways on the other. Was it really only 1830 when the railways began? Probably not, but it was the first timetabled inter-city service using only steam locomotives. Earlier railways were horse-drawn or featured assistance from winches and cables on the harder sections. I see their point, but saying railways started in 1830 is taking a lot of credit from the earlier pioneers.

I am well on the way to becoming the boring bloke with the unusual interests that sits in the corner at club meetings. In fact, I have probably already become that man. We don’t seem to have one in the club at the moment and they often say that if you don’t see one, it is probably you.

The meatballs were reasonably edible last night, though I forgot to do the pasta, so we had a sort of meatball and Mediterranean vegetable stew. We were probably better off like that, though, as we don’t need all the carbs. Unfortunately there wasn’t as much vegetable sauce  as I thought so we don’t really have enough to make another meal from it.. We will finish the lentil soup for lunch today and I will probably make cauliflower cheese for tea. It’s a big cauliflower this week and I need to make a start on it.  The remains of the vegetable sauce will do for the foundations of another tomato soup.

Edward VIII. Opinions vary on whether he was a doomed romantic figure or a spoiled playboy with links to the Nazis.

Soup and obscure medallions. This is not the stuff of my youthful dreams. Neither were bad knees, dodgy plumbing (personal and household) or insomnia. My dreams used to feature mysterious oriental beauties (so that, at least came true), sports cars and the South of France. Later they were about walking in the Lake District, eating pie and chips in roadside pubs. See my previous comments on mysterious oriental beauties. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to get out of a low-slung sports car, that I’d have to limit my intake of pie and chips and that walking would become so difficult. Fortunately, I still have my dreams, even if the focus has changed.

Centenary of the railways 1830-1930. Note that it is Foreign Made.  Despite our industrial muscle in the 1930s, we still imported cheap foreign tat.

The medallions are all less than an inch across, which keeps the costs down.

Returning to Writing

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Sorry, I’ve become a bit hit and miss recently. Yesterday it occurred to me that it’s a good thing I’m not still at work,  because I’d have been off for most of the last month. It’s a lot more relaxing being retired than it was when i was simply off work. One day I may examine the difference, but for now I will just say that as a pensioner, the pay is better than when you are merely ill, and for some reason the time passes more easily.

The sun is going down as I type, though there is plenty of time to go before the sky takes on any colour. At the moment it is merely sinking and the light is shining off the various leaves in the garden. Holly, privet, roses, bamboo, conifers are all reacting differently to the light – some reflecting it, others allowing it to shine through, and it is quite an interesting garden view, considering that it is mainly green.

It feels like I’m returning to writing again, after a lay off of several months. I have not submitted anything since March and missed a couple of significant submission chances last month. Time to get back in the game before I lose the habit. In coaching they used to say it only takes a fortnight to lose a habit, which is awkward, considering that most people take a two week holiday, almost ensuring they they lose all their good habits. This has always given me pause for thought.

Twenty years ago, as I think I told you in a previous post, I did actually stop writing and it took me years to get back into the swing of things, It took me something like two years of constant practice to start producing usable pieces, even though I wrote thousands of words a week. This blog is a result of some of those early practice attempts.

I’m hoping it will be easier this time. I had better give it a serious go tonight, as there’s only a week left until submissions windows close at the end of the month and both the journals in question are ones I would like to be in.

Stone on the Floor

Telephone Calls and Other Stories

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The river Wye at Bakewell

Sorry, I took my eye off the ball again. Not only have I missed a couple of days posting but I have realised I have stopped writing poetry again.

About 20 years ago, after having a dozen poems published, I went into hospital, came out of hospital, tried continuing my poetry writing and found I couldn’t do it. I seem to have done it again. After struggling through Covid, a urinary infection and whooping cough, I go into hospital again and when I emerge, I find my urge to write poetry and be creative has gone. I didn’t notice at first but this morning it suddenly dawned on me.

The river Wye at Bakewell

I wonder if there is a causal link between having surgical instruments inserted through an inconvenient orifice and the poetic bits of my brain shutting down. There is certainly a correlation between the insertions and the bits of brain that deal with embarrassment shutting down.  If they didn’t, I’d be a gibbering wreck by now.

Last time, I had the kids to replace my writing, as they needed a lot of driving to rugby matches and I ended up managing teams and writing match reports. This time, I am sure I could substitute blogging and Facebook posts for the Numismatic Society  of Nottinghamshire, but I intend trying to get my enthusiasm back.

First I need to sort my health out. To that end I spent nearly two hours on the phone this afternoon trying to sort things out. One of the phone calls took me just over half an hour – 25 minutes being told I was in “Queue position Number Two”, two minutes in position Number One and five minutes establishing that what should have been done two weeks ago had not been done. It will, they assure me, now be done as a matter of urgency.

River Nene, Fotheringhay

If you ever have to deal with what is now known as the Bowel and Bladder Service in Nottingham, you have my sympathy.

They used to be known as the Continence Service.

I’m sure that there ae other words that could be used, which carry neither the stigma of incontinence or the suggestion that you are now entering the final, downhill, stage of your life.

However, the name isn’t the worst thing about the service. In an unfortunate double use of the same word, it’s the service that is the worst thing about the service.

Two weeks ago I rang them about obtaining extra night bags. Their phone system cut me off automatically, as reported, and then wouldn’t let me back in the queue. I eventually obtained the bags from the urology ward.

Sandsend – river and bridge

Today I needed to find out what was happening to what I will euphemistically refer to as “my supplies”. I rang several places in search of sense before being advised to ring the continence service. With a heavy heart, I did.

They answered on the third ring and I was, frankly, amazed. It didn’t last. It seems that the Continence Service based at Sherwood Rise Medical Centre isn’t the Continence Service at Sherwood etc isn’t the same Continence Service that I used to be registered with, and who supplied me for years.

The Continence Service (etc) is only for patients registered with the county of Nottinghamshire. I’m with the City of Nottingham, it seems, and have to ring another number.

So I did.

See the comments above on the half hour phone call.

All it needed two weeks ago was for one nurse to fill out one form. I’m not sure that it even needed a nurse – I could probably have done it myself if they had pointed me to the form.

More pictures of water. Enough said.

Ducks on the River Alde, Snape