Tag: blogging book

Books/

Quick Friday update – events, submissions etc

It’s been a thin year so far as regards writing, getting stuff out and accepted by magazines. I do have one excuse, which is that work has taken up a lot more of my time than usual these last 6 months. Not that I’m complaining, as my work and poetry interests continue to converge, slowly but surely. I now have ambitious plans for bringing all my activities under one virtual roof, combining blogs/websites/social outposts etc to create a united front. About time! Give me until the end of the year, though.

A quick what’s-been and will-be happening:

Last night I was at the Needlemakers in Lewes for the launch of Judith Kazantzis‘s new collection Sister Invention. It was a nice intimate affair with free-flowing prosecco. It’s a mighty book – hundreds of poems with (at first glance) a vast geographical and thematic span. I’m looking forward to delving into it.

Tomorrow – the New Writing South Publishing Industry Day at Brighton Library. I’m giving a short talk about ‘building a successful online writer presence’, after which we’re headed off to step-daughter’s 30th birthday party.

Next week, Janet Sutherland and Jeremy Page are holding a joint launch event for their respective new collections, Bone Monkey and Closing Time, and again just a few moments from my front door. How lucky am I?

I’ve had a few days off from writing about blogging, but it all kicks off again next week: book number two to begin, plus hundreds of image permissions to obtain… wish me luck.

June is looking interesting in terms of poetry events – I’ve been invited to read at the Lamb Festival in north London on June 2nd, then also that week we have a lovely event planned in memory of Jo Grigg, friend, poet and Brighton Stanza rep who died so suddenly year. Later in the month, Brighton Stanza are joining Palmers Green for a Stanza Bonanza at the Poetry Cafe. Always great fun, the only nail-biting bit being whether those of us living in the sticks manage to make the last train home.

Books/

Latest on the book, the pamphlet and more projects

Malling Deanery gardens and the Ouse
Taken on Sunday in the garden of friends

I don’t suppose you’ve noticed, but I’ve been a bit quiet on here the last week or so – not for any reason other than work though. I’ve fully recovered from the mini workshop trauma of a couple of weeks ago (I typed that as one word, workshoptrauma, which made me wonder momentarily if that’s a German word). Thank you for all the interesting comments on that one – it seemed to strike a nerve! But since then I’ve got back on the horse and the same workshop on Saturday was quite a different experience, it felt like we’d all taken a chill pill. Or maybe it’s just all the lovely blossom on the trees and the Spring-like weather. Last night we had a Brighton Stanza meeting in the open air – goodness! Summer must be acumen in. And I sold 3 copies of my pamphlet! Yeehaa.

Speaking of which, thank you to the kind purchasers of The Great Vowel Shift, it’s going well and has had two lovely reviews, one by Peter Kenny and another in London Grip.  Very exciting!

Today I’ve been hard at it, on the home straight with the blogging book (all the copy is due next Tuesday). In fact I was just writing about time management and beating ‘bloggers’ block’, and by way of a break in the writing I’m (erm) writing this blog post. (Which comes under the heading of ‘do something different’ – although it’s not all that different, but anyway…)

Blogging for Writers - work in progress
Blogging for Writers – work in progress

The good news is I’ve hit my 45k word count, bad news is I still have 4 double page spreads to write, so I’m going to be a bit over. Then there’s what feels like a zillion photos to source and caption, expert bloggers to chase up for their contributions, and then going through it all and filling in the many holes, amending cross-chapter references, spell-checking, repetition-checking and all that stuff, then getting in a nice orderly zip for submitting. At least I have another month to get all the images sorted. Then it’s headfirst into the next book.

In the meantime tomorrow I have the last of my 3 session ‘Build your social web presence’ at New Writing South, and I’m speaking at their Publishing Industry Day on April 26th which should be fun. But I’m looking forward to getting back to my one-to-one mentoring work and having a bit more time for poetry sometime soon.

Last week I was contacted by Julia McCutchen of an organisation called IACCW to ask if I would be a ‘featured speaker’ for one of their monthly webcasts later in the year, plus there are one or two poetry readings in the pipeline for the second half of the year, so lots happening.

I hope the weather lasts and you have a lovely Easter break. Enjoy the blossom.