Writing

Let there be light…

humanist55

People talk about writer’s block
– about being over-faced
by the blank page
but to sit down with a blank page
and pick up your pen is to
dive into the liminal space
through the portal of the page
breaking the smooth surface
making a splash
wearing the threads
of previous thoughts
oft rehearsed but still
essentially, feeling naked

We swam in the waters of
Mahon harbour on a night when
the little side bay was filled
with phosphorescence
took a hand full of water and
slowly released it back into the main
and in our hands
and in the falling water
individual creatures gave forth a
tiny burst of light.
but swimming through their midst
the lights coalesced
into a ghostly glow around our bodies
all semblance of individual
creatures, words or events
subsumed into the glow

Later rowing our cockleshell boat
we traced our path with
pools of light left in our wake
where the oars had dipped in
and disturbed the
creatures distributed
in the depth beneath
motion was transformed into light
pale radium green, glowing
under the Mediterranean sky
– and to think
these motions are
always present
the glow – the pools of
light even when we can’t
see them – blinded by
the greater light of day.

The light of luminescence lives
in my mind as a memory
fixed by processes
still unfathomable to
the very minds that
try to comprehend
– axons and nuclei
and who knows what
– as ungraspable as those tiny
light-emitting creatures
like words on a page they
appear unpredictably
have their moment
and disappear into
the stream of time
into the past
as we authors swim
across the portal
climb out on the
other side of the pool
and only then
turn and look at
the patches of
light we have left in our wake
astounded at the
words filling the blank page…

© Andrew Wilson, 2024

Tonight is Open Link Night over at dVerse Poets Pub and  msjadeli  is our hostess. I wrote this in my AWA writing group a few weeks ago and it seems to follow on from my post before last – contemplating the process of poesie…

Magic 9 and the A-Z

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                       I

In April the Challenge is A-Z
other writing takes a back seat
writing my blog fills my head
and for this year I double dipped
two A-Z themes I interbred
 –  I wrote about Commodities and
with a poem drove home what I said
but now the challenge is complete
it’s normal service in my head…

                       II

Back to the novel and down to the
pub – the dVerse Poets Pub that is
to virtual friends, poets all like me
it’s not, however, all about the likes
but novels, blogging or poems we
certainly desire to be well-read
but truly I must write for me
the itch induces constant scratches
– if that is you too please comment and like me…

© Andrew Wilson, 2024

This picture was first posted with a poem to celebrate the 12th Anniversary of the Poets Pub…

Written for Grace in Poetry Forms over at dVerse Poets Pub who today invites us to use the Magic 9 poetic form whose rhyme scheme is derived from the word abracadabra – I have taken the liberty of using the form as a stanza form as I wasn’t done after a mere nine lines…

You can find my A-Z on Commodities with 26 poetry forms via the button at the top of the page and more of my poems via the Poems button.

The Insecure Writers Support Group – Worry Beads…

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This year I have plunged into writing more than ever before – the April A to Z Challenge led to a world of poetry, I recently wrote a deep essay on changing our relationship with the motor car, I am re-working the first draft of a novel and of course, a great deal of my day job, two and a half days a week is spent writing. Also in the course of the year, I encountered through other writers, the Insecure Writers Support Group and then yesterday, the group post announced their twelfth anniversary!

Recently I have been reading Margaret Atwood “on”On Writers and Writing” and in an early chapter, she writes about the duality of writers – how there exists “the one who writes and the one who lives” and she explores the inevitable tensions that having such a split induces – the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the beast. I write because I am driven internally to do so, but externally, my partner is going through a difficult time which means that staying close to her, there is a lot of time which I fill with writing.

I have no illusions about publishing work – I once heard the statistic that 4000 novels are written for each one published. That may have changed in a digital age when self-publishing is ever easier – even if it is only on your blog. Still, whilst I am now polishing a second draft of a speculative novel, the act of passing through the stages of the journey towards publishing has a zen of its own. I am not saying that there is no anxiety about whether a piece of writing is “good enough”, or whether people will like my latest poem but for me, travelling hopefully is as important as arriving…

I left Ireland to return to the UK in 2005 but not before my late sister Carol, had rekindled my joy in writing by taking me to an in-person writing group in Sligo. A first novel was started (and is still in progress) and a second more straightforward one is that which I am revising, and so I thank Carol for that gift and I dedicate the following poem – the product of an online and ongoing writing group and I offer it towards the Insecure Writers Support Group and its anniversary since it is appropriately entitled “Worry Beads”. Back in July, it was also the 12th anniversary of dVerse Poets Pub so 2011 must have been an inspired year for poets – anyway, I posted a poem for their celebration here.

Worry beads…

The state of the nation
is held in abeyance
holding it’s breath till the next election
the polls show a twenty point
Labour lead – but I worry
they still might lose
and if they win I worry too
they may not be different enough
having posed in the centre
to avoid alienating anyone.

I worry that my grandchildren
All young adults flown the nest
may not be able to buy a
house of their own, their own nest.
The doctor and his bright partner
will earn enough but will the rapper
find his way high enough
to have financial success
or will he fall like a spent rocket
to a job supporting other’s dreams
I believe he too worries
although it doesn’t slow him down.
The oldest by some years
has already built several businesses
and not anchored by children
only cats and cake-making
he and his girlfriend will
go to America again and again
and one day they won’t come back.

I worry that despite all help
my spouse will not
find her way out
of the deep, dark past
where she is lost in the labyrinth
and no breadcrumb trail
to lead her back to the light.
As I keep her shell company
in front of the TV
I do not take enough exercise
already impeded by a lame leg
I know it cannot be wise
and I will shorten my natural span
which after all
is only two years short
of three-score years and ten.

I write to keep a space for me
And to reach out to new friends
across the digital ether
but pushing a pen is not the same
as pushing through the wall and
I do not want to be found
one day slumped across a keyboard
mid-virtual conversation.

Still, on a scale of one to ten
my worries rate quite low
I have made marks both
in the world, in certain hearts
and in minds too
the legacy of things
is not as vital as a lot of love.

And so I write for love
not glory, the oldest profession
is surely to tell a good story
and whilst I love to get good feedback
if I don’t get published,
will I really worry?

© Andrew Wilson, 2023

Roadtrip 5 AtoZ 2021 Challenge

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A trip round some of the blogs I didn’t manage to visit during the Challenge in April!

Time and again in the Blogosphere as viewed through the lense of the AtoZ Challenge, I encounter writers who demonstrate the maxim “A Writer is someone who Writes!” Given that it used to be said (before print on demand made self publishing so easy) that for every novel published, another 4000 were written but not published – the prospects of success as a writer are slim, is it then the case that many of us write simply as a hobby? I have two novels on the go and one seems to be trying to birth a sub-plot into a novel in its own right. I have, in the past been to a real-world writing group and being quite sanguine about making any sort of income from writing, I guess I can answer that question for myself – I write as a hobby! There are so many writing prompts in circulation – not least of all – the AtoZ Challenge and how many bloggers in its ranks can say that they are as prolific the rest of the year as they are in April. To be fair, there are certainly some that I am subscribed to who daily fill my social inbox with one if not more – often prompt inspired- pieces which certainly makes them writers who write daily. Myself, I really enjoy writing and other things being equal I could write all day – my novels for sure, but blogging too – and enjoy the socialising that blogging brings with it. When you are in either a real-world writing group or an online one, and Covid has certainly favoured the latter – then its not just the quality of the writing of your fellow travellers but their personalities, companionship and even friendship that are on offer. All of which musings were inspired by the first of this post’s mini reviews…

Star Trek’s “Data”

hdhstory.net is the home of a storyteller and in his “C” entry for AtoZ 2021, “A Computerised Mind” we have personal revelations aplenty. First a wish to have a mind like “Data” from Star Trek, whose positronic brain allowed for so many skills even though our writer would only wish for such a brain providing he could keep all the emotional attributes of a human being which “Data” lacked… Secondly, and bravely for a writer, he admits to being a slow reader though I think ruminative would be my choice rather than slow. And thus, through such revelations do we come to know the writer a little and if we like and we choose to interact, maybe friendship will follow…

Welcome to My Magick Theatre is the home of a prolific writer, novels abound as do blogs – truly she must be glued to her desk… The link I have chosen is to her “Z” post which was on the subject of Zealots since Carrie-Ann Brownian is a writer of historical fiction amongst other things and Zealots is a fascinating insight into feuding families in Florence (see what I did there? Who doesn’t love a bit of alliteration!) Reading the About page, Carrie-Anne endears herself to me by her choice of typeface – as a graphic designer (among many things), whose roots go back to hand-setting type at school, I love anybody who goes beyond accepting the default offerings of their computer. This is an author, and a blogger that one can, metaphorically speaking, get your teeth into! Unsurprisingly, of the six bloggers who Liked this post, three are known to me and two of those are also novelists. If novels are not your bag, then Carrie-Anne also has a page on which she lists all the music in her collection alphabetically, and giving the medium she possesses – shades of “High Fidelity”…

Ha! Not saying it’s greedy but here is Carrie-Anne Brownian again! Any relation to the eponymous discover of Brownian Motion – ‘cos this gal just cannot keep her fingers still and has two blogs in the AtoZ 2021 Challenge.

“This was my eighth year doing the A to Z Challenge with this blog, my tenth with two blogs. Much to my disappointment, for the fourth year in a row I had to suffice with a fairly simple theme, one I didn’t need to do a huge amount of research for. I remain hopeful I can return to more research-intensive themes in the coming years.”

Reflections page – https://onomasticsoutsidethebox.wordpress.com/2021/05/07/a-to-z-reflections-2021/

Given that the theme of Carrie-Anne’s blog Onomastics Outside the Box was Medieval Tuscan and Italian (plus a few other nationalities) Names – I tremble to think what a “research-intensive” subject might be. I realise now that here is an author who loves lists so the quip about “High Fidelity” might be nearer the mark than I thought. You have to admire the perspicacity of this blogger and if you love names, international versions of names, are a novelist or another list addict this is the blog for you…