Linda Studley

Now What? – Not a Poem…

Now What?

As of Dec 24th I will have hit the elusive 366th poem in 366 days! Something to be proud of numerically at least. But I hope that within that deluge of literary litter there may lurk enough “good” poems to equal a reasonable book of poetry. I won’t be writing a poem on Christmas morning – not on purpose anyway – and I’ll probably take a little down time after that (possibly a day or two).

What then?

Editing. May not sound really exciting, but I’m going to share my experiences with the editing process. (You know I’ll post new poems too – I’m too compulsive to completely let go of the writing process while I’m editing). My objective in writing a poem a day for a year was to short circuit the inner critic and I think, on the whole, I’ve accomplished that. I’ve managed to crank something out EVERY day even if it wasn’t exceptionally inspired. Those of you who have been subjected to haiku written five minutes before I had to leave for work will attest to my tenacity and willingness to share my mediocrity as well as my strokes of (clears throat and blushes modestly) genius. Well the objective now is to accept and, dare I say it, enjoy the process of editing. I believe that editing can be as creative and rewarding a process as writing and I’m going to explore it (but I sure hope it doesn’t take a whole year!).

And Then What?

From there I’ll be exploring options for publishing. Amazingly, there are no publishing houses beating on my door insisting on publishing my humble book of poetry. Ah well, I guess I’ll just have to do it myself. And there’s another journey. I imagine that I’ll be writing about the research I’ll end up doing to get the book printed and distributed. A subject that could be quite dry unless I keep my rather odd sense of humour about it all – which I certainly intend to do.
So here we go, the final week of the “Poem a Day for a Year” series of self inflicted foolishness.
I will write you more poems.
I promise.
And songs too and maybe even paint you some pictures.

Love to you all

Linda