On to the Hard Copy Editing…

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Well last night I finished editing on screen. There’s only so much editing you can do on a computer screen when the end product is meant to be printed on paper. At some point you have to hit the ‘print’ key and see what it looks like. Well 180 pages is still quite a bit of printing, and I formatted so the the print out would be 6×9 inch trade paperback size, so I think I’ll take it to my friendly neighbourhood print shop and get them to print it out for me. I want to see the pages actual size and order so I can see how they relate to each other. Because of the competition from e-books, I think that bound books need to be aesthetically pleasing as well as cleanly formatted and well proofed and edited. The book itself should appeal to the eye.

I guess that’s going to bring me to the next conundrum – the cover! What goes on the cover?

The title of the book is   “Falling Awake”

Monday the print out, then the cover brainstorming…

Cheers,

Linda

Ordering a Seed Catalog

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It’s an act of faith, really,
ordering a seed catalog in January,
at least it is when you live in the north,
rooted deeply in a cherished belief
that this might be the year the spinach doesn’t bolt
when it’s 3 inches tall.
It’s rather like buying a lottery ticket,
Most of the enjoyment lies
in visions of potential,
in dreams of green.

Rituals

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I have missed the morning ritual,
the  gentle coaxing of words
from my sleepy subconscious,
the quest for image and rhyme.
 
The challenge met, there is a void
where discovery used to dwell,
a sense of loss, a loss of senses
honed to a comfortable habit.
 
There is no challenge now,
only the joy of knowing
the poem is already written.
I just need to remember it.

 

Perhaps I won’t be writing them every day anymore, but I guess the morning poem is a habit now.

Editing – Round Two

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Well, I’ve managed to prune and tidy untill the manuscript is less than 180 pages. I doubt it will shrink much more. I debated leaving them in chronological order but, with the disappearance of so many poems, the gaps would have been an unnecessary distraction. No, the poems must stand alone. The forms and content have been fairly varied and ‘arranging’ them in themes or categories seemed like a waste of time – rather like herding cats or nailing jello to the wall. So they will co-exist, in no specific order, in such a way as to make them all fit comfortably into a reasonable length book.

Now that I’ve pretty much decided what to leave in and what to leave out, it’s time to go over each one with a fine toothed comb – roll them on the back of my mind and see if they need more or less or other than what they have. It’s cold out there in the literary world – I must make sure they all have their galoshes and mittens and wings on.

Thank you for being so patient. Although I haven’t written any new poems over the Christmas holidays, Bill and I co-wrote a new song. Eventually it will make its way to the recording studio (aka-the spare bedroom) and will be given wings too.

Happy New Year.

Editing – Round One (ding ding…)

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I managed to get through a first draft of the book over the last couple of days, whittling it down from 380 pages to 241 (including table of content, no front or back matter). I think that was probably the easy part of the editing – the ‘no-brainer’ cutting of poems that simply didn’t make the grade according to my gut. 

Now for the second run through.  My gut exhausted, I am now forced to use my brain (and anyone who has read the poems I’ve written about my brains knows that, on any given day, it’s entirely likely that there are squirrels in charge up there.) So what criteria should I use? My estimable partner, Bill, suggested that the poems that garnered positive response from readers should definitely stay in, and I agree. Thank you all for that feedback!

I’m going to leave in the ones that make me cry; the ones I still have trouble reading out loud. These seem to contain a fragment of soul and so should be given precedence.

There are vers libre, haiku, form poems (a couple of forms that I’m pretty sure I invented along the way). I don’t think form should be a deciding factor.

Unfortunately, cost of printing may end up becoming a factor, as the price obviously goes up with the page count. But I’m thinking perhaps I can turn this into a positive thing, a spur to be more ruthless, to pare the content down into a lean collection that will stand on its own merit.

Round two (boxing ring bell sound fx) of editing coming up…

Hope you all are enjoying holidays – or if you don’t observe any of the many holidays that seem to collide at this time of year – hope you are simply having a lovely day!

Cheers,

Linda (the poet at the bottom of the well)

 

The Voyage

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What is a year but an unwieldy barge
that drifts on a river of dreams?
What is desire but a broken oar
that we use to stem the stream?

What are words but a patchwork sail
that occasionally catches a breeze?
What is hope but a tattered chart
of strange, exotic seas?

But the river is wide, and I’ll sail my barge
I’ll ply my oar, and search my charts,
I’ll raise my sail at each passing wind
and if I see you flounder, friend,

I’ll heave to and lend a hand
and together we’ll set sail and
disappear into the setting sun,
Until another year is done.

#366

Apocalyptic Epiphany

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Global Apocalypse?
We joke, draw silly cartoons, we know
that the idea is unscientific.
Ludicrous at worst.

And yet
we devote time, energy and creativity to explore it,
discuss it, laugh at it, do everything but ignore it.
And yet

All over the world
someone stands alone, outside of it
while they experience their own
Personal Apocalypse.

 

#365

First Steps for Editing (not a poem)

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I’m only two poems away from the year’s worth of poetry and I’m not kidding myself that they are all worthy of a place in the final book. So now it’s time to start editing.

I saved all my poems in a single word document and I know that the formatting is going to be drudgery because I got into the habit of hitting ‘shift-enter’ to go to a new line so the spacing would be right on the wordpress blog. Unfortunately what that does is futz with the spacing in the word document. But that’s a fix for nearer the end – no sense in formatting a poem that ulimately won’t be in the book, right?

So the first step is to go through the document (all three hundred and Lord knows how many pages) and start cutting. I have no idea how long that will take, but I think I’ve figured out how to set the bar. A couple of times I’ve wandered back and taken a cursory look at some of the poems I’ve written over the last year and I find that on some I will read the poem and think “Hmm, that’s not half bad.” I’ll be keeping those. Most of the ones that elicit a groan will not make the final cut, guaranteed. The ones written as therapy will probably not find their way into the book either.

I want the poems in this book to be ones that can stand on their own – that have something unique to say.

I have considered calling the book “The Best of – A Poem a Day for a Year” but it felt like the emphasis was too much on the editing process (best of) and the sheer numbers (366 days in the leap year) which is not really what I want to highlight.  However, the influence of having to write something every morning can’t be completely overlooked – that imperative has helped me develop my writing skills.

I am leaning towards calling the book after one of the poems… “Falling Awake” because somehow it feels like that’s what I’ve been doing with this project – falling awake to the possibilities, the influences around me, the feelings and emotions within me. So maybe “Falling Awake  –  The Best of the ‘Poem a Day for a Year’ Project” would be appropriate.

As always I welcome any and all comments or suggestions (and if anyone knows a publisher who publishes poetry – let me know!)

Sincerely

The poet at the bottom of the well…