Review for 2022

 

Mslexia Diary

Well, here we are into another year. It's pouring with rain, so an ideal time to write my review for the last year.

My goal for 2022 was to submit at least five pieces to different publications each month during the year. I began with much enthusiasm, but later things became a struggle, and some months I wondered if I would make it. I did! Some months I sent submitted seven times, but there was no way I could keep that up! So, here is breakdown of what I sent and the results:

Poetry I submitted 59 poems (obviously sometimes I sent two or three at a time as most publications prefer to see a variety of your work). Of those 59, 11 were published and one longlisted. That's about 20% of my work!

Flash I submitted 21 flash stories, and of those 4 were published and one longlisted.

Short Stories Nine were submitted and one was published.

Pamphlets Two submitted. Still waiting on the result of one.

Novellas One submitted on which I am awaiting the result.

I am also waiting to hear on 12 of those poems submitted last year (I heard back on a block of three this month) and waiting on six flash fictions.

At the end of September I published my second Novella, The Chair. 

I took part in several online workshops in writing flash, poetry and horror, as well as a weekend online conference run by Alliance of Independent Authors.

For the second year running I took part in flash-a-day during November and got myself a whole host of new stories to work on.

At the beginning of last year I won Writers' Forum magazine's poetry competition which I had entered in 2021, but the result wasn't printed until early 2022 when I also received my prizes!

The biggest highlight of the year for me was having my flash story published by Popshot, a magazine I admire very much. One of the most beautiful magazine must be Seaborne, in which I was luckily enough to have two poems published in the same issue.

Last year was the most successful for me and the most exciting. So what are my goals for this, I hear you ask. Well, I would like to set up my own website. Over Christmas, I read a book about doing just that. It was a library find, but when I come to look into creating my website, I shall have to borrow the book again! It showed various platforms and the ease of use, as well as what they can or cannot offer. I've more or less decided on which platform to use.

My other goals are to continually review my projects and publish another book. 

What I learned from last year:

• While submitting so much writing helped me gain more successes, I also found I might sometimes submit something that wasn't quite right just to hit my target!
• The Legend Planner I bought for 2022 worked to a certain extent, but there was much I didn't use, and I tailed off half way through the year. It did have lots of pages to write on and I used it to write a list of projects on the go and see where I was at with them and what to do next to move forward. I also worked out my review in it. However, for this year I have purchased the Mslexia Diary as it is written by women writers for women writers. It has listings of publications and competitions at the start of each month and loads more useful stuff depending where you are with your writing. This feels more relevant and useable.
• I over committed myself sometimes by signing up to things with enthusiasm and ending up not being able to give everything my full attention, November being one of those months. I also missed an online workshop I'd signed up for with Mslexia because I totally forgot!

Before I end, I thought I would list my top three reads of last year in the fiction and non-fiction category. I read a lot of books in a year (though not as many as some in a Facebook Book Club I belong  to, but then I also read magazines). I read a total of 72 books and here are my top three:

Fiction

The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shakaf for it's beautiful prose and story set in Cyprus and England. Outstanding read.

Sea Change - Alix Nathan. A mother waves to her child as she sets off in a new contraption called an air balloon. When it crashes in the sea it is thought the mother is lost. Instead, she is rescued and lives in a different part of the country, but the shock of what has happened makes her speechless and for a while unable to remember. Meanwhile, her daughter is brought up by the artist man who loved the mother, but he drinks and suffers from depression. The story follows both mother and daughter until they are brought together.

Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers. An usual story about a woman who claims she had an immaculate conception and a woman news reporter who is asked to follow the story. This brings her into contact with the mother and daughter and also the man who is not the father but loves the little girl. The story has a tragic ending. When I saw it coming I was yelling 'no!' Have the hankies ready.

Non-fiction

The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale. I could not put this down. Far better than The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, this is about a young boy who murders his mother and what happens to him during the rest of his life. The murder is gruesome, but there was evidence of parental abuse. The boy was sent to Broadmoor where he turned his life around. I was astounded at the positive way mentally ill patients who had committed crimes were treated. I thought it would be awful, but they were forward thinking, and the boy was finally released and had a whole new positive life, even serving in the war. An incredible story.

The Seven Ages of Death - Dr Richard Shepherd. If you don't like detailed autopsies, this isn't for you. The saddest were the babies. The evidence the doctor gleans, often proved the opposite of what the police hoped because they wanted to pin a conviction on someone they have arrested. It is fascinating and absorbing. The book is split into the seven ages of man (just like Shakespear's poem The Seven Ages of Man, that I so like). I loved this book so much (I have a 'thing' about forensics and death, it seems) that I've borrowed another of his books from the library. 

Bodysnatchers - Suzie Lennox. Do you see a pattern here? I took part in an online author event about a year ago with Suzie Lennox. Her passion for the subject rubbed off on me and I had to buy the book. I'd seen the film Burke & Hare who operated in Edinburgh, but this subject has always interested me (yeah, I'm weird that way). The book is full of events both macabre and funny of how people made a living from digging up the newly dead and selling them to medical students studying autonomy, as well as selling teeth and hair. A lively, informative book, well researched.

Well, that's it for now. I've submitted my first poem today. Let's see where this year will take me.

 

The Great Vowel Shift - Pamphlet

The Great Vowel Shift is a pamphlet by Robin Houghton (Telltale Press). I had the pleasure of meeting Robin at the Poetry book Fair in September. (I have followed her blog for a while). She signed a copy of her pamphlet for me and gave me some postcards, each one featuring a poem by different poets published by Telltale Press.

This is a collection of poems about things lost. I gave this pamphlet a second reading as I first read it some while ago and needed to refresh myself with the poems.Sometimes when reading poems you think you know what it is trying to say. However, from comments I've received from tutors about some of my poems I realise that people often get something different from the poems than you intended. I don't think it really matters because like writing, you come at reading from your own experiences too. It does make me reluctant to speculate sometimes, though, on what other poets write, if it isn't immediately obvious. The Last is one of those. I've read it a few times now, and while I think I know, I'm not 100% sure. Maybe I've read my own things into it but it is something that is not talked about 'Each one appeared/in my diary, in code. My mother wouldn't explain/I couldn't ask.' Whatever, it means something to me just from the lines I have quoted!

I enjoyed Geography Lesson, and the idea that 'with just one slip thousands of caves/and seabirds would be lost' (tracing the coastline).  East from Seahouses was another I particularly liked with its descriptions, from 'pulling in the Harry Potter crowd' to the list of birds found on the Farnes. I loved the fact that the narrator while on the boat to the island was longing for the 'dry side of the window' (great description) in The Anchor pub.

Still here resonates with me. I have a bit of a thing for the lost rivers of London. While researching my family tree I discovered my paternal great grandfather and his family lived in Bermondsey where once the Neckinger River ran into the Thames. All around were leather works, tanning factories, all gone now, yet the river is still underneath the streets. I have seen photos of the tiny cottages that were part of Neckinger Street where they lived (care of the local history archive close to where Charles Dickens' father was in prison). We forget that history is right under our feet and this poem was close to my heart with its reminders of 'Roman hoes and mandibles' cast aside - everyday life of a past, a past that made us.

Robin kindly adds a note at the back of the booklet about the title poem, The Great Vowel Shift. This was very helpful and informative explaining how the English language changed. No wonder our language is so complicated! The poem shows the strangeness of using the new sounds for the first time - cleverly done.

The penultimate poem in the collection is When my sister is old, a poem looking forward to a time of looking back (if that makes sense!) when you see what has gone, the things you will remember, the reminiscing that comes as you age. Clever and rather sad.

This is a nice short collection with poems that make you think, fragments of life lived through and now gone.

Not longlisted but......

Well, I wasn't on the Pighog Pamphlet longlist this morning when it was announced. I'd been waiting since last week when I knew a decision had been made but I didn't hold out much hope. They'd had 600 entries and about 35 were longlisted. This was only the second pamphlet competition I'd ever entered but I did work very hard on this one and felt a bit happier with the way the process had gone. The way I look at it now is that ten good poems are ready to be released for submission elsewhere. In fact I have news of one poem in that set that I cannot reveal at the moment - sworn to secrecy. All will be revealed soon.

What I should be doing now is typing out this mornings piece of my story (novel??. Instead I'm flitting between Facebook and Twitter....oh the shame of it! Anyway, the excuses are running out and I am going to type it now...yes, really. I have my music at the ready.....a trance sequence, 20014 mix lasting nearly three hours and no adverts! Trance is what I listen to when typing up my pieces because it is fast and vibrant and keeps me going. I sometimes write to music but depending on what I am doing it can be a distraction  in which case I switch it off. I write in silence with the current story but I hate typing up so music keeps the boredom levels low.  So here we go.........

The next step and the tricky subject of organising!

Oh for the sea....again!  Eastbourne

So what does a writer do after such a heady few weeks?  Gets on with trying to repeat the euphoria!

I have been trying to sort out about 12/14 poems to enter into a pamphlet competition.  I've never done this before and felt I needed some help in going about it.  Found a nice guide on Mslexia's website for a competition they ran in June.  I now have some poems (having chosen a theme) but immediately started to query whether they were good enough.  I have looked through some other poems, a few that need editing or completing and have managed to vary the contributions better.  There is still a way to go yet and I have another month until the deadline but I can't leave this until the last moment because there is too much to consider.  As well as that I am sorting through other poems for submission to other competitions/magazines where deadlines are coming up this month and next.  At one point I was going round in circles, panicking about my own work, doubts have crept in but I know all writers have these feelings from time to time, especially in the early stages.

I've also bought myself a box file because while sorting through poems in various notebooks I realised how chaotic my work is and I spend too long trying to find the books and even longer trying to find which book they are in.  At least if the books are in one place that cuts down searching time.  As more work goes out and is published being more organised is a pretty good idea.

Any advice/tips?  How do you work?  Are you as bad as me or have you worked out a good system?

(PS.  Haven't got back to the story writing....no time yet)