Monday, November 28, 2022

The Poet Protection Plan

 From the Publisher and Editor of the long time free resource for Poets, "The Poetry Market Ezine," comes a book on being a poet!

The essays or articles in this new book are about writing, or marketing yourself as a writer. Navigating your life as a writer or poet, may be difficult. Do you have another job besides writing? Even if you have a writing related job, you are probably doing that to supplement your writer life income. There’s hope! At least, that’s what these essays are all about, how you can gel your regular work life with your work as a writer.




Friday, November 4, 2022

Writer’s Homework

How did you decide you were a writer?  What’s your experience with it?  How did you start?

I started writing song lyrics when I was a kid.  I also wrote stories, poems, and later on I wrote plays.  My love of writing began with my love of reading as well as music.  They go hand in hand.  I was inspired to write poems after I wrote my first novella.  I learned to write stories and poems in high school.  I wrote essays and book reviews in college.  I wrote my first novella (unpublished - I never tried to submit it as it was more of an exercise in writing for me) and first poems, aside from school assignments, after college.  In Grad school, I took on plays.  From there, it was back to poetry and short stories.  

All along the way, I have taken writing classes in college, grad school and even high school.  I also took independent classes as well.  And, I self-studied.  Plus I read and I read!  (Read that sentence twice).  I subscribe to or read magazines for writers.  And I read articles, blogs, social media posts on how to write or how to be a better writer.

I’m always flummoxed when a new writer or poet wants my advice usually on how to get a book published without even doing the first bit of “homework.”  Recently, someone wanted to give me hundreds of poems to put together in a manuscript and then submit it and get it published.  There are paid services for such a thing that I have never used which I suggested they try.  I had someone else want me to point them in the right direction for getting their manuscript published without knowing one thing about it.    I wouldn’t begin to suggest a publisher for something I’ve never read.   

It boils down to basic research like for writing a paper in school.  Go online, go to the library and do some checking into the markets for your works.  Read sample issues.  Read books on how to write and publish or read articles if you don’t want to read a book.  The reason for this is you need to know where you want to go with your writing yourself because what works for one writer may not work for another.  

Writing is a skill.  And skills take practice!  So take some time and study how you want to write as well as the business of publishing.  And doing this basic writer’s homework will help you achieve more with your writing.  

Artemis at Sunset

As this year begins to come to a close, I thought about one of my favorite things to do: watching sunsets.  While I am often up early enough...