Good things must come to an end

Last night was the last chat night for Jen Hadfield's online poetry course. {Sniff}

I have to say Jen's course has been one of the most productive writing courses I've done in a long time. Out of the five exercises we've done over the ten week course, three or four of them have given me really good material to work with and the other one (or two) were certainly not a waste of time.

The feedback from 'classmates' has been useful too, but for me the best bit has been having quirky exercises to stretch my imagination and help me skirt around those inner police.

Deadlines are a Good Thing.

[For those interested Jen Hadfield's blog is here ]

My daytime poetry course will also finish at the end of this week. It's been wonderful to meet up with other poetry enthusiasts, with a wide range of interests and strengths, to discuss our work and get feedback. It's a shame I can't continue it after Christmas, but doing three courses this term was truly more than I could manage with everything else. Actually all term the everything else has just been left undone. Which, when you have kids and a job and you home educate, isn't ideal.

But I am signed up for another online poetry school course from January with Andrew Philip. Glutton for punishment, me. Ah well.

So, latest news. At the weekend I went to Nottingham. I received my merit prize for runner up in The Nottingham Open Poetry Competition 2011 and read my poem (scary, but at times like this I'm grateful I write short poems).

The poets there - winners and Nottingham Poetry Society members - were lovely, friendly, welcoming. I met Helena Nelson from Happenstance Press, who I've recently sent some work to for feedback. And I met a few other Happenstance poets at a Happenstance poetry reading in Nottingham on the same evening.

Thanks to my poem I will be forever known among Nottingham poets as 'The Radish'. I'm so glad my phallic worm poem didn't get shortlisted {blush}.

Not being known for my people skills, or my general tolerance of hob-nobbing - networking - I think I did ok. At least I didn't go hide under the table, or take a detour to the pub and stagger home drunk.

Someone alert the press. I think I may be turning into a grown up.

I should be...

...starting my assignment (long fiction). But I don't have a novel inside me.

Yes. Ok, ok. I am one of the few people I know who isn't bursting with novel-itis.

I wrote the 'first chapter' of my non-existent novel for a course homework a few weeks back. I confess it was enjoyable. But now, I simply don't know how to continue it. The bit I was interested in, has been written. Why would I want to write more?

But write I must.

I'm heading to Nottingham this weekend and hopefully I'll catch this Happenstance event. Maybe a long dull trip on a train and a spot of poetry listening will cure my lack of second chapter.

Catching a breath

The first year of my diploma is done and dusted.

I feel both happy and sad.

Happy that I've got through this year, made friends, learnt heaps and heaps, passed the exam, the assignments and the portfolio.

But also sad that this means I am one year closer to finishing the diploma. And, fearfully, I will have to wean myself off the deadlines and comraderie and return to going-it-alone in my writing.

So I am setting some small challenges for what remains of the summer holidays.

The first is to enter as many poetry competitions as I can with existing poems I've written this past year. I don't have many, but what I have needs to be edited and sent out into the world.

The second is to put together a small collection to send to Happenstance poetry publishers. One of the rewards for having a poem awarded runner up prize in a magazine competition (Writers Forum) is to send Helena Nelson a further five poems (plus my original winner) for critical comments. There is a small chance that she will take on one of the successful poets to produce a poetry pamphlet. Well, a small chance is just that. But in the meantime I need to be writing some bloomin' poetry or I'll have nothing to send but blank sheets of paper.

The third, which kinda ties in with number two, is to get down to writing more poems. Now that I have put the house and garden straight after a year of focused neglect, I shall abandon them both again to put pencil to paper. I WILL write and I WILL NOT feel guilty about it.

btw. If you happen to be poetic it's worth checking out the Happenstance blog for great tips on submitting poetry.