February is the worst month...

I know. January is usually my worst month, and it was pretty dire, but February is giving it a run for it's money this year. Maybe it's just another of those age things, you know? The older you get the creakier your bones, the worse your eyesight, the longer it takes to get up out of a chair, for wounds to heal, and maybe for the January blues to clear.
Maybe it's because we haven't had a proper winter this year...hardly any frost, no snow to speak of, just lots of greyness and rain. Or maybe it's because this year, more than any other, I simply fail to see a light at the end of the tunnel, no silver linings, no brightside. I always see a brightside, even - or maybe especially - when others can't. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there is one, I just can't see it yet. Maybe March will be my month. That's a lot of maybes.

February is Post-It Note Poetry Month. I have been looking forward to it for a while - it always cheers me up and gets me writing - usually badly but that doesn't matter. The important thing is to be writing. Plus it is good for my succinct style. It is perhaps a testament to my state of mind this February that in 11 days I have posted just 3 poems. Massive fail. Something must be done - not sure what yet, but for sure it must.

For now, I leave you with today's post-it poem. It's not great but I quite like it and writing and posting it made me feel better.

I hadn't intended such an introspective post to break the block, sorry about that. Onwards and upwards, as they say.

A poem a day keeps the word doctor away.

It feels like I am barely out of Post-It Note Poetry and now we have NaPoWriMo.
I struggled to write a poem a day that would fit on a post-it note and now here I am contemplating another daily challenge.
I very much doubt I will stay on target, but I miss the focus of being required to write something. Mr Malone and the rest of the Heugh Writers gang will no doubt laugh...or at least smile wryly at that. Like I managed to even produce a poem a month for that project! But, as I told Martin, it wasn't that I wasn't writing anything, it was simply that I was too terrified to hand over my few meagre words.
Strangely, despite all my doubts, it seems that people like my meagre words. Either that or they are being very polite.
But I digress!
My point was, I need something tangible to focus on. Someone - or something - to say, "Here, Denise, write about this today". And so, for my sins and for the salvation of my writer's soul, I am signing up to write a poem a day. Again.
Lord knows where I will find the time or the words. But perhaps the writing gods will be merciful and send down manna from heaven.

There now follows a Shameless Plug on behalf of the Heugh Writers Party!

I should say, on behalf of the poets from the Heugh Writers, copies of 'To Cross the Wine Dark Wave' are available to purchase from Hartlepool Libraries. A snap at £4 - cheques payable to Hartlepool Borough Council. 
Ta very much.

/Shameless plug ends!

And if you're interested in the Post-It Note poems you can read them here https://guerillawriting.wordpress.com

A Quiet Thought

I have been catching up with posts from National Flash Fiction Day. It's taking me a while, because there was such a lot going on and so many good stories to read. I was busy with a poetry project so we didn't celebrate the day in Hartlepool this year, and as time was tight I didn't manage to join in any of the online activities either. While I was rummaging about in the many blog entries my name surpisingly popped up with a story I submitted back in 2012. I had completely forgotten about it. The prompt was the phrase "Just say yes". It's not bad, even if I say so myself. Makes me wish even more that I had managed to write something for this year.
Anyway, for your delight and delectation, I thought I would share it again here. (Spotted a typo in the original would you believe!)
If you'd like to read more flash from this year's #nffd then look here:  http://thewrite-in.blogspot.co.uk/?m=0

Just Say Yes!
She heard the question. The words were clear, the meaning quite plain. It didn’t seem to be a trick question. She hesitated, wondering. What if he didn’t really mean it? What if he was just being polite. People did that. Asked things because they felt they ought, not because they really wanted to. Or what if he wasn’t really who he seemed? He seemed nice, polite, interested. What if it was all just a front, a cover for a darker, less polite, dangerous person? Someone interested for the wrong reason. What if she said no? Would the darker person she feared reveal himself or would he just walk away? Would she regret it? Was it really worth the risk? It would be so much safer to simply say no: to walk away from him.
Inside her head one thought fought its way to the top, pushing aside all the doubts, all the “what ifs?”. A quiet thought.
Just say yes, it said.

A new year resolution thingy...

I realise that this comes a little late - everyone else was doing the obligatory "see out the old, ring in the new" blog post back in January. The really eager beavers were doing it in December. I've never really been one to follow the herd, I wave a token placard now and then just to keep people happy (I have noticed people get a bit edgy if you appear to be deliberately wandering in a different direction to everyone else). But although I didn't choose to wave my New Year Resolution placard at new year, I had actually made one, a resolution I mean, not a placard! And not just my usual "I will put on half a stone and keep it" or "I will clean my windows more than twice in 2014". I made a proper, serious New Year Resolution. And aye, there's the rub. It was a serious one. And it was important to me. So I didn't sing and shout about it. But I did get on and do it and what's more, I got on and did it like the eager beavers, way back in December.  I had been dithering about joining a new writing project. I was not sure I was either A. good enough or B. Hartlepuddlian enough, to take part.  As I dithered, checking up on Facebook and Twitter (as you do) just in case some great event was errupting that needed my immediate and close attention, one of those auspicicious things happened. A tweet about a Creative Writing Workshop popped up in my Twitter stream. And then it popped up on Google. It was local too. I got the distinct feeling someone was trying to tell me something. I mentioned it to a friend who quite simply said, go for it. (He did have to say it quite simply several times, for which steadfast commitment to curing my ditheriness I am very grateful.) And so my NYR was formed. I would do something for me in 2014, and that something would be to take this writing lark seriously. I booked the workshop and I resolved to go to the first meeting of The Heugh Battery Writers Group. 
There'll be more on the Heugh later I'm sure, but first Shepherd's Dene!



Last Sunday I had a whole day of writing. Me. The tea maker. The not really a writer who was bullied coerced persuaded to join in by the guys in the library writing group. Imagine that. To say I was daunted would be putting it mildly, but I found myself in a beautiful setting with a bunch of lovely, and equally daunted people, plus two of the friendliest, most undaunting workshop leaders I have ever come across - Rachel Cochrane and Helene Dolder . 
Plus, it all began with coffee and cookies so, you know it was bound to be fine.

The day was all about the senses and observation. I was slightly hindered by a hideous headcold - held in check with max strength flu capsules (shop's own brand though other well known makes are available) and by the fact that I rarely seem to notice anything much. I actually do find the kind of exercise where you have to look at things minutely really difficult. Self-conscious at the best of times the intensity of such observation almost paralyses me. I look at an object and see only that - it's a chair, it has legs, I can sit on it... I marvelled at the imagery that others in the group created from their various observances throughout the day. I found myself writing pagefuls of words, with maybe a phrase or a line here and there that stuck a chord. I was not put off by this, and that is perhaps the measure of the small progress I have made in three years, because I have learned that three good words can be the trigger for something more, so I have gathered my words like fallen leaves and will spread them out later and smooth their crumples and see what I can make of them. 

Seventy five words!

She waited.

There was nothing she could do. She knew that.

But still her mind raced, full of "what ifs?" and "maybes?". Futile ideas, straws to be grasped and crushed and discarded, instantly replaced by yet another desperate idea. 

The clock ticked, slow and deliberate, mocking her pretence at patience.

This was madness!

She should not have come. Not today, probably not ever.

Still the clock ticked on.

Dear God! How she hated the waiting.

I wrote this as a submission for Paragraph Planet which asks for a 75 word story. Have just realised it had 76 words (now edited)! Curse my dodgy maths skills!  Hopefully my English skills are a bit better? 

Talking to myself!

A year or so ago (Ok a year ago to the day actually, thanks to a nifty little app) I was having a little rant to myself about those people who never reply to my emails and texts. Being something of a prolific "messager" I sway through a mixture of emotions if people don't respond to me - frustration, anger, worry, a certain amount of sadness and, not least, a deluge of self doubt. Naturally, they have not replied because I am simply not sufficiently interesting or important enough to them to merit it. Generally these feelings don't last long and I give myself a mental shake and get on with life. Eventually I do get a response and am suitably exasperated or overjoyed to discover that they are either completely unaware of the emotional turmoil their silence has caused, or astounded that I have been so bothered by it!  Well, we all have our own private megalomaniac tendencies, don't we? 

Anyway my point is, a year ago I said all that much more succinctly so thought I would share my attempt to capture the feeling in words.

Into the Ether

Letters spatter

Puddling into words

Sentences stream

Gurgling into silence.

 I think it's quite apt for blogging too....who knows whether anyone is even listening?