Badge Report is in!

Confirmation is in! I ‘passed’ April, with 100% completion of the PoMoSco challenges, and here’s my badge report to prove it… Feeling very proud of this month, and looking forward to pulling together a collection of sorts, even if I’m the only one who’ll ever see it.

Now, here’s to November, for the next brilliant but ridiculous challenge – another novel to get sorted.

Goodbye to April

Another April has come and gone, and although my notebook isn’t quite as full as I would have liked it to be, I did at least manage to complete all of the PoMoSco found poetry challenges. It’s been an interesting month, and I’ve achieved what I wanted to at least – I really wanted to learn more about found poetry, and I’ve certainly done that. Now, whenever I’m reading a new piece of text, or wandering around town, I’m seeing words as more than just components of whatever document / sign they’re forming, but as potential poetry. That has got to be a good thing!

My profile page on the PoMoSco page will stay online until the end of May, and I’m looking forward to having more time to sit and read everyone else’s offerings (because there have been some amazing ones), and keeping working on my own pieces. Going forwards, I think I’ll add some of my own words, and be a bit freer, but the challenges have certainly got me thinking, and given me some great first drafts to play with.

And so to fresh challenges. Through a conversation last night, I now have the plot bubbling away for the next in my series of novels (I care not that the first one isn’t even happening yet, you need to be optimistic!), and will start some gentle planning ahead of November. I love the thrill of finishing the 50,000 words in a month, and so hopefully November 2015 will be as fruitful as November 2013. Hopefully the second one will be edited much quicker as well.

Where is April going?

How on earth is it the 20th April already…

I’ve been keeping up (just) with my badge-earning for PoMoSco, but definitely need to have a good final push these last ten days to get my sash nice and full!

In other news, I was delighted to have a poem accepted by Peeking Cat Poetry, and I’m included in Issue 5, available to purchase or download now. This is the first poem I’ve had accepted into a journal like this, and I am incredibly excited. The fact that it’s cat-related is even more perfect (purrfect?), coming from a complete cat-aholic.

So, here’s to a very busy ten days, and fingers crossed I can get my final challenges in before the deadline!

Back to PoMoSco!

After a small break in proceedings with posting links here, we’re back to full-scale PoMoSo activity, with today’s piece being “Unexplored Paris”. Paris is a city I’ve always loved, and felt a strong sense of belonging in, so it was interesting to see where this piece took me!

There’s still writing for NaPoWriMo challenges going on in the background, but this weekend I finally managed to finish the first re-write of my draft novel, a big deal for me!

Tinted

And finally, Day Five, Poem Five!!! April is definitely proving a prolific month on the writing front – I may not be posting all the drafts from NaPoWriMo, but they’re filling up the notebook, and some should find their way onto here for the rest of the month…

But for now, Tinted!

Tinted

In our minds, as in life, do things become clearer,
as we step back, take in the bigger picture?

Or do rose and green tints thicken,
leaving us to create our own memories
from the scraps we have left?

A fragment here, a patch there,
begged, borrowed and stolen
until a picture we are happy with begins to form.

Gossip and false tales become solid, hard facts
as we hope we remember which memories
were fashioned from which friend’s story,
lest with a hint of embellishment,
we tell them our version
of their tale.

A drink to Richard

Day Four, Poem Four, and today, a poem I wrote while I was in Leicester. Still very much in draft form, but I can see where I want it to go… I have, in the last ten minutes, put the finishing touches to the first full edit of my draft novel, and am feeling celebratory. So this is to the star of that novel!

A drink to Richard

Leicester Central Travelodge is allegedly built on the site
of the old Blue Boar Inn, the final place
where Richard laid his head, rested,
before Destiny called him to battle.
As he ‘slept ill in strange beds’,
on 20th August 1485 he settled
in the ‘large gloomy chamber’, filled
with his own great bed.

Tonight, in the bar, I sip red wine, think
about ‘my’ Richard: the man, not the myth,
who had a troubled night here, fretting
about what danger may lie ahead.
Later, crawling between pristine sheets
I wonder what became of his, abandoned
as England turned from white to harsh blood red.
Did one shield him, at the end, protecting
what dignity he had been allowed to keep?
He could have had one of mine, I think,
as I switch off the light, descend into sleep.

A grimy kind of love…

Day Two, Poem Two! This is from Wednesday’s prompt in Mslexia, to write a love poem using elements of language not associated with love!

A grimy kind of love…

He smiles his grim smile, as we run,
sodden, through streets swimming with hatred.
We know this place well; it taxes us,
challenges us to see past the mould,
forget our sickened memories, and love.
In a lost, diseased town, we have it all,
skirting around calamity and disgust
to find our own little piece of heaven.
We have each other: we have it all.

Introduction to Diving

Thanks to Sheree Mack for a lovely new challenge… To post five poems in five days – happily, these do not have to be freshly written!

The following is adapted from a PoMoSco challenge, but I’ve loosened the rules a bit in the edit, and although it’s still very much a work in progress, I can see where it’s going. This should form part of a small collection I’m working on, focusing on diving and the underwater world.

Introduction to Diving
After BSAC, 2002

Born as land creatures, armed with steel and lead,
we dip a toe, an ankle, then take the plunge.
Oceans are unleashed, serene seas serenaded
by our rhythmic breaths, in and out,
as regular as the tides we watch.

Be an underwater tourist today –
a pioneer of the shallow depths.
Play beneath the surface, exploring
the treasures of the deep:
natural and anthropogenic.

Rusting hulks bring new life, thriving
life, keeping the ghosts at bay.

Warming up for April

Firstly, thank you so much for everyone putting up with the Ricardian fest this past weekend…

My time in Leicester was amazing, and I feel like I’m still processing the fact that I was actually in the cathedral for Compline on Sunday evening. It doesn’t feel real, somehow, having watched so much of the other events on television since. I feel like the Dean of Leicester is a personal friend, having seen him around the cathedral so many times!

Plenty of writing still to be done as a result of that then, but right now, I’m looking forward to April, which has come around incredibly quickly… NaPoWriMo and PoMoSco are calling, and thankfully, for the latter, we’ve been given free reign to make a head-start on our pieces.

Throughout the month, I’ll be posting my NaPoWriMo poems here, as well as linking to my daily PoMoSco piece, uploaded onto the designated website. Feel free to comment away – you will notice some sort of theme, especially with PoMoSco, and hopefully NaPoWriMo too. I have plans…

For now though, I am going to let Jimmy Carr entertain me at the City Hall this evening, ahead of a relaxing weekend of gossip and work on the second draft of the novel.

Until April!