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My stop on The Writing Process Blog Tour

Saturday, April 12, 2014
The Writing Process Blog Tour is a great way to introduce you to new writers through their writing process. Thanks to an invitation from Carole Burns, author of The Missing Woman (forthcoming next year from Parthian Books), I get to join in on the fun and bring other writers with me! (Their bios are below.)

Okay, to the questions!



What am I working on?

It's April, so it must be NaPoWriMo (short for National Poetry Writing Month)! I'm not writing towards a book or anything, just enjoying playing around and experimenting and not making sense. It's liberating! Like releasing the stays in one's corset and breathing out.

Writing a poem a day on anything I want feels incredibly luxurious, especially after working so fixedly on Disturbance, my second poetry collection. That was dark -- and this is play. So, yes, luxurious, and a little bit naughty, like I'm getting away with something...



How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My life, education, experiences, what I read, consume and digest, where I've travelled and lived: all these things inform my writing. Since these elements are unique, what I write is unique.

Oh, and I try to challenge myself to take risks with my writing. Hopefully this pays off in more intriguing poems!



Why do I write what I do?

Because it's my oxygen.



How does my writing process work?

I gather my materials together: triggers (random words, titles) and strictures (forms, rhymes) from my computer, my pen, my notebook. Then I shut the computer, take my pen, open a page and start jotting things down. I write and write, look up, look down, and write and write and cross out and write until I cannot take the poem any further on its paper journey.

Then I open the computer up again and transcribe my scribblings, maybe edit as I go. Add. Subtract. Read it again and again, and then once more for sense, for sound. And then I think, yes, that must be it. Or, that's as far as it goes for today. Or, what is it? Or, I'll come back for it another time.  I get to the end and it might not be the end.

This is part of the training: to be a good listener to the poem, to train one's ear, to refine one's aesthetic discernment as to what works.

Ivy



Up next:

Benjamin Dodds is a Sydney-based poet whose work appears in a variety of journals and magazines. His first collection of poetry, Regulator, has just been published by Puncher & Wattmann. His Writing Process Blog post will appear April 21 on http://benjamindodds.wordpress.com

Clare Carlin's first book, Excursions, was shortlisted for the 2012 Australian/Vogel's Literary Award and won the 2008 Jim Hamilton Award. She has been a journalist for 15 years, and has published short fiction. Her Writing Process Blog post will appear April 21 on her website, Pieced Work. http://www.piecedwork.com/journal

Will Ford: Performance poet/MC of poetry events, story writer, script writer, director of short films and humorist. His Writing Process Blog post may or may not appear April 21 on http://willdeanford.wordpress.com

Plus, check out Carole Burns's Writing Process Blog post: http://offthepagebook.blogspot.co.uk
and Susie Wild's answers: http://susiewild.blogspot.co.uk