Dear All
I’m not sure Happy New Year is quite the appropriate greeting yet, certainly not as we move into Lockdown Number 3. But I am hoping for good things for all of us this year, and a return to something approaching normal.
Meanwhile in face of continuing isolation, and cold, snowy weather, what is there to do but write? The turn of the year is for many of us a time to evaluate last year’s work and to set goals or wishes for the future. This year has been no exception for me. On New Year’s day I found myself pen and notebook in hand compelled to set out my plans for 2021. I know for some people its very difficult to write just now. For me it’s a continuing compulsion and I am nothing without a project.
So here, without further ado, are my writing intentions for the beginning of 2021. (I tend to think in quarterly terms) I’d love to hear from you, if you’d like to share yours, and would be happy to feature some here –let me know in the comments.
1.Write a short memoir piece – 4,000 words – to enter for the Fish Short Memoir competition deadline Jan 31st – don’t consider whether it might be successful or not, it’s irrelevant, the important thing is the writing (this is already underway)
2.Sign up for City University of London, short memoir course in February (already registered on 1st Jan, and excited!)
3.Read all 15 books on the reading list from the course above.
4.Make a limited number of printed pamphlets, with handmade covers, of my prose poem Wallflower – inspired by the enterprising women and the Auckland Project
5.Gather together the short stories, which will comprise a new anthology, including the novella, This One Wild Place, written in the first lockdown to be published later in the year by Linen Press.
6.Edit recent poems and short stories
7.Do not dismiss the idea for a novel that found its way into your head in 2020- considering writing sketches for it.
8. Work arising from the memoir course…
Wish me luck. I will report back. Don’t forget to let me know what you are planning x
The pamphlet sounds right grand- yes please! It’s little things for me. The ideal would be, once a decade handing over a wheelbarrow of novels in exchange for stipend enough to keep me in ale and pork pie. Submitting singular poems and stories . . . .grrrr but I will! And also not to dismiss audio drama. I love listening to it, ideas flow when I hear my characters aurally, so why not write it.
You definitely should write audio drama Warren, if I remember rightly you’re good at dialogue – I’m not sure I could, but I do know that I need to hear my characters speak before I can get them on the page