Category: Poetry

Why do I write what I write?

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Jenny at readsbyredriverbanks asked me to take part in the Writer’s Blog Tour last weekend, and I’ve finally taken a few minutes to sit down and type up a post.  I did a post on the same topic back in May, when the ever-lovely Tricia Drammeh asked me to take part.  That time I answered the questions with more of a focus on my fiction writing, but this time I decided to focus a bit more on my poetry.

TDSWWhy do I write what I do?
I write poetry because it’s something I’ve always enjoyed reading.  I remember as a kid I spent a whole afternoon in one of the trees out at my grandparents’ place writing poems about my summer vacation as a school project.  I used to really like free verse, and sometimes I still write a bit of it, but I’ve found haiku to be an interesting challenge, and it’s really quite satisfying to be able to cram a world of emotion into 17 syllables.

What am I working on?
I’m still working on…

Authors to Watch features Tuesday Daydreams!

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TDSWAuthors to Watch is a great blog run by my good friend Tricia Drammeh that features books and authors of all stripes. Today, she featured Tuesday Daydreams: A Journal in Verse!  You can check out her post here.

But she’s not the only one who’s been talking about Tuesday Daydreams lately – Joleene Naylor and DM Yates have, as well.  Joleene’s post is here and Donna’s is here.

All three of these ladies are talented authors in their own right and you should be sure to check out their books as well as mine.  Tricia’s books include the Spellbringers series and Better Than Perfect, among others.  Joleene writes the Amaranthine books, where vampires and glitter don’t mix.  DM Yates writes fantasy novels and poetry, and you can find out more about her books here.

Make sure to spread the love, and check out all of these wonderful books today!

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

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In other news…

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…I had a guest post up on the Avid Reader Blog today!  I’d have posted about it earlier, but Wi-Fi was not my friend today.

Anyway, if you love all things books, check out Fantasy Angel’s many and varied posts.  And if you like my poetry, you can check out my post about what I wanted to write and why I didn’t do it right here.

Okay, now I’m going to go pass out.  Nighty-night! 🙂

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Privatized

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That’s right, I’ve privatized the majority of my poetry posts.  I’m working on a follow-up to Tuesday Daydreams, and in preparation, I’ve made private all the posts that will be featured in my second collection.  Formatting with two little monkeys climbing on me is proving a challenge, and I’m having issues with a couple other things, but I hope to have it available soon.

I’ll keep you posted!

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Tuesday Daydreams now on Smashwords!

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TDSWAt long last (seriously, it’s taken a while), I’ve made Tuesday Daydreams: A Journal in Verse available on Smashwords.  You can now read all my silly little poems in a variety of formats!

I don’t know why it took me so long to get around to this – I intended to do it shortly after initial publication two and a half years ago, but I never did.  It was pretty simple, for the most part.  And now I know what I need to do to get the follow-up volume ready to go!

With the Smashwords edition comes a new cover.  I’m not sure I like it yet, but it’ll do for now, I suppose.  I’ve added the new cover to the Kindle version as well, but it may not be live till tomorrow.  As for the paperback…it’s sticking with the old cover for now.

So!  If you’d like to get your hands on a copy, check out Amazon and Smashwords!

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Camera skills

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IMG_20140301_104334Apparently, I’m not too shabby with a camera.  I’ve been an amateur photographer for a good decade and a half now (a little over that, actually), ever since I got my first camera for Christmas, and it’s something I love.  Most of the pictures that accompany my poems are ones that I’ve taken (unless otherwise noted).  It’s so much fun; I can’t imagine not having a camera to play around with.  And, while I do miss my old film cameras, it’s nice that with my DSLR, I can take as many pictures as I want without having to worry about paying to have bad pictures developed.  Of course, this has also made me a little more careless, I think, in my composition, but such is life.

But I digress.  When I post something new here, I usually head over to Facebook and share the link in a couple of groups I’m in.  Last week, my post “Lonesome Call” gathered a bit of attention there, as someone found my photo of a lone tree in a field near my hometown particularly inspiring.  She crafted a whole poem around the image, which I was quite flattered to read.  Apparently it’s been making its way around the web via Facebook, from what I can tell.  If you’d like to take a look for yourself, you can find it here.

If you decide to check it out, I hope you’ll enjoy. 🙂

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Time flies

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My little Tomcat at the tender age of fourPhoto by Kay Kauffman

My little Tomcat at the tender age of four
Photo by Kay Kauffman

My, how time flies!  Without my even realizing it, this little blog o’ mine has turned five years old.  That happened somewhere around the tail end of last month and I forgot all about writing my planned retrospective about my time in the blogging world.

Five years.  My, how the years have flown!  I started blogging about six months after my divorce was finalized.  I wanted to write passionate political spiels of great depth and insight; I wanted to pen fantastic short fiction that was sure to catch the eye of someone important, that elusive one right person who could make all my lifelong literary dreams come true; I wanted to create a wildly successful blog that would spawn book deals and syndicated columns and who knows what else.

In short, I had high hopes.  I was young, bright-eyed yet jaded.   Possibly I had delusions of grandeur.

The writer speaks

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Friday morning, I visited the third graders at Reinbeck Elementary School.  The kids were all lovely and quite attentive while I prattled on about poetry and writing, punctuated by the occasional attempt at humor.  (My suspicions that I’m not funny were confirmed – not one kid cracked a single smile.)

Mrs. Fleshner introduced me by saying how surprised she was to discover an author in their midst. I imagine it was something of a surprise; I’ve known her a couple years now, as Tadpole had her for third grade last year and nothing was ever said of my writing then.  But at conferences this year, we happened to get on the subject of books and how we just don’t have the time to read as much or as often as we would like.  I said that my problem was that I wanted to both read books and write them, but I didn’t have the time to do both, and that was how we ended up discussing my writing.  She invited me to speak to the class, and I agreed, despite my intense dislike of public speaking.

I surprised her again when I arrived a bit early, laden with visual aids.

*squee*

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The e-book version of Tuesday Daydreams is now available for Kindle!  You can find it here or by searching for it in the Kindle store.  Right now this is as far as I’ll go with the e-book version, but maybe next weekend when I will hopefully have more peace and quiet, I can get it formatted for other e-readers as well.  Gretchen, any pointers would be much appreciated!  Oh, yeah – I still have to read the Smashwords Style Guide I downloaded.  That would probably help. 🙂

Between my excitement over having finally released a title and my fatigue from driving all over two counties today and my frustration with my oldest son, I’m a bit all over the place at the moment.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see an adult beverage and a scotcheroo with my name on them.  Happy weekend!

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