My Writing process

Rebecca Gethin (Liar Dice, A handful of Water and What the Horses heard ) has kindly asked me to take part in a blog tour of writers where we all answer the same questions and tag other writers who will do the same the following week. A nice way to keep in touch and learn about new people!  Becky posted her writers blog tour last week.

I have one person to tag at the moment and this is:

• Judi Moore: 

http://judimoore.wordpress.com

Judi’s novel,  Is Death really necessary is available on the kindle. As befits the author of a novel set in 2038 Judi lives in the new town of Milton Keynes with several (hard to be specific - they don't stand still) black and white critturs in an old Tardis-like cottage.

Now for my answers to the questions:

What am I working on?

I have several writing projects on the go at the moment. Social media friends will have noticed my current pre-occupation with London’s statues and I’m working on a top secret collaborative venture with another writer. I’ve also returned to writing prose as I have a couple of characters, a  father and son who want me to tell their story. 

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’m not sure that it does. But I do mostly write poems that are based on things that have actually happened in the past, even if I do invent a lot of the details.

Why do I write what I do?

This is a difficult question to answer because I write what I’m moved to set down and I don’t tend to examine why I’m doing it. It would detract from the writing if I started navel gazing about the whys. That said, many of the poems in Convoy were about the stories we are at risk of forgetting. So there was an element of capturing lost stories and as I was writing the collection it felt as if I was doing it for all the merchant seamen who are the unsung heroes of the second world war.

How does your writing process work?

I wait until I can hear the character’s voice or the voice of the poem. But I wouldn’t want it to sound as if I sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. You’d never get anything written that way. I’ve discovered that you can put yourself in the right place, usually just by sitting down with a blank page.

I’m just about to go off to North Wales for a writing retreat and based on previous experience I know that I will get lots written away from the distractions of home and the day job.

Good things

Any readers of my blog who know me in real life will be aware that there’s been little time for poetry in the last couple of months. But I’m making my way back into the flow and lovely things have begun to happen again, like the Magma celebration reading at Keats House. This was for all those poets who had won prizes or been short-listed in the competition, which was judged by Philip Gross. Much thanks to Tania Hershman who persuaded me to go with her. She introduced me to Jo Bell, who is doing marvellous things to inspire people to write poems on her 52 blog. 

I came away from the evening with poems ringing and reverberating around my head and a copy of Magma 58 clutched in my paws. In fact every hair on my head wanted to stand up and hum and sing. The winning poem, Snow Country by Dominic Bury is breathtakingly good so do buy a copy of the magazine or even better subscribe to it. The London launch of issue 58 takes place on Friday 7th March at the London Review of Books bookshop.



At the same time there was the Sensing Spaces exhibition at the Royal Academy which Vanessa Gebbie enthused about so much I just had to go to see it. Letting architects loose in the academy turns out to have been a very good idea. They’ve all created extra-ordinary spaces and it’s the only ‘art’ exhibition I’ve been to where the other people going round wanted to share their impressions. Like the man who wanted to make sure I’d realised there were thirty five steps to the top of the stairs where the angels were. I did write a poem about the space in which I felt the least comfortable, never mind that everyone else thought they were in a library and that the hazel sticks resembled rolled scrolls or the spines of books. I was surprised but pleased to have the poem accepted for the Ekphrasis wandering words reading. This is also on Friday 7th March for anyone who isn’t already going to the Magma launch.

And like London buses there is yet another poetry event happening in the capital on Friday with a gathering of the five UK and Ireland current poet laureates, who are all female. At a time, when it feels to me like women are being demeaned in public life, it is absolutely marvellous that this is being celebrated. Wow  indeed. No wonder it is sold out.