The Right Now

What am I thinking?

What's going on?

Not a life update, but an answer to the unasked question:

What's the writing situation?

~

I've been reflecting a lot.

Someone said to me recently, "You could've published your anthology."

This was a reference to the start of the year, where it was my goal to publish my anthology by August of this year.

The reason I "could've" done this was because it had been sitting in my drafted books in Amazon, finished except for a few finer details like the cover and inside formatting.

But I "could've" done it by August.

So when that friend said that to me, I was shocked. Shocked that it was a goal of mine at the start of the year, but also at how much my attitude had changed between then and now.

If I had done what I said - if I had clicked "publish" - you would be reading a lot of poetry.

But, me being me, I had a bit of a writing break and let life become the priority, which is a nice way of saying that I began to question where I was getting all that spare time from...

And now, I've returned to my roots - I need a procrastination project, so this anthology is the answer.

You might be thinking - why didn't I click publish? Why haven't I now?

I think my answer is that I was rushing. For whatever reason, I saw the stories I've published here as going unused, sitting, unseen and without purpose - so my instinct said, why not throw them into a book?

But there was no care taken when I threw them together; no love or appreciation for the story that they tell. The ones I had chosen do tell a story - all of my poetry does - but it was about making that clear from the readers' end, making that story feel complete, not seperate.

There's no point in reading a book of poetry that feels all over the place. It needs a common thread, something that changes.

It needs an arc, which is what I'm in the very thoughtful process of working out and weaving together.

I did have ideas this year, but they were works in progress. It needs to feel right, and after the right amount of care and consideration, it will come.h

However, even though I didn't have the time before to get it done, the important thing is that I trusted myself enough to come back to it when I was ready.

And in that time (because here, I haven't gone anywhere) I have developed my writing more. This story is ongoing.

(If you haven't guessed, it's to do with me- yes, SO original!)

But because it's personal, because it's important to me, I believe that Amazon won't do it justice. I need something else.

So I've found publishers. Local ones, who accept unsolicited publications, who accept poetry anthologies.

I intend to submit to these more local publishers who are focussed on unique, personal stories and will handle my manuscript with care.

It will also be at least another decade before I have the patience to return to those stupid design-your-book-cover tools on Amazon/Kindle. I can't. We're in the 2020's for goodness' sake!!

Back to 'The Right Now', we're taking our time over here.

Poetry? Keeping it coming.

Anthology? Being rediscovered, piece by piece, when I feel like it.

A publisher? Is in mind, but nothing has been submitted yet - my piece needs to feel ready to put out into the world, complete and full. It doesn't need to be finished, but in my mind, a "1/2 idea of a concept that vaguely relates to some words I wrote down" isn't going to cut it.

As always, thank you for reading and supporting my work over here on Vocal. I'm not going anywhere, but I think I'll be in-and-out as life gets busy again. Bit by bit, we write. Bit by bit, we go on.

I'll continue to change my pinned stories too; might try experimenting with groups of poems that "tell a story" when they're put together. This, of course, is subjective and entirely up to interpretation.

A hypothetical conversation:

Reader: "Red, how do these three stories go together? What do they mean?"

Me: "I'm the author...so...Because I... said so?"

~

Until next time - thanks for reading and whatnot 🌱✨

- Red