Archive for April 2020
reading in isolation
For a writer, retired from the daily commute, living in isolation from others has not been very hard. I have kept in touch with my family by phone, with my writing groups by Messenger, and with other friends through Facebook. When I am not writing, I watch TV or read aloud to my husband and we occasionally go for short drives. I’ve also taken an on-line writing course on Monday and Thursday evenings. Sometimes I sew, sometimes I blog. Rarely I take on my cleaning duties. There is always lots to do.
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Reading has been a true solace in these times of isolation. I have a Kobo for bedtime reading and a Kindle for the living room. And there is always a stack of books by the reading chair. I love British detective series like those of Ann Granger, Anne Cleeves and Elly Griffiths. I also love Science Fiction, most recently Vicki Holt’s Hunted on Predator Planet.
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What’s a comfortable chair without a book?
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So what is it about reading that is so involving? Part of this is setting, being transported to the misty sea-bound Shetland Islands, or the tentacled and mucky landscape of a distant planet. Part is about characters, getting to know people who face heart-pounding danger, or who solve mysteries by fitting clue to clue. Part is about story, a mix of circumstance and fate with twists and turns and an ending you never see coming.
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I have been known to lose myself in a good book. Once I settled in my car at a local park to read and forgot to return to work!
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Other people are reading lots too. I have seen a bit of a spike in book sales on Amazon. It is one of the pleasures of being a writer, knowing that I can bring a bit of escapism and solace to my readers.
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If you want to lose yourself in a book series, try my Meniscus Series. It’s a bit different. The stories are written in narrative poetry in a style that is compact and accessible. There are maps, a glossary and an alien dictionary in each book. All my books are illustrated.
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The Meniscus Series is about humans trying to overcome a dystopian reality on an alien planet. The story unfolds over several books and the theme is building relationships, building community.
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All my best!
Stay in your bubble! Read on!
Jane
final touches
So, after a month of organizing and sorting the poems in my ‘forty-years-of-writing bone pile,’ I have three illustrated books of poetry ready for the next step:
‘niche’ – poems about the spaces occupied by plants and animals, including humans, as they search for home. A good friend of mine has written the Foreword for ‘niche’ and I am looking forward to adding his name to the cover.
‘blueberries and mink: summers on my grandfather’s farm’ – poems about life on the farm and the changes over the years.
‘ghosts are lonely here’ – poems about abandoned buildings and other elements of the countryside.
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Now that I have everything sorted, I know I have more collections to work on, but this is enough for now. My computer is more organized than it has been in years..
The next step in the process is to request Proofs. Once I get these proofs, I will do one more round of edits and make a few final decisions on formatting. Then I will publish them, using KDP. I have no intention of marketing these. I will get enough copies for family and friends who would like to read them.
Requesting Proofs is tricky right now. Amazon has turned its efforts to making and shipping Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). I don’t mind being patient.
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Sample drawings from the three poetry books:
All my best
Staying in my bubble!
Jane
illustrating poetry
I am in the process of creating several books of poetry from the many poems I have written over the years. I am now working on the third book, poems about life on my grandfather’s farm. The title will be ‘blueberries and mink’ since these were the main products of the farm.
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There are about forty poems in this collection. I have decided how I will order the poems and done much of the formatting. Since I illustrate the books I write, the next task is to pair the poems with drawings I have done.
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For some poems, as I wrote, I had an image in my head that my hands could draw. A good example is the poem ‘patience.’ One of the lines describes ‘staring down a cow.’ The drawing was fun to do.
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In some cases, a drawing I did for another purpose will find a home in my ‘blueberries and mink’ manuscript. An example is the drawing of old pop bottles I did for a blog post a few years ago. These bottles look much like the ones that used to sit on a window ledge in a shed at my grandfather’s farm.
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Once I have inserted the formatted drawings into the book, I have to make sure they are distributed evenly through the book. Sometimes a poem and its drawing can be relocated. Sometimes I have to do another drawing to fill a gap.
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Next, from the drawings, I have to pick one for the cover of the book. I want the covers for these books to be similar in style with the book title and author name superimposed.
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A couple of the possible covers I am working on are shown below.
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all my best,
staying home,
Jane
mayflowers
In spring it is always fun to put all your senses together and search out the elusive mayflower, also known as trailing arbutus. Epigaea repens grows in the open woods where I live. You usually have to search for the trailing leaves and lift them to find the flowers.
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touch: the leaves are furry on the underside and smooth above; the petals of the flower are waxy.
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smell: the flowers are fragrant with a sweet, almost heady perfume.
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sight: the flowers are white to faintly pink; leaves are green with coppery brown surfaces and edges.
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Trailing Arbutus
(Epigaea repens L.)
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on the slope, new leaves
Trientalis, Gaultheria
Star-flower, Wintergreen,
vines of Partridge-berry creep
Maianthemum unfurls
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beneath the din, a melody
weeps Epigaea, evergreen
pressed to the hillside
leather armour, thickened leaves
weather-beaten, worn
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waxy bloom resists
subtle shadow
predator
unrelenting rain
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all my best,
staying at home,
Jane
Stay Home
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Don’t know how many times
I can say it.
Stay home!”
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“Stay home?
What are you talking about?
I am rooted to the ground.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been sneaking around.
Letting your roots grow
into all kinds of places.
Communicating with other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
My tap root grows deep.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been sneaking around.
Letting your leaves drop,
blow all over the woods.
Mixing with those of other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
Can’t help it if my leaves are dry.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been
conspiring with squirrels.
Spreading your acorns
all over the woods.
Mingling with other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
I can’t be responsible
for what my children do.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“All I can do
is repeat myself.
Stay Home.”
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All my best,
Jane
Staying Home!
raddit
Rabbits have always been a part of my life. When I was young, in Alberta, rabbits (the white-tailed jackrabbit) overran the prairie and almost every evening, you could look out on the lawn and see them grazing. In New Brunswick, we often see rabbits (the snowshoe hare) along the roadside.
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When I was in Grade One, I was asked to submit my scribbler for a contest. The teacher, Mrs. MacDonald, said two things about my scribbler. First, I should look at my spelling of ‘rabbit.’ It occurred many times in the scribbler and everywhere I had spelled it ‘raddit.’ Second, she said to use an eraser to make the corrections. “Do not wet your finger and try to take out the two ds. It will leave a hole in your paper.”
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I had no eraser. And I wanted to win the scribbler contest. The teacher had mentioned the use of a wet finger as an eraser. Perhaps it would work. So I wet my finger and rubbed at the ds. You guessed it, I ended up with a hole in the scribbler page. I did not win the contest.
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twitch
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grass, bent after rain
underside in dark, topside
rinsed in moonlight where
eight brown rabbits lope
from perimeter of prairie
eager for a nibble of green,
nip of delirium, dancing
in moonlight, whiskers
liberated to brush
cheeks in mobile
shadow, to make
transparent, long
ears, vein-lined
twitch, stand
erect, ear
hairs scan
for two-
or four-
legged
danger
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All my best,
staying home,
Jane
ice
As I go over the many poems I have written over the years, I find a lot of poems about ice. Ice is very poem-worthy. It glitters and drips. It is cold and changes form. Icicles make great popsicles (if they are dripping from a clean surface). Ice can be a metaphor for emotion, life experience, change, danger, and so on.
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Today we had a high of 7 degrees C and all the snow and ice are melting. Not really sad to see them go this year.
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river ice
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builds in shallows
at the rim of river, incremental
embellishment to transparent sheets
of glass, ice envelopes winter
remnants, reeds and willows
thickness increased as frost
penetrates, sharp edges
cauterized by cold
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freezing rain
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trees, bare branches, wait
wood snaps in the stove
budgies peck at cuttle bone
pellets of rain, tossed
at the skylight
a second transparency
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bare twigs turn in wind
distribute their coating
in these last moments
before temperature turns
the snowpack on the picnic table
shrinks at the edges
shoves over, makes room
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branches gloss so gradually
candles dipped in a vat of wax
over and over, acquiring thickness
the sky, through the skylight
dimpled tile, rumpled mosaic
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rain stipples bark as narrative
appends to memory, pane here,
light there, layers of glass
cedar twigs turn downward
as fingers, ice builds
layers of skin
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All my best
(staying home!)
Jane
berries and pears and plums
I am a multi-tasker. I find it hard to do just one thing. So when I watch TV in the evenings, I read posts on Facebook, knit, sew or draw. Lately, I am practicing with my watercolours. I love working with the ‘wet on wet’ technique. I just touch the brush to the paper and watch the colour flow. So relaxing!
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All my best,
staying home,
Jane
organizing writing files – ordering a manuscript of poems
Last month I started a big project – to find and organize all the poems I have written during the last forty years. For a glimpse of my approach see here.
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After four weeks of effort, I now have a file of poems I would like to assemble into a book. The title will be ‘niche’ and the book will include poems about the ecological spaces plants and animals (including humans) occupy.
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niche \ ‘nich\ n (F, fr. MF, fr. nicher to nest, fr. (assumed) VL nidicare, from L nidus nest) 1 a : a recess in a wall, especially for a statue. b : something that resembles a niche. 2 a : a place, employment, or activity for which a person is best fitted. b : a habitat supplying the factors necessary for the existence of an organism or species. c : the ecological role of an organism in a community especially in regard to food consumption.
– Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1979
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I have identified 66 poems for ‘niche,’ taking up about 110 pages. Although I could just toss the poems into the book in random order, I like to think about how I want the reader to encounter the poems. I organize the poems in the book following these steps.
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1. List the ideas in the poems:
After I find all the poems to fit the ‘niche’ category, I arrange them roughly into a manuscript. Then I print the Table of Contents and write a list of ideas associated with each poem. Examples for ‘niche’ include: needs, predation, reproduction, invasion of other spaces, seasons, nutrition, competition, and so on. I also start to get a feel for poems that do not fit.
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2. Develop a progression of ideas:
Once I have identified these ideas, I decide how I want to group them and how I want them to progress for the reader. In the case of ‘niche,’ I want the poems to first define niche, then consider the strategies plants and animals use to stay in their niche, then explore the discomfort or danger created when a niche is occupied, consider the spaces I have occupied in my own life, consider the problems you have to overcome to occupy your own niche, and conclude with an idea of the ideal space. Then, I reorder the poems so they fit the progression of ideas.
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3. Sort the poems roughly into groups:
Once I have decided on a progression of ideas, I put poems into sections to portray those ideas. I choose the title for the section from a poem in the section. It is at this point that I decide which poems do not belong in the collection and remove them. For ‘niche’ the following are the sections (for now):
occupation of space – needs of an organism for food, water, air, physical space, and so on.
strategy – ways plants and animals protect their niche and solidify their position
praying for rain – dangers and discomforts of occupying a niche
mapping the labyrinth – places I have occupied, a bit of memoir
not touching the land – ways a niche is changed when it is occupied
forgetting to move – getting comfortable in your own niche
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4. Order and fine tune:
Now the fine-tuning. To create a readable book of poetry, I think poems should not only be consistent in theme, but also segue from one to the other. This may be as simple as grouping poems of one season together, or grouping poems about plant species. It also means allowing the language and rhythm to flow from one poem to another.
The intensive way to do this is to print all the poems and lay them out on a surface, ordering and reordering until they feel ‘right.’
I hate to waste the paper, and I like to have all materials within one view, so I use an abbreviated method. I prepare pages showing just the section titles, the poem titles and a line about the poem. I cut these out so they can easily be moved around on a table. If I want to check detailed poem content structure, I have my i-pad near at hand.
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The process is sometimes tedious. Taking a break helps since after a while the poems you know so well begin to blur in meaning and the relationships between poems become nebulous. However, like many editorial-type tasks, the end product is worth the effort.
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All my best,
staying at home,
Jane
organizing writing files – what to do with scores of poems
Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about the poetry I have written over the years. I have two traditionally published books of poetry and will publish, independently, a small volume later this month. But scattered in the memory of my computer are hundreds of other poems, written over the course of forty years. Quality varies, but they are all mine, an expression of what it is like to be ‘me.’ Someday, when I am dust on the wind, someone is going to scan my computer and push delete. My son would not do this, but if I leave them in this state, they will become part of the clutter of his life.
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So, if I have had success at publishing my own work, and have the skills, why shouldn’t I ‘save’ the poems it took four decades to write.
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My approach has been to find the poems and assign them to one of five files. Each of the files will be the contents of a book of poetry, independently published and produced in a few copies. I have no intention of marketing these books. I may give them to family or friends, perhaps submit them to a few contests and just enjoy them myself.
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The five files will be:
1. ‘niche’ – poems about the spaces occupied by plants and animals
2. ‘myth and mystery’ – poems about strange occurrences in life
3. ‘lakes’ – poems about lakes and rivers in New Brunswick
4. ‘my grandfather’s farm’ – poems about my memories of the farm
5. ‘journal poems’ – poems about specific times in my life
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This is a slow process. First, there are multiple copies of some poems. Second, I have not been consistent with the naming of files. One outcome of this project will be a tidier computer.
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When I have the files in folders, then I will work to organize the poems, revise them, format the manuscript and produce a book. A huge task, but as with all things, I will see the project through in stages, working on one part at a time.
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UPDATE: I now have the files organized! It has taken about a month of work, off and on. I am now working on the poems for ‘niche.’ There are 66 poems, taking about 110 pages. Next post, I will write about organizing the poems into a readable manuscript.
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All my best,
and staying home,
Jane
nichepoetryandprose 