Words Unlimited

Sweet Peas and Poems...

Picking Sweet Peas every other day keeps the blooms coming right through to autumn. Leave them any longer and the plant will go to seed - no more flowers until next year and who knows how many of the seeds will germinate, anyway? ... keep picking ideas,  brainstorming around them, every other day ... grow a poem…

Writing in the midst of things…

Need a clear day before you can even think of writing a word? That’s the fantasy… right now, I have builders/decorators at every turn repairing my house [long story, best not to ask … note: this work is not of my choosing!] - will I sulk for 7 weeks or will I carry on writing?  Extreme conditions to test out how much chaos/noise I can tolerate and still keep writing.  My office at the top of the house is now under attack and I’m re-located to a corner of the living room, under the window a builder is drilling out old pointing. For months, I’ve put off launching this blog [ yes, I’ll do it when I have a quiet few days] now I’ve done it in what I would have thought to be the worst conditions  -  a personal  triumph... 

Poet Jane Kirwan and I send each other weekly prompts to start a new poem. The deal is we email the prompts on Tuesday morning. We don’t open the email until we’re ready to write.  When ready, we have twenty minutes to freewrite anything - no limits - firing off from what’s in the mail, not consciously aiming for a poem. Over the next twenty-four hours we can tidy up this mess into something resembling a poem, or we can just leave the mess with more mess scribbled in the margins.  We then send each other our respective drafts and make initial comments. Today, I saved my twenty minutes until the drill was at full throttle. Interesting. Didn't hear it after a few minutes as I delved into the phrase 'threatening animals.' 

Welcome...

Welcome to Words Unlimited. Why the name? I want to talk about all things related to reading and writing. The process of writing fascinates me as much as the end product - the poem that comes from nowhere, the novel that takes months [years] of slog and persistence. Why do some projects seem to write themselves while others feel like driving uphill with the handbrake on, in reverse?  What are the strategies writers employ to keep on facing the blank page? How do we constantly push past the limitations and take new creative risks? How reading surprises and triggers new writing. I talk and write about these in my teaching, write endless 'notes-to-self' as I work on novels, poems, essays so it seems a logical step to start writing here. Writing, is in effect, talking on paper [or screen]. For a while I'm sure these posts will remain notes to self but I hope they might invite a dialogue with other writers.