Renee is Writing

The holidays are over and a new year spreads out ahead of me. Where am I going at this moment in time with my writing. Where do I want to land and how will I get there? I want a career in writing. With less than three years left before I retire I want to start planning now to have writing novels a major part of my life once all that open time comes into my life. That means I have to write more this year. I have to hone in on a genre and on a brand so I can get some novels out in the marketplace. I have to join some writing organizations and network with other writers. I have to hunker down and get busy. No more procrastination and avoidance. No more meandering down more attractive shady lanes. No more making excuses of not time, motivation or energy. Last year I made a commitment to lose weight. I did the work, kept the discipline and exercised my little tushy off and reached my goal weight. It was easier than I thought it would be. I'm hoping getting a novel done, marketing it t...

It's cold and gloomy here in the northeast and a perfect climate in which to write. When it's gray outside I feel more confined and sheltered in my little writing room. With a jazz CD playing softly in the background, my heart stills, the chatter in my head stills, and the pen slips over the blank page like skates on a frozen pond. I blogged yesterday about my varied tastes in genres, but today focus seems to be my theme. Although I have an unfinished novel  waiting for me. Characters who are waiting for me to tell them what to think and feel and do next. I am into poetry. I'm at work on a poetic memoir. I've written fifteen poems so far in the form of prose poems, haibun and tanka, and have worked with a teacher to help me hone the poems into their best personas. I'm searching for more poems in my stack of notebooks and writing new ones so I can have a 30 to 40 page chapbook to submit. I love writing poems on quiet gloomy days. The atmosphere seems ripe for met...

I admit it. I am multi-textual. I didn't have to come out of the closet, just out of my writing room to face the truth. Some writers focus on poetry, or memoir, or novels. I have a slew of writing interests--I write memoir--in essay, poetry and book length. I write poems. I write short stories and flash fiction. I combine poetry with art. And I have a third novel in progress. Some say focusing on one genre is the way to succeed. Others claim reading and writing different genres keeps the writing fresh and the writer from getting bored. I just figure I have to accept and admit that I like to read and write in several genres and go with it. I want to do it all, I don't want to have to choose. So as this year drops its velvet curtain and the curtains rise on 2013 I will write in whatever genre shows up at my desk or computer. I will accept I cannot choose just one. And I will do my best to keep a writing flow and to submit my work because no writer ever got anywhere with her p...

Night is a blue velvet drape outside my bedroom window. Between the clicks of the baseboard heater the muse comes tapping. Long golden tresses flow over her shoulders. She is dressed in pale blue and green chiffon. Her slender hands pull me from dreams and needed sleep, luring me with poetic lines and dramatic scenes with irresistible characters. I toss and turn, knowing it's hopeless to try and go back to sleep. Now the muse begins to hum, melodious tones spill from her mouth filling the room with the siren's song that calls me to my desk. In that vaporous alley between midnight and dawn poems rise like mist over the ocean. My pen glides across the page as the muse whispers in my ear. Her hand braces my elbow nudging me to keep writing. All thoughts of sleep vanish in the verses and I keep writing until sunlight glints in the window behind me, chasing away the dark night shadows that spawn poetry and stories. As the shadows fade the muse disappears leaving me to continue t...

On a clear and crisp November weekend three members of my writers' group Tapestrie s venture out to the south fork of Long Island for our twice a year retreat. Staying at Sea Crest Resort in Amagansett we find the time to write and the support of other writers. As the sun rises in the east I brew a pot of coffee, have breakfast, then go for a walk along the beach. The sand is soft beneath my sneakers. The waves roll softly into the shoreline and the seagulls' cries greet me. As I walk, characters appear in my mind, new plot lines unroll like the waves, and as questions are answered others arise. These will be raised to my fellow writers later today when we have our brainstorming session. Back in our suite, I shower and get dressed, then settle at the kitchen table, notebook open, purple pen in hand poised above the blank page and begin to write. The time and silence in which to write is a rare gift for a writer, especially the three of us who all have full time jobs and fam...

In four days I will be driving out to Amagansett to attend a weekend retreat with two women from my writers' group. It will be a welcome getaway after a late season hurricane and an early snowstorm. Thankfully the resort we stay at, Sea Crest, has power, heat and minimal storm damage so they are open for business. Open to welcome us into a little suite with 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms and a living room and dining area. We will take our pens, notebooks, and laptops and write away. In between meals and snacks we will create characters, weave plot lines, amp up suspense and tension, and hopefully make significant progress with our novels. We will also spend time brainstorming so we can give each other ideas for plot lines and character development. Writing is a solitary sport but sometimes three heads create more of a story! So you may wonder why I called this post writing confusion. It's an old tale for me. I've been beating my head against the plot wall of my nove...

I enter poetry and find my self. The images and metaphors beat with my heart, the rhythms float on my breath, and the lessons in the verses are my life blood. I found poetry as a child hearing and reading nursery rhymes and soon began to write my own poems. As a more independent reader I discovered the humor of Ogden Nash and the world of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses." In poetry I found my own private Camelot, a place of perfection. Inside the silence and solitude of writing poetry I record my world and learn about my own heart. I discovered Mary Oliver's astute descriptions of nature and Billy Collins' persepective on the everyday world. I ventured into the mystical realm of Rumi and Hafiz. I travel away and into prose--fiction and essay, novels and memoirs, but always return to the land of poetry. I read it, write it, study it and read about writing it. It is my heart and soul and herein I will always abide.