Renee is Writing

I like to write short, but not because I am 4'11" tall. As a poet of course I love the intensity that appears in a few short lines of well chosen words and images. In fact haiku and its 3 line format and tanka with its 5 line format appeal to me quite nicely. All the poems I write tend to come out short and even when reading poems, now or as a child, I would pass by anything longer than two pages. I prefer the shorter forms as they tell such big stories and paint such huge pictures with only a few words. Though I love to read novels, when I write I love the succinctness of short stories and flash fiction. Yes, I know that part of the reason is that with a full time job my available time to write is brief and the thought of delving into novel writing is a scary plunge. I can see it taking years to finally finish a novel length story and revise it to the point where it can be published.  On the other hand, writing flash fiction of 1,000 words or less is quite attractive. Fo...

Living the life of a writer can be both wonderful and frustrating, especially if most of your day is taken by a full time job. When you add to that, family, friends, and a slew of other hobbies finding time to write can be a marathon strength challenge.  For me I wake at 4:15 in order to squeeze in twenty minutes of writing morning pages as per Julia Cameron's Artist's Way tools. It just three pages of rambling that occasionally results in a breakthrough for some indecision or a snag in a plot turn or poem idea. When I feel that morning pages are a waste of my precious time to write I will use those twenty minutes to create a new poem or two or perhaps outline a short story or map out a new chapter, depending on which of my many writing projects is occupying my mind at the moment. Getting home by 5:00 or later, working out, showering, having dinner, reading a little and then falling into bed exhausted keep me from the writing desk. But novels, memoir, short stories...

when e.e.cummings arrived on the poetry scene he gifted us with poems that were written with few upper case letters and very little punctuation. we were in awe of his originality: "there are so many tictoc clocks everywhere telling people what toctic time it is for tictic instance five toc minutes toc past six tic Spring is not regulated and does not get out of order nor do its hands a little jerking move over numbers slowly we do not wind it up it has no weights springs wheels inside of its slender self no indeed dear nothing of the kind. (So,when kiss Spring comes we’ll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss lips because tic clocks toc don’t make a toctic difference to kisskiss you and to kiss me)" e. e. cummings and though Edward Estlin Cummings is no longer with us, his poems remain an enigma. it dawned on me the other day, as i wrote one of my own poems, how cummings' legacy of lower case lettered poetry has grown in modern day. in th...

Next Sunday, July 20, 2014, I will be reading some poems from "I am My Mother's Only Poem" and perhaps one or two sneak previews of poems from my forthcoming collection "Ripe Peaches." I will also be signing and selling copies of "I am My Mother's Only Poem" and my short story collection "Looking through Windows." There will be two baskets raffled off and blank note cards with my art work on them will be for sale as well. All this is being graciously hosted by Chris and Mark Tobin at Mattebella Vineyards in Southold on the Nort Fork of Long Island. I hope you will all come along and share a fun and inspiring afternoon surrounded by the vineyards, fig trees and Chris' magnificent flowers.The roses are lush, red and gorgeous. In preparation I have designed business cards, book related postcards and out together packets of note cards tied with ribbon. I am also in process of choosing poems to read and creating some snippets of backgr...

This has been an interesting week. I met the other night with a friend who clued me into a newsletter that announces poetry events on Long Island and in NYC. I never knew there was so much poetic energy right here where I live. I'll definitely have to seek these out and meet some more poets. Today I am going to a poetry workshop and reading at Walt Whitman Birthplace in Huntington where I can network and get to know other local poets. So looking forward to it and to next weekend's book signing at Mattebella Vineyards in Southold. Yesterday I was happy to have taken the day off. I typed up all the poems I have so far for my new collection, "Ripe Peaches." I know it will take some time to put this one together and I want to send it to small presses rather than self publishing so I have to keep up a steady flow of new poems. Today's workshop should generate a few. I have a class with Lorraine Mejia online and that is producing some new work too. Melanie Fait...

I have loved poetry since I was two years old and heard my first nursery rhyme while sitting on my mother's lap as she read from the pale green first volume of "My Book House Books" series. I imagine I was even younger but memory slims as the years speed by. I know I was entranced by the musicality of rhythm and rhyme and the flow of descriptive and emotional words as my mother spoke them, and later as I recited them again and again from memory. It wasn't long after that when I picked up a lemon yellow number 2 pencil and began to scribble swirls, curves and straight lines across blank papers. I came to love the sound of language and the look of words on the page as my scribbles slowly transmuted into letters, words, sentences and eventually poetic verses. Once I was able to read by myself I discovered the treasures that sleep in the pages of books lined up back to back, exposing their titled spines to my hungry eyes. I read these rhymes over and over and th...

I've been taking an online class on how to improve my author presence. For the past week I've played around a lot with my two blogs, weaving in and out and changing templates, design and layout elements, and adding new gadgets. This is all new and confusing to me and I am still trying to decide if it's better to let these blogs go, get a website that has a blog linked to it, and thereby feel more like a professional writer. I have two published books, several published stories, poems and essays, have done book signings and I'm working on two new books even as I write this. So, a few decisions to make. In the meantime I played around with the blogs and now I'd love my readers' opinions on the changes I made to Renee is Writing. I need to add some pages to this blog but still working on that.