My understanding is that I have to answer the four questions below and then invite a fellow writer or two to do the same. So here goes ...
What am I working on?
My main piece of writing at the moment is a novel about climate change refugees in a future, independent and much flooded Hebrides. I'm relatively happy with the first 2/3 of this book and the ending, but between lies a black hole which I'm currently trying to fill. I have the ideas, all I need to do is write.....
I'm always writing poetry too, and perhaps foolishly have signed up to NaPoWriMo, the National Poetry Writing Month, which takes place in April. The idea being that this will help me to capture more of the inspiring ideas i have before they escape.... (My poem 'Influential Poets' has just been added to my page at Verse Wrights).
I write haiku all the time, mostly inspired by nature.
I've just come to the end of a term of teaching creative writing at the Ripple Project in the Lochend area of Edinburgh. This is a brilliant class to teach, everyone is so keen to join in discussions about writing (though we sometimes veer off topic!) and everyone in the class is talented and imaginative. Another class will start just after Easter, so I'm looking forward to that.
For the past 8 years I've enjoyed editing Bolts of Silk, an online poetry journal. I recently decided to bring this to a close though and the last poem will be published there on the day that swifts return to Edinburgh this spring.
How does my work differ from others in the genre?
My novel takes a more internationalist approach to the topic of a future climate changed Scotland (there are a few good novels already out there on a similar theme, most notably Angus Dunn's Writing in the Sand).
Why do I write?
I enjoy the process of writing (I have surprised myself by how much I'm genuinely enjoying writing a novel, though admittedly there are times when it's not going well, but overall, definitely an enjoyable experience).
I enjoy the process of writing (I have surprised myself by how much I'm genuinely enjoying writing a novel, though admittedly there are times when it's not going well, but overall, definitely an enjoyable experience).
I feel I have things to say that I want to share with other people.
How does my writing process work?
I write haiku when inspiration strikes, which is usually at least a few times a week.
With longer poetry I have a box of ideas and half worked poems which I add to and work on on an ongoing basis. I also write poetry in response to prompts I find on websites or for competitions.
My novel started out as a NaNoWriMo work a couple of years ago and was largely made up of very bad dialogue, because that was the easiest way to keep up the word count! I have since then entirely rewritten it into something much more readable and have quite thoroughly rewritten the first 2/3, with the help of Crafty Green Boyfriend, who has given me a lot of very useful ideas. Currently I'm a bit stuck, though I have worked up some ideas of where to take the story next, but I just need to write these into the narrative and find the impetus again.
I'm going to pass this on totwo Edinburgh based writers:
Nasim at velogubbed.
Marianne Wheelagan - read her answers here.
I'm going to pass this on totwo Edinburgh based writers:
Nasim at velogubbed.
Marianne Wheelagan - read her answers here.
5 comments:
Hi Juliet, always so interesting to read what a fellow writer is up to. Thanks, too, for inviting me to join the tour, am delighted to do so. Will post up my answers next week :)
you've been quite busy and here's to hoping you can find the words for your novel to be finished. i'm sure it'll be great. sorry to hear about your Bolts of Silk being closed. it showcased a lot of great talent. hope all is well. have a great day~
Thanks, kindly, Juliet, for mentioning me. May I first say I am envious of your haiku writing, I would love to be able to write haiku, in response to nature, in response to everything really. Just watching birds in garden can throw up all kinds of thoughts. I probably won't write a post for the blog tour but basically for me writing is a response to catastrophe, I don't think I would have written had I not become ill as an undergraduate in 80s. Now, I can't imagine not writing, it keeps me sane, I always have words banging around in my head, but the actual process of sitting down to write depends, like everything I do, on my energy. Writing is more physical than we think!
Well, I am certainly glad you were asked to join the Blog Tour as it was enjoyable learning a little more about you.
I am enjoying writing little poems for Six Word Fridays. Gotta love a prompt and a deadline. :)
And, I mentioned it to you a while back, but there is a book I enjoyed a great deal that is set in an environmental disaster of a future. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. Got good reviews. A line of dialogue stays with me, "And that was the last banana I ever ate." So matter of fact in such a radically altered world. We are so close to uttering those kinds of sentences about a lot of things, I fear. Sigh.
your novel sounds fabulous - I have had a recurrent dream of a post sea level rise world and thought about writing a book - keeping up the momentum is the hardest thing I find.
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