Writing the Perfect Beast #28

Starting in October 2005, I decided to talk honestly about the business of how I write poetry. There are people who teach how to create poetry, how to format it, how to submit and how publishing in general works. I am not seeing that many people doing work on what you need to do with your brain and mental attitudes to make that stick, grow and then evolve. HI THERE.

Let’s see if we can change that.

Last week was notable for many things in my 'professional' career. Ironically, a number of them were not great. One was awful, depressing, and a reminder that it's often not the quality of your work that matters, but if the person you trust will read it objectively. There are increasingly worrying silences yet a simultaneous sense that something palpable might be altering in how I am being seen and heard.

There is a meeting above my pay grade for every day this week. I'm writing this on Sunday as a result, because there is no way on Earth everything will happen that should do today without at least a portion of the legwork being done in advance. Looking back, I'm increasingly, incredibly proud of how planning was executed over Easter, how I set goals and achieved them. It's not enough, though.

This week I am reminded how patience is a poet's true reward.

Some things take time and effort as a creative. They are unavoidable and often depressing not because of the process itself, but the realisation that you may not get the outcome you'd hoped for. If minds are allowed to get hung up on the idea that progress is only managing X, Y and Z in that order, then Y happens twice and Z once and there's no sign of X at all, the future becomes very hard to rationalise.

In these situations, I am always reminded of my friend who has carved a niche for herself in what is absolutely a dream job from the outside, but not the way she had hoped it would play out. Compromise is what many women are forced to accept in countless walks of life, for reasons too complex for me to even begin to rationalise here. Finding peace then becomes the eternal question of priorities.

As a poet, as my friend does, I am learning from the power of agency.

I have fucked up a lot of things in my life. Some have been huge, some tiny, but the guilt regardless of size for me remains an intractable source of reflection. Of late I feel that this is not the terrible thing that others have told me is the case, and that being able to learn when not to do something becomes as, if not even more, important than barrelling ahead without consideration.

The desire to say yes to everything is often overwhelming, especially during periods where nothing of value appears to be available from anywhere else. The no, therefore, ends up with so much power. It shows an ability to look past gratification into a more reflective and controlled state. For me, it's the thinking time that is the biggest issue of all. Just taking an offer because there is nothing else is not based on common sense. Instead, it can often smack of desperation.

The biggest complement should always be when you're mentioned unexpectedly.

All of this is said with half an eye back to the path that has been walked. There are people who I no longer speak to who I'd desperately hoped might end up as friends. There are people who were friends and now I have grown apart from. In between is a realisation that sometimes, however hard I try, things sometimes will never come to pass. I have to accept that. It means I need a better plan.

Because I effectively run out of work in October, that means finding other things to fill the gaps. I must be doing that in April because six months from now will take forever and will also arrive in a blink if I'm not ready for it. It means tomorrow, in a meeting, looking past where I am to where I'd like to be. It's being proactive and flexible but crucially covering my own self care and mental health shortcomings.

It's about understanding what I could yet be capable of.

This is a process which ends only when I do.