Clean slates
Starting from scratch
There is something refreshing
in taking back control
Returning gold
to straw
And realising that straw was all it was anyway
just straw
But, straw is at least fodder
And fodder is always a useful thing.
*I did something I had been meaning to do for awhile on the week-end. I unpublished and deleted all my books on Amazon and Draft to Digital.
It felt good. Clean. A little extreme. Which is why I hadn’t done it. In case it was a passing thing, (I once blew up an Instagram account years ago with hundreds of organic followers and a great concept that I enjoyed when I had a case of the blues).
After that, I learnt a lesson: think long and hard before blowing up things you’ve put effort into.
So I did, and I’m happy with the decision.
I am no longer a published poet (other than on this blog) and to be honest, I never felt like one anyway, I just made my books as a creative act and enjoyed the process.
It’s not that I don’t like my poetry, I love many of the poems contained in those books and they remind me of certain times in my life when I wrote them.
However, I always regretted that when I decided to create books, I took a great deal of material from here on my blog. And because Amazon trawls the internet for double-ups before it will allow you to publish, I had to delete the poems, hundreds of them, from this blog.
Luckily by the third book I was wise enough to send them to the drafts folder instead, so they could be published back in the blog timeline where they belonged if I wanted to do so later.
I was never entirely happy with the layout of any of the books. But I used to be such a spontaneous, impatient person , that when the urge to create something came across me, I would just forge ahead regardless.
I don’t do that anymore. I now know how to edit correctly. This is because I have had the fiction manuscript, which I wrote, professionally edited quite a few times. I would still be having it edited, except the last editor told me, “This is great; it’s ready to go, do something already”, and I respect him immensely, so I will. Do something. I’ll test the wind and ask God what he reckons, and when the time is right, I’ll take that list of publishers another author has given me and begin sending out my manuscript. However, the three edits by three different editors were not wasted because I looked at the corrections every time that draft came back and learned something. I learned how to be a better writer.
Mostly I’ve learned how to be patient. Allow space for God. Timing. A change in the wind. Intuition. None of these things have the opportunity to assist when I go off creating at a 100mile an hour.
My mother would be proud.
My blog writing has also evolved, it was started in 2016 after all, but looking back at old examples of my writing here on the blog doesn’t annoy me because a blog is clearly a work in progress with your best work permanently at the present moment.
Books don’t have that ability. They are time capsules, their contents, the writers skills, trapped in time, forever.
Yikes.
So I unpublished them all and I’m so relieved.
A bonus is now that I have deleted the books, I can rework old poems into my current way of writing and editing rather than leaving them stranded and embarrassed on a stagnant page forever.
Mornings are always a chance to begin again, and this one feels lighter having made that decision and moved on.
Header photo: AI art generated to accompany one of the poems that I included in my third poetry book.
Cheryl Strayed once said (in Dear Sugar) that nothing is ever wasted.
I agree whole heartedly.
Nothing is ever wasted, not that magazine that you poured yourself into, nor the books that you loved creating, not the time spent picking grapes and blueberries for an article that never paid you a cent (neither the picking or the article ha!) and certainly not all the adventures and travelling and talking to people and learning so much about writing, photography, art, philosophy, healing, essential oils the list is endless as I am one curious cat.
I have had so many wonderful things I have taken up, and I loved every moment of learning, playing, and creating. Nothing is wasted. It all amounts to something because, in the end, WE amount to something. Not despite, but because of the risk, the adventure, the learning, the growth, the failure, the money, the sadness, the happiness, the injuries, the loss.
The embarrassments keep us humble. The falls make us compassionate. The knowledge makes us wiser. The people who laugh at us – oh, they are the best – because they make us brave, resilient and determined. These experiences form part of the structure of who we are becoming.
We are always becoming. This day is part of our becoming. There is never a day when we are not becoming unless we are dead. So we’re just not quite there yet. Excellent. Many opportunities still ahead. The very best part, though, is that one day, we look at ourselves, we look within deeply and realise that actually, we are in love with our becoming.
So isn’t that at least, worth something? It is to me. Everything. It’s all there is. So, if there is something that you want to have a go at learning, doing or creating, but you are afraid it will be wasted, think again. Not in terms of money but in terms of the enjoyment, knowledge, and strength you will gain. By simply doing it because you want to. Have a great Sunday X
