Welcome to another monthly post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group.
If you would like to know more about this very encouraging and supportive writing group
Anyone can join, budding writer, published or unpublished, writer of poetry, short stories, novels, essays ... So give it a go and visit the other members , read their contributions and don't hesitate to leave comments.
Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
Remember, the question is optional!!!
Visit our co-Hosts for this month
Jenni Enzor, Beth Camp, Liesbet, Tyrean Martison and Sandra Cox.
Question for 1st July :
There have been many industry changes in the last decade, so what are some changes you would like to see happen in the next decade ?
Good Morning Insecure Writers' Supporters, Welcome to my blog Life in Poetry (on Blogger or Wordpress).
For the moment, I have only published poems and short stories in magazines or anthologies, so my experience of the industry is somewhat limited. Today, I'll be speaking about what I know first hand, then extrapolate about how I hope the industry will stand to make publishing of my Poetry Collection, in the works, and my debut novel, in progress, easier and successful.
Ten years ago, I had to send my submissions by post with a Self-Adressed Envelop, duly stamped. I live in France, so I had to stock up on stamps, the licky kind, each time I was in England on holiday or in Stratford for my Shakespeare seminars. I had to buy sufficient stamps so they would be valid to send 10 pages from England back to France, HA ! The Middle Ages !
Fortunately, around 2013-14, depending on the magazines, Overseas submissions were accepted by e-mail, either with files attached or in the body of the text - which sometimes proved tricky, especially for poems: formatting in an e-mail is HELL !
In the last few years, SUBMITTABLE enables to send work directly to the website of the magazine/publisher so that is a great improvement; many journals, though, still rely on postal submissions or e-mails. In this regard, things evolve very slowly.
Before 2000, only the Open University enabled me to follow creative writing courses at a distance, by post. With the internet, Online, the O.U. adapted its offer and The Poetry School set up very comprehensive courses via platforms and portals, live, but only in writing not with audio or video.
This changed my life: I could finally secure objective feedback on my writing and develop a sense of what budding writers were up to; the first opportunity to share, encourage others and improve my own skills.
Blogging only appeared a little over ten years ago and this has proven to be a wonderful tool to spur on all creative juices. Blog-Hops further provide supporting groups of writers, feedback and a mine of helpful tips, discussions and new points of view, ideas.
I joined the IWSG in January 2019 and discovered a whole new array of incentives, support, encouragements, motivation and prompts. Thank you.
Looking towards the future, for my Poetry Collection and debut novel, I am currently navigating on sight. I know nothing about the publishing process by experience, only by hearsay and reading. It is all new to me. I know there is the option of self-publishing and going Kindle; promoting through platforms online, like Goodreads or Amazon, but otherwise, I'm completely in the dark.
Currently, I am paying for a mentoring programme with Cinnamon Press for my Poetry book, working on content and editing, but there is no contract or guaranty at the end, just tips on how to pitch the manuscript, who to submit it to and how to ' sell ' myself ...
One thing I have decide though is that I don't want to go Indie or Digital, although I realise that, already, many Poetry journals are opting out of paper and publishing only online.
My hopes for the future are that paper and digital will continue to exist and evolve together, the one feeding from the other; that writing software continues to improve, technically, and becomes even more user-friendly; then maybe, just maybe, I'll stop writing with my fountain pen in a notebook. However, this won't be happening any time soon; I would miss the feel of ink on paper which is an important part of my creative process. I'd need a digital fountain pen, write with ink on the page with a paper-thin screen below that recognises my handwriting and transcribes it into type ..... HA !
That's all folks, Have a great summer.
Watching Sci-Fi movies at the moment; I wonder if the 2020/21 batch will yield promising results, integrating, hopefully, the lessons learnt from the present crisis (health, environmental, economical, social and political).
ARIANA, Swedish, 2019, here
ARES, French, 2016, here
France Société Anonyme, 1974, here
Les Derniers Jours du Monde, French, 2009, here
Ad Astra, 2019, US, here
HACKER, Code Pursuit, Danish, 2019 here
Rough Draft, Russian, 2019, here
