Already – and so soon – it’s all about 2023. It’s about building on the foundations laid during this year. Kicking-on again.
And maybe for the first time a new year won’t be about production (that age old dilemma of what to write – and then struggling to do so!) but about recognition; of taking the next step. Of persuading others to allow me to do so, to support me on that journey.
In part it’s about what happens to Crash*. I’m sure that has a role to play.
In part it will also be about what happens next to Once Significant Others, An Irregular Piece of Sky, and Not the Sonnets. The nagging feeling is that I need to get one of them published via a ‘traditional route’.
But there’s more than that: Ripon Writers’ Group, ‘Write-on Ripon’, the mentoring, the Contextual readings, Coverstory books.
Image. Brand. Telling a story – once I have decided what story it is I wish to tell…
And if much is predicated on that, much more is dependent on what remains in my control – because that is all I can bank on.
* Crash – a long poem which I have already sent, speculatively, to Faber. One way or another it will be published in 2023 and may be read in debut in a Zoom event around March. It could also be read at the Ripon Theatre Festival in June, and the Ripon Poetry Festival in September.
* Once Significant Others – a novel currently doing the rounds trying to find an agent.
* An Irregular Piece of Sky – a collection of short stories currently doing the rounds trying to find an agent ( thought most likely to be published by Coverstory books in the Spring.
* Not the Sonnets – a collection of 154 sonnets which I plan to send to Carcanet in January, again on spec.
Ian Gouge - Writer 