If you’re a writer like me then you are always asking yourself questions about your work: what? why? is it any good? That kind of thing. It’s a kind of navel-gazing that is possibly inevitable. I do it regularly – and usually by asking a question of myself and then trying to find the answer. I asked such a question earlier this week.
Now that yesterday is over (see its relevance in the linked post above) then I need to start teasing at an answer.
So, yesterday.
- I completed the first draft of Bound (working title), a new poetic monologue in the style of Crash
- I experienced my first session working in the library of the University of Lincoln
Tick, tick.
With yesterday’s efforts came the recognition that I have no major ‘live’ projects on the go – and that I need to be taking something concrete into UoL if I’m going to get the best out of my time working there (and in my study at home, come to that).
What I definitively have to do is a) edit and finish Bound, and b) make Crash ready for a speculative BBC submission (something I’m part-way through). That’s it.
Apart from non-writing staples like Coverstory books‘ titles and my poetry groups – Contextual and the Stanzas – I have a number of ‘half projects’:
- my novel (previously referred to as ‘Z’) – all 30+k words of it
- the beginning of a slightly dystopian, slightly futuristic story where I have written just the few opening pages
and some odds-and-sods in terms of both prose (short stories) and poetry (these days very hit-and-miss).
So, what do I do with that lot?
- finish Bound
- finish making Crash BBC-ready
- decide whether these poetic monologues are going to become a ‘thing’ for me (very tempting)
- and decide on:
- do I focus on short stories for a while (also tempting)?
- whether I put some more work into the futuristic thing – characters and plot – to see if it really has legs;
- ‘Z’; does it have a future at all?
- consider finding a structure / theme / something around which to base a new collection of poetry. I’m sorely tempted to try and merge poetry with photography (think Godwin and Hughes, and Remains of Elmet), and if I did this I’d start in Grimsby…
- and – bizarre though this sounds – I’ve even thought of dramatising an eye-witness account from someone in late-nineteenth century America (that’s me keeping my cards close to my chest!)
Inevitably one question – ‘what next?’ – spawns many others. But it’s always the way. A working things through I suppose. Which is also what writing it down does; the act of transcribing and recording forces me to interact with the words, questions, ideas, and gives me a chance to see which ones resonate from off the page / screen.
Forgive the self-indulgence…
Ian Gouge - Writer 