Brenda Stephens's Blog, page 3

Bringing Sunshine – A Summer of Words

As we in the UK are painfully aware, summer isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, weather wise anyway. We dream of long hot days, lazing on the beach, a long walk on a summer evening with loved ones and if you’re anything like me, barbecues Sadly, it doesn’t always go to plan. It rains, it’s chilly and windy and there’s always something that gets in the way of your plans. So, this year, I’ve decided that come rain or shine, we should celebrate summer, what it means to us. Be it lazy days on the beach, gardening, picnics, swimming in the sea or even hiding from heat if winters more your thing. Join me on June 3rd in an online event to celebrate summer. A poem, a few lines of a story, a captioned drawing or photograph, a few lines sharing a treasured memory of a special summer or just what you like best. Please click here to join and please share and invite your friends. Looking forward to seeing you there

Challenges Questions and Friends

Hello

I’ve been meaning to write a blog post for about a fortnight now and every time I go to do it I get distracted by… Oh look, a cat…

See… anything, everything. But I’m here now and that’s the main thing. I’ve decided to do this as I’ve quite a lot to say.

So, here goes… Deep breath…

NaPoWriMo. Back on the last day of March, a friend sent me the link for NaPoWriMo. I wasn’t properly paying attention and just signed up. As you do. Once I had submitted my details it actually dawned on me that I had just signed up to this huge challenge and in all honesty I was terrified. I’m not overly confident as a writer and having such a small audience and virtually no feedback I felt completely out of my depth. I decided to get a head start and scribbled down a few lines and thought “I’ll manage half a dozen poems and I’ll fizzle out. No one really reads my poems anyway so it won’t matter!”

On days two and three, my poems did extraordinarily well. People were reading, sharing, liking, commenting. Day four I actually had to turn the notifications for my poetry blog off as my phone was buzzing constantly. Day five, sheer determination set in. I had signed up for this, I was damn well going to do it. Poets hat went on and that was it. Notes were taken, photos were used as inspiration. I even thought in rhyme. I was blinkered to it. Not only was I doing well, I was loving doing it. I was even made the NaPoWriMo Poet In Residence. This was the biggest confidence boost ever.

NaPoWriMo was more than a challenge for me. It was like therapy. Facing a huge horrendous fear. This time a year ago I would not have even admitted to writing poetry. It was a secret. My secret. Just my thing I did that no one had to know about. My poems, for the most part are pieces of me, they’re who I am, how I think and how I feel. Sharing them is sometimes heart wrenching. Traumatic. I know, that sounds awful. But it’s true. I’m a private person. Not secretive, but private and if I’m completely honest with you I’d be more comfortable running down a busy street stark bollock naked. NaPoWriMo helped me face that and I’ll be grateful for that for the rest of my days.

Another thing I’m grateful for is the friends I made. Others who took part. Meena, Joyce, Kenya, Lisa, to name just a few. Wonderful, creative, beautiful people who are enormously talented and passionate about what they write. I don’t know a lot of people who do write so this was truly the best part. I’ll include links to their work at the end of this post. Please do have a look. It’s brilliant to be able to interact with such creative minds.

And I must move on to the questions I’ve been asked. The most asked one is what happens now? What happens now is I keep writing. I keep sharing what I write and I hope that those of you who read will continue to read, share and give feedback. There won’t be a poem every single day, as much as I loved the challenge, it really was a challenge.

Am I publishing a collection? Yes, I am. I’m self publishing and this will take a bit of time but it will be done. Hopefully later in the year. I will regularly update you all on this as it progresses.

What’s happening with my novel? Not a great deal. I’m not far off finishing the first draft. I have had a bit of interest from a publisher and really good feedback from the bookworm who is reading as I write and offering her totally unbiased opinion. So that’s a work in progress.

And lastly, why do I write? I write because if I didn’t my head would explode. It’s something I’ve always done and always will do. It’s an escape. If I can’t find what I want to read, I simply write it. It’s a passion and a way of life and I’m delighted I now have the confidence to share it with you all. And it’s cheaper than therapy

Finally, thank you. Thanks for reading, supporting, sharing and just being there. And a thank you to my other half who is truly my biggest supporter. Now before this turns into a rambling gush, I’ll shush and give you the links to these wonderful people. Be sure to have a look. If you’ve made it this far, well done and thank you x

Joyce Cald Welshaban

Meena Rose

Lisa Lipscomb

Kenya Smith