New Year, New Goals

As time flies by, so do my thoughts... I can't believe that 2011 is only next week..! I've been working on book number two for so long... Maybe it's taking as long as it has because I haven't been writing as if I were writing for a book, I've been writing as if I were writing my thoughts down in my journal... No hurry... At all... However, I can't wait until number two is published and everyone can see how much I've grown since I had my first collection published...

I set a date for Jan 1st and that's when any and all invited poets are to submit their poems to my book to be featured in the "Unknown Writers" section, but so far only 4 out of like 15 have gotten back to me... We will see, they still have until the first which is when I want all loose ends tied up... After all, my goal is to have my book out my the summertime...

I've been extremely tense and irritated for no apparent reason lately and it's been irking my nerves... Who allows unknowns to upset them..? Well I've decided that instead of allowing it to irk me, I'm going to utilize these feelings to the fullest extent of my writing ability... And with that said, there's no telling where it will take me...

Complete Exposure

Tonight I plan on going to a poetry reading and reading... As always, however, I'm nervous... Why..? I don't know... I think it's mainly because people won't be reading my thoughts, I will be reading my thoughts to them... It's kind of unnerving in a sense... Probably because I always feel totally exposed and the very emotion that I used to write the poems, meshes itself within my voice and pours out with every word that I read... Complete Exposure... If I were to be able to read behind a mask or name that isn't mine, I might fare better... But then, that would mean that I would lose all credit as to who I am and my talent as a writer... Fear is not an option when it comes to my reading and it shouldn't be an option when it comes to my reading... So I guess this means that I will be doing as I usually do... Taking a couple of deep breaths, saying a little prayer, and steping into the spotlight...

Patiently Waiting...

It's been a minute since I've written in here, but I've been steadily writing all the same... Poems, short stories, and even a couple of songs (well the hooks to them anyway)... Writing is my therapy... I write during the high moments and I write during the low moments... It used to be that I wrote more during the low moments, but I started writing just as much during the high ones as well...

Anyway, I have this feeling in my gut that my writing is going to take me places that I never imagined I would go... Expose me to things and people that I've only dreamed of... And as afraid as I used to be of that feeling, I have gotten to the point that I embrace it... God has something magnificent planned for my writing and I... I just know it... Otherwise, why would he bless me with such a talent..?

I want to be remembered when I'm gone... But not for anything except my writing... I want my writing to touch lives... I want it to capture people's hearts... I want it to speak truths... I want it to bridge gaps... I want it to say the words that other's might not or won't say... I want it to mean as much to others as it does to me... Do I write for my audience..? No... I write for me... I write as if I were going to be the only one to read my words... The fact that I have an audience just makes my writing that much more important to me...

So for now, I patiently await for that time to come in my life... But will I stop writing before then..? Nope... I will never stop writing... As long as God blesses me with breath and thoughts and a means for me to "write", I will always write...

A Different Approach

So lately, by complete accident, I've taken a different approach to my writing. I mean I have always written about an emotion that I was experiencing or a situation that I was going through, but it's different now. Now, I write AS it's happening... Like right IN the moment... I feed off of my surroundings and use the emotions that I have at THAT very moment, to write. It helps because I am taking full advantage of my blackberry. I have begun to utilize the notepad feature to the fullest and now I use the internet for more than just facebook. I use it to pull up rhymezone.com because let's face it, it's hard to grab words that rhyme out of the air sometimes. So I'm excited because I feel that the poetry I've been writing as of late, is going to show how much I've been maturing as a writer.

Puzzle Complete

I'm excited to say that I finished that picture poem today!!! I titled it "Seasons" and it reads beautifully.... It's short and simple, yet deep and thoughtful... So far, I've been receiving some pretty positive feed back about it... I'm thinking about posting it up on here so that you can see what I'm talking about... But that is just a thought at this moment... Anyway, I figured I would give an update as to how that poem turned out...

Pieces To My Puzzle

I currently have a picture that I want to write a poem to. Actually, someone I know is letting me use a picture that they took a couple of weeks ago. I love it! It's deep and powerful, yet simple. I even know what I want to write, BUT I just can't organize everything to make the poem work! I've been jotting and erasing like no one's business. And when I don't erase, it just reads like a bunch of scattered thoughts :^( Sooo not fair or good for that matter. The first four sentences flow beautifully, after that however, it's a train wreck waiting to happen. I want to write about the depth that I'm feeling from looking at this picture but I don't want it to come off as depressing because depressing is soo not what I want this poem to portray. I want it to portray exactly what you see. New life, color amongst the dull, life amongst the dead. I'll just have to take time to write the poem and not rush it, because when I rush it, I always end up making a lyrical mess.

In and Out

Over the last couple of months I've had a pretty good stream of words flowing onto paper. However, the words never find their endings. In comes the thought and out goes the words, over and over and over again. But never does the flow end. It makes it rather hard because I'm constantly writing a bunch of unfinished poetry. My folder of "Poems I'm Working On" is filling up by the week! Even when I sit down to finish any of them, I can't. Maybe it's because I'm not focusing like I should be or maybe it's because I'm doing the tango once again with Writer's Block. I don't know. But I do know that my emotions contribute alot to my writing and if I'm not feeling the exact or at least similar emotion that I was feeling when I began to write a poem, then it makes it extremely hard for me to go back and finish that very poem.

I'm becoming more open about my writing and more comfortable with sharing it. Yes, it's still a bit uncomfortable for me to talk about but that's only because these are personal emotions for me. Some with a hint of imagination, but the basic emotion is always the same. It's always going to be mine...