Goals for now

I started both of my blogs so I would have a way to focus my writing. The big goal was to be published, which goes towards the overall goal of being recognised as a poet. I feel I am starting to see all of this a bit more realistically. Not matter what happens I will always write poetry. It is how I express myself. Anyone who knows me will tell you expressing myself seems to come easily to me - well to a certain degree yes it does. Yet there are some things where there is not quick explanation, but somehow even in my darker moments the words I do find seem to give the appearance of poetry.

The point of this post - just in case it is not very clear yet. I now accept that yes it is nice to be published, but this should never be the reason one writes. I love the fact that 2 of my poems Winters Sonnet 2.0 and Red Tears were published in the first issue of the Teesside Artists' Journal. Yet writing each of those poems had nothing to do with whether I would be able to find a place to have them published.

Also, whether anyone cares to read this post is up to them. This post and this moment is about accepting why I write and why I bother to share what I write. There will also be moments that my life doesn't allow for much time to write poetry, but this does not mean this is far from my thoughts.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Life has a funny way of rushing by

I just realised that I have not posted on Behind Dreaming since July. Life does have a funny way of seeming to drag while you are in the moment but then you realise months have gone past. With this year coming towards its conclusion it is time for a little bit of reflection.

Since July I have found so many things that inspire me. I am starting to pay attention to other poets more than I have before. This has made me realise that being a poet is not simply something that would be nice, it is who I am.

This week I spent some time putting together a Haiku for a unique challenge. I needed to write a Haiku which explores the Spirit of Open Access. For many poets out there the fact that they listed the structure as 17 syllables (5,7,5) would mean it was not a Haiku. However, this was not the point and it was an interesting challenge. This is another example of where I find inspiration for my poetry from my job. I ended up writing 4 Haiku and I have just realised I probably should have applied Creative Commons to them. Oh well, I am sure I can sort that out if any of them get selected.

Between my job, the paper I have been doing recently and also trying to put together a body of work that I can submit for publication - Behind Dreaming has been neglected. I constantly think about what I should post here, but get caught up with trying to find the perfect, informative thing to post. I think it is time to get over it ;-).

So as this year comes to an end I can not help ask - where to from here? I do not really know and in some ways that is both scary and exciting.

For me I think this year can be explained by both A Bottle of Happiness and Reconnecting :)

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Looking back

I have started looking through poems that I wrote over the last 3 years or so. It is an interesting thing to do, as it allows you to look at a piece with fresh eyes. I think the most interesting part of looking back is that you get to decide if something is worth working on further to enhance your thinking a couple of years down the track. Or instead I have found, with some pieces, I scratch my head and wonder: what was I thinking.

One of the pieces I just posted that falls under a "re-discovered poem" is Faceting a Friend and next is Roller Coaster Ride. There are other pieces on my list, but they need more work before I put them up.