poetry

My writing in 2013 – and my hopes for 2014

Published on by Sara Norja

In a moment I’m going to get down to some actual writing – there has to be proper writing on the first day of a new year! But first, a round-up of 2013 and some writing goals/wishes for 2014.

I thought I’d do a list of the writing I’ve done this year. It’s difficult to quantify this stuff, really, because a lot of things are in some stage of unfinishedness, but here’s an estimate:

Written:

  • 69 poem drafts (not all of them edited or reworked, and some never will be; many have been submitted, and a few of them have got published too!)
  • 5 flash fiction pieces (4 finished, 1 still in draft phase)
  • 3 stories of <5,000 words (should send a couple of them out; one still needs editing)
  • two novelettes (still need final edits before can be sent out)
  • one failed attempt at reworking my novel Dim Vanities
  • several writing exercises with potential to become more

Published:

Rejected:

  • 32 poems
  • 1 flash fiction piece
  • 1 short story
  • –> As you can see, I didn’t submit too many stories in 2013!

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So, that’s the numbers. Now for some more words:

What pleased me writing-wise:

  • The writers’ group I’m in – Helsinki Writers’ Group, for people in this area who write in English – has been really great. It’s been amazing to actually share my stuff live with other writers, and to get to talk about writing with people who get it. It’s brilliant to have a group where constructive criticism actually works. I’ve been able to radically improve so many of my pieces from feedback I’ve got from the group. And of course it’s heartening to have people laugh out loud at the funny bits. 🙂 We’ve got a really good, supportive atmosphere, I think. Looking forward to our first meeting of the year this Friday.
  • I wrote a surprising amount considering I was quite stressed out for much of the year and had too much on my plate. Extreme yay!
  • I got some poems published that are very special to me. The fact that ‘Orthography: A Personal History’ is out there makes me especially happy.

What I was disappointed in:

  • As I have mentioned previously, I was disappointed in failing to get a proper edit started for Dim Vanities despite the reasons for my failure being completely understandable.

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Now for the 2014 part of this post: the forward-looking, hopeful part. 😀

What are my writing goals for 2014?
My major non-writing goal this year is to apply for a PhD position in my field of English historical linguistics and manuscript studies. However, my freer schedules this spring will hopefully result in more creative writing time too, despite my intended focus on academia. And even if (when!) busyness ensues, writing will always be high on the priority list. Hence, goals – which I may or may not achieve, but it’s better to have some nonetheless, methinks!

Some goals writing-wise (aim high!):

  • Get a story published! I’d like to get more than just my poetry out there, since, you know, I am not exclusively a poet. Achieving this goal – in addition to luck and writing well – means getting more stories (especially shorter ones) edited, finished and actually submitted.
  • Get more poems published.
  • Work on a poetry collection. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, and I’ve already got a lot of ideas and some preliminary work done.
  • Increase writing output – get back into the groove of writing, preferably every day.
  • Rework Dim Vanities and decide what to do with it (whether to continue editing it smaller-scale, or do a total reboot, or just stick it in the trunk).
  • Improve my plotting skills.
  • Finish more stuff and edit previous work to a submittable point.

I could probably think of tons more goals if I really got to it – there’s always room for improvement and there are plenty of things in my writing that I want to work on. But these are the major goals. I will also work on not stressing out if I don’t manage to fulfil them. With Ye Olde Perfeccionisme, that’s going to be the greatest challenge of all!

Poem for the year’s end

Published on by Sara Norja

Soon off to celebrate the approaching new year. So here’s my last post of 2013, in the form of a just-written poem. Here’s to a good new writing year in 2014!

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Year’s-end, year’s-beginning

What words
to wrap the year in?
How to sing in
the new? Should I end
and begin with ringing
bells in the cathedral-
vault of my days,
or perform the simplest
of fire-magics: light
a candle-flame?

I’ve cast myself
adrift. The new year
is an ocean, and I
am a skiff—
so perhaps, after all,
I’ll end and begin
the old year and the new
with a charm
against
storm-winds, rough weather.

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Poetry sale: Two poems in Chantarelle’s Notebook

Published on by Sara Norja

My poems ‘Ninety-Eight’ and ‘City of Stones’ will be appearing in Issue #33 of Chantarelle’s Notebook – yay!

‘Ninety-Eight’ is a companion piece of sorts to ‘Microhistory’. It’s about family history too, specifically my late grandfather (on my dad’s side).

‘City of Stones’ is one of several poems inspired by my walks in my local graveyard (which also happens to be one of Helsinki’s most historically notable graveyards). I’m more hippy than gothy, but nonetheless I find graveyards to be intriguing and inspiring places. I love wandering around looking at the oldest gravestones, struck by the personal histories still shining through in names, dates and epitaphs.

Poetry publication: Two poems in Snakeskin

Published on by Sara Norja

Two of my poems are now online in the December issue of Snakeskin:

‘Microhistory’ and ‘Rain-washed’.

Both of these were written last summer. ‘Rain-washed’ happened after a glorious thunderstorm. I always have to rush out to get drenched at least once a summer – there’s something wonderful about getting completely wet when the air is warm, and it doesn’t happen in Finland all that often.

I’m particularly pleased that ‘Microhistory’ has found an online home. I wrote it in August after a family gathering in Southern Ostrobothnia, where my dad’s side comes from. My grandpa would have been 100 years old this year, so we celebrated his birthday with reminiscences, laughter and excellent food. All of it got me thinking about family and my place in it, and ‘Microhistory’ was one of the results (another poem came out of that celebration, and I’m hoping to find a home for it as well).

Sunday recs: Poetry for a frosty evening

Published on by Sara Norja

I’m drinking rooibos tea, all cosied up in a self-knitted shawl and wrist warmers. Mmm, knitted things.

I discovered some poem links I’ve been meaning to share for ages, so here’s a few brilliant poems to brighten your Sunday evening:

Foam, Braided with Teeth by Michele Bannister over at Stone Telling. I love Bannister’s poems and recognise a certain kinship in the way we use language – her Anglo-Saxonesque hyphenated compound words ring very familiar to me. I love this poem. Read aloud, it sings.

The next poems are apparently all from Strange Horizons. Not too surprising, I suppose, since it’s one of the magazines I read most regularly. (I have so much catching up to do with all the gorgeous zines, though!)

Three Visions Seen from Upside-Down by Alexandra Seidel. This is a strange one, but a good kind of strange. Like a lot of Seidel’s poetry, it has a creepy fairy tale vibe: awesome.

the houses of girl-ghosts by Cassandra de Alba. So gorgeous – what a word-painting!

The Loss” by Mari Ness. Short, piercing, beautiful: wing-loss and longing.

Poetry sale: Wild Violet Magazine

Published on by Sara Norja

I’m happy to announce that my poem ‘Helsinki Love Song’ has been accepted for publication in Wild Violet. I’ll post a link when the poem is published!

It was great to get some good poetry news, because I’ve been bogged down with work and an insidious stress that chooses, at inopportune moments, to make everything feel overwhelming. In other words, haven’t really had the mental energy for writing – although I did write a couple of new poems on Saturday.

But my editing work with Dim Vanities has progressed very little: thus the total lack of Nanowrimo posts. I feel bad about that, but I’m trying to put things into perspective. If you try to do five billion things at once and most of them just have to be done, the things that don’t have an immediate deadline will inevitably get put on hold.

Interfictions #2 is out! Including my most personal piece so far…

Published on by Sara Norja

This wasn’t intended to be a two-post day, but I just checked the Interfictions webpage and noticed that Issue #2 is up!

Thus, I am extremely proud and happy to say that you can now read my piece ‘Orthography: A Personal History’ here.

You can also listen to me read it – God, it was terrifying to do a reading of this poem, but I managed it, and hopefully did not entirely mangle the piece.

Why was it terrifying? Well, even submitting the whole piece in the first place was terrifying. As I mentioned in this post, it’s the most personal piece I’ve submitted and had accepted so far. To have it online now is both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.

What the hell, I’ll just quote myself:

‘Orthography: A Personal History’ is a mixture of things. It consists of poetic prose and verse “lectures”. It deals with palaeography, orthography, multilingualism, language history, and (surprise!) my personal history.

It’s the most personal piece I’ve submitted so far, delving into my childhood history through writing and my relationship with my two languages, Finnish and English. Fictionalised, of course, but still: me, my deepest self. It’s scary and exhilarating to think that other people will read such a thing.

The fictional cover is so much thinner in this piece than in most of my others. Did I mention this is terrifying? But that’s part of what writing is about: having the guts to put your soul out there for others to see.

So, dear readers. Go forth and read a piece of my soul.

(And read the rest of the issue too! It looks amazing. I am in love with this magazine.)

Stimuli

Published on by Sara Norja

Today I wrote a poem for the first time since mid-September. It was inspired by the manuscripts & codicology course that I’m on right now: two days of getting back into the groove of manuscript studies. I’m so glad I was allowed leave from work. History is a precious thing and being around medieval stuff makes me feel awed and curious. I really need to get into academia – studying manuscripts just makes me so happy.

Also, when my brain gets new stimuli instead of being bogged down in too little sleep and the same old routines, words start stirring again. I hate it when I’m too busy/stressed out to write poetry, so this tiny eight-line poem feels like a promise that I won’t be too high-strung and sleep-deprived forever.

Speaking of sleep-deprived, I think I need to get to bed. It’s always so damn late. Have I mentioned I hate being a night owl in an early-bird world?

Humbling experiences

Published on by Sara Norja

A wonderful thing: when you finish reading a poem intended to be funny, and the whole room bursts out into loud, genuine laughter.

At my writers’ group meeting today I read that poem I edited yesterday (it’s about a demon bus driver… in a way). It was intended to be a funny piece – but oh, the reaction was just so awesome! I always feel humbled if I see my writing actually affecting people. It’s magic – those people are laughing/crying/moved by something I wrote! Laughter is especially amazing to provoke, because I find it a challenge to write something laugh-out-loud funny. I think I’m a pretty funny person (EGO-STROKING ALERT), and I enjoy inserting subtle humour into things, but getting the full LOL reaction is much harder to achieve.

Making people feel with my writing is humbling and wonderful.

Of course, I like it when they cry, too. *evil grin*

‘Bitter Mnemosyne’ available online!

Published on by Sara Norja

Tonight, after my work day followed by two hours of volunteer work for a folk music organisation whose board I’m in, I’ve been doing poetry stuff. Submitted a few poems; edited a poem from February that I came across in my notebook; decided to read that and another short poem at tomorrow’s writers’ group meeting. This is one of the reasons I like writing my poems’ first drafts mainly by hand – by riffling through my notebook, I sometimes come across stuff I’ve totally forgotten but which is worth editing and sending off into the wide world.

In my poetry-related meanderings on the interwebs, I discovered that Issue 25 of Niteblade has got enough funding, so now the whole issue is free to read online. Read my poem ‘Bitter Mnemosyne’ in full here!

Also, I tinkered around with my publications page (with valuable input from a friend), trying to figure out ways to present the information logically and consistently. Yes, I really need to get back into academia…