It's blooming time

Whew! March has been a busy month, everything and everyone seems to be blooming in the spring light and warm sunshine - I love it!

I had the chance to go on a short break to Mallorca which was great for blowing off the winter cobwebs. I enjoyed the food and exploring monasteries, mountain villages and a bit of shopping in slightly warmer weather - what could be better?

I also the had chance to go on a mini-retreat at Waverley Abbey house on Ignatian Spirituality - using the imagination in prayer and meditation which was great. I also managed to spontaneously make an instagram video of my Morning prayer poem. I want to do more of this in future when I have the headspace, but I woke with an idea of what to do in that space and it all came together!

Work on the manuscript has come together - I finished 2 new poems, which brings the total to 15. This is not a full collection but what’s known as a ‘chapbook’ or ‘pamphlet’. These are great for exploring a theme. I like chapbook as pamphlet sounds a bit insubstantial, but I think if you’re not a poetry/literary person, it probably doesn’t mean too much either way!

The book is called ‘Your tears fall like pearls’ which is the title of one of my poems. I think it captures the themes of the book which are loss, grief and working through suffering. I’ll say more in future posts - so stay tuned!

I printed the manuscript out in a book form and got quite emotional. It’s taken quite a lot to get to this point in terms of my self-belief and focus. A couple of women came up to me after a performance last year and virtually begged me to publish my poems, so I took that as a message! It felt like such a huge thing to do then, and now here I am - almost there!

After some deliberation, I decided to self-publish as I want to learn about the process and have full creative control. There is so much out there to help you publish a book - it’s probably never been easier, but deciding why you are publishing and what results you want from it is the most important part, I think. Adding ‘author’ to your bio seems to carry so much kudos and weight, but it’s easier than ever to do now, so what does it mean these days? Answers on a postcard!

I was thinking of getting someone to design the cover, but then decided to have a go myself since I enjoy that kind of thing and there are some great templates out there to base it on.

Here are a few drafts - which do you think works best?. There’s a poll or you can view the images here but feel free to add a comment - all constructive feedback welcome :)

In the next few weeks, I’ll be finalise the cover and blurb text, get my first bits of feedback from early readers (thank you again!) and work on my marketing and launch. I should be able to pin down a launch date soon - whoop whoop.

Till next time!