And here we have, as promised, the video of me and Niki (plus Julie and Nina) performing via the magic of Zoom.
I would be very interested to hear comments in the chat 😀
This Is What It Feels Like
It has taken me almost a week to get to this post, and I’m going to backdate it because a) that’s a Thing and b) it’ll be a good indicator of who actually reads the blog to begin with. The Virtual Launch was far and beyond more successful than I could have imagined. I thought when another group scheduled their event for the same evening that was it, nobody would show, but my concern was unfounded. Not only did people turn up, they stayed to the end. They also said some totally lovely things about my work.
These two videos are the slides I made for the presentation. Obviously there is no sound, but it gives a rough idea of what was achieved. Six poems of mine, and six poems by the poets who have helped me get this far. It was a real bonus when I asked everyone for permission that nobody said no, and they’d all said yes within 72 hours. I take that as a sign that I asked the right people. Also, massive thanks to Nina Parmenter for being my support act. When I grow up, I really want to write as well as she does.
I’m waiting for the official video to appear, and when it does? I’ll let you know. For now, I need to be organizing a Real Life Launch on the 30th, and my caterer has completely ghosted me for the cake… 😦
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Well, it’s been A Week, but in the most excellent manner possible. I’m less than two weeks away from my first ever book launch. The reality hasn’t really sunk in, and I expect it won’t until well after the event, but for now, I’m already looking ahead, because it is a foolish woman who lives in the moment of one success for too long. When I look at what has bought me from 2018 to now, a lot of my progress has come by not resting on my laurels and trying as many new things as possible to see what feels like a good fit. That means, right now, I’m on TikTok and making YouTube Shorts.
TikTok is, I have to say, a genuinely intimidating experience, which is why I need to be there right now. It will also be where I advertise the pamphlet launch, just to see if I get anyone buying the book as a result. The same goes for YouTube, whose Shorts programme is being set up not just as a direct rival to TikTok, but as a means of funnelling people from short to long form video. It all makes perfect sense to me from a marketing/promotion perspective. This is how I’m going to start and end my days for the foreseeable future. Time to learn some new skills and see what happens.
I also need to fit this into my new working schedule, which will take a while but should make life a lot easier going forward. Twitter as an advertising medium for me has been transformative in the last twelve months, after all. I’d not have my book deal without it. Bearing that in mind, it is time to keep innovating and assessing where I am.
There is a phenomenal amount to look forward too, after all.
Hard Rain
A very intelligent and decent poet and facilitator wrote a blog a while back about progress and success. It shouldn’t matter that everybody else is being published, and you’re not. It really shouldn’t, except it does. Like it or not, the entire fabric of the literary ethos is constructed around what other people consider successful, whatever the fuck that actually means. To move forward, to be seen as capable, talking about when you’ll be published is no longer enough. It has to happen.
Many people pick the route of least resistance and publish themselves, and to be honest, it remains the best way to make money. There’s nobody else to pay but you and the printer… but the scope can be small, and the results can feel variable. When all is said and done, having other people tell you that you’re amazing and yes, could they publish your work because they think you have the potential to make everybody’s lives richer is… yeah, it’s a Thing.
This Summer, I realized how many other people needed to know I could do this. It’s also a Thing for family, your friends, your peers… when they see you working your arse off, submitting and continually failing… the assumption is that you are clearly not there yet. You need more practice, or the right place to settle your work. With time, writers begin to get the sense that even with everything else in place, the best ideas and the strongest output… it’s never just the words that matter. It’s you, too.
I have been massively lucky in the last eighteen months, but have also worked extraordinarily hard to put myself in spaces that previously were not available. COVID granted an unexpected boost : suddenly, travel to literally anywhere was possible using a computer. Instead of just doing the work, a great many extra virtual miles were walked and a tonne of extra online effort was inserted into everything that was presented. In the end, it was patience that was the missing piece of my puzzle.
It was all about waiting for the right moment. Two mutuals who I hugely respect decided to start their own Small Press in the Summer. They granted me a twenty-minute headline slot in a virtual event back in April. Then, when they saw me perform at their return to in person events in Brighton, I was asked if I’d publish with them. They couldn’t believe that I hadn’t been snapped up by anyone else. It transpires I do my best work behind a microphone and not on a page. Who knew?
I was first published in December 2018. Four years later, my inaugural poetry pamphlet will be published on November 30th. Many people have achieved more in less time, and many others have never managed so much this quickly. Success, it must be said, is very much a relative endeavour. I have a phenomenal number of people to thank for helping me here as well. I remember you all by sight, even if I end up forgetting most of your names. You are all absolutely smashing.
Flammable Solid is the next chapter of a journey I really hope never ends. I have never been more proud of myself or what is being produced at present. There has been so many compliments, so many brilliant people who have bolstered an often fractured sense of worth and ability and it is to them I look to now with grateful and bountiful thanks. Your compliments are more important than either progress or success. You have given me a value I never thought I’d ever own.
THANK YOU ALL.
PS: I did a different version of this on Twitter that actually thanks people. It starts here:
Adventures in Babysitting
It’s been a Week. The two Open Mics were more successful than I could possibly have imagined. From one, a recommendation from a hero to submit. From the other? I’m pretty certain it earned me the chance to spend 15 minutes on the Big Kid’s Table…
In Full Disclosure News, I made the poster, because it might be a while before anyone else puts my face on anything, and you take the chances whenever they arise. Questions need to be asked next week as to a) how long I do in fact get to read, b) whether its in the first half or second and c) if graphics can be used. I think the last one is the least important right now, but am seriously thinking about the possibility of presentation. Maybe that happens when it’s just me doing both halves…
I’ll be talking more about this in the weeks leading up to the event, but needless to say, a LOT of publicity is going to happen. It is the least I can do as thanks for the opportunity. Having never read for longer than five minutes before?
This undoubtedly is a game changer.
Progress and Process
Despite feeling decidedly sub-par over the last few days, a lot has been achieved. The personal branding on social media has undergone what will be an (approximately) monthly change, and we’re ready to move into the next phase of 2022 Will be Awesome (Honest). If you’ve not read last weekend’s post on what to expect, you can find it here, but that just covers my personal plans. There are some other things happening too.
February 3rd is Time to Talk Day. This year, the event’s moved out of the hands of Time to Change, who no longer exist as an entity. However, the legacy they left behind, thanks to hundreds of groups of Mental Health Champions, is very much alive and well. I’m working this year with a group in York, and my A-Z of Personal Poetry will be all over Twitter, Instagram and Facebook on Thursday. There’s a secret page here too, if you can find it before the event, where the selected poems have been recorded as audio…
There’s only eight poems featured here, but the full set of 26 will, once we’re done next week, be put together and made into a lovely pamphlet which I’ll stick up on the Amazons, after which every copy that’s sold will have a portion of profit sent straight back to YES (York Ending Stigma) I’m immensely pleased and proud to be able to help the organization this year, and hope to keep supporting them and their ideals in years to come.
I hope you’ll consider starting your own conversation next week, or perhaps take the time to make your own personalized A-Z of mental health priorities.
The Bigger Picture: Exercise
From time to time, I will feel the need going forward to write about other things than poetry.
According to the way in which BMI is measured I am, right now, eligible for the above programme.
Except, I am in the best shape of my entire adult life, can deadlift 65 kg and bench press close to 45 kg. I still get breathless going upstairs at certain times of the day, because of the way my body works. In essence, I’m a train: it needs a while for me to get going, and then I can work for hours. It’s also taken nearly six years of incredibly painful, mental and physical challenge to get this far, and to understand what one body is capable of achieving. 12 weeks of support, to be honest, seems like a bit of an insult. Being healthy needs to become a full-time commitment, and trying to make schemes best fit for most people is often doomed to failure.
Exercise is also not the answer for everyone. Throwing terms like ‘fat’ and ‘thin’ about is insulting to so many, and using BMI as a benchmark is increasingly being cited as a damaging and dangerous. The key, undoubtedly, are measurements like biometrics, and a genuine understanding that not all human beings are born the same. I’ll never be ‘normal’, after all, because my body’s a lot longer than most people’s and my legs are shorter than many others, and it is high time that we stop using old-fashioned labels to try and define fitness. I really hope in the next 10 years that there’s a move away from ‘wellness’ as a visually-defined ideal. People are not all created equal.
Since I started at my gym, as you can see, I’ve put on nearly 10 kilos. Most people go to exercise in order to lose weight as a path to health and fitness. Not me. I’m here to fulfil my weightlifting ambitions, and become a better cyclist. In the last six years I’ve completed numerous bike events (including Ride London) and last year I completed my first 10 km run. In all this time, there’s been a running battle between body and brain, one that has lost me friends and caused numerous amounts of emotional grief. You are not exercising to fulfil someone else’s idea of happy, or indeed fit. You should be doing it to give yourself happiness, with an improved quality of life.
If exercise does not do this, the answer may not lie in being what other people think is acceptable or beautiful, and this is why I think more Gyms need to be putting mental health front and centre in their wellness plans. What is it that stops you from achieving your goals? Why do you eat in the first place? What changes would you like to make, not only to be healthier, but to feel mentally more capable of changing your life? Just giving someone 12 weeks to change and no support or motivation to do so is not helpful. I’d love to see more Personal Trainers with Mental Health First Aid qualifications, and more Pharmacists with the same.
This has never just been about eating less and exercising more, even though that’s basically the point you need to reach to succeed.
At the start of the month, my Gym awarded me the title PT Hero after deciding that I’d worked quite hard and deserved some recognition. They presented me this in a packed exercise class, which was good practice for the day when I do indeed win a Poetry Award and I don’t crumble to dust with the attention. It also made me realize that, in all my adult life, I never really felt I’d achieved something until someone else took the time to tell me so. I have medals, I’ve fundraised over £1000 for mental health charities, but nothing thus far feels as important as this, and that’s odd when I spend a lot of time not getting worried about other people.
It makes me ask the question: why does this matter? Normally I’d take time to work that out but not today. Achievement and representation are not the same thing. For decades, I hated exercise, found it hard and stressful, because I could not push past the idea I had to look and act a certain way. Once the tyranny of appearance was dealt with, and once I started seeing women like me being given greater prominence in the wider world, it was easier to believe that this was acceptable, that I could be the strong, capable woman I had always wanted to be but never known where to find.
All the awards in the world are not as important as being respected and encouraged as a strong and capable person.
I am tired of the manufactured Influencer outlook, so many people have, on life. I want to hear about failure, and stress and concerns because only by knowing other people feel like we do does anyone ever get anywhere. It’s not about being at the top of a pile and looking down: we all need to lift each other up, help collectively to improve life and wellbeing for everyone. If my Award inspires someone, if my exercise chat makes someone thing or maybe just sharing the Sky article changes someone’s view, it’s worth talking about. I am also tired of people shouting at each other, as if knowing the ‘right’ answer will help everybody in the long run anyway.
We need to stop telling, and start showing what matters most.
Dean Friedman is Following Me on Twitter
Back in March 2020, just before the first lockdown hit, something happened that, it must be said, made me realize that whatever other people might try and attest, Twitter will never be anything other than one of the best things that ever happened to me. The story I am about to recount was first told on my personal blog, but is being repeated here again because, finally, I’ve begun to write the poem whose title is the same as this blog post. It’ll hopefully be done this month and then, I will share it with everyone.
Meanwhile… I feel some time travelling coming on…
Imagine, if you will, it is 1977.
I am 11 years old. I hear a song on the radio for the first time that immediately captures my attention: Ariel. It’s by a bloke called Dean Friedman: an American singer-songwriter, for whom that is, at the time, his only ‘major’ US hit. However, this is not about success, but quirkiness catching both my ear and that of a Radio One DJ I listen to obsessively: Noel Edmunds. Thanks to him, I am compelled to seek out Friedman’s second album ‘Well, Well’ Said the Rocking Chair and shortly afterwards I become obsessed with one particular track.
I still carry that same song with me, to this day.
It remains the quintessentially perfect piece of narrative storytelling: a breakup song to end all breakup songs, but not obsessing on what’s been lost, but how to pull yourself together after the fact. It’s uplifting and smart and has the most killer saxophone solo in the middle, but what keeps it fresh in my head after forty years are these four lines of poetry which, let’s be honest, have never been bettered:
Take a look at the place you call your home
you’re reflected in all the things you own
and the seeds of reason you have sown
they’re a measure of a part of you that’s already grown…
Not gonna lie: for a good few years I literally carried those lyrics around with me too, wound tight inside a tea ball locket. I am happy to reveal that to you, dear readers, because I know we’re at that stage in our relationship now. It’s remains on a playlist that gets listened to weekly, and has been stuck into numerous other best of compilations over the years. When I inserted it into an online one back in March 2020 which was posted on Twitter, things started getting funky…
I can still remember the complete, abject disbelief when I first saw this on screen. Not only had the man whose song I’d made into a mantra for moving forward liked the fact I’d highlighted the song in my playlist, HE WAS NOW FOLLOWING ME. How was this possible, exactly? I didn’t @ him, he wasn’t directly mentioned in dispatches, but here he was, and remains. Dean’s still working online and playing gigs and has new songs out as I type this. You might move away from the people who influence you, but those people remain a constant regardless. In all the chaos we’ve now collectively experienced, it’s good to know Mr F remains one of the good guys.
I promised I’d write ‘Dean Friedman is Following Me of Twitter’ nearly a year ago, and the draft is still there, waiting for the right moment… and here I am, starting 2022 on a high. It seems the right moment to pay back a debt, too, so time and effort will be taken to ensure the final result is the right, fair and correct summation both of the story and his connection back to an 11 old girl who knew that, some day in their future, words would matter like nothing else ever could.
It’s taken a while, but I think I’m ready to do my pre-teen self proper justice.
Holiday
I’m supposed to be having a couple of weeks off, but instead there is a compulsion to write here for the first time in a while. The reasons are complex, and will be discussed in other places as time goes on, but for now, this is the moment to start laying foundations down for new ventures. As that happens, it is also the moment to consider how far I have come.
For the last thirty-nine weeks, I’ve captured myself on video explaining my plans going forward, and this undoubtedly has contributed to an ability to rationalize beyond what was there to begin with. The fortieth video will launch on a new platform, having finally removed myself from Patreon. Ironically, it was their own fault it happened. I was given the opportunity to join a marketing course, which showed me how to sell the ‘brand’ better.
This is not a brand, and never will be. I am a perennial work in progress, and trying to promote that on a platform which only sees fulfilment and cash as success really was doomed to failure. As a transactional person at heart, there needs to be a balance between what is truth and what is the line that won’t be crossed. It was therefore inevitable the relationship would end after it was obvious the company’s values and mine did not align.
I was sent a brand survey last week that was the last straw, and I made my displeasure known. Also, I didn’t sign up to win the $100 gift card because the exchange rate is woeful, part of a far bigger issue.
This week I’m going out with the youngest, will be taking photos everywhere, and hope to get some back end work fixed in an environment which is considerably more conducive than it was. Mostly, I need to be organized better, which is the perennial demon to appease. At least now that’s grasped, there are other things to talk about.
#Instaverse will be back in September, but so will occasional posting here too on personal issues.
The End
I try, as a rule, not to wipe people out with walls of text: nobody really cares about three lines in anyway. So, let’s make this short, sweet and to the point.
If I was pledging to you as a Patreon Creator, I’ve cancelled my pledge as of this morning. It’s 100% absolutely not you. I have run out of money, and can no longer sustain pledging to anybody is the main reason, but the secondary one is that I’ve effectively had enough of Patreon. As a creator, it no longer caters to my needs, which are making more money for me and not for them.
I have to be blunt here: without more cash, it’s becoming unsustainable to keep going. I’d make more money stacking shelves in a supermarket, even after tax. So, it’s time to relocate and change the game plan, in the hope I can get more support and more of that support in my pocket and less in someone else’s.
Therefore, starting September 1st, all my content moves to Ko-Fi.
I’ll give you more details on this going forward.
The Internet of Words 
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