There was once a time I considered myself a novel writer and a novel writer only. It was what I wanted to do and it was my comfort zone. I will probably always be happiest when lost inside the numerous drafts it takes to construct a novel. I’m confident with this form of writing, and a few years ago I would never have considered any other.

Of course, that attitude had to change when I started publishing. I soon noticed that all authors had a blog or website and I shyly embraced this as a way of sharing my writing and gaining followers. It took me a while to get into the spirit of it, but it’s fair to say, once I found my feet, I began to relish writing my blog posts, and most of the time I’ve been fairly good at writing on a weekly basis.

As my attitude to blog writing changed, so did my attitude towards other types of writing. Back when I considered myself just a novel writer, I would never have considered trying my hand at writing articles. But somewhere along the line, I gained the confidence and started submitting articles about writing to Author’s Publish. This style of writing did not come naturally for me and I spent a lot of time reading and analysing their previous articles in order to work out what was wanted. When I had the first few accepted, I was over the moon. It was a real confidence boost.

Short stories were another form I once dismissed. I write such long books, that writing something short just seemed impossible. However, when someone mentioned writing short stories to compliment your books, I did get excited. This eventually led to Bird People and Other Stories, and now that I’m more practiced, short stories are a regular thing for me and I hope to have another collection out this year.

Screenwriting was another form of writing I never would have tried a few years back, despite how much I’ve always longed any of my books to be made into films or TV programmes. In fact, I often write as if imagining a real scene and pen my dialogue this way. Last year, when I had the new material for The Boy With The Thorn In His Side filling my head, I was reluctant to do anything about it but decided writing the material in screenplay form would be quick and fun and would help get it out of my head. It became ridiculously addictive! I read a few books about screenwriting and downloaded Scrivener, and off I went. Writing the book as a screenplay first was so much fun, and as I carried the notebook around with me everywhere, I got it done really quickly. Just recently I completed a free Introduction To Screenwriting course with Futurelearn, and I absolutely loved it!

And just lately, I’ve been playing around with another form of writing I once turned away from. Poetry. When I was a young teenager, I did go through a poetry and song-writing phase. But I was put off by the poetry we had to study at school. It was so wonderful and complex, it just made me feel I could never compete, so why bother?

Poetry was not my thing, or so I told myself. But something weird happened very recently. I started getting ideas, or thoughts, quite randomly, which were really all just things I wanted to say. They were too short, random and weird for blog posts, articles or short stories though, so I started writing them in note style, like poems. I also starting re-reading a Bukowski poetry book I have, one of the only poetry books I’ve really enjoyed, and his style encourages you to have a go. I don’t think he followed any rules or was ever taught how to structure a poem, he just did it. He just wrote what he thought and felt. There is something really raw and beautiful about that and I think people should be encouraged to do it.

Once I started writing, more started to flow. I’ve nearly filled a notebook now and I’ve even decided to put some of them in my next short story collection and make a short story and poetry collection instead. I don’t try to force them or rush them, and they all seem to come from an emotional place, rather than a descriptive or rational place. Which is weird, and interesting.

I thought I would be really brave and share two of them with you today. These are two of the really early ones that came to me when this poetry thing started. These are first drafts and I’ve not messed with them or edited them since I wrote them, so please bear this in mind! I’m looking out for a local poetry workshop to go to, as I’d like to learn more and get my poems as well crafted as I can.

As always feel free to comment and share! How do you gain the courage to try new things? Do you have a comfort zone you wish to edge out of?

 

Murder

The crows were pissed off today

Fury in their hacking call

Feet pounding, heart racing

Breath hissing

Because I am not as young 

As I used to be

The crows took flight

Reluctant, squawking rage

Lifting and falling

Silhouettes in the black bones

of trees

The crows were pissed off today

Do they plot murder?

They say they hold funerals for their fallen

If this is true

What might be in store for us?

The crows were pissed off today

As I ran on

But I am not the one

Who shoots them with a gun

So that they live their lives

With one eye trained down

No wonder they screech and cry and hack

I’m pissing them off just being here

On the way back

A rasping sound

Like they are dying

Maybe they know

That everything is

Things You Don’t Want To Do

What’s that tangled mess in your belly?

For no reason

‘Cause nothing is wrong

Yet, it’s there like a disease

Writhing and tightening

Til you can’t breathe

With the weight of it all 

Following you around

Maybe it’s just the fear

Of the unknown

Of death in a metal mess

Of breathing your last

Ragged breath

Or maybe it’s just

All the things you don’t want to do