DYING PIGEONS AND UGLY BABIES

There is a whole urban mythology about writers and their rejected manuscripts. James Mitchener wrote (in his novel THE NOVEL) about having work rejected, something about a manuscript returning and flopping about on his desk 'like a dying pigeon.' All too real. Writers' magazines try to cheer us, 'turn the rejection slip over and write the opening sentence of your next story,' said one. Another would be writer claimed to have papered her study walls with rejection slips. Rejection is like a mother would feel if someone looked into her pram and said, 'What an ugly baby!'

What brought this on? Last month I posted one of my dying pigeons to a blog, specifically asking for feed back. Well, I got no feed back, not from either of the two people, one in England one in New Zealand,who clicked on to my story. So seven billion people did not even bother!

I was saved from total despair by a call from a lady in Oamaru who is reading my current work in progress, a novel about a dairy farmer and a rugby player, the rugby player being the heroine, I admire the Black Ferns. Would I please hurry up and write the next bit, my reader asked, she wanted to know what was going to happen. Now that gave me enough confidence to keep on writing for a while.

And to the two nice people who clicked on http://waiata's witterings,blogspot.com thank you anyway, even though you were too polite to comment on my ugly baby.

Something for Free

At four minutes before seven o'clock on a lovely autumn morning, My computer is doing as I tell it and I have posted one of my unsuccessful attempts at a short story to Waiata's Witterings.blogspot.com

What I am hoping for is feedback - Why is this one not getting published? I have had a lot of short stories published on radio and in anthologies. If you read it and enjoy it, please say so. If you find a glaring error please point it out to me. But I want people to read my stories for pleasure, so I am now giving them away by posting them to Waiata's Witterings.

I have progressed as a poet over recent years because I subscribe to an on line poetry group, Poetry Kit. I really miss the writing groups I belonged to when living in the Wairarapa.

So please read the stories and comment.

NICE TO BE BACK

Maybe there is some malign gremlin lurking in my desk top because every time I have tried to post a blog it it has refused to let me in, until now.

I read an interesting feature in the Writers' Magazine about a writer, Scott Siegler who publishes his novels on line free of charge. He must work very hard because I receive installments twice a week. To be frank his style is not one that appeals to me, but that does not mean he is not a good writer, just I am a fuddy duddy. Scott Siegler has an audience who enjoys his style.

Anyway, his blog gave me an idea. I am going to post some of my rejected writings to Waiata's Witterings.blogspot.com and see is anyone enjoys them. Also I plan to return to Crete in June (Sgt Anastatakis take cover) for two weeks, and will be in Liverpool for World Poetry Night in September. That sweet patron saint of performing poets, Jim Bennett, has asked me to talk about New Zealand Poetry at the Liverpool Library during the weekend. The main night was booked for the third room of Everyman Theatre, redolent of Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, and other luminaries. Now it is to be demolished, so we will have to meet elsewhere. I read some of my poems to the third room during the first World Poetry Night in 2007, so I can feel honoured to have performed there. I hope the fact that I was coming this year has no connection with the developers' decision to knock it all down!