Tag: writing

Review | Grace Notes by Naomi Shihab Nye

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With themes of family, love, kindness, empathy, grief, growing up, and resilience, these one hundred never-before-published poems by the beloved poet, speaker, and teacher Naomi Shihab Nye will resonate with a wide audience.

National Book Award Finalist and former Young People’s Poet Laureate Naomi Shihab Nye’s Grace Poems about Families celebrates family and community. This rich collection of one hundred never-before-published poems is also the poet’s most personal work to date. With poems about her own childhood and school years, her parents and grandparents, and the people who have touched and shaped her life in so many ways, this is an emotional and sparkling collection to savor, share, and read again and again.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I absolutely loved this collection of poems, it’s full of poems discussing family, growing up, grief and more. The poems span the spectrum of emotions and have an ease of rhythm that makes them flow naturally. There are poems for anyone and everyone in this collection, and it’s something you could easily read in one setting while still taking them in, but you can also read them over time and sit with them to really absorb the emotions and impact of the poems.

Happy reading!

Review | The Orange and Pink Sunset: A Sapphic Poetry Chapbook by Ivy L. James

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In The Orange and Pink Sunset, Ivy L. James weaves a tapestry of her life as a queer woman, from childhood crushes to the labels she’s tried on to religious discrimination. Her raw words express agony and joy in equal measure. She provides a refreshing perspective with an understandable voice, and her narrative style feels like sharing a pot of tea with a close friend. This impactful poetry chapbook is a vulnerable discussion of what it’s like to find herself as a lesbian, and in the end, James chooses love over hate, even in moments of pain. Content warning: Some poems touch on the author’s experiences with familial homophobia and religious homophobia. This collection also includes mild adult language, sensual content, and brief violent imagery.

Amazon | Goodreads

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I’m always looking for books or collections that are a different experience from my own so was happy to check this poetry chapbook out when the author reached out to me. This collection is short and sweet, not only exploring the happiness the author has found in exploring their identity and finding their partner but also delving into the hardships and negativity they experienced in both their coming out but being accepted by their surrounding community, family and friend – while also learning to accept themselves. I’m very picky about poetry and which types I enjoy, but I loved the lyrical language and imagery. Also, acknowledgements as a poem? Brilliant. I did find myself wanting to read more once it was done, which was the only downside for me since it was over. All in all a wonderful collection full of raw emotion that will speak to many.

Make sure to look for this one when it releases on April 30th! Thank you again to the author for sharing this collection with me – happy reading!

Writing Update | 7/20

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Hey everyone! As you may know I have been tackling Camp Nanowrimo again and I’m glad to say that the July session is going far better than the April session. Mostly I’m bouncing between a few different projects and both writing new content as well as editing.

I’m mostly on track to hit 50k for the month, but it’s a soft goal so I’m not going to be upset with myself if I don’t hit it. Still, I’m at almost 25k words cumulatively, so I think if this upcoming weekend goes well I will be able to hit it.

How’s Camp going for everyone else?

Happy writing!

Writing Update | 6/25

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With the July session of Camp Nanowrimo coming up I realized I hadn’t given a writing update in a while. To be fair, I haven’t yet bounced back from the last year or so mental health wise and have been trying to concentrate on self care and just letting myself be.

April’s Camp Nanowrimo session didn’t see me accomplishing as much as I wanted, but I did make a decent amount of progress. Since then I’ve had a few different ideas hit me, so ended up with three more stories in different stages of progress.

It’s at that point where I have to let it flow when it wants to flow and be kind to myself when it doesn’t. I am planning on doing Camp in July, so we’ll see what happens.

Happy writing!

Writing Update | Camp Nanowrimo

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Hey all! I haven’t talked about it a whole lot this month since I’ve been really taking some mental health time, but I have been participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. I started a new project to see where it would take me and so far I’ve written about 18k words.

It’s a slower pace than I would want, but to be honest the first half of the month was rough. In the last week or so things have really picked up, I’ve started actually feeling a bit better and writing wise have been more inspired.

I hope that this year I will be more on track for both Camp sessions as well as regular NaNoWriMo in November, but there’s no way to know for sure. Fingers crossed!

Happy writing!

Writing Update | December 2021

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Hey everyone! So as much as I’d like to forget that we just got through November, I sadly can’t. I was ready for NaNoWriMo this year, but the month had different plans. As you may know, I had a hard November, including the loss of a family member, so my head wasn’t really in the right headspace for writing. It started well enough, but after the first week or so things went downhill.

Sometimes these things happen and it seems this year just wasn’t the best writing year for me, capped off with not completing Nano. It’s ok, and I’ll definitely try again next year, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t a little upset at the way my November went.

I’m trying to get back on track now, after the difficulties of the last month, so hopefully I’ll have more to report in the future about my writing endeavors and process.

How did everyone else’s NaNoWriMos go? Happy writing!

Writing Update | 9/21

DeAnne1 Comment

Hey everyone! I realized it had been quite a while since I talked about writing, so it was about time I brought you up to speed. Since July’s session of Camp Nanowrimo I’ve taken it easy. This ongoing pandemic has impacted my mental health in numerous ways and honestly this year I’ve just needed to accept that and the things that go along with it. I know we’ll get there eventually, I hope things will improve and that we will finally get to that light at the end of the tunnel.

After Camp I was pretty disheartened to be honest, my writing wasn’t flowing as well as I wanted it to and while I was trying to be kind to myself about it, there was still a part of me that was having a hard time with it. I decided I was going to take a break for a while and while that has helped, I know I’m not 100%. My autoimmune conditions have been flaring up as well as my chronic pain, so doing a lot of things have been harder. It’s not an excuse, just plain fact. Posting daily on my blog isn’t always easy, but it’s something I’m committed to because it does bring me joy.

So, writing – I am happy to say that I’ve actually been writing more. I haven’t been forcing myself or trying to hit any goals, just opening up documents when the mood strikes me. I will be participating in Nanowrimo in November, so I’ve made a promise to myself not to push myself until then. I don’t yet know which project I’ll be working on, but it might even be something new. That’s not set in stone of course since I could just work on something existing, but I am excited for November to arrive.

Does anyone else plan on doing Nanowrimo this year?

Happy writing!

Writing Update | 7/31

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Hey everyone! So it’s the last day of July and you may have noticed I didn’t have a ton of writing updates the past couple weeks. I did write a few thousand words on a couple different projects, but didn’t really hit my goal. There are a number of factors or reasons that I could go into, but the crux of it is that life is life and things happen.

Plus…Cozy Grove. Playing lots of Cozy Grove.

So yeah, lots of different factors that have meant I haven’t had time to write, I’ve been trying to maintain mental health, improve overall health in general, practice some self care, etc. July was weird and went by super quickly.

So what are my plans going forward after two Camp Nano’s that didn’t go well? I’m still planning on participating in NaNoWriMo in November and planning on winning if possible but until then I might just take a break. I may do some planning as we get closer to November and I’m always jotting down notes and ideas, but until then I may just take it easy and concentrate on other things.

That’s the way I’m feeling I need to go. My day job is taking up a huge amount of time and between reading, gaming and self care I don’t really have the mental space for writing intensely. So I’m going to do a refresh and hopefully come back strong in November.

Happy writing!

Writing Update | 7/7

DeAnneLeave a comment

Hey everyone! For some reason the first week of July got away from me so I haven’t yet started my Camp Nanowrimo project.

I debated just skipping the July session of Camp, but figured it would be better to do it and have something motivating me even if I missed one week. I am just going to work on the story I’ve been working on here and there. I’m not setting too lofty of a goal, so I’ve set it to 25k and we’ll see where we go.

As you can probably tell I’m not going to put a huge amount of pressure on myself. I’m coming out of a reading slump and don’t want to put myself in a writing slump by forcing anything. Last year and this year have taken tolls on so many things, mental health being one of the major ones and I think I’m really feeling the brunt of that now. So with my writing and reading I’m going to be kind with myself and make sure that I have fun with it rather than forcing myself. Anyone else feeling that way?

Happy writing!

Writing Update | 6/8

DeAnneLeave a comment

Hey everyone! I wasn’t expecting to be making any sort of writing update anytime soon, possibly not until July, but here I am. Shortly after my last update where I said I was going to take some time and just not push myself my muse returned and I’ve actually made some headway.

The story that I’ve jumped back into is one that I’ve been stuck on for a while – I had pretty much written myself into a corner because I was worried things were advancing too quickly and didn’t know how to slow it down without it seeming to move at a crawl or be too fall of minute things.

I knew a bunch of scenes I wanted to happen later but couldn’t figure out what to fill the space from A to B with. Well, that issue is at least partially corrected. I still have work to do, but at least it is somewhat flowing.

I know that I could just skip and come back to it, write the scenes I already have in my head – but I really try to not do that if I can. I like my first very rough pass to be pretty linear and don’t like to hop around too much. Of course that also means that when I get stuck on one story I have the habit of just jumping to another one.

So, progress report is that hey, there are new words and I’m enjoying the process again. I don’t know how long this will last, or if this will be what I work on for Camp Nano, but this is at least the current state of things.

How is everyone else’s writing going?

Happy writing!