I really don’t want to have the discord in my soul that politics brings. However, I have found myself being drawn into the fray a lot more lately.
I purposely did Fighting Ignorance as a volume of political poetry because I found myself actually mad about the political issues that were coming out.
I remember thinking that everyone was pushing me to have opinions on politics when I was trying to survive being a young adult in a world that was trying to destroy me. So I refused to get involved. It did the opposite of what everyone was trying to do.
I wanted nothing to do with the news, because it would add more stress on an already tired me. Terrorism was not the people who came from a far to change my country…it was the nightly news telling me that humans were doing such awful things to each other.
I now see the political climate and wonder why we are going backwards. I read a new bill that will make voting harder for those who are like me. My birth certificate and my drivers license have two different names. My name was changed as a child. It was supposed to be changed on my birth certificate as well and due to a paperwork snafu it was not.
I keep seeing more political issues that make me feel like this country is not a safe place for me to live in, and I have no ability to do anything about it. This is why I hate politics. It engenders fear.
I am going to keep hoping for things to turn out well, I will be voting…even if my voice is probably not going to be heard.(1 live in a red state and with the electoral college in place only 51% of the vote is needed to make the choice. So my voice is likely to be unheard.)
I don’t like politics and I don’t like that I have no voice in the way my life is going to be run.
Terrorism is not always an external thing. Sometimes it’s the nightly news telling you world events.
So I as you can see above have a few volumes that are coming close to finishing. Chasing Ghosts is Serena’s and I will replace it with another one for her. Hope Splashes is my current random volume… so I will be able to replace it with the next one. Ocular Dystopia is going to be a little while. It’s a volume of visual poetry. That is harder than it sounds.
The other three each have a theme. And I don’t know what to do when I finish them. I love having multiple volumes that I can work with… but I don’t know if I have any more themes planned. I’m going to have to take a look at the future project file and decide if any of them are a theme in the future. I’m not going to do anything until I get at least one of those sent to the publishing office.
I chose to copy some of this from the previous post…and add to it.
Xactly Poetic is currently up to 47/70 poems
Queer Verbiage is up to 26/70 poems
On my way home is up to 54/70
Fighting Ignorance is up to 23/70
Dream Drips is at 6/70
Serena’s Blood Red Rain is at 48/70
Occult Madness is at 3/70
Ocular Dystopia is at 2/70
As you can see… I am making progress… but I’m not sure if I am going to be done with any of them soon… that being said… I am setting a September release date tentatively for Xactly Poetic. I think that I can do that deadline. I say tentatively as I don’t have it finished and I don’t want to promise something that I can’t do.
It feels so strange to me to have so many volumes in progress. But many of them have a theme… which means that I am limited to what goes into them.
Xactly Poetic is all about the form. I am a free verse poet – so writing to the form is a challenge for me and my writing skills.
Queer Verbage is all about being a non-binary pansexual and the rainbow magic in my life.
On my way home is not themed, really…but like many of my volumes it is picking up a slight theme of the journey and what home is to me. Though I am not doing it on purpose.
Fighting ignorance is political poetry… and my opinions there are strong.
Dream Drips is about addiction.
Occult Madness is about pagan ideas, and religious thought.
So I have been busy working on publishing tasks yesterday, Well that for me included dealing with the dreaded Goodreads Now admittedly I don’t do everything I need to with it, because every time I go there it is the same thing. I can’t claim all of my books on there. Not even the ones all written as me. The reason – My name is too common. I should be able to give the information about the book and claim it…but no. It is based on the name of the author. I am debating doing a rebranding. Adding my grandmother’s maiden name in as my middle name (I tried my middle name to start with…it is even more common.) Still I wonder how much I should rebrand? Should I just start from here? or go back and rebrand from the beginning? There is a lot involved. I just don’t know if Goodreads is worth the effort. I have my amazon author page. I have my books2read reading list. Does anyone other than authors even really use Goodreads?
Though I have to say that I am annoyed by how common my name is. Names have always been a fun thing for me. I wanted to write as Susan Ann Andrews when I was a girl. I really thought it was the prettiest name out there. I chose to write my poetry and my kid’s books under my name because I wanted to love my name again. I wanted it to be mine again. It was part of healing the abuse I had been through. I chose to do the pen name of Serena Mossgraves for my horror and darker stuff so that my kid’s books would not be tainted by those writings. So I am struggling now. Do I really want to rebrand simply because of how common my name is? Or do I stick with who I am? This really feels like I am facing an existential crisis. Do I change my persona for the idea that I am not fitting in? Or am I fitting in too well? Oh crud. I really don’t know what to do here.
Yesterday I was sure that I needed to change the branding. Today, I wake up and find in my email in response to my help request…OK we merged this and this….I look on goodreads…now one of Serena’s books is listed as Patricia. And still not even half of my books are listed as me. I still can’t claim them. Changing my brand will mean I have to go and fight them for the right to the listing all over again. In order to change it I need to go into KDP and D2D and Google Play and Barnes and Noble. Change The Details on each. I need to upload a changed cover for each. Then I need to hope that I have not screwed something up. For one or two books it is not that difficult…but I have a catalogue of around 30+ It is a hugely daunting task. OK… I can change my branding from here on out…but the whole reason I wanted to do it was because of Goodreads not letting me accept my books…if I change my brand it will throw them into a worse fit.
I think I need to think on this. I am going to do nothing about it until after the first of the year at the least. That way I can be sure I am still needing to adjust and I don’t feel like I rushed in for stupid reasons.
So I have a list of “Titles” for upcoming Poetry books. Some with a theme in mind…others not. I know I am supposed to do a cover reveal thingy for each book, but this feels more fun. These are not in progress yet. I did the cover design because it was fun. These are going to be the ones I choose from when my current volumes are written. The idea is that eventually, I will have a poetry book starting with each letter of the alphabet. Which do you like best…and Why?
This one has two possible…have yet to decide which I want. It will be general poetry.
This will be general poetry.
This will be general poetry…but I think I am likely to lean a little bit into the idea of addiction here…not sure.
This will be general poetry.
This will be general poetry.
This is one I am working on. It is going to be entirely Political poetry. I don’t know if I am going to stick to my standard rules as far as the number of poems inside or if I will adjust for the book. I do like how it is coming together so far.
Also In progress right now. It is general poetry.
This is probably going to be religious poetry. I have been considering this one hard.
General poetry. How could this title be anything else?
Again General.
This is another where I am not sure which I like better. This one will be written in letter format. A sort of Prose Poetry. I have the idea only so far.
This one is uncertain. I have already done one volume of Love poems. Still I love the imagery in the title and the cover I made is so nice…It will be there if I am ever ready to do a second one.
Another cover I am not sure which I like better…
General.
General. I actually made the cover for a different author. He didn’t like it, but I really loved it. so I had to find a use for it.
This is going to be all LGBTQIA+ Poetry. I am Pansexual and have thoughts on the Queer that I have yet to put to words… This is going to be me doing exactly that.
General.
This has another cover – But I really like this one better. This one suits me better. It will be general poetry.
General
General.
This is going to be me exploring various poetic forms. I am usually a free verse writer. I think that it would be interesting to do a book with at least one of each of the forms. This is going to be difficult to write, but I am looking forward to the results.
General.
Gemeral.
I use Evernote to write. It keeps me organized…I have a notebook on Evernote for each of my poetry volumes. I have these all organized under a stack labeled Future Poetry Volumes. I include the cover in each notebook so I don’t lose it. That being said…I have a file on my computer for Publishing. Inside the Publishing File is a file for Book Covers. I organize that file too…so the file where my book covers live on my computer has folders for each volume. I have folders in there with titles and no cover. Those have yet to get to the stage where I am ready to make covers for them, I may do this post again in a couple of years with those titles. I don’t know. They would have to make it into my Evernote for me to write in them. At this point, they are interesting titles and nothing more. The ones on this list are in the running to be my next volume…Heck, my next volume was on this list.
So, which title and cover did you like best? Why? Is there a theme you think I should consider? I end up doing two or three volumes a year most of the time. So I feel like I will be able to do this list without overreaching myself.
Oh! also the three I posted two covers for….Which cover would you choose for each one? I really am having a hard time choosing.
Poetry woke me. it is not the first time, likely will not be the last. I have been working on two different projects as my poetry goes…I have been finding that I am writing a lot of political poetry…where I had not been before. I guess as I have aged my heart is just not in swallowing the rage I have been feeling for the way the world around me is. I don’t like saying nothing when I see a wrong being done. I have fought for my voice, so I guess I will have to use it. well not all of the poetry I have been writing is appropriate for this volume.
so I am writing two. I think the first one is either going to be smaller than my usual or take longer, I am not sure. it currently has twelve poems compared to the twenty nine in Handprints. Gathering Teardrops will be released in May and I am not sure if either of these will be available this year. I have a bit of a full schedule for publishing this year.
I will announce when each are done writing. I have another poem that is bouncing around my head wanting to be written, so I am writing instead of sleeping….sigh
oh…btw…I have an interview on Facebook on Friday…will post the link as soon as I get it.
Pattimouse 