Romantic poetry shall never die – it’s what makes our hearts beat on 💔

Ideally with ‘Arrival of The Birds’ playing …

🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌

I did it again.

I left you with no more than,

A kiss to the cheek.

A polite hug.

Within hours I am gripped,

By a panic.

It’s a feeling of loss.

Of being too late.

And the cruel consequence,

Is having to relive the moment.

I see sands of opportunity,

Slip through my fingers.

And I watch it fall away.

Staring eyes.

Memories of you jostle,

In my conscience.

The skin on your neck,

Where the shortest hairs start.

And become the place,

Where my fingers feel at home.

Pulling you closer,

Smelling your clean clothing,

The bottled scent I gave you,

Warmed by your body.

Too late to tell you,

That I’ll be yours forever.

Even though our paths,

Shall never cross again.

There were connections before you,

But none so deeply powerful.

You change me.

You changed my world,

And I wanted you in it.

But a free spirit is one quality,

You illustrated so well.

Showed me how to become one.

🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌🖌

Hello my gorgeous lovelies … I’m on a train, with my earphones in and was inspired to write you a little cuddly poem. It’s been far too long that I’ve ignored you all. Forgive me…

I read a poem recently by our great blogging friend Patti at Lovenlosses and I do hope she stayed safe during the recent hurricane.

I’ve also said hi to Mike, over at ReadafterBurnout who continues to entertain daily and I’ve downloaded his book which he released 9 August this year, so many congratulations on achieving this 🎉

A dystopian world awaits the reader and what little time I’ve had to read it so far has given me no less pleasure than I expected from this very talented author. A teacher on the surface, a storyteller in ‘real life’ … I shall be review and starring it once I’ve finished 🙏🏼

Another supporter of mine is the wonderful Joseph at FlowersinBloom who appears to have had a blogging break of a similar length to mine. Totally unplanned, that, but I think of him from time to time as it was his recommendation of a Gail Tsukiyama novel which started my love affair with all things zen and bonsai trees (don’t ask to see mine 😫 I’ve yet to discover the art of keeping them alive).

I continue to chat also to my fellow writer, the beautiful Italian living in Ireland, Sabina at Ortensia72, whose posts always have me laughing out loud at family life, and nodding with recognition… her Book 1 is also on my kindle and it’s appalling I’ve not yet come to it.

But.

I do have good reason.

In the time it’s taken to ignore you for the best part of the summer, I’ve somehow managed to edit my novel. On a structural level I’m talking now. I think I finally have something I can send out!

I’ve simplified the plot in some areas, because guess what? I wasn’t actually required to write the next instalment of Luther after all!

I sent my manuscript off to be critiqued by a Reader for the New Writer’s Scheme; part of the Romantic Novelists Association, and boy, did it need it! My Reader was kind. But honest. I don’t know who it was (their identity is kept on a need-to-know basis, and we don’t need to know).

However, I’d love to hug and assure them I was not in the slightest offended by any suggested change. I utilised about 97.8% of them in fact because the new words and grammar and alterations changed not the plot, but the tone. The maturity of the prose. It’s still my story but it’s got High School clothing now, rather than the rather shabby primary wear it had been used to.

I like it. And so did two agents at the annual conference. We must not get too excited because agents love ideas – it’s their job to find new authors’ books enticing. Once they read the whole thing, as opposed to those first three chapters we all work so hard to perfect, their enthusiasm could easily wane.

I decided I needed some serious help at this point. My first book. My first time digging up the roots of my literary baby. So I employed a mentor!

For six weeks (and we are four weeks in) I have an expert at my beck and call, someone to bounce ideas off, someone to moan to, someone to share excited moments with. She is paid to respond to me, which is great.

However.

My mentor is also very honest. Calls a spade a spade and wouldn’t choose between two sentences I emailed one day when I was stuck. I had to choose myself, can you believe it 🤣

It was the best thing. My mentor asked me to dig deep and think about which of the two would have a greater emotional impact on the character at that point. Genius. I knew the answer, and went ahead and implemented the correct choice.

I’ve re-written my synopsis with her guidance and now am in the process of researching agents with a view to start submitting from the end of the month. I’m a big girl and am aware initial interest does not always lead to offers of representation, but wow, I’m having fun! I’m also going to find a spike to stick the rejection slips on – Stephen King did that. I read his writing journey in ON WRITING and fell a little bit in love with him to be honest. That book in itself is a masterpiece, let alone his novels, of which I know own six.

If we were to look back to this time last year (which we won’t bother doing) I suspect my blog posts were all about …. well, I can’t even remember. What I do remember from that time is only having 24,000 words!

I’m on my second high speed train of the day, en route to York. Attending another annual event run by the RNA means a chance to catch up with published authors and other hopeful authors-to-be 🖌🥂

Enough about me. What are you all up to?

In the meantime, excuse me while I start this book.