Indepence and getting out there

I bought some books online last night - buying books is a huge weakness of mine. Where most people have a vice like eating too much chocolate (I have that too), or smoking, or drinking, I can't walk past a bookshop without just popping in and leaving with two or three potential hours of escape.

These books were slightly different though, they weren't my usual fare of novels but rather these were poetry books. Not well known anthologies containing Elliot, Keats, Byron and Hughes but contemporary poetry written by poets who have to fund their writing through working in bars, bookshops, the Post Office, teaching. In fact all the 'normal' jobs that the rest of the population does. Yet these few souls also have the drive, the necessity of spirit to make time to write. The same could be said of many artists - they pull pints or teach sullen teenagers just so they have the money to create their real work.

And I'm looking at a card I bought in a bookshop a couple of months ago, it has a quote from Goethe printed upon it,

"Whatever you can do,
Or dream you can,
BEGIN IT!
Boldness has genius,
Power and magic in it."

So if you're one of those people who has always dreamt of writing a novel or climbing Everest, begin it now. Make plans now.

And if you want poetry published then start to read what's already out there, what's being written now, today by your postman or your neighbour. A good place to start is at either of these websites -

Blackheath Books - they're also on MySpace
and
Fortune Teller Press



That all feels like an advert or a motivational speech! But I suppose I'm feeling very fired up by all of this at the moment - I think it's because it's the beginning of the year - new year's resolutions and all that, and because the sun is shining and I always feel like achieving something when the weather is good.

Okay, sermon over.