Editing A Life

Choosing to make a big move requires editing, again, and again. Stuff edits. Time edits. Life edits. Reworking the beginning, and, then, rewriting once more after the revising the constantly changing ending. Will I ever be me again? This is a new phase of life. Am I being redefined as well? More to come.

While Writing a Poetic Triptych

In considering the now old-fashioned use of maps, connections can be seen with a writer's writing journey, and, even, life journey. I suspect creative individuals often map out writing projects, the broad strokes of life, and navigate with a internal sense of north. Inside is an innate GPS system that is faster than the one in the car. Veering off the well-traveled roads, writers look for unexpected opportunities. Sometimes whatever just happens. And so, writing goes. Characters suddenly voice a new direction and the story becomes more layered. Life seen in the rear-view mirror reveals itself in all it's many layers. Decisions made, or put off until, hopefully, the obvious is seen. The choice to follow the internal compass, look for the unplanned, and to respond on a dime, could describe a writer and the act of writing.

It is interesting to contemplate how some use maps, I'm visualizing the folding kind, and some people go along waiting at each intersections for some kind of sign to show the way. Or worse, for a droning voice to tell one which way to go. Life and writing in a one step at a time process. One gets somewhere, but are all destinations equal? Is this the difference between those who can see the so-called big picture most of the time and those waiting for an external solution? Or, maybe, it is only the feeling of flying that is different.

Just wondering while writing a poetic triptych. Three poems with rusty hinges holding onto each lyric mural. The anthology deadline looms for the second panel. The turns in the lines have been slow in revealing themselves as the story is running in real-time. Emotions are close. The journey is life.

Publishing Homes

There are five big book publishers in the United States today. A good visual graph of imprints from the big five found its way around Twitter in June 2016 with the source being Ali Almossawi, link below. The publishing homes follow here.

1. Penguin Random House
2. HarperCollins
3. MacMillan
4. Simon & Schuster
5. Hachette

Big Five Publishers



My Writing Barn workshop word: FOCUS.