nature, Personal, Poetry Friday, re-post, writing

Writing

Violet Nesdoly

Beach pea and daisy

Writing

Beside the path
that winds through my
waking and sleeping,
grow, like wild flowers,
scenes, insights, connections.
Some days I am too rushed
or distracted to see.
On others I am wiser,
live with the perception
that gathers a bouquet,
chooses one or two
to press
between the covers
of a book.

© 2004 by Violet Nesdoly

*****************

Today’s poem “Writing” is reposted from a first appearance here in 2010. Sad to say, I haven’t been picking or pressing many of those wildflowers lately because I’ve been engrossed in something else. The poem “Writing” is part of it.

CalendarYou see, I’ve been studying Mark Coker’s style guide on how to format documents for Smashwords. (In case you’re not familiar, Smashwords is a website through which you can publish and sell your own ebooks.)

I’ve wanted to try my hand at this kind of self-publishing for a while and decided to make my guinea pig document a chapbook that I first published in 2004 called Calendar. After spending several weeks snatching moments here and there to work on my document, this Monday I nervously hit “Publish.”

Amazingly the process completed without a hitch! And so today I’d like to introduce you to the 2014 ebook edition of Calendar!

Poetry Friday LogoNow to see what the rest of the Poetry Friday ladies and gents have been up to, click over to Buffy’s Blog where the lovely Buffy Silverman is laying out this week’s  Poetry Friday fare.

 

 

 

Published by Violet Nesdoly

23 thoughts on “Writing”

  1. Not sure about e-publishing. I’m too old-fashioned, and just love books. I am looking at possibly publishing a small book of poems and photos myself though. Do smashwords do print copies?

    Like

    Reply

    1. Smashwords is strictly an ebook publishing place, Kiwiskan. But you can publish a physical book through Amazon’s Create Space for practically free. Trouble for us not in the U.S., though, is that we have to order those physical books from the U.S. (they are printed on demand) and pay shipping and any duties. Some of my friends have done that and say that despite those costs, it’s still less expensive to do it that way than go to a local book printer. All the best with putting your collection together. It feels good to get a bunch of poems collected launched into the world.

      Like

      Reply

      2. Congratulations, Violet! I’d love to read that. I worked out my books cost 6 U.S. dollars to print and ship. Create Space is marginally better than a local printer.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Congratulations, Violet – and good for you for hitting “Publish!” I will have to check out this site, too. Your lovely poem is a reminder that I have not been collecting many wildflowers, either – time to put the summer to good use!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  3. Pingback: It’s Poetry Friday! | Buffy's Blog

    1. Thank you, Wendy! The original paper book cover had an image of a pocket watch sitting on a book.This is a photo of the path I walk very often, so it’s personal and I hoped it would convey moving on, the passage of time, journeying through life…

      Like

      Reply

  9. Congrats! And interesting to hear your decision to go with Smashwords over Create Space. Maybe someday I will gather the poems I’ve been saving “between pages” and hit publish for the world to see!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Mary!

      Actually, one can do both–create a Smashwords edition and publish on Create Space & Kindle. Approved Smashwords books go into the catalogue of most e-book distributors but not Amazon’s (though Smashwords generates a mobi file so if you have a Kindle, you can upload it to your device). In fact, that may be my next project: puzzle through the Create Space formatting guide and see if I can get a print-on-demand physical book and do that for a Kindle version up as well. (Sounds like a lot of work though!)

      Like

      Reply

    1. So true, Julie. I have a wonderful book called Beyond the Words by Bonni Goldberg, in which she talks about three sometimes-ignored aspects of writing: percolation, revision, and going public.

      Her section on going public so resonated with me, because getting the wrong reaction or no reaction from readers can be devastating, can even shut down one’s creativity altogether. Her thoughts have helped me face some of the reasons I have wanted to go public at various times and realize I might be too fragile to handle it just now (especially if ‘it’ is silence or rejection). Thankfully after years of submitting poems, entering contests, and publishing on the blog with sometimes rejection, sometimes acceptance, sometimes no response, sometimes a lot of response, my skin has thickened a little. But it still takes courage.

      Like

      Reply

  11. Violet — Congratulations on taking the plunge into e-publishing! The opening lines of your poem speak to my own process. Images, experiences, memories somehow thread together — often in the back of my mind, before I sit down to write.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thank you, Laura. And a big congratulations on the upcoming publication of your verse novel. Your story of how long you worked on this encourages me to stick with projects that seem to be taking too much time!

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.