The Process: Issue One
Welcome to The Process — your inside look into how I produce a chapbook.
Whether you are reading this out of curiosity, or because you are interested in producing your own chapbook, I intend for this to be an interesting, engaging, and honest look into how I do things — I don’t gatekeep!
This issue is all about what is arguably the most fundamental, crucial step required to make a chapbook: writing poetry.
Almost all of my poetry is initially written in the Notes app on my phone. The reason for this comes down entirely to convenience. I spend a lot of time thinking, I think deeply and quickly, and when a poem comes to me, I have about one minute to get it written out until it drowns in the sea of my other thoughts. Most of my more intentional, focused writing is done while enjoying a cigarette on my balcony, but inspiration can strike at any time. I have been distracted from just about anything you can think of by a sudden inspiration and urge to write a poem — something that is fantastic when I am sitting idle in a waiting room or on a train, not so great when I am trying to fall asleep or have a shower (yes, I have had to jump out of the shower mid-wash to write a poem on several occasions).
Inspiration comes from an infinite number of things and ideas. My approach to writing a chapbook is to focus on the theme as much as possible, which helps me to find inspiration that fits the theme and subsequently write more poems for the chapbook than poems that don't belong in the chapbook. This doesn't mean that I don't write other poetry while writing the chapbook — poems that are off-topic may be useful for future work, help me to hone my skill, or may simply be enjoyable to write; however, it is important to me that I write enough poems for my chapbook within a timeframe that I choose. I would hate to break my own deadline!
A lot of my poetry comes to me in a way that is not unlike what some may describe as ‘channeling’ — they are my words but I don’t necessarily know where the words have come from, they don’t match my typical thought pattern, but they are real and I can write them down even in a borderline meditative state. I don’t often set aside time to write, because if I have the intention of writing, it will almost always happen as the day progresses.
When writing, I tend not to think too much about the technical aspect of the poem. I draft in lines but I don't necessarily draft line breaks (at least, not in what is likely to become the poem's final form). I sometimes use rhythmic structure and rhyme, and while these things are occasionally mapped out in a draft, I usually handle this when editing if I decide they need to be included in the poem.
Most of the time, my preliminary draft is very unpolished; unformatted, contains typographic errors from writing quickly, syntax that is not quite right, slightly imperfect wording etc. etc. For me, the purpose of the preliminary draft is to ensure the ‘essence’ of the poem is written out. When inspiration has struck, a poem usually takes between 2-5 minutes to write.
After I write a poem, I put it into a Google Doc and eventually move these documents onto my laptop for when I am ready to edit.
That has been this week’s issue of The Process. If you have made it this far, thank-you for reading.
Next week’s issue will be about my editing process.
Yours in poetry,
Cameron Glen.
