This Is Your Time
Poet Sarah Hemings shares some of her top tips from a few months of mentoring with Fiona Benson on the Dialect x Arts Council scheme
Image credit: Jeremy Thomas
During the final session I had with my mentor, Fiona Benson, we put together a list of things that I felt I had learned throughout the process, together with tips and suggested reading. It’s a great list and I’d like to share some of these nuggets with you here.
When you’ve identified a time to write, go directly to your desk/writing space. Do not stop to do the washing up or fill the washing machine. Housework will wait for you. Sit down and start. This is your time to write. Prioritise it. Make the most of it.
Fiona introduced me to the idea of ‘morning pages’ (but relevant for the time of day that suits you best). These are pages of free writing, where you simply write whatever comes to mind, without focussing on what you will do with it or where it will end up. Write quickly and fill the pages. Don’t edit yourself; put down your first thoughts. Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way goes into this in more detail. Why not give it a go? I found it to be quite liberating.
As Fiona puts it, ‘indulge your creative inner child’. Do something on your own that you love: go for a walk, swim, visit an art gallery/museum/bookshop/theatre. This will encourage creativity and help your writing in general.
Some notes on craft:
- research the subject of your poems to find interesting, precise vocabulary
- ‘commit to your imagery’ (Fiona). Are the images at variance, or do they cohere, follow through?
- have you written your way into the poem? If so, can the opening part be cut?
And finally, don’t be scared to write about things that are hard, have hurt you, or that still cause you pain. By writing about such things, you can own the experience, feel more in control of it and help yourself heal.
Sarah Hemings is a Chartered Librarian from Bristol. A member of The Poetry Society and Trowbridge Stanza, she tweets at @SarahHemings1. In 2021 she won First Prize in the Gloucestershire Writers' Network Poetry Competition (for the second time!) for her poem, 'Eastertide'. Sarah has been working with poet Fiona Benson on the Dialect/Arts Council mentoring scheme, and is currently submitting her first pamphlet to publishers.
