As a blogging virgin, the last few weeks have been interesting for me. And, while I am glad to have been initiated into the practice, I still have a few questions...

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I have been asking myself who will read my blog, and why? I have to admit to being a little bit dubious about the notion of being discovered by a publisher through one's blog. I'm sure it does happen, but I wouldn't mind betting that statistically (and fatalistically!) the chances are incredibly low!

As I understand it, a blog should be updated daily or at least every few days. I have been asking myself what this demonstrates to a publisher? Sure, the marketing potential for an author with a highly readable blog is great. But, on the other hand, couldn't it also look like one has too much time on one's hands? And that the time spent writing a blog might be better spent on writing an actual novel, short story or poetry collection?

Personally, I put a lot of effort into editing my poetry and fiction etc. I was kind of hoping to treat the blog as something more informal, more about spontaneously sharing ideas, inspiration, motivation etc or debating interesting points, without overly stressing about checking my grammar and spelling. With two kids to look after, most of my effort on that front goes into my poetry and fiction and I don't want my blog to impinge negatively on my more creative writing. And, while I've never suffered from dyslexia, I do tend to make a lot of typos (swapping the order of letters) when on the computer! It's as if I can write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts, but not type fast enough (at least, that's my excuse if you're a publisher reading this!).

Anyway,back to something more interesting now, for me, at least. I have been enjoying the start of my Writers' Bureau poetry course, though I have had some small concerns about the admin side of the course. So far, the written part of the course itself is not anything I would describe as extraordinarily innovative, nothing I've not heard before. But the exercises in it are motivating (I've already written two new poems) and I am pleased with its encouragement and emphasis on reading and learning from other poets' work.

with this in mind, I have been dipping into Anne Stevenson's collected works this week and finding some very enjoyable and inspiring pems. I won't pretend to fully understand Whose Goat? but it has beautiful sounds and images eg:
"pleading between pearl hooves"
"...She meets/ my labrador nostril to nostril, but/ they breathe different languages."
"I look my own language deep into the well/beneath the letter-box-black slit"

For those whose who have copies of her poems, I also love The Garden,
Incident (particularly interesting given the recent writelink mirror theme for poetry resources) and Walking Early by the Wye (each time I read this, I get new meanings).

I also enjoyed reading Gillian Clarke's piece in the Poetry Society's most recent Poetry News, which includes the wonderful poem To the Etruscan Poets by American poet Richard Wilbur. I even found a recording of this, and other of his poems on The Poetry Archive.

I've decided that when I finish this Writers' Bureau course, I'd like to think about doing an English literature/reading course, focusing on any or all of: poetry, sociolingustics and semantics. I'm not sure I really want to go down the exam route again, but if needs must. So if anyone knows of something suitable, answers on a comment to...