Our guest today is Jen Payne, author of her new book, Sleeping with Ghosts: Poems & Musings. She is currently on her WOW! Women on Writing tour. Jen has also written four other books: LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, Waiting Out the Storm, and Water Under The Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story.
And for our information and pleasure, Jen has written about finding enough time to write – something all writers need to know about. Here’s Jen.
Time to Write
by Jen Payne
Did you know that Picasso created more than 50,000 works of art, but only about 100 of those are considered masterpieces? That’s less than 1% of his work!
I think about that little fact every April, when I attempt to write a poem a month for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). There aren’t a lot of masterpieces, for sure, but a few have been published. So there’s that.
Of course, lots of folks will point out the averages — ONE percent?!? And you’ll never be at a loss for angsty advice about being a writer. Ernest Hemingway said “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Robert DeNiro considers a writer on a good day to be “isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination, consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing, and soul-crushing inadequacy.”
Oh my. Does it have to be that painful?
I’ve been privy to lots of conversations about writing lately. I don’t have time, they say, or my work isn’t good enough, I can’t stop editing, what will people think?
I like what writing guru Natalie Goldberg advises: “Say what you want to say. Don’t worry if it’s correct, polite, appropriate. Just let it rip.”
That’s the approach I go by every April — just write. I suppose it’s the approach I take all year long. Just do it, like Nike says.
Author Neil Gaiman suggests, “This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”
Exactly, it’s that easy and that hard. I think it’s kind of like the lottery slogan: you can’t win if you don’t play. How are you ever going to write a masterpiece if you’re not writing all along?
***
Book Summary
“Beautifully crafted and luminous, these poems take the reader on an intimate and unforgettable journey of love found and lost, the joys of creativity, and the power of memory.” — Judith Liebmann, Ph.D.,Poet Laureate of Branford, CT
“Sleeping with Ghosts is not an ordinary ghost tale. Jen’s latest collection of writings is a poignant meditation on a life of love confronted.” — Mary O’Connor, author of Say Yes! to Your Creative Self
Known for her meditations and musings about our outside world, Jen Payne takes readers inside this time…into the heart and mind of a poet, where memories wander, hearts break, and ghosts appear in dreams. Those ghosts — her lovers, soulmates, and muses — reveal themselves slowly, one at a time, chapter by chapter, in this wistfully reflective, time-traveling memoir.
Publisher: Three Chairs Publishing (September 15, 2024)
Print length: 182 pages
Purchase a copy of Sleeping with Ghosts on
Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/3chairs24
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sleeping-with-ghosts-jennifer-a-payne/1146208477
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/3ChairsPublishing
You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8561082.Jennifer_A_Payne
About the Author
Jen Payne is inspired by those life moments that move us most — love and loss, joy and disappointment, milestones and turning points. When she is not exploring our connections with one another, she enjoys contemplating our relationships with nature, creativity, and spirituality. Ultimately, she believes it is the alchemy of those things that helps us find balance in this frenetic, spinning world.
In addition to Sleeping with Ghosts, Jen has published four books: LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, Waiting Out the Storm, and Water Under The Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story.
Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee, the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology, Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, the 2024 Connecticut Literary Anthology, and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health.
Jen is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company she started in 1993, based in Connecticut — where she keeps house with a cat named Molly.
You can follow the author at:
Website: https://3chairspublishing.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/threechairspub
Blog: https://randomactsofwriting.wordpress.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3chairsbooks/
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