Introduced By Amber Hall

Our theme this month is ‘Change’ and I’ve been thinking about how this idea relates to the act of writing itself. There are myriad ways to approach writing – so much so that it can feel daunting to get anything down on paper in the first place. But there’s a lot to be said for experimentation; particularly where form is concerned.

For many writers, form can come to define their work in such a way that they become synonymous with it. It’s easy to forget that the prolific essayist and novelist James Baldwin also wrote beautiful poetry, for example. But there are many writers whose work is greatly enhanced by the fact that they’re comfortable with different forms – Baldwin is a case in point. Another writer that springs to mind is Ocean Vuong, whose debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous has a lyricism owing to his prowess as a poet.

My own writing journey began in prose but has developed to include poetry and scripts, and I believe I am a better writer for it. I often find that the nucleus of something, perhaps a larger piece of writing, takes root in poetry. The form encourages me to go with feelings first and get them down while they’re at their most potent. From there, I find that whatever I’m trying to say, in whatever way I’m trying to say it, feels authentically ‘me’.

There’s real merit in taking ourselves out of our comfort zones, too. As a writer, it’s important to give yourself the freedom to explore different forms as you develop your creative practice, though inspiration doesn’t always need to start with the written word. I know of one writer whose work begins as a series of illustrations, and that’s always struck me as a sensible way to go about it. Stories usually start out as loose threads in our heads, and I can see how sketches would help them to take shape.

So, I encourage you to switch things up: change tack and come at your writing from a different angle. Sit with the discomfort of the new and see where it takes you. The pieces I’ve chosen for my page deal with just this, revealing how shifts in our approach can help us to reconnect and move forward with our writing.

I’d like to start with a prose piece by Write On! Editor Madeleine F. White, who reflects on how reconnecting with poetry led her to create a work of fiction. Madeleine’s most recent work, No One, was completed in July and will be going to BETA readers in mid-September. In February 2025, a second edition of her first collection, The Horse And the Girl, will be published by Seacrow Press, with Maiden Mother Crone following later in the spring. You can preorder The Horse And The Girl here.

Changing Genres

Poetry has come to me all my life and, since my mid-30s, Madeleine Poetry has been open on my desktop, a direct portal for the highs and lows of living. However, after completing my debut collection, The Horse And The Girl in August 21, I stopped; instead, swallowing my words and shutting down any snippets or ideas.

When we interviewed Mark Haddon for Write On! a few years ago he talked about the pain of not writing being worse than ‘ facing the darkness’ of writing. That’s where I was when I saw the social media announcement from poet Mab Jones about her online writing course last September. I reached out and the first prompt document around ‘Change’ arrived in my inbox shortly afterwards. I still can’t say what led to the title poem, Maiden, Mother, Crone, but know that even though I hadn’t been writing all this time, long rides into the countryside and connecting the experience of the world around me through my reading had a huge influence on my quest for the spiritual feminine in verse.

In any case, once the idea of overlaying the triple goddess with my own story came to me, it blazed too strongly for me to swallow it down any more. This title poem was therefore swiftly followed by 29 more, leading to the 30 poems that make up Maiden, Mother, Crone, my memoir in verse. The collection challenges the traditional approach to faith by putting my own stories at the heart of a narrative defined by a quest for spiritual identity. Encased within the spiritual feminine it offers magic and mysticism, abuse and reconciliation, power and perception, and faith and feminism.

So, from not writing at all, I’d written a full collection in four months. And not just that, another, linked, story had started bubbling away. Again, I tried to swallow it, but the idea of using Non, St David’s mother and a Welsh Saint associated with abused women and a sacred spring, to weave 1500 years of stories into one coherent narrative, wouldn’t let me go.

When I got the publishing deal for my poetry, I realised I’d run out of excuses. It was time to move the core ideas in Maiden, Mother, Crone into a work of fiction, working poetry and nature, and ancient mysticism and modern faith into a new whole. No One is the result. By using the sacred spaces of Celtic Christianity to underpin the development of Welsh nationhood, I wrote over 95k words about some of the country’s unsung heroes. I explored how men and women both were able to draw on the poetry residing in its spiritual heart to move beyond their own pain to contribute to its shape.

Without the ‘cri de coeur’ uttered in my collection for women who may have been sidelined, abuse and disenfranchised to find their own seat at the table, my novel would never have seen the light of day. No One is not a book about religion. Instead, based on the search for the sacred spaces in my own life, it is a continuation of a universal path of pilgrimage Maiden Mother Crone started.

I have realised that I am a poet who writes other things. Fiction, essays and features allow me to shape the essence of myself and my ideas into something more widely accessible. Poetry, though, will always be at the heart of my work, as it allows me to give voice to the ideas my heart and soul must speak.

© Madeleine F. White, 2024

You can connect with Madeleine on X: @ madeleinefwhite and Instagram: @madeleinefwhite.

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Next, Lisa Scully-O’Grady writes about how an older piece of writing inspired something new, proving that everything penned has value.

From Mills And Boon To Flash Fiction About Change, Grief And Moving On…

Back in 2007, a friend of mine sent me details of a writing competition a TV station was running in conjunction with Mills and Boon. She said that I should give it a go. I decided to write something and set to it, albeit a little close to the deadline. ‘What could go wrong? I will be a shoo-in for this,’ I thought. After all, hadn’t I read a whole bunch of those books when I was a teenager?

A childhood friend of mine had an older sister who devoured Mills and Boon books, and my friend surreptitiously borrowed them and gave them to me every week or so. We must have been around 12 or 13 years old.

One day, her other sister saw us reading them and took them from us to inspect whether or not they were appropriate for us. She gave them back, deeming them pretty harmless. They were fairly simple stories and nothing too racy happened in them. They were full of foreign travel to Italy or snowy mountains and there was always some handsome but moody man living close by with some sad backstory to be revealed later. The heroine had always experienced some heartbreak, too. ‘So far, so easy.’ I naively thought.

I wrote half of a story and then got stuck as the deadline rapidly approached. It proved to be more difficult than I’d thought. I gave up on it and forgot all about it.

Fast forward 17 years, and I decided to enter a poetry competition – I’d written a poem.  Then I saw that they also had a category for flash fiction. I was looking through files on my computer and came across my long-forgotten piece. It wasn’t bad. In fact, I wondered whether I had written it at all as it seemed so alien to me. It was better than my recent attempts at writing.

So I finished it, edited it down to 700 words, and entered it into the competition. It’s still a romance but instead of Mills and Boon it’s about dealing with change, overcoming grief and moving on. Maybe someday soon it will see the light of day. Watch this space…

© Lisa Scully-O’Grady, 2024

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In this next piece, Maire Buonocore draws inspiration from music to write a poem that has the same rhythmic appeal.

Ode To The Aire

Music and the pulse of passing time
Instil the soul with harmony and peace,
Cause inmost thoughts to reach to the sublime,
Hold ourselves in constancy and ease.
When outside agents wrest and stress our staves,
Every fibre feeling taught and tense,
Loosening, losing all those gentle waves
Connecting us to harmony and sense,
Count on you, dear Aire, to lift our song,
Lamenting all the discord in our days;
Alert, you sing us words to right a wrong,
Reset vibrations in your most gentle ways.
Beat rhythms of our fragile forms, dear Aire,
We feel your pulse, though none can see you there.

© Maire Buonocore, 2024

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Finally, Afsana Elanko reflects on how the written word can help people  overcome personal challenges and find self-acceptance.

One Diagnosis Made, One Writing Style Changed

Didn’t know why, but didn’t eat pie,
Fattening food I did not buy.
They said I was underweight,
I thought I was fat since the age of eight.
Thought I had thick trunk-like thighs,
Social media said to exercise.
Thought a lot about food,
Missing meals led to the family feud.

Never knowing differently, my memory made me,
Started with feeling weak in my knees.
Feeling dizzy was the norm,
Always cold and never able to get warm.
My locks were wiry and started losing hair,
And this I could not bear.
Sought help and they diagnosed Anorexia,
Took counsel from my friend with Dyslexia.

I had a condition diagnosed, it was official,
Started making life changes that were beneficial.
Without choice, advised changes I fostered,
Everything alien, felt like an imposter.
My intensity even bored the dogs,
So started writing blogs.
Gave up all the fighting,
Enjoyed the release through writing.

As my life changed,
Old memories became exchanged.
Computer contained writing files,
The emergence of a new writing style.
With support overcame the condition’s collective,
By writing a new narrative.
Don’t know which is my true self,
But main thing is I now love myself.

© Dr Afsana Elanko, 2024

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Issue 21 is available to read online here, you can also find it in libraries and other outlets. Read previous editions of our magazines here. 

You can hear great new ideas, creative work and writing tips on Write On! Audio. Find us on all major podcast platforms, including Apple and Google Podcasts and Spotify. Type Pen to Print into your browser and look for our logo, or find us on Podcasters.Spotify.com.

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