Poetically Speaking: New Poetry Quotes Ebook for National Poetry Month

 

Several years ago, I started collecting quotations about poets and poetry. I love poetry – it was the first thing I started writing as a child – and not only do I enjoy reading poetry, but I also enjoy anything that is all about that poetry! Discussions, quotes, trends and special days or months about poetry catch my eye – especially days or months devoted to poetry. Is it any wonder that out of all the books that I have written and co-written, the poetry books outnumber them all?

 

And because April is National Poetry Month, I wanted to do something “poetry-related” for my Kindle Unlimited writing project. Of course, my first thought was about all those quotes I had started to collect, so I decided, why not put out a book of poetry quotes? I have noticed a lot of people self-publishing books of quotes so I decided to get in on that!

 

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that a malware attack had hit my PC in 2005 and wiped out all of my files. Gone were the first novel I wrote, articles I sold – and the collection of poetry quotes. So if I wanted to do this book project, I was going to have to start over.

 

Fortunately, I did remember some of the quotes – though not who said them. (I remembered them from my days of using some of those quotes when I was editing and publishing a poetry magazine for the club, Circle of Poets.) So I started there. Then I moved onto books and also checked out some websites for quotes. All of the ones I used are listed in the ebook I eventually released this month. However, I could not remember where I had seen the other quotes from, so I just left that unaccounted for.

 

I ended up making two drafts of the book. The first draft contained ALL of the quotes. I knew I wanted 101 quotes on poetry, but I noticed I also came across a lot of quotes about poets, too. So I decided to add a bonus section of 50 quotes on poets. Even so, they were all collected in that first draft. I put the ”poet” quotes in bold so I would not end up counting them along with the 101 “poetry” quotes. As I gathered together all these quotes, I added their sources, if I had that information.

 

After that first draft was done, I made an alphabetical list of the names of the individuals quoted in both parts of the book.

 

Then I got to work on what would be the final draft. I added all the necessary front matter stuff (except for the copyright page, because I do not own the copyright to those quotes) then I got busy adding the quotes based on my lists. Yes, I wanted to list the quoters in alphabetical order. I just felt it was the better method. At first, I was thinking of putting the quoter’s name on the page that had their quotes, but some of those quotes came from books written by more than one person, so I decided against that. It is just pages and pages of quotes.

 

Since the person I am dedicating this book to is visually impaired, I wanted to make this ebook in large print. Unfortunately, despite using Kindle Create and Microsoft Word, I was not able to make the font appear in large print in the final ebook. It was just the default font. Darn! However, there is at least a feature on Kindle readers and on the Kindle app to make font larger (I don’t know if this is available on Kindle software for the PC – I have not used it yet). So, at least there is that. And the good news is that I can still make the ebook I have on file in large print, for the copy that I send to this person (I send comp copies to the person the book is dedicated to, the contributors if there are any, and my editor).

 

Formatting this particular ebook was also another challenge. Actually, it was more like a nightmare! I spent hours working on the formatting. I wanted each page to start and end with a full quote. Unfortunately, the formatting in Kindle Create didn’t see it that way; there were A LOT of quotes broken off at the end of the pages, as well as a heck of A LOT of white space between quotes! In fact, when I used Kindle Create to create the KDF file for Kindle Direct Publishing, there was one page that just had one quote in the middle and, try as I might, I could not add other quotes. If I did, all of them were broken off. UGH!

 

In the end, I had to ditch Kindle Create for this one and use Microsoft Word. The formatting for Word was not perfect, either, but at least it was better than Kindle Create! The document itself looked all wonky but as an ebook, it looked fine. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting the “Sources” section moved to its own page, which is what I wanted. Even when I moved that a whole page down, it still appeared on the previous page – the last page of quotes. Grr! (In hindsight, maybe I should have used section breaks for that.)

 

Anyway, the formatted ebook is not perfect, but it’s acceptable. This experience taught me an important lesson: Don’t self-publish anymore quote books!

 

But after all that was said and done, I got the ebook uploaded and it is now available as a free Kindle download. Yay!

 

I am also offering a FREE e-copy as PDF and EPUB! You can download your free book here.

 

Here is the blurb for the ebook, 101 Quotes on Poetry:

 

There's a lot to be said about poetry, as well as poets. From Angelou to Zapruder, Auden to Yevtushenko, this collection of quotes on poetry will bring readers of verse a deeper appreciation of the beauty, agony and power of poetic words. Bonus section of 50 quotes on poets included.

Available FREE through Kindle Unlimited!

Writing Challenge 2016

Before the new year started, I wasn’t sure if I’d be writing again, but I sure hoped that I would be. I HAD hoped to start work on revising a novel with another writer (a collaborative project) but we’re not ready to go there yet. Eventually, I started to have a strong feeling I’d be writing a novel on January 1st.

That actually happened. In fact, the novel I started writing – not revising – is one I’d had an idea for for several months before 2016 even got here. The novel is based on true events. At first, I was going to write an article about about something I had come across in my research. Then I decided to write a nonfiction book about it. Like an expose. (Yeah, that reporter in me will never die!) But then, I started to think maybe it would be best to write a novel based on this thing. Maybe I could show just how bad this thing is if I wrote about a fictional person going through it. That might work better. Once I decided to go in this direction, I started having bits and pieces of the story come together. I carried those pieces around in my head for a while there, working on it in the “workshop in my mind.” I let that idea grow and take shape.

Then, on January 1st, I sat down and started writing it.

But this particular novel is being written just a little bit differently than my other novels. In the past, I’ve come across the Stephen King quote to write a page a day, and then at the end of the year, you’ll have a novel. I saw that quote so often that I finally folded my arms and said, “Challenge accepted.”  I could easily write a novel over the course of 12 months. I could easily write a page a day. No prob, Bob! I have actually written a novel in one week, in one month, and even 3 months. So, 12 months? Easy. I could do that! But I wanted to ACTUALLY do that! I wanna be able to say “been there, done that” after the year is over with and I see that quote again.

So, that’s what I’m doing with this novel. I am taking it one page at a time, a day at a time. And so far, it is working out really well.

That is my first Writing Challenge of 2016.

And I have a second one.

Another piece of writerly advice I have come across is to write a short story every week for one year. I thought that was a neat challenge! I have had a ton of ideas for short stories but never actually wrote them. Some ideas I trashed because I thought they were too “unrealistic” to write.

Well, guess what? Today I finished writing that “unrealistic” short story idea. I actually turned that idea into a story. It was not the exact same thing as the original story idea – the ending took an interesting twist that surprised me – but I made it WORK! I wrote it! And it’s done!

I started this second Writing Challenge on Monday, the 4th. I wanted this to run from a Monday-Friday type of thing. So I started on Monday and I finished it today (Friday). Woo-hoo! I am really psyched about it and I think the story turned out pretty well. I am just so glad I wrote it. Yay! I challenged myself to write a short story in a week (well, 5 days) and I did! AWESOME! Here again, I’ve written short stories in one day, so that’s not a HUGE deal for me. But it was a challenge that I set myself to and I was able to do it. Now to plan for the next short story I’ll be writing next week!

So, I have two Writing Challenges for 2016: Write a page of a novel every day of the year (or until it’s done) and write a short story for every week of the year. So far, so good! I hope I can complete them both by the time December 31st rolls around.