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From Manuscript to Midnight: Inside a Poet’s Creative Routine · The Rooted Soul Podcast

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  This is the Rooted Soul podcast. As always, therootedsoulbooks.com has plenty
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  of content on there from myself, poems and the like, interviews, etc.
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  And you can also purchase the book through there. Alan at therootedsoulbooks.com
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  is my email for those who like to let me know what they think of my work and other things too.
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  At Alan MacDonald IRE is the Instagram arm handle,
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  if i seem a little frazzled i have just completed it is near midnight here,
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  and i've just completed the 60 strong second collection and we would sell,
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  acceptance of joy so that's gone off to the publisher hopefully we'll be out
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  mid to late november there are some christmas poems i'm working with the publisher
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  at the moment we've got a six month plan which has been really interesting which
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  I'll go into in a little bit of detail,
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  because I know a few of you out there who are burgeoning writers so it's an
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  interesting thing to I guess for some of you to hear I'll keep it brief for
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  those that it's not because there's a few other things I wanted to talk about,
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  there's a six-month plan going up to the live show to kind of build a bit of
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  a presence and live events etc.
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  The books you know as I've said before were kind of poured out of me so,
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  you know there's a there's a third collection that's completed there's a fourth
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  collection which is gothic in nature and which is well on the way certainly
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  50% of the way there so really it's now about building the brand I continue to write every day,
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  which is where I'll come on to the process of it as a few of you have asked
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  about what my process is and when I can come up with poems fairly quickly whatever people think of them.
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  How that happens and, you know, what my setting is.
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  But in terms of, I'm very happy with the manuscript, actually,
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  for the second book. It is, as I've said before, different in terms of,
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  it is a little internally reflective.
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  There is a, I call it mantic, not quite romantic arc. There is a Irish music,
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  poems, and musings, as I call it. And then there's outwardly reflective.
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  There's a pub character arc, which I may turn into a bit of a show or part of the live show.
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  It's got good heart and humor in it. So there's a lot of, I would say,
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  growth or at least change in how I write.
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  I mean, the first book I was talking with someone today who is going through
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  some struggles and to hear them quote from the book and from certain poems.
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  I mean, it's emotional, actually, you know, going through the second collection,
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  and pruning it back where I probably knew 80, I thought I knew 95% of what was going to go in.
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  And in the end, when I reread, there were some changes, which is incredible.
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  It's very, it's a lot of fun to do when the hard work is done.
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  And, you know, people kind of think of Jesus because they're like family or
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  your children, almost each poem,
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  you know, I can think back to what I was thinking, what I was feeling.
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  And I mean, some of them are just humorous and some of them are just about politics,
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  but other ones that are more personal, you know, what I was feeling and who
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  I was thinking of and what scenario and what issue in the past.
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  So it does become difficult actually to to prune that last 20 percent and there's
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  ones that went in that maybe i didn't like it first but i think when i i because
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  i said before i try and put phases in you know,
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  so the second book has five phases but also with some of the phases i'm trying
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  to put them in an order where it makes sense you know as the story develops
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  or as i develop which i think is particularly true of mantic,
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  so all of that stuff has been.
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  I spent a lot of time this evening and tonight going over it and making sure
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  that, you know, it kind of reads as best it can.
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  And I'm sure there'll be more changes. And, you know, I may write something
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  in the next couple of months that maybe will go in, but I'm going to try and leave it alone.
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  And I think the best thing is moving forward with this stuff.
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  So anything new, or if I think, well, Jesus, that's an amazing piece of writing,
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  or I really love this, you know, then maybe that goes into the next collection,
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  you know, to keep, keep the, so I think this is, hopefully this is strong enough.
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  So the plan with the publisher is we're going to start just building out my,
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  persona a little bit maybe where I feel in the second collection is very much in my voice.
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  As a matter of who I am and day to day not coming out of struggles or finding
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  joy again and those these are all important in life but actually who I am day
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  to day I think it speaks in my voice which which is good and but I was talking to,
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  a friend who doesn't want to be named who is writing poetry, wants to publish.
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  And a few people in the community online have asked, you know,
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  what the process is for me.
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  And my process really is that there isn't one. Like I have a,
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  my dining room table is a makeshift writing desk on one half because it's a pretty big table.
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  And I like the fact that it's, it's a solid oak table, but it has,
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  I have a green reading lamp.
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  So I'm loving the fact now that we're coming into autumn. I know you all will
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  really miss summer, but I love autumn and winter.
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  And I love that because it means by the time I get home from work,
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  that green reading lamp comes on after dinner and I can sit down and I can write
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  at my desk. But really, I write anywhere.
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  I pull out my phone, my Samsung notes, you know, I take something down.
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  And as I said before, if there's time, I'll flesh out a poem.
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  And sometimes it comes out fairly quickly. And sometimes it's,
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  you know, I'll start something and then go back to it. But most of the time,
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  it's started and finished there.
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  But I can write anywhere. And once the idea strikes me, I'll take it down.
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  And I was thinking about this in terms of, you know, writers of,
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  of renowned and everyone has a different way of doing it, you know?
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  So I don't need a cigarette or a drink or a coffee.
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  It doesn't have to be early morning or late night.
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  I mean, because I've, I have a career and I tend never really to be in the mindset
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  to write from kind of, you know, eight to six, unless it's a weekend.
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  And even then it tends to be early morning, late night. So maybe I do have a
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  process and I don't realize it.
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  But I was thinking about Roald Dahl, actually.
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  There's a great, you can find it online where he takes you through his process
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  on the video. And it's wonderful.
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  He has a writing shed, Little Huff.
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  And one of those, I don't know if they call them the roller desk things where
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  he puts it on his lap you know and it's got that soft underside that's kind of curved.
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  But before he starts he has to kind of clean around him you know get a flask
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  of tea he has a you know like a sleeping bag or a blanket thing where he cozies
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  himself up every time has to has to sharpen the pencils,
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  and then he slowly starts to settle down to write and draw I guess is what he would do as well,
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  and I was you know there's a number of writers actually I've done this on my
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  phone where I've written in bed and something comes to mind you know.
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  George Orwell used to do that, my favorite author.
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  He used to write quite often in bed, which is not what we were recommended by a doctor, I don't think.
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  But he's not the only one. Truman Capote described himself as a horizontal writer.
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  He claimed that most of the writing he did was in bed. You know, you've got Hunter S.
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  Thompson, who had a chaotic organization to his writing, where booze,
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  drugs, pills, coffee, whiskey, everything you can imagine, and then would kind of settle down to write,
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  when he was suitably bombed out of his brain, which I can never understand because,
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  I could never write drunk or anything else.
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  I couldn't imagine actually coming out with anything that would be, you know, coherent.
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  But it is amazing to kind of people who have, you know, different ways of doing
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  it. Like Maya Angelou, I believe, used to write in hotel rooms.
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  She would rent a hotel room. She couldn't write at home.
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  Shelby Foote, as I said before, couldn't write away from home.
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  You know? Charles Dickens, I think, used to walk obsessively late at night quite
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  often, and that's when characters would come to mind and plot solutions.
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  I can't remember the name of the other. There was an author,
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  I can't remember his name, that used to keep rotting apples in a desk drawer.
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  He claimed that the smell apparently was horrendous, as you can imagine.
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  And he claimed that the scent helped him think.
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  I would just think we would have been better off maybe without his work, potentially.
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  But yeah, so it brought me back. Going through, I'm just looking at it here,
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  actually, just the manuscript. I might read one out.
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  Do you know what? I'll read this one called War.
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  The fall of the Soviet Union was a quiet revolution, from a show just like Truman
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  to destruction through evolution.
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  My glasnost was admitting I could no more feel this way. With my teeth near
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  cracked from gritting, my therapy perestroika provided change.
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  From the wall built over decades, feeding feelings that wear aghast,
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  maybe it leads to others' freedoms from misery built on the past.
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  We aren't looking for Eden just quiet revolution that lasts now that one was
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  written over a coffee in the Summerfield pub actually,
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  that would have been late spring,
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  and I'd watched a documentary on Gorbachev and I remembered as a kid.
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  I must have learned it somewhere, but obviously from the 80s there was a lot
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  of talk of Blasnost and Pelestroika, and I thought it made me sound very erudite
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  and wise, even though I wouldn't have known what erudite was at eight years of age,
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  by repeating those words constantly.
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  And then I actually, they're words I actually quite like, and they came back
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  to me through that Gorbachev documentary, and I thought, you know what,
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  I'm going to put them in the right place in the poem, and Call's War is what actually came out.
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  So that's the kind of madness that goes through my head when I'm writing stuff
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  you know and as I said before,
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  once you kind of switch on to everything and anything being a reason to write everything can become,
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  fodder for creativity for creative writing and,
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  whatever your stripe is yourself I guess it's the same as writing songs you
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  know where if you think about some famous songs that are written about all sorts of stuff,
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  mundane and otherwise i would just come out of i mean uh nights in white satin
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  is one of the greatest pop songs ever uh written and i believe though i can't
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  google and fact check myself right now it is about bed sheets.
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  Sleeping in white satin but then it's one of the most incredible i think it's,
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  one of the more complete pop songs ever and absolutely wonderful and it's not
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  really about anything much at all,
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  so i'll read one more and then i want to read talk about the gothic because
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  we're coming into autumn we'll be coming into halloween so i just thought i'd
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  give you guys a little taster,
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  but this one's called the avoidance avoidant this one i wasn't going to put in.
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  As I thought, there's a few too many of these, maybe, but then I read it again
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  and I thought it's giving something a little different. The avoidance avoidant.
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  Silence is a weapon, or the confrontation. Not wanting to step on another's frustration.
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  Best to ignore or try conversation. Is there a way to end this hesitation?
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  Avoid her or avoid the problem, seen as a hassle that you try resolving.
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  Loving the person, but who's avoiding? The one who is silent or the one who is toiling?
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  Tired sensitivity, over-emotional, or my proclivity to be non-negotiable.
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  Round it goes through my mind, trying not to reach out and rewind.
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  That's a kind of an in-between where what I was going through in book one and where I am now.
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  And it's not really about specific. Well, it is about a specific situation for
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  a few years ago, but it's that thing where none of us are finished articles.
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  I still get frustrated. it i still sometimes will be the person to keep reaching
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  out to try and resolve even if the other person doesn't seem to want to at that time,
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  and i try to change that a little bit but then as you know i always think you
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  know you kind of only have to be you can only really be you ultimately you can
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  change certain things and you can change fundamentally,
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  but i think if if you keep doing something out of goodness of your heart or
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  you think it's out of the goodness of your heart and other people are not doing
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  things because of the opposite reason then i think it's.
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  It's something where you know maybe it's not the worst thing in the world you
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  know as i wrote a poem recently about,
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  softening towards someone to allow them to soften a little bit again towards
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  me and it worked and it's like okay i have no resentment at the fact that i
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  was the one that did it because now we're in a much better place,
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  So it's, you know, I think sometimes we're all, I'm a little hard on myself at times.
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  Often it's been said to me that I'm hard on myself and the things I shouldn't
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  be, and way too easy on myself and the things I shouldn't be, you know?
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  But, so the next one, I mean, the next collection is done, if that's what I
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  decide to go with, then, you know, there will be added poems to it.
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  But the Gothic one, I'm going to read one. I'm going to read two of them, actually.
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  I'd love to know people's thoughts. So again, alan at theroodedsoulbooks.com,
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  at alanmcdonaldire is the instagram handle,
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  but i i i started to just write a scary poem i used to love i still do edgar allen poe,
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  and i love horror that is not gory you know you're not slitting the achilles
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  heel or slitting the throat it is that atmospheric almost paranormal unexplained thing you know,
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  one of the greatest i think ever which is as much locked room mystery as it
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  is a horror but if you haven't checked it, it's The Thing. John Carpenter's
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  The Thing with Kurt Russell.
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  Don't look at remakes or sequels. The original one from 81 or 82,
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  I think it's 82, is just a masterful storytelling in suspense and paranoia and fear.
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  And those are the types that I love. I always gravitate, I still look for them
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  on YouTube and stuff, where old black and white movies that are kind of locked
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  mansion mysteries and there's too many to mention that are great.
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  But yeah, I've written a number of pieces, so I'll just give you two. Untitled, frightened.
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  Footsteps on the stair. Woke up alone. Nobody there, but creaking sets the tone.
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  Dark bedroom, set apart. From bathed soft light in the hallway feels stark.
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  Sounds get closer, with a heavy breath. But it's not my own creeping sense of death.
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  Can't leave the bed. to close the door. Can't escape the dread of the noises once more.
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  Eyes upon me are mind playing games. Eyes closed to what's beyond me now beside my quaking frame.
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  Afraid to scream, no voice to boom. You summoned me, said inside the room.
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  I'm just holding for applause and, you know.
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  So this one is a bit of a draft but it's called tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tick,
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  tick loud silence tick followed by talk when the fear returns a beat has missed on the clock,
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  As if this grandfather knows Something amiss has returned The missing talk slows
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  Matching stomach churns Why no one can hear it Or feel the same portent,
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  Of doom when I am near it This home that's never content But tonight I am alone
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  again With thoughts and feeling dread Of the missing beat now and then Silent
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  loudness to wake the dead Tick.
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  Tick, tick, tick, and then the shock.
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  So that's the start of what I hope will be gothic in nature.
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  I was going to, as I said, the mantic phase. They're not quite romantic poems.
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  I liked the idea of an intertwined gothic mantic where the stories would end
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  up mirroring each other.
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  But I decided to put my best foot forward with the best poems,
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  which include that phase in the second book. I may do something around that
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  as well. But I'd love to know your thoughts, guys.
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  Again I don't really like to go on too long on these podcasts at the moment
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  but uh very happy that the second book is in the camp very happy that people
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  seem to like the first collection which I mean you know as a new author it's an poet it's incredible,
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  you know the journey that I've been allowed to go on on this and as I say that the last kind of,
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  three months since the poem since the book was published three and a half months,
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  have just been incredible and you know it feels like years but in the best possible
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  way like you're living multiple lives at once,
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  so i hope you enjoyed this there'll be more even if you didn't,
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  as always guys as always it is the root soul books.com alan at the rooted soul
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  books.com at alan mcdonald i re on instagram have a good weekend better living within.