New Awards for the New Year – Part I (Virtual Blog Tour)

This year has started off with me being nominated by some exceptional bloggers for some wonderful awards. Although I am usually very uncomfortable when praised I would be completely amiss if I didn’t say I am very grateful.

You have hundreds if not thousands of blogs that you follow. You read, like and discuss many posts by talented bloggers apart from pushing out lovely posts of your own. With all this ongoing activity I find it incredible that you think of my offerings as worthy of notice; that somehow Another Voice spoke to you loud enough to be remembered when the time came to nominate a blog for an award. I come from the world of scientific publishing so I know how important peer-review is, which is what makes these blog awards so special.

I haven’t been as active in the community these past couple of weeks as I used to be since the poetry course I am currently enrolled in leaves me just enough time to push out a post or two a day. I do apologize for that and trust me – your continued presence and interest in Another Voice is so heartening.

Also, to all the new followers of this blog – Welcome! I haven’t been able to write to you in person (yet) but be sure that I will as soon as I can.

I am going to accept just one award in this post and acknowledge the others in a separate post tomorrow.

VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR

I was nominated for this award by the talented poetess – Vonita, at Passion Through Poetry. If you don’t follow her already well then go on, correct that! Here are the rules:

1. Pass the tour on up to four other bloggers. Give them the rules and a specific Monday to post.
2. Answer four questions about your creative process which lets other bloggers and visitors know what inspires you to do what you do.
3. Compose a one-time post on a specific Monday (date given from your nominator).

1. I would love to nominate the following poets who have great sites worthy of your time and comments:

Andy at Aroil In Pain
Phoebe at Musings of a Puppy Doc
John at johnpoetflanagan
Ruth at I-read

I haven’t asked them to post anything yet and I don’t even know if they’ll accept but I wanted to share their sites.

2. Answers to questions about my creative process:

• What am I working on at the moment?

I am currently enrolled in an online poetry course offered by Stanford Continuing Education. I am 2 weeks in and it’s been a steep learning curve. In the more broader sense I am currently working on my life. I am attempting to answer a major question: What do I want from my life? Writing helps me confront this and the many related but heavily loaded questions on an everyday basis. I haven’t yet written down my answers as I am still trying to find a structure within my thoughts but the process at least has started.

• How does my work differ to others in my genre?

My work differs from others in the only way it can – it is mine! I write from a very personal space and find words that have multiple layers to them fascinating. Yes, I am in love with words. However, I cannot claim that no one else’s work reflects this. I have to point out that I am now beginning to distance myself from the speaker in my work and trying to be objective with my writing. I have noticed that that has helped improve my understanding of the issue. Also, importantly, on this blog – I am an amateur at everything and I don’t assume I know what I am doing. That helps a lot!

• Why do I write/create what I do?

I want to call them brain worms. Instead of behaving like a normal infection that leads to cerebral impairment I find that these worms fortify the synaptic connections inside my head. I seem to want to write everyday about something/anything/everything. I don’t know what I am going to post when I wake up. I am inspired by a word heard or read, a photograph or my husband. Or just an invisible maggot of a thought that ends up becoming a brain worm. Once I write I feel complete. I feel the world is right. I am happy. Content is a BIG word  and I am scared to use it because one cannot become content when being creative I think.

• How does my writing/creative process work?

I open my Macbook or a traditional notebook to a new page and I just put my fingers to the keyboard or pen to paper. Just that. I don’t know what’s going to come out. At times when I have to write an informative essay then I do my research, make notes and have a structure. Writing scientific papers/reviews this past 7 years has taught me a lot. But if it’s a personal essay just for the blog then I start writing – then structure – then edit – and then publish. I am not very rigorous but I am learning how to write more and write better and quicker. As for poetry I am still learning and all I can say is that I am a vessel for words. I have an image I want to portray and words materialise that help me say it. I then go on to tweak the order/structure where possible. Usually I don’t touch my poems. They are first drafts. Thanks to the Stanford course I am becoming more deliberate and it’s been highly instructive. As for photography – I really don’t know ANYTHING! I see things and I feel I need to remember them in that exact way because they made me feel something. I use a camera as substitute for my eyes and perishing memory; which is also why I don’t know how to edit a photo. But I am learning a lot thanks to all my wonderful photoblogger friends.

Phew! One down and a few more to go. I will post the rest tomorrow. I hope this post helped you understand me a bit better. I am very happy to have answered these questions. I urge you to go check out the websites of the four poets I have listed and hope you find them as enthralling as I do.