True story: For 3 1/2 years I lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere in SA— just a jail, church and two bars. But no library to speak of. So, I wrote my own flash fiction and novellas to entertain myself.
Similar to now: I dislike the sameness of sonnets, failed haiku, etc. It’s like a 5-year old pamphlet of a political campaign used as a bookmark in an even older Garden & Home issue in a dentist reception room.
How to write a novel:
Step 1: Write 3,000 pages.
Step 2: Let it rest for a few weeks, months or even years.
Step 3: Edit.
Step 4: Again edit the remaining 1,000 pages.
Step 5: Repeat steps 2 & 3.
Step 6: Find the courage to introduce it to the world.
Poetry:
Poetry is the same – just a faster turnaround period. Often poets say more than what is necessary and an edit could greatly enhance a piece.
Writing is not about finding the right words—it’s about surviving the wrong ones long enough to recognise the truth.
The poet’s paradox: The idea that the more one writes, the more one risks exposure—physically, emotionally, socially.
‘NOUGH SAID
Studying my reflection in the bathroom mirror
I find that my growth as a poet,
involving long hours seated at the laptop,
has taken its toll—a malady shared by athletes.
‘Much ado about nothing,’ as the Bard would have said.
The backstory:
When Shakespeare penned Much Ado About Nothing around 1598–1599, the phrase already existed in English. ‘Ado’ meant fuss or commotion, and ‘nothing’ implied triviality. So on the surface, the title suggests a lot of fuss over something insignificant.
However, the ‘nothing’ in the title stems from ‘no thing’—a discreet nod to anatomy that Elizabethan audiences would have recognised without needing it spelled out. In that light, the phrase may carry a wink of innuendo, especially given the play’s entanglements with mistaken identity, romantic misfires, and the occasional blush-worthy misunderstanding.
Take wing!
Su
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For more The Fulcrum poems, see the following links:
Fulcrum (poetrysoup.com)
The Mirror (poetrysoup.com)