James Roome : part four

How does your work first enter the world? Do you have a social group or writers group that you work ideas and poems with?

I was listening to the excellent Radio 3 programme, The Verb the other day, and a novelist (Denise Mina, I think) said, about her own writing, ‘it just falls out of my fingers’ (or words to that effect). I thought that was a lovely description of the writing process. Pretty accurate too (when it’s going well, that is).

I tend to write in snatched moments, and don’t really have much of a support network for it beyond a friend (the aforementioned James) and my wife, who tells me when something’s crap. I mean, I have a lot of people who support me in my writing, but not that many that I can look to for extensive critique. I keep trying to go to a local writers’ group, but life keeps getting in the way.

I do see this as a shortcoming in my writing process to be honest. You can take a poem so far on your own, but then it’s nice to have some outside input. You can become a little too close to your poetry sometimes, and it can be hard to notice the things that aren’t working, particularly if you have read it again and again to the point that it’s slipped into a pattern in your head. That can be difficult to break.