A BLOG POST - GENERAL UPDATE OF THE 2021 VARIETY
Please, just stay safe and as brutal as ever through these times.
Stay in touch, stay connected; stay whole and remember there is always some book, some painting, some ballad or some god damn piece of graffiti that will make it feel a little better. Take that risk today.
Lots of love and light and
legitimacy,
Charlotte E.E. Griffiths.
@C.G.POETRY
A YEAR IN REVIEW - GENERAL UPDATE
At 23:45 I drink a glass of warm Bailey's from a port glass and at 23:55 I am dancing on this floor of carpet like I have never danced before. At 23:58 I smoke and make a toast to myself; really, to myself, and I tap the spot in my chest where the home belongs and I recognise the reward of all this work.
When New Year hits I smoke again and I smile with the fuel of a few minutes ago and eight minutes later I am writing in my book of grateful about everything I am grateful for this year.
And what am I grateful for this year?
Everything.
I'm grateful for having visitors this year; for letting people in close enough to stay.
I'm grateful for moving out; for this home.
I'm grateful for my plants.
I'm grateful for the first chapbook and
I'm grateful for the second and I'm
grateful for what has come of them.
I'm grateful for all my friends, new and
old and I'm grateful for owning myself, for once, for being
alone but not lonely and in company but
not any different. I'm grateful for life.
I'm grateful for the two features and the interviews and the opportunities in
my writing and I'm grateful for my parents' support and my name in
the library and I'm grateful for
the anniversary of getting my
typewriter just a few
days before.
I'm grateful for everything and
now I'm just going on too much of a
racket about being grateful.
But it''s not just about being grateful.
It's about the intention and then, the final choice. It's about the follow-through.
So, I set my intentions just after midnight for this year knowing I will hold myself to my goals; I will push for better. The resolution remains: "prioritise yourself," but in that I mean "prioritise that writing, do what you need to do and don't put it to the back. it matters. you matter. keep going." I rose that toast to myself at 00:00 and I intend to honour it.
That means:
- Refining this website solely for the purpose of keeping things more succinct.
- Working toward collaborations and actively drafting a process - not just thinking, doing.
- Continuing to focus on a more professional style of writing that extends just creative. Feature-style stories and a COMMITMENT to blogging to come.
- Studying more and more and beginning the journey of going BACK to university, despite everything argued by my person in past (*winky face*).
- Writing, writing, writing and when I'm not writing to BREATHE writing.
It is another year further in the process of growing up and the intention for life itself is strengthening every day. It's become more than just intending to grow but intending to live, to love and to challenge myself every day. To intend every good intention I can.
17:18 on New Years Day and I have sweated out the last of the alcohol and the day has been light and there is hope and love everywhere. I have written more than I have in months in these 17 hours and I feel the blood pulsing like only words know to do. I smoke and take a swift toilet break and I smile out to the sunlight fallen on my fly screen and we're okay, still. We're doing just
fine.
Maybe we'll have another toast of chilled Bailey's (this time) to the first day
and the next
and the next
and the one after
that
too.
Happy New Year to everyone and their family and friends. May life touch everything as beautifully as those around have touched me.
Stay brutal, stay honest, stay
lit (just until the holidays end),
Yours,
Charlotte E.E. Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY
WRITING UPDATES - CHANNILLO AND SITE
It's been a few weeks and the poetry has slowed up while the clarity on life (and all things involved) has cleared up a bit.
I've been working a lot on the identity of my writing in combination with who I am, myself. I think that's an important journey to embark on and one I should have taken into consideration much earlier in this process. However, it's all in experience and I don't think I could ever be ready for what this career, what this lifestyle, will always surprise me with.
In making decisions and opening my eyes up to who I truly am and what I want most has enabled me to clean up some parts of myself. I've been trying to neaten my social presence which is something I struggle with; it needs to coincide with who I am, not who I want to be and I think in accepting my current position I've made it much easier to move forward.
Poetry is still being written and I don't plan to dismiss that entirely, however I wish to redirect my focus onto the writing experience as a whole and how I can consistently branch out and try new things.
I do plan to release a video or two in relation to my poetry, however this stems out of a realisation that written poetry can often be selfish and I am sick to death of being selfish. Instagram will also continue to find a poem or two, but my content on Channillo will be moving and changing very soon, possibly MyTrendingStories to follow.
Channillo has offered some incredible opportunities and I do not discredit that at all. Regardless, I feel my poetry is not something I value for money but for the freedom of voice. So, the decision has been made and slow descent was released on Channillo today as one of the last few pieces to grace it. I will, after another poem or two, be removing my series, Common Thistle from their site and reapplying for a new series of short stories; a new short story every month.
The poems from Common Thistle will find their way into the world again, but I am excited to close old doors and open new ones for myself.
I have already been working extensively on new pieces and new ideas and it's really freeing to take myself away from the verses and lines and focus on the whole picture, the whole story, every detail. I'm excited to see the results and where they will take me.
In regard to everything chapbook-related, bathroom sink is still being produced and dim lights, dim reality is due to raise from its current price to $7 on 1/01/20. This means if you want a copy at its current price you need to get in before New Years, however if you miss your chance there will be additional poem cards with every copy sold at its new price. bathroom sink will remain at cost price as promised when it was released and all other plans for chapbooks will be done up with the intention of making things more affordable for everyone involved.
It's been a long journey and, though it never really ends, it's an honour to be doing what I love everyday and to have found a career that challenges my philosophy every time I take a stab at it. I continue working, I continue looking for new opportunities, I keep writing and I keep loving every minute of it; what better life could I be leading?
Thanks for listening,
Thanks for staying brutal,
Yours
Charlotte E. E. Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY
CHAPBOOK & LIFE UPDATE - PROGRESS AND PREORDER
This year has definitely been the most challenging yet. I honestly don't know sometimes how everything has moved to this space and how on Earth I am still breathing, still beating, still believing in something. Maybe I'm just not, maybe this is just adulthood; maybe all I know is this.
It's not been easy and I don't think I've been open enough in myself to admit that I'm not doing okay, that I'm not handling as much of what is going on as I could be and I definitely need to take this second for a deep breath and to extend myself as honestly as I can.
In this year, I have known life like never before. I have known loss in every facet of my life and I have come through it even warmer and more optimistic than I ever could.
2019 has been an incredible year of change and this is the kind of real change that burns your insides and leaves space for ash-loving flower. bathroom sink (and all the many faucets) captures this and I am so excited to be releasing a chapbook more in-tune with the person I am now, as opposed to the person I was holding onto.
This new chapbook, brutal in content but lighthearted in nature, aims to go to the core of self and drag out the most grubby and gruesome to remind you that dirty isn't all that bad; as long as it's honest. This concept has been sat on since the production of dim lights and it has been an incredible thrill to come at it so intensely over the last month and see so much success in everything we'd planned.
bathroom sink is already available for preorder, on this site for 25% off until the 14th of August, (just two days away!) exactly one week before release. We have already received numerous orders and are in the very final stages of production; it looks at this stage that everything will be set for release ahead of schedule! All preorders will come with an extra bathroom poem and hand-signed letter, similar to what was released with dim lights. Clearly, we're getting a chance to see our sales and marketing skills grow, the challenges from the first project being solved and even innovated through the next and all we can imagine is how much more we have to learn.
It is at this stage that I am slowly starting to see a direction in publishing and will be working toward establishing a strong team and possibly a name and ABN once the chapbooks have all cleared their sales. Please do get in contact, as always, if you wish to become a part or even just want to discuss the creation of a publishing company. It has been a long-standing dream for me to be creative, but to create only while in support of others and I believe opening an independent publishing house based in Australia for young and aspiring artists where the most authentic and honest voices can be vocalised and heard, maybe for the first time, would mean more to me than just writing alone. I would like to, annually and once established, a couple voices on our side, do a charity book of art and poetry and writing that raises money for different small and direct charities each year. I want to change the world, but what scares me most in this world is honesty and how afraid of it everyone has become. I want to make that change. I want to give that honesty and reality and wholesomeness back to people, stuff it down their throats; remind the big companies and big hives that there is always a place for art, always a place for rebellion and always a strength in thinking for yourself. The greatest power is information. Lets keep that accessible, right?
In succession to all of this, there has been very definitive talk of raising the price of dim lights, dim reality to a steady $5, possible $7 after this year This decision has been an incredibly tough one for me to make. Everyone I am involved with both personally and professionally has pushed me to value my work highly, that if I place that worth it will be received. However, this has come as a real challenge to the person I am and the writer I'd aspired to be. As much as the pricing of a piece of work does reflect the writer releasing, I feel it doesn't reflect the consumers and, to me, poetry is the one art that should be flowingly accessible, so accessible that you can sit at home with your thirty different self-published chapbooks or zines because most of them were either free or a couple bucks - because that's what writing for the people really is, right? However, this opinion of mine piggybacks off a much deeper need to feel like I shouldn't take up too much space - that I do not deserve more than I have - and regardless of how great that might seem for my writing, it's something I do need to address. To open up to myself and to honestly admit that I am part of a community of writers is to take credit where it is due but to remain humble where truly necessary.
For that reason, dim lights will raise in price due to the intense amount of work and money that was initially put into what I will always consider my first child. All of my other following chapbooks will be priced initially and will remain at their price as I have come to see the honest value in my work and how I can discount that just enough to be affordable, but not too much that I'm losing a great margin.
I think this decision, as well as many of the decisions that have been made over the last few months have been a sign of the growth I am making internally and the professionalism I'm starting to come at my work with. I have also received numerous emails in regard to guest contributions on my site and the choice to allow some of these bloggers to work toward something for me is a decision I make for the good of the community, not for the aesthetic of my site or the purpose of growing followers, but the fact that if somebody has enough guts to get in contact with me and can fit to my content well enough, then they've earned it and who am I to say no? For this reason, there will be a few guest posts on this blog, but I am currently doing my best to tweak everything to keep it honest, authentic and brutally real.
I thank everyone for all that they have offered me this year and all the years leading up to this. I cannot say it is without good progress and good change that I have struggled through everything I have. I now know and feel deeply in myself that I am loved and looked after not just by those left to say it, but by all of those that have energy that resonates within me, who look down from some cosmic star or space or knowledge and are proud of what I have become and what I have grown through to become this.
bathroom sink (and all the many faucets) is set for release in nine days and I could not be more proud of myself.
Thank you for reading, thank you for
sticking around,
Stay safe, stay honest,
stay brutal,
Charlotte E.E. Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY
CHAPBOOK UPDATE - BATHROOM SINK (and all the many faucets)
As most of you know, there is a NEW chapbook coming to the store soon and I have been hinting with a LOT of different ideas.
I can officially announce, after a lot of teasing, that my second self-published chapbook, bathroom sink (and all the many faucets) will be released on the 21st of August this year (if all goes to plan).
The cover and table of contents will be revealed over the course of the next month over on my instagram and there will obviously be a lot of news about pricing and how this MIGHT affect current prices for DLDR, but currently we're just doing our best to keep everyone excited and see if we can even source some locations for distribution.
If you have any questions or concepts to throw at me, please get in contact over on my instagram or feel free to send a contact form through. I have been VERY excited to get the news out and am always happy to go over any available details or discuss collaboration anytime!
SIDENOTE: I think I'm most excited for this chapbook because it presents me with an opportunity to do something important within a stricter amount of time; reigning my creativity in a bit. I don't know I've found anything more exciting and terrifying than dedicating myself to this career everyday, but it's definitely paying off, especially when I'm able to watch the lazy, unorganised writer turn into the driver, forward-thinking poet I am today.
Thank you, always, for the help and support.
There will be more here soon,
Yours,
Charlotte E.E. Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY
GENERAL UPDATE - LIFE (LAZINESS?)
It's been a busy few months with the release of Dimly Lit Room in Femagogy's May Issue and all the work toward new things. I'm definitely starting to recognise the beauty in how nothing ever stops and how there is only more expected. I think this is all a good thing. I think the push is all I ever needed to get through, get my mind off things.
As promised, a new, smaller chapbook is underway and, admittedly, I'd intended a lot more progress to have been made however can announce it will be ready for release MUCH closer to the first reveal than dldr ever was. The challenge of dim lights, dim reality gave me an incredible amount of insight toward self-publishing my own work and after years spent holding onto one thing, I've been trying to let go of smaller pieces to remind myself that not everything has to be prime, polished, perfect, but exist in the moment the way it should. That sounded a LOT easier than it was, admittedly.
The chapbooks are definitely in production regardless and when I say chapbooks, I mean multiple. It seems the only way I can tolerate making concepts in three or four small but poignant poems is by allowing myself the power to spread all of those concepts out and fully take a look into each individual poem. What I'm saying might be nonsense, but I think it's another reflection of how well writing, as any art form, aids in that exploration of self and values and something so intangible we sometimes forget it even exists.
I'm clearly on a very pleasant high today, can we tell?
Despite everything both nonsense and normal, there is a lot of movement in the new Newmarket house and many many new poems and features and submissions and releases will be taking place in the next few years. What I remind myself, every day now, is that in four years I have gone from single publishing to self published chapbook and feature in multiple organisations, contacts from different countries and states and at twenty one, I have so much more to travel.
I so am blessed to be here, blessed to be writing, blessed to have my words.
SIDENOTE: In the next year, there has been a lot of talk about expanding my readings from just family funerals to either public events or personal readings. dim lights was originally intended to be released with a public reading but I didn't feel we'd come prepared enough for a release party and reading. However, this push has meant that there's been a lot of planning about what might be best and at what age, stage and rage of my writing it should come. If you follow my poetry instagram, it will be one of the only places to reveal too much in regard to any readings, so if you don't, probably give it a quick glance every now and then if you're at all concerned. I am much better at reading than I admit but I think it comes down to a personal opinion of the society around me and a fear of letting myself get too involved. Regardless, there will be some version of my poetry that will eventually be graspable to the human ear and eye, not just in print, whether that does end up in a coffee shop, home or even a video. If you have anywhere you'd like to see me though, feel free to get in contact however you'd like. I'm always down for a challenge if it's presented.
Keep staying safe and staying more real and brutal and
honest and bloody than
ever before
(but only in the best ways, right?)
Yours,
Charlotte E.E. Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY
GENERAL UPDATE - RELEASES AND TEASES
After completely relocating my home office into the new home, I've finally gotten back to the grind I've been avoiding so well (I avoid everything well, don't I?) and there is much to be announced.
dim lights, dim reality the very first of my self-published chapbooks has been released! you can find it exclusively on this website in the store section, now for only $1.99.
I have been absolutely amazed with the amount of orders and discussions over DLDR that I've had and part of this avoidance to get online has come from a very deeply overwhelming gratitude for every single person that has helped or taken part in purchase. If you cannot tell from the exhausted adjectives, I am beyond appreciative for all of the support, love and reviews and have continued signing copies well beyond the limited release.
All the following copies are currently being released as first editions, however there has been discussion of adjusting the copies to make them more affordable for the lowly poet to produce. For now, the first edition copies come with handwritten confirmation of their edition status in the inner page of the back cover (similar to how the limited edition copies were identified). I'm still unsure of how fixed the first edition will be, but for now we're leaving it at a steady thirty with potential of reaching fifty.
Aside from DLDR, I've also been in discussion about starting a publishing house of my own between a few close contacts I've developed over the years. It's in very rough beginnings, but it's an exciting concept and one I hope to share around as much as possible in hopes anyone, however inexperienced, can tag along for the journey. If you know anything about publishing please get in contact with me!
It's been a really big few months and I'm very excited with everything that's coming. I've been teasing around with talk of new chapbooks and I can reveal there will be at least one new chapbook coming out this year, a much smaller and simpler version of the first but with an incredibly strong theme for this new time in my life. I hope to continue making my work readily available to those who need it most and I thank everyone for helping to get me here.
Please be staying safe around the world,
staying honest,
Yours,
Charlotte.
POETRY UPDATE - POETRY SUBMISSIONS + FEATURES
With the impending release of dim lights, dim reality this February, I've been trying to wheel out a few more submissions and organise more upcoming releases for the site.
At this stage, I've been contacted by the editors at Femagogy Zine in regard to my poem, Dimly Lit Room, which will be featured in their upcoming April edition. Keep an eye on both their space and mine for the exact release of the issue, but more submissions will be rolled out in the meantime and any other features will be updated accordingly.
SIDENOTE: Once dim lights, dim reality has been released and all of the stress has finally calmed down, there will be another 4 page chapbook made available for purchase on this site, with a whole new theme and design. Keep an eye on this space and my instagram once dim lights is released for update, but for now there is still much to do and much more to look forward to!
Thanks for sticking about, always,
Yours Truly,
Charlotte E.E. Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY
POETRY UPDATE - CHANNILLO.COM
Hey guys, it's Charlotte here!
Over on Channillo.com I've had my poetry series, Common Thistle, running for about three years now. It has been an incredibly long journey and, in appreciation of how far I have come since its initial release and recognition that this will be coming to an end some day, I've developed a new cover for my first collection of poetry, Common Thistle!
Unfortunately, I've been having a few issues with the site, meaning the new cover is only up on Internet Explorer (and possibly only on my computer, keep me updated!) but there's also another new poem up there for anyone who's got a membership or has been thinking of getting one and the photo shown is the new cover, in all its humble completion!
In regard to my chapbook, dim lights, dim reality; it is finally the month of the release! I am currently pushing for the 30th but currently unsure whether or not this deadline will be reached, so am doing my absolute all to keep it going.
It has been an incredible journey and I'm not sure anyone can understand how much effort, love, and growth has been fuelled into this piece. It will feature a lot of newer poems plus a few old delights and it's definitely a good feeling to have the poetry out of the way and to only have to focus on the design element.
I've been working with my designer and will be able to start featuring her company and work online as much as possible so you can all keep up to date with her too! She's been an incredible help and I cannot imagine how I would have gotten through any of this without all of people involved!
Back to the grind!
Take care, kiddies,
Yours,
Charlotte Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY