Personal blog of author and artist Lynn Daniels.
 

Saturday, August 23, 2014

The Noon Notices: A Note From the Author

0 comments

My fourth poetry book The Noon Notices is a continuation of my three previous poetry books (The Midnight Manifesto, The Dawn Dossier and The Inevitable Intermission). This book was the hardest one to write, and that reason alone will make it challenging to explain my reasons for writing it in this post.
The birth of this book came while putting together the final touches of The Midnight Manifesto about 18 months ago. I had quite a few extra poems that I had written, but I didn't believe they fit with the theme of the book so I held on to them. As I began to write The Dawn Dossier, I found that book was beginning to take on a life of its own and the poems I held on to just didn't fit that theme.

The Noon Notices was originally meant to be the third book in a four book poetry series but a couple of things kept that from being the case. First, there was there was a case of writer's block. I never wanted to force myself to write poems for the sake of trying to finish this book and for a while, that's what I felt I was doing. It had come to a point where I had written more poems for my final poetry book, The Sunset Script, than I had written for this book.

The other issue I faced had to do with my entrance into social media and the inception of this very blog. When I first published The Midnight Manifesto, I started from nothing. I had no online presence and I didn't have much of a desire to create one. Of course, the first step to creating a presence is to come up with a name and while I'll be the first to admit that Lynn Daniels is a pen name and not my given name, the very reason I chose my pen name (I wanted a generic name for privacy purposes) was also a large roadblock to creating a unique identity.

That is where the MINDS part comes in. I wanted something that would allow me to showcase my writing and my art without being put in the box of being only a writer or only an artist. At this point, I had also already made the decision to write 4 poetry books and those 4 books represented 4 of the 5 letters in the word 'minds' meaning that I was missing a letter. That letter was the letter 'I' and my uncomfortable attitude towards the entire process of establishing an online identity led me to write The Inevitable Intermission and put the process of writing The Noon Notices on hold.

After completing The Inevitable Intermission and returning to the process of completing The Noon Notices, I realized I had completed nearly half of the book but the book was turning out to be nothing like my original plan for it. I wanted this book to lighthearted and a little nostalgic in terms of recalling simpler, less stressful times in life. Most of the poems I had written did not reflect that vision. Instead, this book turned out to be somewhat of a mix of the first 3 books with what happens when one removes themselves from the stress of life to take time to reflect on where they are and how they got there. There are also poems in this book that are heavily intertwined with poems from The Sunset Script, so this book does serve as a book to transition between the first three books and the final book.

Unlike the first 3 books where I described them as having elements of personal tales without being a full autobiography of sorts, this book is a full refection of my life ranging from childhood to the present day and reveals even more of my mindset as it pertains to beginning and continuing my journey as an author. It was not my intention to get as personal as I did with this book but at the same time, I felt it was a necessary part of the process since this is about as close as I will get to writing an autobiography.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of The Noon Notices it is on sale for $0.99 USD or free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription at Amazon.

0 comments :

Post a Comment