Jo on Jo 2 (article)

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One of my pizzas 😋

As I’m a writer that never gets interviewed (or gets to be a guest blogger for that matter) I thought I would interview myself, again.

Jo On Jo 2

So where are you from again?

I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. At the moment I’m living in a flat by myself and quite enjoying it. I’ve also lived in other parts of New Zealand, such as Dunedin, Invercargill, and Hamilton. Christchurch had a series of devastating earthquakes in 2010-11 which we’re still recovering from. In March 2019 there were also 51 people shot dead in mosque shootings here, which is still hard to believe happened.

What do you like about WordPress?

I like that I can write what I want to and there’s virtually no editorial control. I also love the writing community here. The support I get is encouraging. It’s always fun reading other people’s work and being able to interact with the other writers. I like the creative blogs whether it is fiction, poetry, art, photography or something similar. These are the ones I go out of my way to check out when I’m looking at the daily blog posts. I also enjoy doing the prompts. Some can be challenging, but they’re great for writing ideas, especially if I’m feeling a bit uninspired at the time.

What don’t you like about WordPress?

I don’t like the new block editor. It seems every time I get used to it WordPress goes and changes it again. The classic editor was easy to use and fairly idiot proof, and I miss it terribly.

There’s also a lot of blogs dedicated to tell you how to do things, such as blogging or how to live, and I prefer to find out how to do things myself. I also resent being told how to write by people with far less experience than myself. I’ve been writing for a long time and over the years I have had many poems and other writings published in magazines and journals around the world. I think I can write reasonably well by now and if someone who has only been writing poetry for a couple of years (and has not been published) wants to tell me how to write poetry, they won’t find me terribly receptive to their posts. That said, I’ve never liked being told what to do.

On the subject of poetry, there’s a lot of not so good poetry on WordPress. I don’t like reading poetry that is didactic and leaves no room for the reader to explore the work. Try to be innovative, try to describe something like it’s never been described before, just don’t ever be bland or flat. If you don’t put any effort into it, then it’s just lazy writing. And, try to have something to say, because if you don’t your poetry runs the risk of just being twee nonsense. I also have an issue with a lot of the haiku here, but I will leave that for another time…

Do you encounter any problems when blogging?

I have dyslexia. It’s mostly when I’m writing that I notice it. There are times, like tonight, when all the words I type are jumbled up and it can be very frustrating as it slows me down. I also have problems with spatial geometry and sometimes I find it hard to interpret an image I’m looking at. One of the writing prompts I do is a photo prompt and sometimes I have to ask them what it is. I also at times leave out words when I’m writing, sometimes it can be a large chunk of a sentence.

Any other issues with blogging?

I wish more people from my own country looked at my blog. Over the years readership from my country has been steadily going downwards, and it’s virtually none at all now. I find that disappointing.

What other things do you like doing?

I love cooking. I like making my own bread and pizzas, but I cook a variety of dishes such as casseroles, curries, jambalaya, gumbo, Italian, Mexican, etc. I love food and I do follow quite a few food blogs.

I collect books (when I can). I love the tactile feel of holding a book especially if it has nice thick paper. Sometimes they are a joy to look through. At the moment I’m wanting to finish getting the History of Middle-earth series in hardcover (most of my Tolkien collection is hardcover now), but that involves dealing with secondhand booksellers and at the moment I can’t afford it.

I enjoy watching films. I like science fiction, fantasy, offbeat, international, and (especially) horror films. I’m also into music (rather eclectic tastes), fantasy roleplaying games, and Magic the Gathering.

Any future plans?

I’m not sure. I used to post a serialised story every week, but the readership for them declined quite considerably so I’ve given up doing that for now. At the moment I’m mostly doing prompt responses. I might do a Dumb Vampires 2 later in the year. To be honest I’m feeling a bit hesitant to do anything too involved, but this may change.

I am intending to publish a couple of eBooks at some point. They will be shorter works. If they’re successful, then I might publish a collection of poetry as well as some other books. Hopefully this process will begin later this year.

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©️2021 Joanne Fisher

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