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Where are you from?

So, I grew up in South East England in a little coastal town called Swalecliffe right by the sea and lived pretty much around that area for most of my life, until recently, in which I just quit my job, packed up the apartment and moved my entire existence away from my family and everything I knew to Calgary in Canada. Safe to say it’s been quite the experience so far but it’s definitely taught me a thing or two!

How long have you been writing?

Erm consistently, around three years I would say but it all stemmed from when I was about sixteen/seventeen but back then it was very infrequently and honestly, I had this massive obsession with old English language and the concept of religion (the good and bad), I guess to some degree you could say Shakespeare was definitely an inspiration then. But since then I’ve definitely found ‘myself’ and ‘my style’, if you will, and it’s probably the farthest thing from that now (laughs).

What do you write about?

Everything and anythi- well no. As easy as it would be to say I write about how I feel and my thoughts, I don’t. I guess to some degree yes, I touch upon aspects of my past and my emotions with certain topics but this if often just a catalyst for my expressionism, I guess you could say I’m a sympathiser of human emotion as I do love to invoke it. I like to connect with my audience and everyone is going through different things, so somewhere down the line I could have been there too, to good and the bad, so I just like to bring all aspects of life, love, heartbreak, comfort and hygge to life… in words.

What inspires your to writing?

Everything and anythi- oh sorry I’ve already used this one haven’t I! (laughs).

Seriously though it can be anything from an overheard word at a coffee shop, to a leaf hitting my arm as I walk down the street or even the sound of next doors overly loud washing machine. The situation doesn’t even define the context I could end up writing something so unrelated and that’s the beauty of it. But on a personal level, being an author and a writer cements my existence for longer than I can as a human. As he whispers that took a darker turn didn’t it and smiles. But no, hear me out, my book can now be available to buy, potentially forever… I hope… which means no matter where I am in life or on my own timeline, I can connect with someone and their emotions, even if I’m beyond it. Now that, keeps my mind working.

How do you write – lap top, pen, paper, in bed, at a desk?

Honestly, just on my phone which when said now just sounds unexciting and lame but it’s always on me and I can open the notes app in like three point six seconds if I really tried. So no matter where I am I can always write what I’m thinking or need to express there and then with minimal hassle. I do have a gorgeous leather notepad and ink pen that I used to use to write things on to post on Instagram, but just for everyday jotting it has to be my phone.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

So I wouldn’t say this is a quirk at all but the think I kind of like about it is that it is rarely ever edited, like RARELY. Yes maybe a few are polished slightly and have a few words edited and move around for layout purposes, but I would say ninety five percent of all my work written and published is completely raw, in regards it being the same as I originally wrote it. Like this isn’t me bragging about how I think what I write is so good it’s too perfect to edit, it’s just that’s the way I am. I end up either writing something and being like “oooh yeah okay I feel that” or I’ll reread it and just not get the vibes I wanted, let it stew for a few days then decide whether I deem it good enough for one of my books or it goes in the bin, metaphorically of course.

What writing are you most proud of?

So being very honest with myself I’m not always ‘so hyped’ about many of my pieces. Obviously I’m happy with them and I like them but it’s very often that I’m really proud of something I wrote myself. I wrote the piece below recently actually and it blew up, to some degree, on Instagram. I was very unsure of it as it was the first time I had experimented with using brackets in a piece and doing something a little more poetic that I was to some degree used to, but yeah I got so much positive feedback from it! Loads of my regular followers and friends really hyped it up and a few big Instagram accounts picked it up and shared it, so that just really helped my confidence with being able to play outside of the box.
So here is the piece that’s kind of really kick started my writing confidence and yeah, I’m slightly proud of this one, or at least what it allowed me to become.

Between a fallen sun
(imminent orange hue)
and the reflective sea
(death before I knew it)
is the burning image of
your silhouetted smile
that failed to erase itself
from my salt ridden eyes.
Not another goodbye.

–when will you become the moon too.

How did you develop your writing?

Learnt to accept that I am not everyone else and that to succeed I don’t need to be assessing writing trends or trying to take the best of the people I idolise. They are doing well because they are doing them and I’ve slowly started to accept that authenticity builds a better foundation for development than anything else. I like to think my readers are coming to read my work every day because well… I’ve written it… and they like how I’ve written it and expressed a certain something. I’m not sure if that sounds entitled or not but entirely believe self-validation (not that it always lasts) stems for better writing and not constantly acknowledging the crowd helps creativity. Then on the complete contrary, being aware of the crowd and engaging with fellow writers can plant concepts and ideas that could lead to a variety of branches to explore. Finding that balance of being involved as a human and an individual as a writer, I think that was it. I think…

What is hardest – getting published, writing or marketing?

They all suck. Getting published is fighting a company, writing is fighting yourself and marketing is fighting everyone else, but it’s all a process and baby steps always prevail, as it’s better than not moving forward. Being entirely honest with you I fell into my publishing agreement and I was incredibly lucky off the bat, I knew of someone using my now publishers and I simply mustered up the courage and sent a fairly impersonal email (as well I believe personality needs to shine through and formalities become boring), but yeah that was it… they read my email, loved it and we arranged a time to speak on the phone then from then on out I was represented by Leaf Publishing House and they were amazing so unfortunately, I cannot really comment on the whole being published side of it. Writing it a different ball game as you personally have to decide your own works validation and if you’re in a certain mood you can even disregard your own work because of it. I know for a fact there has been times where I’ve had a stressful day and I’ve got writers block and then suddenly something comes to me but the world sucks and it’s on fire, so I hate it or it’s not how I want it to be or any other silly little reason. I think with writing you just need to be open in the sense that something you write may not appear to be on your favourites list straight away, always keep spare notes or unfinished pieces as they themselves can blossom with some air and sunshine. Marketing, again, I can’t really comment on as I haven’t done much myself across many platforms. I’m an avid Instagram user and very rarely use Facebook or Twitter so I kind of know my way around a hashtag and insights enough to become an active member of the Instagram community, but half of it is luck with algorithms and trends. Being in the poetry game doesn’t make things much easier as it’s a fairly niche market, so I’m either trying to market towards other poets or readers that may enjoy it and to some degree we are all trying to do the same thing, market our own books (laughs). I’ll get there some day and I’ll come back to this question if I learn the tricks of the trade.

How do you work through periods of self-doubt or fears?

Sulk for days – I wish I was joking but this can be me. Other times I’ll snap myself out of it instantly and be like “nah George you’ve got this, people will want to read your ramblings”. It can honestly vary from week to week but I always attempt to find that ‘reset button’ as quickly as I can whether that’s going for a walk along the river and grabbing a coffee or simply taking myself aside and forming a rational conversation with my own consciousness that creates a productive plan. Negativity causes more stress than it’s worth more often than not let’s be truthful here (or harbour it for some quality aggressive/solemn writing!) and it just needs to be cleared away to allow for you to see the bigger picture, the end goal. Nothing in life is a straight line nor is it always in sight. I won’t be selling hundreds of books or have ten thousand plus followers, but I can aim to sell twenty and have two thousand followers eh! Baby steps, consistent positive baby steps.

Do you have suggestions on how to become a better writer?

Time, confidence, experience, experimenting… the list just goes on and I reckon it’s different for everyone. I see a lot on social media that people are saying like “oh you need to be writing every day” and this and that. I might write three pieces in one day and that will be it for the week, you know. I think yes you should be writing but time in the sense of time allows you to learn how you want to write and what you want to write about, I still see so many writers and I’m like “Damn I wish I could write like that” but then I just sort of ground myself and remember that it’s simply not me. As a writer I’m just not this deep poetical angel and attempting to do so will hinder my creativity, so being myself one hundred percent developed me and it still does to this day but don’t doubt there are times I still have to ground myself. Time and being yourself really comes hand in hand with experimenting (I think anyway) as well, how do you know a raspberry and pecan latte sucks if you don’t try it (I can’t say I’ve tried that one myself but go with it). I picked up a book the other day in which the word okay was just sporadically typed at all angles, like don’t get me wrong I don’t truly connect with that but I can definitely feel the vibe that artist is getting at, I feel like I’ve made a point here but maybe not. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. Go look at it from a tree and don’t be afraid to paint it in all yellow ink.

Do you have anything specific you’d like to tell the readers?

Well first of all thank you for reading! It means a lot for me to be able to share my story a little and discuss these things with you which I’ve really enjoyed. The secondly that to any of you that have or may read my work, thank you for connecting with me and I hope that on some fundamental or primal aspect I have been able to share a situation with you at some point in your life despite the fact that we haven’t ever met or shared an exchange. Isn’t that just the beauty of writing and community. Then lastly, just keep yourself healthy and safe and if any of you feel down or anything please make sure you reach out to those around you, humans are social creatures and we deal with problems best as a society which may not seem true at first but trust me, someone somewhere will listen and can offer a helping hand. Even if it’s me.

Visit the author’s website here https://thepoetgdbubb.wixsite.com/home

Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/g.d.bubb/

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