Well, here we are folks – the countdown to April is hours away. Pens at the ready…
I am delighted to catch up with the preliminary posts over at Napowrimo.net, whilst simultaneously filling in a slightly abandoned poetry diary. Or more accurately an overflowing inbox. Several diary dates have been filled for the next few weeks with Book Launches, meetings and events and I have recently taken a booking which excites me.
March 29th a post about Spine Poetry – which many of us have probably tried. Only a week ago I found some old photos of mine from 2021 where in a Lockdown workshop we were all creating just that. In the spirit of NaPo I’m sharing one of mine as well as those which struck me from the linked page Spine Poems. And in case you need further clarification this simple, clear explanation can be found on the resource page.
States of Mind – Book Spine Poem – Nina Lewis 2021
They are great fun to create – you can set limits too:
Constrict yourself with timing/ set a stopwatch
Books all over the house?! Restrict the area of the house you can reap resources from (only books on X shelf, or only from this room)
Only use hardbacks
Only use softbacks
Use only Non-Fiction titles
Or you could try a core theme and then mix the books up until you’re happy with the spine poem (which seemed to be a method used in the resource)
I spent some time looking through the suggested resource and these are my cherry picked pickings, a few of these blew me away:
And this was my bonus find! There’s always GOLD in NaPoWriMo! WOW! Birthday list…
So I hope you find some time to go and play with books and create some Spine Poems of your own.
A new folder has been created on a very tired and old laptop – here we are… nearly ready for NaPoWriMo (I can’t bring myself to call it GloPoWriMo – despite the nice ring and the GLOBAL phenomena stretched from origins in the US).
Head over to the official site. If you haven’t seen the annual posts in these waters and this is the first you’ve heard about NaPoWriMo check the About page out.
It’s a joy to read Maureen Thorson’s first post from nearly 10 days ago: read it in full here.
On your marks, get set, POETRY! No sooner than we break for summer – I’m back in my poetry/sorting out the house skin! There is a certain bliss attached to life without an alarm clock, the way the mind works more fluidly if you haven’t forced it out of dreamtime too soon. That said, of course my natural body-clock does not realise we’ve finished and is still waking me up at 6 AM!
To be fair the diary has been pretty fully booked over the past few weeks. I am limbered up and ready! So far my notebook has two workshops in it from this summer and I am looking forward to having an open enough mind for writing, finally working on my 2nd manuscript (whilst re-submitting the 1st) and getting organised to enjoy the final quarter of the year (and perhaps the rest of my life) in a tidy house! I may even get my office space before Christmas! Which is great as my contract completed and I am back to a sporadic freelance lifestyle.
My first workshop was with Red Earth Arts (REA) and the wonderful Sara Jane Arbury, it resulted in 3 draft poems a couple of which I am happy to work on.
It was a pure delight to spend my first holiday morning in a virtual room of poets, some of whom I have come to know well since Lockdown.
The 2nd day of my holiday I attended a workshop by Sean Lionadh. I didn’t know what to expect (which is always exciting). It is part of a series (the creative non-fiction happened before I finished work) and the theme is centred around the annual competition for the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF) which happens in October.
The Poetry workshop will be led by Sean Lìonadh, a poet, writer and filmmaker from Glasgow, known for his visual poem Time for Love which reached millions of people online, won a 2019 Royal Television Society award and was translated into five languages. It also inspired a Ted talk and led to the publication of his first poetry collection, Not Normal Anymore. His short film Too Rough screened at over 90 international festivals, winning over 30 awards including a BAFTA Scotland, BIFA and Grand Jury Prize at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival in 2022.
It was a hard workshop to begin with (a Venn diagram was involved – we use them for assessment at work and as anyone in the profession will know we have been neck deep in statistics and results since May), so it took all my strength to stay with it. When people shared their Venn’s though… oh, my. Such bravery and vulnerability. With Art or the Arts in the centre of it all.
We then went on to look at some of Sean’s work – both in film and poetry before using his steps to create Revolution poems of our own.
I had no idea at the beginning of the exercise what would come out! But a lot did. I need to unpack it and work on it – especially as it is a little ranty. But the bones are good.
It was a wonderfully intense couple of hours and I have a book filled with notes.
~ It has since been edited with support and is now an almost completely different poem. I spent some time re-researching my facts as the time I was writing about was a few years ago now. It rested for days not weeks, I will now leave it a while before I assess whether the new poem is an improvement. It has been hacked rather than whittled. I feel that’s a good thing. Time will tell.
It has been a while since a Verve Reading. When I saw this event I was excited that it would be in my holiday. Verve Poetry Press continues to go from strength to strength and this reading was a great mix of poetry. And all poets were new discoveries for me.
Dide started by telling us about the collection, the structure, meaning and themes covered. Gems like this are always intriguing to me and I think, valuable to an audience who may be hearing the poems for the first time. I love that there is a poem you can create from reading the footnotes.
talking about her collection MAKING SENSE how it is structured and what it means. Themes covered. April release. The poem you can find by reading the footnotes. MAKING SENSE was released in April and you can find more information below.
Dide’s poems are packed with strong lines, they are cosmic, surreal and poignant: The Professor of loneliness // a murder of messages // heartbreak has its own hysteria – were particularly striking. Some of her poems on body chimed with those in my current manuscript, I was interested in what rested alongside them.
Tim Tim Cheng was next, originally from Hong Kong and currently living in the UK, her work plays with language, her love of language rises from her wordplay. There’s a lot of popular culture and clever depth in her poems too. And Sarah Howe endorsed her pamphlet! I love Sarah Howe’s work.
Her pamphlet Tapping at Glass came out with Verve in February – details of the book below.
Some of the poems she shared were about the body, displacement, things which enraged her, she also uses Chinese mythology. Notes to Impossibility and How do you spell (in Chinese)? are fabulous. Her work contains striking lines: what if words sweep me away more than housing me // when you’re gone I grow inwards like bark // losing track of time in the library of everything.
Then we had a reading from Golnoosh Nour, from her pamphlet Impure Thoughts, which was published in November 2022.
The poems in this pamphlet are tenacious and feisty, a focus on bisexuality and body desire. There’s woven narrative and event after event in the poems shared. She bravely shared some new work too.
Her poetry is energetic and forceful. Some brilliant lines:
sit close to you in a lack lustre dinner party without anyone noticing // your obsession with analysis hurts my instinct //
And finally Ana Seferovic read from MATERINA, which was the newest release as it came out this month.
MATERINA is described as a poem novel. Based on being an outsider and collective trauma it builds like a dark fairy tale. Ana Seferovic treated us to several extracts. An absorbing read (listen). Interesting occurences with the language translated between Serbian and English and English to Serbian. We arrive in a no-mans-land. Incredibly moving and some hefty lines:
//and her mother bringing the truth from the daylight // giant shining silver fish // that numbness was all we knew // truth was broken by a bullet in the peace // strangely wrapped geometries beneath my feet // and in that rupture the bird sings //
Ana’s poetic & philosophical narrative is incredible. Spellbinding.
Phynne Belle is a poet I met online back in the Lockdown, she runs series/events online but is based in the US so the time difference means that I haven’t attended many. She also comes along to some of the UK events I frequent. So when I saw she was offering a night (day for her) wordplay, I couldn’t resist.
The workshop was with David Leo Sirois. I haven’t had quite as much fun with words since a workshop with John Hegley, or back in 2020 when I had the delight of discovering the Oulipo* poets. In case you haven’t had the pleasure yet…
*Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Workshop for Potential Literature), a group of writers and mathematicians formed in France in 1960 by poet Raymond Queneau and mathematician François Le Lionnais.
I had a great time, it was a lovely group to workshop with and included a number of familiar faces I used to see often during Lockdown. It was good to reconnect, By the end it was a little late for my newly-holidayed brain – but I have a couple of poems I can work on and some exercises that would be good to use with a first coffee as a warm up sometime in the future.
I attended the launch of The Alchemy Spoon Issue 10. It was a great reading and exciting to hear a range of new (to be) voices alongside familiar ones. Great to be part of an enthusiastic audience, some great Guest Editor tips from Tamsin Hopkins. Some poets couldn’t make the reading but had sent videos, which I was glad about as they delivered superb poems. I was going to list all the poets, but I can go one better than that as I just discovered it has been uploaded so you can have a watch/listen too.
I’ve had a couple of days away from the computer, racked up hours sorting – lots of recycling and bag emptying, sorted a box for charity and have put aside (yes, there is a bit of a side to put) a bag of books I hope some youngsters in our family will enjoy.
I finished working the Drama job for the summer, made a trip to the library (borrowed a lot of kickstart material) and even managed to see family for lunch, which was a celebration in memory of a very loved and important person.
Mr G. is taking a break too so we are catching up with each other. And I FINALLY made some submissions!
You are more than halfway there but you’re feeling the burn. This post is for you.
This weekend rather than gather the ever growing NaPo statistics, I thought I’d go for motivation.
Whether this is the first time you have attempted 30 poems in 30 days or if it’s old hat you reach a point where you want to down tools and run away. This is natural. Work through the burn and carry on. If that’s too much, distract yourself for a bit until you are ready to face another challenge. Skip a day or two if you have to. You may find time another day to tackle more than one prompt to catch up or decide to let them go. I have done all of the above since I started the challenge back in 2014.
Writing IS a challenging process and anyone who has attempted to write a novel (or even a novella) will tell you that motivation can be a challenge. As is complete loss of confidence. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Not everyone is a pianist – but walk up to a piano, hit a key and you made a note.
Whatever you do – know that it’s right for you and forgive yourself. If you want to forge ahead but you feel you’re flailing try these tips:
If you following Maureen’s site the prompts always come with rich resources and poems. I always approach each day in chunks, I do it chronologically but sometimes mix it up.
Divide into three sections (Featured poem(s)/ Featured Journal/ Prompt)
As writers some of us are more creative in the morning, others late at night. There will be days you are time poor and busy, be flexible, adjust. If this means writing on your phone or a post-it note, or recording an audio note – then do it.
Choose the best time of day for you to write.
Change it up when you can – you will be surprised how different free writing becomes.
Remember NaPoWriMo is not about being perfect, it isn’t about editing. You will create a bundle of poems which would not otherwise exist, you will know of more poets and journals by the end of April and you will have some material ready to edit as we head towards June!
You have managed over a week, over a quarter of the NaPoWriMo challenge. At this point you will fall somewhere between exhausted and rejuvenated. This weekend post should help you reach some balance because if you’re already attempting 30 poems in 30 days… YOU ARE AWESOME!
This week you’ve read at least 30 poems (or 31 if you did the Early Bird) and probably more, as who can visit a magazine and only read a couple of poems? Plus you would have read your own work back to yourself. So the actual number is probably way over 40!
40 poems in a week… for those of us who read collections that may not be unusual, but it’s certainly good practice to read widely and I can guarantee this week’s reading will have lodged sprinkles of muse inside your minds for later! By reading a few extra poems in the journals and including my own work I have read 56 poems.
Of course, you may have fallen behind and feel intimidated by these numbers. Don’t be. At the very least you started and who’s counting anyway! Just keep going. You will have read more than if you weren’t attempting NaPoWriMo at all!
You will have written at least 9 poems. If you’re taking part in Nina’s NaPo Challenge there will be 18 new poems in your stack.
In addition you may be using the PAD challenge or others – go careful if you’re working through multiple prompts, in previous years I have saved some lists for May/June… there was that year I wrote 99! But I wouldn’t recommend such pressure.
Whatever you do and however many poems you managed to write – KEEP IT FUN!
I have written 10, as I did the Early Bird prompt.
But NaPo is much more than a numbers game. You will feel all sorts of positive emotions from being part of NaPoWriMo 2022! You may have found community, new followers, a new poet or poem to love, an answer to a question, a joy for writing and/or a release.
Let us know how it has been for you in the comments and don’t forget to find some time to relax too!
NaPoWriMo certainly gets to the heart of things. I enjoy April every year for the gifts of words and focus on poetry. I give myself permission to write a lot of rubbish, but every year there are a handful of poems created with a glow, many of these go on to be published in magazines, anthologies and my own collections.
I have collated this post to link to previous NaPo posts on the blog. So you won’t have to wait until tomorrow to warm up!
Last year’s warm up post – including some of the history of NaPoWriMo (rebranded GloPoWriMo – as it is now (and has been for a while) a Global phenomenon. I just can’t switch to calling it GloPo).
There will be some 2022 Early Bird posts arriving at the NaPo site over the next couple of days. I know they start live posting on the 15th March. Here’s a link to the 2020 Early Bird writing prompts.
On one of my many internet searches a few weeks ago (for something completely different to this), I came across this website and signed up for Melanie Steele’s Guided Meditations.
They only take 5 minutes and land in your inbox along with a simple writing prompt weekly. This could just be the breather you’re looking for!
For the Writer’s Soul is dedicated to supporting and inspiring writers. Our courses, meditations, and retreats help writers dispel the myths that hold them back, find their passion and their voice, and embrace the writer they can and should be.
Your Guide
Melanie has spent years helping people find, embrace, and become their best selves. She has over 12 years of teaching and coaching experience, and she has been guiding writers through Retreat for the Writer’s Soul for more than 6 years. Through these guided meditations, she provides a beautiful combination of support, guidance, and inspiration.
Sadly October has not turned out as I planned. At the end of the 1st week of the month I underwent an operation and am currently convalescing and undergoing daily outpatient appointments.
Our FREE Online Writing Retreat at the end of October is still going ahead – it is always the final weekend of the month. This year the 27th/28th October.
Guest Writers will be revealed on Friday and I am delighted this will be the 6th annual INKSPILL.
I will not be posting on the blog this month as healing well is paramount, however, I hope you will join me for INKSPILL… spread the word!
We all find ourselves in the dreaded dip from time to time, unsurprisingly the pressure of a new year and new goals is enough to send the most sturdy writer over the edge… so I have put together this motivational post just for you.
Remember pursuing a writing career is a guarantee you will face rejection, find projects stall and possibly feel no confidence in your ability. But remember this is what you want to do, this is what you live for, this is enjoying work on those good days in a way you never could before. For those times when your world is rocking, it is all worth it and all part of this path you have chosen.
The best way to deal with it is to learn the tricks, keep the dream alive and know even the greatest feel this way from time to time.
Rejection is not personal
Sometimes maybe the writing wasn’t up to scratch but more often than not it doesn’t fit alongside accepted work, may not be the taste of a particular editor, may be too similar to work which has already been published/accepted.
The main thing is – rejection – means you are submitting your work, which is an achievement in itself. If the writing is good it will find a place eventually and sometimes that place is a better match than the place you initially sought acceptance from.
It won’t make it hurt any less, but it is normal. Normal to be rejected and normal to feel a bit dejected by it.
TLC
I do not reward myself when I get writing accepted, unless you count mentally doing the happy dance, but I do commiserate myself when I read a rejection.
Do something that refocuses or lifts you for a while. Go for a walk, read a chapter of a book (if you can still bear to hold one in your hands), try a few relaxation exercises, watch a comedy show, or even eat cake. Do something that makes you feel better. Just something between 10-30 minutes just to get your mindset shifted.
The best thing is to send something else out there (as long as your writing is ready) a flight of new hope, then move on.
Create Deadlines
Of course you know the actual submission deadline. We all miss them from time to time (learn to forgive yourself and let go). In Life Coaching* we always break goals down into smaller steps. Each chunk needs a deadline. These skills can be transferred to how you work as a writer.
*I qualified as a Life Coach in 2007.
Commitment
Allocate enough writing time to achieve your goals. Yes! I am well aware there is never enough writing time and few of us are lucky enough to fulfil a full-time writing career, but every dream needs commitment otherwise it is just a wish/ wishy washy.
So take yourself seriously and allow it.
Give priority to your writing time.
Speaking of time…
Time
Discover when the best time for your writing is. I tend to be best early in the morning both at the beginning of the day before lunchtime and now at 1 AM in the morning.
I organise my writing day so I am actually producing at my optimum times and fit the admin tasks and chores and everything else into the time that my writing brain isn’t in prime working mode.
We are all different. It takes a while to find out what is the best time for you, but it is worth bearing it in mind.
Note: A few hours before deadline is really not the best time for quality writing/editing.
Once you know when to write you can learn how to write. Allowing yourself 1 hour can be more productive than allocating an entire afternoon. Some people work in blocks of 25 minutes ‘The Pomodoro technique’, I tend to find that I need longer to write but I do take my breaks to do other things in blocks of 20 minutes.
Lists
Mr G. used to laugh at my TO DO LISTS as they would always have wash hair, breakfast etc. on them. He knew these were not things I would forget to do. I explained they enabled me to tick something off before 10 AM.
My lists have come a long way since then, I rarely put shower/hair on them anymore. They will include a little box of chores that need attention to make sure I do not get too lost in the admin and the writing and there is an important point. It no longer amazes me, but for years it did – the amount of admin a writer has. You could easily fill whole days without actually getting any writing done and so when you are scheduling your time allow yourself the discipline of actually writing. I used to work on a laptop that didn’t recognise we have Internet.
Nowadays I am better on focusing on one job at a time and avoiding social media/internet distractions (don’t judge me, but I never needed the LOLCats).
What alchemy is this? The magic of lists. I simply write 2 or 3 things at a time that need to be completed and keep adding. If you write a long list of everything your brain will freak out at the sight of it and this is not good for creativity and free flowing thoughts.
Plan your time and reward yourself.
RELATED LINKS:
From INKSPILL (Our online Annual Writing Retreat) 2014
Most of us have them right? They may be long term, monthly or daily or a combination of all three… but just like New Year Resolutions we fall off that wagon a lot don’t we? We get too tired, or procrastinate by doing housework, paperwork or reading the news. We blog to feel like we are writing, we get trapped on social networks and suddenly it’s the afternoon and we have nothing accomplished.
Well, you have made a start in the right direction this weekend because you are here, gifting yourself writing time.
Motivate Your Mindset
Long term goals are necessary but can often feel far away and can make us feel unaccomplished on a daily level.
Try to start small. Sit for an hour to write or use a word count limit. Remember to reward yourself for this.
The reward is key here because the satisfaction of writing isn’t tangible and sometimes we know we have put the time in but the result is bad writing, so it becomes too easy to beat ourselves up and lose motivation. Avoid the ‘what’s the point valley’!
Sit for a while and create a list of rewards.
Scroll down to see mine.
A glass of wine.
A soak in the bath with luxury products.
Half an hour reading.
A coffee and a magazine.
£1.00 in the kitty for a retail treat.
An episode of a favourite TV programme. (I am a writer I watch far less TV than I used to!)
A walk in the park.
A coffee and cake at a favourite cafe.
Go out for a drink. (I am a poet, most of my social outings are work!)
A foot spa/ face mask/ pamper
Make sure your list is personal to you, it has to include things you really want/to do, otherwise what is the point of working towards your reward?
It also needs to be something you can do easily after you achieve your writing goal. You may want to return to your writing space and repeat another hour of writing afterwards. I wouldn’t recommend gin/wine options as rewards unless you have reached the end of your daily writing. Although Hemingway would beg to differ!
Your reward has to be special, it shouldn’t be something you would normally do. TV for me is an indulgence nowadays. If I watch any at all it is on the planner or to spend time with Mr. G.
The Coaching Secrets
The secret of motivation: you provide your own motivation and we all know hard work reaps rewards, eventually. ‘You get out what you put in’ and all that.
The secret of the reward: after several months of tracking daily writing with rewards you will reprogram your brain. You will associate writing as a good thing not some painful, uphill endurance task.
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