Telling Stories

I made it writing a poem daily for National Poetry Month 2010! Whew! I wipe my brow in completing this undertaking. And I salute all the participants for their stick-to-it-iveness. (I did write that out.) You can check them out as many are in my poet blog links.

Writing a poem daily is fun. But, don’t think it’s not a strain. And, writing in public to prompts does not lessen the pressure at all. Still, I’m glad I went the distance.

Now, if you take the time to read my poetry and the prompts, you will see that I came pretty close most of the time. In fact, any deviance from the prompt would be due to misinterpreting the meaning of the prompt. What can I say? It happens. You may also notice that some of the titles leave much to be desired. These are the markings of drafts in the true sense of its meaning.

What’s Next

Now comes the time to review, to edit and revise what I tried to say through my poems this month. I’ll have to see if I can remember how to fit my titles to the poems, like some of the great poetry I read this month. My plan is to revise the poems while keeping them really close to the original poem. It’s the most authentic, and it’s the rules too.

Submitting: If you participated in writing a poem daily and are hoping to be included in the anthology, the submission instructions are up at Read Write Poem. The deadline is May 7, so don’t delay in selecting and preparing your poems according to the guidelines set forth.

And after That

As of today, Read Write Poem is no longer a live site. It’s shut down to new members, to comments, to group activities, to everything except the repository of poems posted there. And what a collection it is, for your reading pleasure! Now’s my chance to go back and read the poems I missed during the month.

I’ve visited several of the community sites that are springing up and being revitalized as a result of the closing of Read Write Poem. They are community sites that offer poem prompts. I find I enjoy using prompts and seeing where they take me. The ones that have my attention so far, are linked in my sidebar by way of their respective banners. They’re worth checking out.

They don’t offer poems daily. For example, Writer’s Island has Saturday prompts with the first one today, already posted.

Time for Review

Posting about poets I enjoy: For my next one, it’s down to two from my bookshelves. Either way, I’ll be reading and exploring someone that I enjoy a great deal. Getting to know the writing of others is big schooling for me.

Poetry books on tap: Frances Mayes’ The Discovery of Poetry and John Drury’s Creating Poetry. I do this because 30 day poem sprints always make me want to go back to school.

What’s on your poetry agenda? What poetry communities have captured your attention? Leave a comment about what’s next for you, or link to your blog post.

Today begins the challenge to write a poem a day, to the prompts from Read Write Poem. This morning’s prompt offers an interesting challenge. And this is one reason I enjoy writing to prompts from others: they take me in directions I may not have considered.

If you have no plans for NaPoWriMo, visit the links in my sidebar for NaPoWriMo 2010 activities. Visit Read Write Poem to see all that’s going on! There’s likely to be something that interests you. And the posts are very well connected so you can get the full breadth of what’s up for grabs, without missing a beat.

I’m signed up and ready to go! I got my first poem in my email today. And I believe I may even have a theme to write to for this month as well. I’d been toying with the idea. And I think Pamela Villars may have pushed me over to the side of a thematic effort.

Good luck to us all! Remember to enjoy the effort! I’ll be reading the poems posted as time permits. I look forward to reading yours too. And I hope to hear from you along in the month.

Today is midway of the month. Only 16 days left to be ready to write a poem daily. And really that’s not so bad. I have done that periodically for a few years now. Often writing two or three poems in a sitting.

The challenge is to whip one into shape to be a decent draft to post. This year will be my first time posting a new poem daily for the entire month of April!

Prompts to go Further

My challenge is increased by having to write to prompts. I had planned to continue writing to prompts through the first quarter of this year. That plan got away from me easily since it was easy to let things get in the way of the work of writing to prompts. My mistake. I should have kept up the practice.

I participated in the November with Poetic Asides PAD chapbook challenge. (The first versions are online in case you dare to look, not the edited ones I submitted.) I succeeded in writing a poem for each day, even if not on that day. The hard part for me was the push to write from daily prompts someone else set for me.

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I was going to pick a new poetry form for February. But, I’ve decided to continue the exploration of Haiku because my month is shortened. Two trips to New Orleans in thirty days, (I’ll be back in Houston on Wednesday), and new website work (for a site I built) mean that I must focus my attentions away from this blog for a short time.

I’m still writing. In fact, I’ve been working on several Haiku verses that I’ll post when I return home. My Haiku exploration was interesting and fun, and quite a pleasure to explore. I do believe I learned a few things. So, with all this in mind, I’ll extend my foray into Haiku instead of starting on a new poetic form.

For now, I just want to share a quick post about the excitement in the city of New Orleans.
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End of the year necessarily brings thoughts, plans, goals, dreams for the new year. It is so for many, and I, too, get caught up in the fiery frenzy of looking forward. I have good, ambitious plans for the new year, and the drive to work toward them. And, I have a formidable measure of doubt, that I know better than to dismiss. If I’m not careful, that doubt can transform into a bulwark against progress, becoming a veritable guardian of any falling short on my part. I’ve learned that the best fight against this obstacle is to see it for what it is, and keep moving forward.

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Mom watching the Snow
Originally uploaded by ShariLS

This year the snow came early and it fell in abundance. It makes me feel hopeful about EVERYTHING!

As soon as I heard it was snowing, I was ecstatic! It doesn’t snow often here in Missouri City, Texas. And this is really early in the year for it too. I captured some really nice shots that I’ll be uploading to my Flickr account over the next few days.

Where the Inspiration led Me

It made me think of the possibilities of all that I want to accomplish in the coming year. I was inspired to increase my probabilities of success, just because it makes sense today. I want to start out aggressively. That way if I taper off (as I usually do) I should have moved forward quickly enough to be able to coast a bit.

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I was all set to tell you about my new adventure when something happened! While surfing and tweeting, I came across some great tweets from someone I just started following, @inkyelbows. And I found a new adventure.

What I was going to tell you before my distraction was that I’m going to try NaNoWriMo again this year. Last year I signed up and didn’t get much further than that. Last year, I signed up on November 1, and fell apart shortly thereafter.

This year I gave myself a little more warning, little more time for self-talk, tools and ideas. Time to play around with the endeavor and sort of slide into next month like it was any other November.

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Do you ever wonder about what it is that motivates you to do a thing? I think about it all the time. Why do I feel such an affinity for putting thoughts on paper. What inspires me about taking pictures? What is the draw of collecting, recording and expressing life events?

It’s like asking the question of the key to life. I can’t answer it. I’ve never met anyone who could–and I’ve met some pretty smart people. Suffice it to say, I am very much enjoying the journey, exploring as I can.

Thank You

This is the place I’ve chosen to share the explorer side of my activities. If I have no audience, that’s alright too. Because inherent in this action, is the fact of expression. It’s nice that people read my work, don’t get me wrong. But, it saves me from exploding just to have the venue to get it out. So whether you comment or not, stay a while or leave shortly, I’m really glad you came by.

Up Next

This month, since I have done very little with it, I want to explore posting images. So it’s a good time, also, to update my Flickr account and see about linking to there from here. I do hope you’ll come back and see what I come up with.

If you’ve decided to switch things up a bit recently, let me know about your experiences. As always, you are welcome to share your thoughts. Leave a comment, tell me you put it in a post at your site. I’ll come by and read it.