by David Riley
It's certainly a challenge, having
to write a poem every day for a month. It could be any sort of poem but I
decided when I joined in I would do all mine with 14 lines. This means I
didn't use the prompts thst appeared on the NAPO site periodically,
giving suggestions as to a form to use if you were stuck for ideas. Oh
no, not me. I was much stronger than this. Juts manly jaw.
Plus I had a plan so cunning you could stick a tail on it and easily
mistake it for Reynard. I'd come across a writing exercise which
suggested using other poems as inspiration for your own in a particular
way. That'll do then. Sorted. I just needed 30, 14 line poems and Robert
is your mother's brother.
That was the theory and it worked. For a bit. Then I started to
scrat around for suitably inspiring stuff (doing this hand to mouth, as
it were, makes it trickier than I thought it would be). Plus I wanted to
do stuff of my own, without the need for this method. It was do-able
and it was done...but...
This became a bit of a treadmill. There was no time to revise poems
among other things. Also, I tend to write poetry in a very narrative
style and need to practise changing that, which NAPOWRIMO didn't give me
the chance to do; it was a matter of finish something and add it to the
blog. Overall I suppose I'm fairly happy with 10% of what I put up
there and they can be revisited and reworked. The rest might form
something, eventually.
Would I do it again? It was good to join in with others and suffer
together. As for developing as a poet? I don't think so. I need to work
on certain things and this didn't allow that, so on balance, fun but not
very useful.
David,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your writing throughout the month of April. It was first rate on a daily basis.
Ash
David,
ReplyDeleteI think I agree and disagree with the things you are saying here. As for the posting a poem a day, I lasted until about day 12/13 before just not having anything to put there at all (and subsequently abandoning the ship). The thing is though, by day 13ish I had actually got a few ideas in my notebook going spare- just not spare enough to rush through for the sake of a blog perhaps only the contributors were reading. These ideas all made their ways into various other ideas and at the moment, I can actually say I've got things on the back burner which is nice.
I didn't manage the full poems every day but was still engaging in the process of writing everyday- albeit whilst kicking myself for getting behind. I have taken the habit of engaging in writing daily from the month. For a procrastinator like me, that has to be a good thing.
PS If I do it again next year, I'm stealing your tactic ;)
Shaun
I tried NaNoWriMo last year, and didn't get far. The plot wasn't formed properly and the pressure to make the minimum words every evening just sucked the enjoyment out of it. I work better with a little self discipline, but doing it because I have an idea, not writing words to fill a page. I agree with your sentiments David, it must have been difficult to come up with something brand new every day but you managed it well.
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