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Posts tagged ‘poetry’

Nov 14

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Improve your power of observation: Write a poem a day

Do you want to be more observant? Try this: Write a poem a day.

I’ve been trying it and it’s taken my observational skills up a notch. Even if you don’t see yourself as a poet, try it anyway. Not only will you enhance your ability to see more of the world around you, you’ll begin to tune into your writing in a new way. You’ll become more conscious of words and their connotations. These skills will carry over into other forms of writing that you do.

Here are several tips that might help:

1. First, don’t freak out. Relax and just tell yourself that you’re going to go with the flow. You don’t have to write completely polished poems here. Just write. Your poem doesn’t even have to be “finished” the day you write it. Shoot for having a “draft.” Read more

Nov 9

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Write from the heart to capture your reader’s heart

Sometimes, I forget the simple things. Working on my fantasy novel, I’ve been caught up in figuring out plot points and events and looking at the larger picture which is great–all stuff that needs to be done. But I’ve also been reminded lately of the most important aspect of telling a good story–writing from the heart.

I gave a poetry reading last weekend with two other poets and several people came up after the reading to tell me their favorite poems. In every case, they were the poems that I wrote one hundred percent from the heart–from that space of total abandon and honesty. Read more

Oct 11

How do you know when your poem or story is done?

How do you know when your novel, short story, or poem is finished?

I tend to work on a poem over a series of days or months. I’ll come back to a poem in progress days or weeks later and see a word or phrase that didn’t work because I was too close to it the first time I wrote it.

I listen as I read the lines to myself aloud to decide if something doesn’t sound right. If something doesn’t ring true or feels awkward, or if the poem just doesn’t feel complete or whole, I know I’m not done.  Read more

Oct 5

Discover your art as you go along

Write something truly awful to find the good stuff. That’s what poet Brendan Constantine promotes in his post “Idle Hands are the Poet’s Playground: Brendan Constantine on Taking a Chance.”

“Furthermore, it will always be true that our poorest work lies ahead of us. We’re going to write something truly awful in the future. We have to. Why do we have to? It’s often the only way to uncover the good writing. Like going through a kitchen drawer, sometimes we have to take out things we don’t need in order to get at the things we do.” Read more

Sep 11

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What I learned by writing a 91-word memoir

Sometimes limiting yourself forces a sort of creativity. Boundaries open up possibilities. I learned this recently while writing to a specific word count for a contest.

The 91-Word Memoir Writing contest sponsored by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop celebrates longtime Gotham student Norma Crosier (left) who died in July five days before her 91st birthday. The deadline to enter is October 15, 2012. The winner will receive a 10-week workshop and $91 cash.

Writing a 91-word memoir felt like flash fiction mixed with poetry.

Here are some tips: Read more

Jul 13

What are your writer’s superstitions and rituals?

Since today is Friday the 13th, I’ve been thinking about superstitions in general and writing in particular. The writers below share their insights about writers’ superstitions and rituals.

In this post at the Nouveau Writer, Mariana Ashley reveals The Top Five Writing Superstitions of the Greats.

Cat Woods (@catewoods) conducted an unofficial poll of 45 writers and found that 37 of them had writing quirks or superstitions. She lists some of them in this post at From the Write Angle.

At the Indextrious Reader blog, you’ll find a post by Canadian blogger Melwyk that includes a poem about superstitions and a cat.

What are your writing superstitions?

May 21

How listening to poetry sparked my muse: ode to Billy Collins

Recently, while on a six-hour plane ride, I listened to former poet laureate Billy Collins’ CD “Billy Collins Live.” After the hilarious introduction by comedian and actor Bill Murray, Collins reads nearly thirty of his own poems.

As mentioned in a previous post, “Three Ways to Feed Your Muse,” I often find inspiration in other writer’s works. As I was listening to the flow of words and ideas from Mr. Collins, one particular poem nabbed me and before long I found myself writing a new poem. Read more

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