It's almost National Poetry Writing Month! This will be my third year writing 30 poems in 30 days, and I am giddy with excitement. NaPoWriMo inspires me, rewards me, digs me up and uncovers me -- this is my favorite month of the year.
This year I'm also moderating a NaPoWriMo group of local writers, providing prompts, encouragement, and a safe space for feedback and sharing. Several in the group have mentioned to me that they're not sure how they'll find things to write about for 30 days.
Here are my tips for them, and for anyone else taking up this challenge.
- Pay attention. This means look up, put your phone away, go outside, talk to people, listen, observe.
- Watch for moments. Several of you are artists and photographers; use those instincts. When you experience a moment that would normally have you instinctively grabbing your camera or your sketchbook, stop and memorize it instead. Start training your mind to translate images into words.
- Do things you don't normally do. Let yourself get uncomfortable. Make this your excuse to step outside your routine, and pay attention to what that new experience does to you and what it's doing to the people around you.
- Keep a journal. Many of you already do - but I mean a pocket journal, something that never leaves you. Get in the habit of jotting down those moments, shorthand, scribbles, whatever. Then look back through it every time you sit down to write your poetry and go with whichever phrase or word you feel your mind hang onto.
- Do not censor yourself. You are not required to share a single word of what you write this month. Nobody ever needs to see it. If you write like somebody's looking over your shoulder, it will be much harder to write honestly, and honesty, in my opinion, is a critical component of good poetry.
- Use prompts. I'll provide them here, and there are tons of sites that offer free daily prompts specifically for NaPoWriMo participants. You're not going to be effortlessly inspired every day. Even if a prompt doesn't immediately call your name, sit with it for a few minutes, think it through, work it like a puzzle. Challenge yourself.
- Mix it up. Again, challenge yourself. The style you naturally tend toward is going to bore you eventually if you return to it day in and day out. If you normally write in free verse, try a few days of a structured form. If you normally write about yourself, write about something outside yourself. If you always write for performance, write for the page. When you start stagnating, limits can foster creativity.
- Make time. Poetry takes time. It often helps to work on a schedule - put aside a certain time range every day just for this, find an environment that helps you work, and stick with it. I know this isn't possible for everyone, but it can help if you can manage it.
- Be kind to yourself. If you miss a day, you haven't failed. If you miss a week, you haven't failed. If you write something you think is absolute tripe, you haven't failed. Nobody is going to shame you. Keep thinking, keep scribbling, keep trying. If you write one poem this month and nobody sees it, you've done something powerful. You have created something that wouldn't otherwise have existed. That's worth a lot.
