JePoWriMo: Day 9

Redo! (The poetry book that is.)

I have had an epiphany. And it is good. But you have to wait for it. I'm not telling yet. Let me just say that a creative bolt of lightning struck my little head while driving down to see the Sandra Cisneros reading.

And about Ms. Cisneros.

She's great. Really lively and beautiful. Soooo funny. Funnier than I expected.

She's also very giving. Check this out:

Juliana is a former classmate of mine at CSU-Pueblo and she has written a book of poetry. Somehow, Sandra Cisneros gets a hold of this book and reads it this weekend before her talk. At the talk itself she gushes over Juliana's book. She offers to blurb the book. In front of everyone. And Juliana had no idea that Cisneros even knew she existed...you could see it in her suddenly red and exhilerhated face. Juliana actually shrieked a little (and really, who can blame her?). It was an awe-and-jealousy-inspiring moment. It was so cool.

After that, Cisneros read from some of her work. She has a new book of essays coming out called Writing In My Pajamas and I'll be all over that when it comes out. She also talked about, what else? Writing.

Cisneros's two rules for writing:
1. Do no harm. You should only bring good into the world. You don't have to talk about happy subjects, but don't do any damage out in the real world.
2. (Which may seem to contradict the first rule) Tell the truth. If you write about real people--you change their names, you use composites, but don't hurt anyone (see Rule 1). Write from you heart. El Corazon.

JePoWriMo: Day 8

We will be taking a break during the poetry proceedings today.

Because today Sandra Cisneros is giving a reading/signing in Pueblo and that's where I'll be. A little inspiration never hurt.

Plus Cisneros relates to all of my current projects:
Poetry: she writes it and publishes (publishing of poetry being a rarer thing than you suppose)
La Llorona: Hello! One of her books is Woman Hollering Creek, also a reflection on this southwest story.
YA Novel: While House on Mango Street is not a YA, per se, it is taught from middle school on up (I know because I have sold this book hand over fist to multiple schools in preperation for, well, today as a matter of fact.

Right now, in my brain, she seems the perfect person to intercede as a mentor--so I'll let her mentor from her talk today.

JePoWriMo: Day 7

Progress is being made--just not in a calculable fashion.

A few pages have been written. Just me cutting loose and getting words down. Because, like the brilliant Ali says: quantity, not quality.

So I've decided to write freestyle, trying to use a lot of repetition with the words. After all, sestinas repeat six words six times over, at least. With the repetition, I at least have some guage on where my stanzas/lines should be. Then I can cut and paste and then cut and paste again.

The good news about rocking the poetry out freestyle first (by freestyle I mean not worrying about a damn thing--including punctuation) is that a lot of really random, weird, and beautiful things start popping up. You think you're gonna talk about one thing and throw it up on the top of the page as a working title, and then BAM! (as the great Emeril would say) something totally new and unexpected comes up.

It's been a while since I've let the gunk that's in my brain spill out onto the page, but there's some neat bits coming out as well.

Even though I remain a bit frustrated, I'm learning. And I guess, in the end, that's the point.

JePoWriMo: Day 6

To encourage 'riffing' and less 'worrying' I need everyone to give me six words.

Go.

JePoWriMo: Day 5

Panickingly slow is how it's going. I don't know if panickingly is a real word but I'm using poetic license.

So far: 6 poems that are actually in a full rough draft form. About 7 where I have a line or more.

November sucks for doing any of these kinds of things. Especially this November for some reason. I realized that I work seven days straight right before Thanksgiving--one of those being a holiday meeting in which I have to work about 12 hours.

I do a lot of my writing on Thursdays because I don't have to work until later and the kids are both in school. However, today (Thursday) Owen has a play so I switched my hours to work earlier--and I won't be able to really write tonight because, well, Owen has a play. Then Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, so there goes another one.

And who the hell can think up 120 different subjects for poems? I'm hitting a wall. (I'm trying to stay positive, and think about all those great times when you push yourself and get the really creative ideas...but the positivity isn't sticking.)

JePoWriMo: Day 1

I'll let you know how it goes.

Whew. Didn't get as much done in October as I would have liked. Ah well, I'll live. Still got stuff done!

Finished the ten-minute play for the competition.
Got the sonnet ready for the sonnet competition.
Got some poems done.

My goal for next month is simple.

You know NaNoWriMo?

Well, I'm doing my own little invention: NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. (Though, I guess it's not really national, so do we call it Jenny's Poetry Writing Month? JePoWriMo?) My single, solitary goal:

1. Bang out 120 poems.

My hope is that about half will be viable enough to put together a poetry manuscript worthy to send out. Perhaps half is an optimistic count, but I won't know until I do it, right?

The fact that there is a deadline for yet another contest has inspired me to finish this project instead of my current novel works-in-progress. But after this month, my only goals will be to finish the two novels until their done. Yep, finish them until their done. How's that sound?

And I came across this in my internet wandering and, if you're a writer, you should really check it out: Annie Dillard and the Writing Life.