Am I a Lazy Poet? (daily poem challenge a little too revealing)

Writing a poem a day, instead of waiting for magical inspiration to swoop in, showed me I’m kind of a lazy but also a good writer.

I’m lazy because I don’t want to write a poem a day.

I’m good because that’s how I have to think about myself (it’s my career and my passion)—plus, there are a couple of gems within my daily poetic forcedness. I found if I wasn’t too tired (I often procrastinated until the end of the day) and let the poem take over, I lost the words I typed and fell into the images, hanging on as I wondered, “What’s next?”

Poem A Day Challenge

Yep, I took on the daily poetry challenge to write a poem a day for one month, which I started Sept. 1 for the month of September. I’m going to continue the challenge in October, but I also know, at this point, I can’t commit to more than 30 days at a time. To see a vast endlessness of a daily poem requirement is a bit daunting—that would mean 365 poems in a year and writing a poem Every. Single. Day.

Instead, I have to shrink my view of the daily writing commitment into something I can mentally handle before I can turn it into a habit. It remains a chore some days, instead of something to look forward to, excited at what will happen.

So far, I’ve met the challenge, or mostly, in that each day has its poem, though I skipped a day or even two days three or four times and had to backtrack to fill in the poem slots.

Some days I wrote poems because I had to show up, writing bad poetry just to fill in the blanks. Other times I had things to get out, whatever I had stored up in my poetic soul, awaiting inspiration. I had a spot for the words in waiting and was surprised at the layers of thoughts I have about things.

I wrote a few poems with similar titles—what’s going on in my head, really? And a few about the same subjects. I tried on new subjects. I started a few with “The poem goes here,” because that’s how I have my fill-in-the-blanks set up with the title in bold and the typing in normal font. I called one “Poem Date,” and another “My poem asked me on a date.”

I wrote a few haikus thinking poems with 5-7-5 syllables could be whipped out, and I could get to bed. I also wrote about writing about poetry. I called one of the poems, “Lazy Poet.”

 

Poem Examples

Here a few examples of my bad poems, or semi-okay poems—I’m not even sure. I wrote them sleepy.

Showing Up, written Sept. 7:

To be honest,

I didn’t show up today.

I wrote today’s poem tomorrow

When tomorrow became today.

I skipped.

Not rope,

Not class,

Not even hope.

I just didn’t write a poem.

I was too tired.

I didn’t feel poetic

Or soulful

Or helpful.

I went to bed.

 

Two Haikus

Missed Date, written Sept. 9

I missed my date with

Poems called Haiku and Lune, Can’t

Find my Cameo.

 

Too Hard, written Sept. 20

Writing a poem

day, too hard like counting syl-

lables: need short words.

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Writing Out Your Soul

Writing is a way to craft internal processing into interesting stories and content.

Writing is like confronting your soul.

It digs to let the subconscious come forward, while the conscious part of the mind thought it simply was taking notes and plotting out the story. The subconscious has things to say you didn’t necessarily know about or were too busy to give any attention to … until you have no choice but to listen.

The inside stuff comes out in unexpected ways exposing what you won’t admit in your head. Even if your writing is all about the characters, plot and setting that doesn’t seem like you, there is a piece of you in the words that unravel into the form of story.

The unraveling happened to me when I wrote my young adult novel, “In the Grace of Beautiful Stars.” Fifteen-year-old Grace Elliott, my main character, faces impeding homelessness and tries to save her family through money finding. She wonders if her ability to find fives, tens and twenties is a gift, a coincidence or something she’s manifesting.

While writing the book, I consciously looked for money and found coins and dollar bills, but afterward realized I was searching for more. I’d let life dictate how things happen to me, taking jobs and making decisions because I thought that was all I could get. I wasn’t confident even if I had a mostly comfortable childhood.

At a young age, Grace worked hard to save herself and her younger sister, who she’d protect to the death like the sister pair in The Hunger Games. I feel guilty I had teased my younger brother—I dressed him up in girl clothes and made him play my girly games. I left him out when my girlfriends came over. I sent him away with candy.

The brother who as an adult I adore married last weekend, and the time leading up to it, I felt jealous and sad and questioned what our family will be like now.

I thought about my mother, too, and how I’d been angry with her when I was a teen and then in my thirties and for a spot in my forties. She didn’t deserve my dragging up the past, but like Grace, I had mother issues over things that, really, had more to do with me. And then once I realized what I was doing, I had to forgive myself for being angry with her.

I realized as I wrote Grace and revised her story, my subconscious wanted to come out and tell me to collect, not money, but self-love, self-worth and self-value despite what life does on the outside. It let me know I don’t have to be an adult with mommy, money and fear issues.

What I’d done is “Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. … Tell the truth as you understand it. … Truth is always subversive,” as Anne Lamott said in Bird by Bird.

Writing is an emotional experience that causes joy and pain and love, and as you write, or after, you wonder what exactly happened. You ask yourself, “Why do these words cause me to feel things I didn’t know where inside and now are outside?”

Writing gives you the ability to see new things. And to feel, and to describe and hear and absorb.

Writing is emotional, intellectual and an interior process. We, as writers, need to tell our truths and our stories. We need to be at a place of perspective, so we can write about it, even if it’s fiction, because writing comes out of that center and our knowledge and experience.

Note: My blog appeared as a guest blog on June 14, 2017, at the Writing Bug, a blog by writers for writers published by Northern Colorado Writers, at http://www.writingbugncw.com/2017/06/writing-out-your-soul.html.

 

How to Deal with Writer’s Block

Keeping a journal or two is a way to add discipline to your writing routine and to get past writer’s block.

When writer’s block occurs, does that mean you’re no longer motivated to write, or is it that you want to write but can’t access the words?

I find writer’s block to be trying and a chore and more difficult to deal with than having the words pour out, even though a writing session where I’m blocked lasts a few minutes and a productive session can last two to three hours.

What Causes Writer’s Block?

Is it fear, laziness or lots of excuses? Or is it not having anything new to think about or ways to describe things? Is it a matter of being stuck at the place you’re at as a writer, not knowing where to go next?

Writer’s block is a state of insecurity where the mind plays tricks on you. When it occurs, you tell yourself you can’t get started writing, you have nothing to write or you need inspiration to write, but the motivation is lacking. It’s a way to avoid digging too deep, especially if there is pain to be faced, such as anger, hurt, sadness or frustration, though facing the pain can help you discover the truth about yourself and your experiences.

Writer’s block is like hitting the snooze button, a way to avoid waking up to what’s really there that, with some work, can come to the surface.

How Do You Combat Writer’s Block?

Realize that writing requires organization skills, time management, discipline and motivation. Keep a routine and don’t wait for the muse or some form of inspiration to begin writing. Inspiration can occur as you start writing, losing yourself in the process instead of worrying about the outcome.

To beat writer’s block, here are a few ways to get engaged in the process of writing:

• Write daily, or at least a couple of times a week, scheduling a specific time or place to write; i.e. keep office hours.
• Treat writing like a job and clock in the hours you write, both for accountability and to acknowledge what you’ve accomplished.
• Find a special writing spot, such as a coffee shop, the park during the warmer months or a place where there’s lots of activity or no activity.
• Stick to a schedule, but allow breaks, so that writing remains fun.
• Write a writing action plan or goals for the year and check in every few weeks to mark your progress.
• Take a writer’s retreat, even if it’s in your hometown, setting aside a weekend to focus on writing.

Other Advice

While working on a writing project, end mid-chapter or mid-paragraph, or jot down a few notes to start the next chapter to avoid facing the blank page the next time you write.

Write continuously, marking any places where additional research is needed or cause a sticking point, so that you don’t get sidetracked.

And write one word after the next, even if you don’t like what you produce, because at least you are writing. Once you get started, it’s easier to keep going. And it’s easier to come back to it again the next day with the words already there, offering an anchor for your next spilling out of sentences, paragraphs and hopefully stories.

Gayle Forman relates LEAVE ME to escape fantasies, family life

 

 

By Shelley Widhalm (Guest blog for KatValdezWriter at katvaldezwriter.wordpress.com)

Like the main character in Gayle Forman’s Leave Me, I fantasize about packing a bag and going off the grid.

Unlike Maribeth Klein, a middle-aged magazine editor, wife and mother of twins in New York City, I like to stick to patterns and routines, and I like the safety of my dog and my bed. Plus, I wouldn’t know what to pack.

Forman told an audience of about 100 of her fans Wednesday, March 22, about this fantasy she and other women share during “An Evening with Gayle Forman.”

Her talk, held at Hilton Fort Collins, is a part of the Author Series presented by Colorado State University’s Morgan Library in partnership with the Poudre River Public Library District.

“Vocalizing about running away from your family is so taboo,” Forman said. “I didn’t think I was writing such a shocking expose.”

Whispered Escape Fantasies
After her novel published in 2016, women came up to Forman and whispered about their own fantasies of escape plans, driving one exit or riding one train stop past theirs, acting as if their thoughts were shameful and a transgression.

Forman wrote the book as a revenge fantasy following what she thought were serious heart symptoms and a screaming fight with her husband, Nick. She normally writes young adult novels—her publications include I Was Here, Just One Day and If I Stay—but the genre wouldn’t fit a middle-aged character and a story about marriage and motherhood.

“I thought this was mom-porn because of the reaction I got,” Forman said, though she’s read plenty of books about men running away.

In her novel, Forman tells how Maribeth has the tendency to put herself last until she has a heart attack and thinks the symptoms are from the stress of her busy life. Her emergency bypass surgery seems to be an imposition on her family, and fearing her own response, she packs a bag and leaves them hoping her heart will heal.

“I wanted to have a novel about a woman who runs away for reasons she doesn’t understand,” Forman said. “A lot of readers hate Maribeth. They think what she does is unforgivable.”

Forman, mother of two, explained her inspiration for her novel after reading her “prequel” to the audience – her own version of The Runaway Mommy by Jane Kuo Paris, based on the children’s picture book, The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown. Instead of being about cute bunnies, Forman’s story, which matched the pictures, described a mother who couldn’t escape her clingy child.

Inspiration for the Novel
Forman detailed her personal back story to her inspiration. Six summers ago, she was on a family vacation, looking up heart attack symptoms to explain her chest pains and to try to ease her worry about her genetic risk factors. Back at home, she underwent testing and found out she was fine, but she had an idea for a novel that she then put away due to life’s busyness.

That busyness, in part, came from being the default parent undertaking most of the parental responsibility, while she and her husband both worked. She’d started out as a journalist and then went into freelance writing as a way to work at home before becoming a novelist.

“My career took off in a way I never expected,” she said, adding that her second book, If I Stay, was about to publish in 2009 when she had the chest pains.

Her every day “was tightly choreographed” with pick-ups and drop-offs, making dinner and doing chores, while also working. She had the screaming fight with her husband during a school field day for their children. At that point, being the parent who carried the household load and the emotional load “started to feel insurmountable,” she said.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she’d yelled at him.

Forman and her husband, who had “a summer of uncomfortable talks,” had thought they were “groovy and progressive,” living in hip Brooklyn, raising a multiracial family with the youngest child adopted from Ethiopia and both of them working.

“We internalized so many ideas of gender and money,” Forman said.

The Formans worked out a solution with Nick working at home as a freelancer and their co-parenting becoming more of a relay race, she said.

“It feels more what like modern parenting looks like,” Forman said.

The Book Signing
After the book signing, I asked Forman how many drafts she did of her novel—she said about 20 revisions that included cutting the first three chapters. She had to make other cuts of family scenes, being overly indulgent with those, she said.

“I had so much fun writing about the kids, the husband and the mother, it overtook the book,” she said.

Forman said she tells her children when she’s on tour, “Mommy will come back.”

She doesn’t leave them. Not permanently. Just to escape into the world of the novel.

Shelley Widhalm is a freelance writer and editor and founder of Shell’s Ink Services, a writing and editing service based in Loveland, Colo. She has more than 15 years of experience in communications and holds a master of arts degree in English from Colorado State University. She blogs at shelleywidhalm.wordpress and shellsinkservices.com/blog/.

View the blog at https://katvaldezwriter.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/gayle-forman/. Read about other author events by subscribing to www.KatValdezWriter.wordpress.com.

Writing (and daring) to move

I am honored to be in the spotlight this week in Jennifer Tracy’s Inspire blog on her Linkedin page at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/shelley-writes-how-she-moved-jennifer-tracy-gray-.

Tracy is a motivational speaker who encourages getting out of ruts and getting moving. I found her message to be inspiring.

 

Shelley Writes How She was Moved…

Published on January 3, 2017

 

Shelley Widhalm, left, intently listens to a Dare You to Move program Dec. 30, 2016, presented by Jennifer Tracy.

When I think about writing, I think it’s what I love most.

But sometimes I hate it. I face writer’s block, burnout, a lack of ideas, or a feeling of being stuck in a story or a character, not knowing how to pull it all together to get moving again.

In other words, I get insecure, and then I feel lost because writing is my anchor.

Since my sixth-grade year, I’ve known that writing is my passion, but in the last couple of years, I’ve realized that I’m not living up to that passion.

I’ve written six novels, dozens of short stories and hundreds of poems, and I write two blogs. Most of my work is unpublished. I’m aiming for traditional publication of my last two revised novels, both literary and character-driven, one young adult and the second adult. I’ve considered self-publishing, but will try the traditional route for now.

That’s not where I’ve got the lack. I’m querying agents, and I’ve compiled all the background materials. I’m also sending off my short stories and poems.

What I’m not doing is being courageous, the 100 percent, full-throttle kind.

I’m accepting, or making due with, my small dose of courage, but not the kind that’s allowing me to blare to the world that I have a great body of work. Even writing this makes me feel scared. I’m supposed to put on a brave front, right?

We all are.

I met Jennifer Tracy, a speaker and mentor, through my daytime writing job that serves as a way to expand my nonfiction writing and editing skills.

Jennifer’s business, Jennifer Tracy-Inspire, focuses on being courageous, overcoming adversity, making positive changes, having resiliency and becoming self-aware.

On her website, she has this quote, “Be inspired to change your life, regardless of where you are or what’s happened to you.” She says, “Look inward and find personal growth,” “Find courage to never give up,” “Discover power in self-awareness” and “Replace excuses with empowerment.”

When we met for coffee in June, I was amazed at her story and how she overcame a traumatic incident to rebuild her life, finding her own passions in the process. To me, she seemed happy and settled. She’d found her place in the world.

I sat across from her, keeping it all in, or most of it as I hinted to her about reeling from my own trauma. Trauma disrupts and causes a sense of loss that brings up those big life questions. It harms, hurts, dislodges, breaks, interrupts, and causes you to stagger. Who the heck am I? Who are you, world out there? Why did this happen to me?

What do I love?

Do I love?

Am I lovable?

What, why, how, who, where? Why? Why? Why?

I smiled at her. And I’ve been smiling as the tears slip through. I always thought I had it together, because I’ve always had my passion anchor.

After our meeting, I wrote in my journal: “I felt intrigued and a little more healed after talking with her. She said she’s learned a lot from her trauma and came up with self-talk methods, including a series of questions, all with the aim of being positive. What she said was so thoughtful and based on a lot of life experiences that it was hard to take it all in. I wish I could remember it all.”

I walked away from our talk—and wanting to meet her again—feeling like I need to let go, continue looking inward, and think about being positive, live being positive and bat away the negative.

I need to continue the slow hope and progression of finding and living out my passion.

And I need to be confident that I’ve written, love to write and am a writer no matter what happens in the world out there.

–Shelley Widhalm/ Shell’s Ink Services

Top 10 writing tips

Nature can be an inspiration for writing, such as this baby rabbit at the library.

Every writer I meet has their top tips for writing and the rules they live by to make sure they write, both in the sense of discipline and inspiration.

Writing takes both, because there has to be a little bit of the spark, as well as the willingness to show up and do the work. Granted, I’ve felt a flutter of an idea only to tamp it down, because I was busy, tired or overwhelmed. I didn’t want to write.

And then there have been times when I made myself write and produced terrible work, forcing out each word, deleting, starting over or focusing on anything that provides distraction instead of getting out the words.

But these are the exceptions.

So, too, are those occasions when I start and stop just as suddenly. I tried and then didn’t try, giving up too easily.

For example, earlier this week, I wrote for 15 minutes because I felt inspired and then stopped at 200 words, because I did enough, right? I didn’t feel like writing. I made up an excuse, because I wanted to work on editing my novel—for me, editing is work and effort, so what I want to do when it’s time to revise is be finished.

I don’t want to do the work. I want to have the work done.

But to write requires work and lots of it, so:

• Write as much as you can, setting a writing quota with daily, weekly or monthly goals, such as writing three to four times a week. Write for two hours or 1,000 words, reasonable goals I’ve heard from other writers.
• Get rid of distractions and the inner critic, which can keep you from writing by serving as excuses to not write or invite in writer’s block.
• Don’t wait for inspiration, because the more you practice writing, the easier it is for words and ideas to come to you.
• Have more awareness, using all the senses when making observations and creating scenes.
• Cherish silence even in noisy environments to let the words come.
• Think about where your writing wants to go, realizing that, with fiction and poetry, you’re not in total control of it. Trust your subconscious to make connections your conscious mind isn’t ready to or won’t necessarily be able to make.
• Realize that rough or first drafts aren’t perfection on the first try. As you write, the story unfolds and isn’t readily formed until it’s written. Get the story down, then fine tune it with details, nuances and deepening of the plot, character and setting. Revise and revise again.
• Accept that writing is supposed to be hard.
• Focus on the process instead of the results. Enjoy that process.
• And, last but not least, read. Reading makes you a better writer.