NaPoWriMo Week Three - Time is on Your Side

The trail seems long when you are in the middle.
"On A Quest" by Ehecod

Week Three of NaPoWriMo is always the hardest week of the month.  Two thoughts come to mind - first, that the middle of the trip always seems the longest part, and second, that time limits can seem so restrictive.  But time is on our side in this month-long quest.  That's because with a limit in mind, we know that there will come a time of rest.  We know that our journey will eventually end, and then we can put down the pen (for a short time) and bask in the glory of our accomplishment.

For inspiration and more insight into our themes of journeys and time limits, we have this compelling piece of art: "On A Quest" by Ehecod on deviantArt.com.  It depicts a scene that certainly appeals to me right now - a small person, a long path, and in the distance there is perhaps the end of the trail, way up high.  It isn't just the content of the image that appeals, it is knowing that it was done quickly.  This image might be termed a "speed painting" as it was done in about an hour.  It is amazing what can be conveyed in such a short time - the sense of distance, space, longing, weariness, determination, beauty, and so much more.  Putting a time limit on our work can be highly motivating, challenging us to see exactly what we can do if we focus, concentrate, and really apply ourselves.  The time limit means we know that the end is always in sight, and so we feel more free to really go all out with our effort.   

This is the week to use time limits as a powerful tool.  If you've fallen behind, time limits can be the key to catching up, and getting back on the trail.  Here are the prompts and exercises for week three, starting with this evocative art. 

Monday, April 15 - Monday is, of course Art Day.  Take another look at "On A Quest."  What emotions does it bring up?  What is the story of of this person, and what will they find when they finally reach the city on the mountain?  Use some of these words and phrases to form a draft poem, but give yourself a time limit - fifteen minutes at most.

Tuesday, April 16 - Tuesdays and Saturdays are Pick a Prompt Days.  Visit the archive of speculative fiction prompts on this blog entitled "Prompt the Muse."  For this prompt, pick something that you can do with a time limit - say twenty minutes from start with the prompt to finishing the draft poem.  Don't think about it too hard, just get the words down.

Wednesday, April 17 -  Choose a hobby that you enjoy, and answer these four questions, with four words each.  Do this fast, two minutes total, and don't feel the need to stick to the questions too closely.  Hobby consists of?  It makes me feel?  Sensing it is?  It provides?  It relates to?  I chose my hobby of origami, and my lists are:  Hobby consists of - origami, paper, crafts, folding.  It makes me feel - satisfied, frustrated, accomplished, entertained.  Sensing it is - beauty, symmetry, smooth, light.  It provides - soothing, escape, perfection, controlled.  It relates to - creation, birth, new, real.  Use at least two words from each section to draft a poem.  For this you get eight minutes, for a total of a draft poem in ten minutes.

Thursday, April 18 - Thursday is Camera Day.  Take some pictures with your camera, and choose one to use as inspiration for a draft poem.  In keeping with our themes, find one that makes you think of a journey/quest, or something that brings up the concept of time and deadlines.  Feel free to take photos all week, and then pull out your favorite for Camera Day.  (If you don't have a camera, draw a picture of the scene, and then use that for your inspiration.)

Friday, April 19 - Think of a time you were confronted with a deadline.  It can be a work project, trying to catch a plane, an upcoming holiday, or anything that had a hard and fast limit.  Think of this subject and your deadline in two ways.  First, write out negative words and phrases that come to you about your subject and its deadline.  Then, write out positive words and phrases about this subject and deadline.  Use this material to create a draft poem in two stanzas.

Saturday, April 20 - Tuesdays and Saturdays are Pick a Prompt Days.  Visit the archive of speculative fiction prompts on this blog entitled "Prompt the Muse."  Find a prompt that makes you think of a long trek, quest, or trip.  Do the writing, and then choose images, phrases, or sensations from your writing to include in a draft poem.

Sunday, April 21 -  Short poems can take longer to write than long poems, but for this week, we are going to form a set of haiku on a schedule!  Give yourself four minutes to write down words that evoke the four seasons.  Don't be too restrictive, feel free to associate as you like.  Now, pick a subject that exists in all four seasons - sports, holidays, events, or even yourself or your pets, for example.  Give yourself four minutes to write four sentences, each with your subject and some of your seasonal words.  Give yourself another four minutes to go back and try to reform each of these sentences into the 5-7-5 syllables per line pattern associated with haiku.  It does not need to be perfect, go with the flow and the sense of the tension in the lines.

If you are behind, you can use these four haiku as four separate poems.  If not, you have a nice set of poems for your 21st day of NaPoWriMo.

Image Credit: "On A Quest" used with the generous permission of the artist, Lassi, Ehecod on deviantArt.com.  

Daily Astronomy Poetry for NaPoWriMo 2013

Rising to the challenge of NaPoWriMo
Sky Pirates No. 8 by quartertime

Several friends and colleagues have risen to the challenge of NaPoWriMo by posting a poem a day about our favorite subject - space.  Each is putting their own personal spin on the topic, and I'm sure that over the month some real gems will surface from the intense rush of creative writing.

Here's a taste of some of the interesting writing that has already appeared ...

On Imperturbable Music, the author muses about his seeing Saturn through a telescope:

The first view was a jolt.
It really looked like they said it would,
pale and perfect, ansa to ansa.
A platonic ideal of itself
even today. 

Taken from Planet's Above, we are led to consider the line between our dreams and reality:

So hide, obscure, amongst the fading wings
of Icarian ice, now stripped and set ablaze -
but know; our sleepless eyes will find you there,
unless ... unless you are just myths, of course.

From Tycho Girl's blog, we are inspired to keep on going, like a rocket:

watch the blue line
trailing from my candle
’cause I’m getting there.
 
So if you enjoy writing, astronomy, NaPoWriMo, and especially all three, you'll want to check out the following blogs this month (twitter handles also noted):

Tycho Girl http://tychogirl.wordpress.com/ @tychogirl
Imperturbable Music http://imperturbable-music.blogspot.com/ @asrivkin
AstroPoetAmee  http://astropoetamee.wordpress.com/ @AstropoetAmee
Bizzare Lag Phenomena http://iyzie.wordpress.com/ @iyzie
Sue Couch NaPoWriMo2013 http://sylvanellenapowrimo.wordpress.com/ @suzifulham
Planets Above http://planetsabove.blogspot.com/ @Alex_Parker

Image Credit:  Sky Pirates No. 8 by quartertime on deviantArt.com in the public domain.

NaPoWriMo Week 2 - Time to Shake it Up

Time to embrace the unexpected and uncomfortable.
"METAVERSE" by Robert Steven Connett on deviantArt.com. 

Week Two of NaPoWriMo is the time when the difficulty moves up a notch and the motivation moves down one.  It is harder to be enthusiastic.  After all, week one is behind us, but there are three weeks to go.  Ideas are more scarce, time seems to be more pressing, and things aren't going quite the way we planned.  You know - this is the usual way with writing projects, but it doesn't make it any easier. 

So I think of Week Two as the time to shake it up a bit.  Time to try things you haven't considered before.  Time to pull in some new influences and move out of the comfort zone.

And if today's Monday Art Day doesn't shake you up, nothing will.  This is "METAVERSE" by Robert Steven Connett on deviantArt.com.  I thoroughly enjoy this sort of art - the kind where my mind and emotions will not settle.  The artist comments "I thought it would be interesting to create a "stage like" outer environment with which to gaze in at inner world I created. This "outer world", like an opening in a cave, is something I have not done before."  The outer frame provides the context from which we view this strange new place.  There is so much happening here - wild colors, a mix of organic and industrial imagery, motion, and EYES everywhere!  The image is teeming with a strange sort of life filled with wires and light.  Creatures are spawning, swimming, hunting, and crawling.   

So here are the prompts and exercises for week two, starting with this evocative art. 

Monday, April 8 - Monday is, of course Art Day.  Take another look at METAVERSE.  Spend some time checking out the details in the piece, and how colors and lighting are used.  How does the art make you feel?  Disturbed, energized, anxious?  What genre would you give the piece - horror, science fiction, fantasy, or simply science?  Write a poem in that genre, using some of the emotions you feel looking at this art.  As an additional challenge, write from the viewpoint of a creature inside the art itself.

Tuesday, April 9 - Tuesdays and Saturdays are Pick a Prompt Days.  Visit the archive of speculative fiction prompts on this blog entitled "Prompt the Muse."  Pick weird ones for this week in keeping with our "Shake it up" theme.  Do the writing, and then choose images, phrases, or sensations from your writing to include in a draft poem.

Wednesday, April 10 - Find a word that rattles you and shakes you up in some way - good, bad, or a mix of feelings.  The word could be anything, since words and experience are so personal.  A few that I might pick are: blood, mother, crash, god, and hate.  Pick one and write out ten related words or phrases than include it, like goddess, godhead, godliness, ungodly, etc.  Write a poem using at least three of your related words, trying for that feeling of being rattled or shaken up.  An additional challenge - after you draft the poem, remove all the lines with your related words, and reform the poem.

Thursday, April 11 - Thursday is Camera Day.  Take some pictures with your camera, and choose one to use as inspiration for a draft poem.  Try to find a subject or scene that makes you feel something in a new way, or even makes you uncomfortable.  Feel free to take photos all week, and then pull out your favorite for Camera Day.  (If you don't have a camera, draw a picture of the scene, and then use that for your inspiration.)

Friday, April 12 - Find a poem that takes you somewhere new, or out of your usual mental space for writing.  You don't need to know why, or to explain it.  Something about 20 lines long is just about right.  Do the classic exercise where you write out each line of this poem with an open space in between.  Now fill in the missing lines with your own work, responding to what comes before and after.  Remove the lines of the original poem, leaving behind only your responses.  Take ten or so of these lines and reform them into a draft poem.

Saturday, April 13 - Tuesdays and Saturdays are Pick a Prompt Days.  Visit the archive of speculative fiction prompts on this blog entitled "Prompt the Muse."  Pick weird ones for this week in keeping with our "Shake it up" theme.  Do the writing, and then choose images, phrases, or sensations from your writing to include in a draft poem.

Sunday, April 14 - Look through your books and try to find one that rattles you, either because it is horror, is on a difficult subject, or is connected with a time in your life when things were in motion.  Flip through and copy down at least ten words or phrases that strike a chord in you.  A few I found from my chosen book are: compulsion, fix yourself, silence, body all bent, convalescent, and obsess.  Use five of these words or phrases in a poem.  Additional challenge, remove the lines with your specific words and reform the poem.

Image Credit: "METAVERSE" used with the generous permission of the artist Robert Steven Connett on deviantArt.com

NaPoWriMo Week 1 - Writing the Inner Music

"Forest spirint" by sparrow-chan on deviantArt
Russian artist Yartseva Marya

There is a lot to celebrate over the last week, not the least being Easter, Passover, April Fool's, and of course, NaPoWriMo!  The one-poem-a-day madness has begun. 

It is time to unlock the door and let the words flow forth.  The act of creation is imagined here in this compelling artwork by Russian artist sparrow-chan on deviantArt.com.  Of this piece the artist comments, "Mystic creature sits quietly between ancient trees in dense forest. Marvelous harp with strings made of spider web produces calm, wonder sounds from elder times. Who knows if time itself means something for this mysterious harper? But as long as she plays the heartbeat of nature will be strong."  So in that vein, what we are called to do this month is keep on writing.  

Try not to think about if it is 'good' poetry or 'bad' poetry.  The job for this month is to write drafts of poems and edit them later.  I know from experience that some of mine won't be salvageable, most will be okay, but not great, and then a few will be rather interesting.  Those, with some good editing, will end up making the whole month worthwhile.

So with all the other distractions, don't forget to tap into the inner music.  Here are some prompts and exercises to keep things flowing over the course of the week.

Monday, April 1 - Monday is Art Day.  Each Monday I'll have a piece of art here on the blog to try to jog your imagination.  Take a look at today's art.  What is the music being played on this harp?  Are there lyrics to the piece?  What gives the music its power?  How does it make you feel?  Answer those questions, and then write a draft of a poem about this magical song.

Tuesday, April 2 - Tuesdays and Saturdays are Pick a Prompt Days.  Visit the archive of speculative fiction prompts on this blog entitled "Prompt the Muse."  Do the writing, and then choose images, phrases, or sensations from your writing to include in a draft poem.

Wednesday, April 3 - Think of a myth that inspires you.  It can be any kind of story, ancient or modern, with a mythic or fairy tale quality.  Write a short bit of prose being as descriptive as you can, telling about this myth.  Take out seven adjectives from your writing, and draft a poem.

Thursday, April 4 - Thursday is Camera Day.  Take some pictures with your camera, and choose one to use as inspiration for a draft poem.  Try to find a subject or scene that speaks to you emotionally.  Feel free to take photos all week, and then pull out your favorite for Camera Day.  (If you don't have a camera, draw a picture of the scene, and then use that for your inspiration.)

Friday, April 5 - Think about a time when you were really frightened.  It might have been watching a scary movie or reading a thriller novel.  Perhaps it was when you were worried about monsters under the bed, during a storm, or something far more serious.  Write down phrases expressing how you felt.  Use five of those phrases to draft a poem.

Saturday, April 6 - Tuesdays and Saturdays are Pick a Prompt Days.  Visit the archive of speculative fiction prompts on this blog entitled "Prompt the Muse."  Do the writing, and then choose images, phrases, or sensations from your writing to include in a draft poem.

Sunday, April 7 - Take a walk and go word/phrase collecting.  Write down any interesting words you see in print, or phrases describing what you see.  After you have twenty, head home choose five, and create a draft poem from these (if you can't leave the house, then tour your home for a word collection.)

Image Credit:  "Forest spirint" by sparrow-chan on deviantArt.com - Russian artist Yartseva Marya