Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo Wrap-up

02 Thursday May 2019

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I made it through the challenge of NaPoWriMo again for April 2019!

It is always a struggle to feel that my poems are any good when I do this challenge, I seem to churn out so much rubbish, but as with NaNoWriMo, the point is quantity over quality.

I will have to set aside some time to revise and review the poems I’ve written this month, although I did publish one poem here and one poem on a couple of Facebook groups for life modelling. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, here it is:

The art studio

1 convener
5 minders
9 artists
21 models

A room full of nude bodies
Holding perfectly still

The sound of one voice
And scratching on paper

The knowledge that in a few
Minutes we break to eat

Working to create great art
Together sharing our vulnerability

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Seven poses over four hours by a Monash University student (April 2019)

It was written on the last day of the challenge, close to midnight, after a full day of work at the day job, followed by a four hour life-model training session. I am not particularly good at drawing, but the act of performing as a model to be drawn has been something I’ve enjoyed for over five years. 

The Life Models’ Society is having an art competition at the end of the year. I’m helping to organise it and we’re finalising details now but I may even submit a work to the competition. I’ve been thinking about something like a charcoal drawing, perhaps several figures all together, with my poems about life drawing printed on transparency over the top. I think it could look quite good – obviously dependent on the quality of the drawing(s) I manage to produce.

I spent a little less than a week over Easter with my beautiful friend Cathy and her family in New Zealand. It’s been difficult the last few years as a number of my close friends have moved away from Melbourne. It’s not the same as having them here, but knowing I can pop over and visit and have their love and warmth on tap 24 hours a day is a great comfort.

My next projects are going back to some of my incomplete prose manuscripts; I wrote 1500 words in one today despite my procrastination!

Thank you to all my friends, family and supporters – I wouldn’t be here without you, and I hope that I support you in return. Big love.

The Painter

22 Monday Apr 2019

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‘I have done five layers of background
I want to make it twenty,’ she says.
‘What’s the background of?’ I ask.
‘Just colours, like everything I do.’

‘I spent hours on this one
making the background.
I was really pleased with it –
a rich matte black
but then I got drunk when I did
the foreground and now it’s ruined.’

I don’t agree. I think it looks like galaxies or
cells joined together with shining
bridges of silver and ink, but I’m not
the painter so what I think isn’t worth much.

Her works fill her lounge room
vast pieces of converted detritus
‘These are wardrobe doors
I found on the street one time,’ she says.
Now they are covered in
splotches and splashes of riotous
flamboyant colour. They didn’t deserve
to die on the side of the road
as doors, so she saved them.

NaPoWriMo 2019 WIP

19 Friday Apr 2019

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So far I have written eighteen poem as part of NaPoWriMo this year. I wouldn’t necessarily say that they’re all good, but they’re not all bad either. I will probably go back to them later in the year and review them, There’s sure to be a couple that are worth working on.

I had be usual monthly meeting of the poetry group I’m a part of on Wednesday night. I didn’t take any of my new poems, I took one that I started working on in my mind while at a book launch in February.

I promise I was listening and not being distracted by my own inner genius; sorry Chris.

I am not a poet

I am a teller of stories
long and complicated ones
or shorter ones
no less complicated
each person I create
or recreate
from fragments as deep
and complex as I am

I am not literary
I prefer pulp
to dense poetic prose
but I’m a snob
adverb tags
unchecked repetition
trite tropes and
prostrate plots
enrage me

I am not an editor
in my own work
I skim over
obvious errors
I skirt plot holes
with ease
reading others’ work
I find plenty
to fault

I write in a world
between
high and low brow
a place where I
aspire to greatness
but can’t explain
what that means

I will always admire
styles different to
my own
more sophisticated
more practised
more authentic
more colloquial
there will always
be something
to aim for.

And now for some poetry

30 Saturday Mar 2019

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It turns out I work best when I’m working on a deadline, and a month-long challenge is like a deadline every day.

In April I usually participate in National Poetry Writing Month. Modelled on the popular National Novel Writing Month, which I do in November, NaPoWriMo provides prompts and encouragement to help you come up with a poem every day for the month.

I’ve done this challenge a couple of times in the past. Some of the poems are dreadful and I never look at them again, some have excellent potential and are worth working on at a later date.

I have been a bit quiet here on the blog lately; I moved house last week, and into a place I bought! It feels very grown up to have a mortgage. I have a two-bedroom apartment near a park in a very nice Melbourne suburb. It feels very decadent to have a whole bedroom to spare. I may get a housemate down the track, but there’s no hurry.

I hope you’ll join me in the April poetry challenge, it is motivating to know that other people are also participating.

Goals for 2019

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

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Last Friday I went to a workshop that I found through Meetup.com. I frequently attend Meetup events that have highly variable outcomes – some have been really great and positive, like one group for artists which was really positive and motivating for several months. Other times, like a board game night I went to recently can be full of people who make it not fun. But to get back to the point, this workshop was to create a vision board. These are essentially a big seven year plan with pictures. I’d heard of vision boards before, I thought they were mainly nonsense, but it sounded like it might be fun.

When I got there, a room full of women did a meditation and then cut and pasted pictures out from magazines, some of which where twenty years old, onto big coloured cardboard sheets. I’m going to re-do it – either as a list or with pictures from the internet which more closely match what I’m looking for. The magazine pictures were a bit too commercial and a bit too old school for me.

fireworks

Traditionally one of the first things I do in the new year is make up my goals for the next twelve months. Many of my goals remain the same from last year; I’ll do NaNoWriMo again, and NaPoWriMo, as they both generate a good amount of first draft material.

I’m not going to do a fringe show this year, but Alex and I are planning to work on another top-secret project instead. We’re also looking at writing a sitcom and will do a show in 2020.

I have a couple of maybe goals in there too. I have a manuscript that I started last year but abandoned because I couldn’t get the pacing right; I’ll go back to that project to see if it’s salvageable as a short story or novella. I’m also thinking about publishing one of my other back-catalogue manuscripts in the last quarter of the year, but that will depend on how much time and energy I have by then.

My 2019 Goals!

  • Publish ‘Discovery of the Franklins’
  • NaNoWriMo 2019
  • Finish manuscript from NANoWriMo 2018
  • NaPoWriMo 2019
  • Sitcom
  • Top Secret Project
  • Wasted Monday performances
  • Blogging
  • Life Models’ Society Exhibition
  • Life Models’ Society 30th anniversary

Maybe/if I have time:

  • Self-publish one of my other manuscripts
  • Finish/rework shorts story/novella

I’m glad I did the vision boarding workshop. Long term goal setting exercises are important to undertake every so often; it makes me feel less like I’m making things up as I go along. I’ll re-evaluate against the long term and annual goals as I go to make sure my priorities and values haven’t changed along the way (this happens at work all the time!).

I hope you’ve all had a productive, happy, and positive 2018. I wish you all of that for 2019. I’m starting to make my own luck and I’m really loving it.

Reflecting on 2018

24 Monday Dec 2018

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Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house… I was madly cleaning! I have two weeks away from my day job (woo-hoo!) and I usually spend time over the Christmas break doing those jobs around the house I don’t get to normally – like vacuuming the inside of my car, or cleaning the window blinds.

It’s also a time for reflection on what I’ve achieved in the last year. You may remember I posted a list of my goals for 2018, now I’m looking back at whether I achieved them, and what I did that wasn’t on my list.

reflection pic

Last years goals were:

  1. Win NaNoWriMo 2018
  2. Enter 5 writing competitions
  3. Redraft ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ and publish it online (from 2017)
  4. ‘Fleur & Alexandra are Out of This World’ Melbourne Fringe Festival Show
  5. Edit ‘The Discovery of the Franklin’
  6. Submit ‘My Mothers Secret’ and ‘We Can’t Have Nice Things’ to publishers
  7. Perform with the new band regularly
  8. Two blogs per month

Of these goals I have achieved all but number six – I didn’t end up submitting my manuscripts to publishers. Since I’ve now started on the path of self-publishing, I’m happy to stick with this method for the moment. I don’t write strictly to genre, and I don’t write very commercially. For now, I’ll stick with the vanity publishing thing and maybe down the track, I’ll look into traditional publishing.

Number two, technically, I failed – I entered four competitions. I haven’t had any good news from any of them, although the Ruby won’t be announced until mid next year. But that’s okay, I entered them as a way to motivate myself, not to win.

Number five is very exciting. I am ready to publish my second novel, now titled Discovering the Franklins, which will be available to buy in February! The cover and exact release date are to be confirmed, but I’ll be sure to let you know.

In addition to that list, I have achieved a number of things that weren’t on the list. My band, Wasted Monday, recorded three demo tracks, I travelled in Japan, I’ve done a couple of online writing courses, I participated in NaPoWriMo and I’ve become involved in judging competitions for the RWA.

I’ve also taken on the role of Secretary for the Life Models’ Society. This has been taking up quite a lot of my time and energy, and I’m really glad to be involved. I think 2019 will be an exciting time for the LMS!

The last year has been busy at my day job, too. I was sent on an awesome leadership development program in June, and I’ve been learning a lot of new stuff about the new projects we have on the go.

It’s been busy, I’ve done a lot. I’m really proud of what I’ve produced over the last year. I think my career as a writer/artist is really coming along. I’m not making much money yet, but I am starting to feel legitimate, and that’s big.

My next post will be my goals for 2019! I hope you all have a safe and happy new year, and I’ll see you then.

NaPoWrimo – Winning

02 Wednesday May 2018

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This is a short post to say I finished NaPoWriMo with thirty new poems. Congratulations to me and anyone else who decided to do the challenge.

Some are pretty good, others are a bit wobbly. I only had to catch up one. I went through the poems I had handwritten to put them onto the computer, I discovered I’d skipped a day somehow. Possibly there’s a poem hiding in a notebook or on a scrap of paper somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet.

I may post a couple of the poems here in the coming months, and I may put some into the next edition poetry chapbook. If you’re interested in buying one of the current chapbooks, for $1 (plus postage), let me know.

I’ve started to make the puppets for our new show, working on the cover image, venue selection and registration. We should have that all in place for the end of May. Well, not the puppets, they’ll take a bit longer.

I have a new idea for a story, it might be a novel or it might be a novella. It’s based on a character from another story. It’s set in the 80s so that will involve some fun/weird research. Once I get into the swing of it I hope the words will flow easier, right now they’re still a trickle.

Over half way to May!

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

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This is just a brief update post on what’s happening in April. Things have been progressing well in my world. So far I have completed my poem each day (not today but shhh) as part of NaPoWriMo and making good progress on the show for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Firstly, the poetry. I’ve been writing everyday, which has been great. I’ve been hand-writing my poems, and then transcribing them onto the computer for posterity and editing (of which I have done little). So far most of the poems have been on the ranty end of the spectrum. There are one or two with potential to become something more polished. I wouldn’t show the raw poems to anyone, but as a way of getting some stuff out of my brain it’s been very effective.

I try not to judge the quality of my first drafts, but it’s a challenge to stay away from that judgemental thinking.

Last Sunday I attended a workshop run by one of the writing groups I’m a member of, the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild. We had well known author and all around champion human C. S. Pacat to talk about world building. It doesn’t sound much like romance at first but creating a sense of authenticity to the setting is important in any book, especially in fantasy or sci-fi.

The part of the workshop which really stood out to me was the idea of the creative phase versus the skeptic phase. The creative phase is when you write down every idea that comes to you. You ascribe no value to it. The skeptic phase is when you then go back and evaluate whether the ideas will ‘work’, if they’re practical, or derivative etc. Pacat said that these two types if thinking inhibit each other and doing them at the same time will not produce good results.

I’m very good at critiquing ideas as soon as they come to me, which is not very useful creatively. I’m sure it’s a skill, like any other, to allow yourself to ‘go mad’ in the first phase, and really hone in in the second phase. I aim to improve this skill set in future.

Secondly, Melbourne Fringe Festival registrations are now open. This means we’re de-prioritising script development to focus on venue selection and application submissions. I’ve also bought a bunch of materials to start making puppets, which is for later, but I’m excited to get started on them.

Alex and I attended a ‘venue speed dating’ event yesterday run by the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Artists and venues were brought together to meet. We spoke to a number of great potential venues, several of which I would not have otherwise approached.

It’s still all very up in the air and I can’t tell you anything more. Watch this space for an image reveal in a few weeks – Fleur and Alexandra are Out of this World and they’re coming to a theatre near you.

Things are chugging along happily for me, I hope things are coming along for you too.

NaPoWriMo 2018

27 Tuesday Mar 2018

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I did NaPoWriMo two years ago. In the last few months I’ve had loads of compliments for my poetry chapbook, My Body. No Apology, so I’d like to produce some more poems and make a follow up chapbook.

Much of the raw material from NaPoWriMo last time was not so great. I guess it’s all first drafts and they don’t always work out anyway, but surely one or two will be useful.

I’m not very good at having a daily practice; I get distracted with the band and other projects. I do write faithfully every week, particularly on my days that I don’t work.

I’m just coming out of a particularly busy period at work, preparing for our yearly external evaluation. As a result of doing some extra work, and being part time, I will have eleven days off, including the Easter long weekend, so I’m going to write. In addition to my poem a day, I’ll be finishing some additions to my manuscript from last November.

The manuscript will go into a Box Set with a number of romance authors. It will be released as a collection of short novels/novellas, and we’ll be self-publishing them at the end of the year. More on that as it gets closer.

During that time off work, I’ve rented a little cottage in country Victoria for a few days of walks by the lake, coffee, and catching up on my reading pile. Bliss!

I’m constantly inspired by the productivity of other writers and artists and I know once this stressful period in my day job is over my energy for creation will be back in full swing.

Is anyone else planning to spend April doing a poem each day? Let’s be writing buddies.

The End of the Dirty Thirty

30 Saturday Apr 2016

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April is National Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo. I decided to do it this year, sort of on a whim, and then I forgot till 5 April, so I was four behind! I’ve caught up and now have only today’s and two more to finish the ‘dirty thirty’, as my friend calls it. I’ve decided that since I forgot, I’m allowed to go a couple of days over and finish on Monday.

I’ve had some fun writing every day, but some days it was a struggle. I think there are a few poems that are just terrible, and will probably never see the light of day, but there are others which work quite well.

I took day 11, which was to order the titles of books in your shelf into a found object poem, and day 12, which was about tea and being a grown up, to my writing group today. A lot of people liked the book titles one, and there was a bit of a mixed reaction to the other.

I found it interesting that one member of the group, a woman who is in her eighties if she’s a day, commented that one never really feels like a grown up. This idea that you’re bluffing your way through life apparently persists. I keep thinking it will go away, but I don’t think it does.

I’ll have to think of something for May, perhaps a music challenge. Anyway, to wrap up NaPoWriMo for the year, in a way, I present day 11 and day 12.

 

Book Spines

Pretty things
In My Skin
Lost Souls
Mutants
Oblivion

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Books from my shelf

The Broken Shore
The Big Sleep
The Dark Half
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Oblivion

Perfect Phrases
Leaves of Grass
Crack Down
Junky
Bleak House
Oblivion

 

Tea and Anxiety

Warm and liquid and brown.
Well sort of tan I guess.
Swish you around my mouth
Feel you sliding down my throat
To warm my belly.

Ah, you’ve been such a friend.
Not as much caffeine as your cousin
Coffee, who makes me jitter and shake.
There’s no anxiety with you.

There is a bit of an aftertaste
Sometimes, when I’ve finished my sip
There’s something that lingers
Like something you’ve forgotten to do

So often I feel like I’m failing
At being an adult
At fulfilling societal expectations
Which is hard because I don’t want to
Fulfil expectations.
But you can’t help feeling that pressure can you?
Ah well, at least there’s always tea.