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Fleur Blüm

~ writer, performer, musician

Fleur Blüm

Tag Archives: NaPoWriMo

30 Poems in 30 Days

01 Monday May 2023

Posted by toearlyretirement in Writing

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NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, Writing

And now it’s over again for the year. I managed to do all thirty, though not all on their allocated day. At least one I missed as I came down with the dreaded COVID about a week ago. Thankfully, I’m feeling much improved, though not quite back to previous levels of health.

I’m going to leave the poems to mature for a while before going back to revise them. I don’t know whether many of them will be deemed worth publishing at any time. My poetry group has dissolved, and as yet I haven’t found a new one so I’ll have to find someone else to workshop my poems with, informally perhaps.

Did anyone else do anything fun writing wise (or otherwise) through April?

Now that the poetry challenge has finished, I’ll move back to some of my other prose works. I didn’t do any work on those projects while I was doing NaPoWriMo, but that’s to be expected.

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Simile

21 Friday Apr 2023

Posted by toearlyretirement in Writing

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Inspiration, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, Writing

Write a poem
quick and dirty
Like sex pressed up
against a wall

Write a poem
sharp and punchy
Like noodle soup
with extra chilli

Write a poem
long and languorous
Like a hot bath at the
end of a long week

Write a poem
full of cliched similes
Like a children’s book
written for comfort.

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NaPoWriMo 2023

27 Monday Mar 2023

Posted by toearlyretirement in Art, Writing

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Inspiration, Melbourne, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, Writing

People who have followed by blog for a while will know that I have done a NaPoWriMo a few times previously. The basic idea is that I write a poem every day for the month of April. The woman who started it, Maureen Thorson, provides prompts each day, but they’re optional, so sometimes I don’t use them.

I’ve come up with most of my poetry content using this one-month marathon for the last few years, most of my other writing is prose based, so the requirement to think in a different form is a great challenge.

I’ve been out of the habit of daily writing for a while, I write every couple of days but there was a period a few years ago where daily writing was much more frequent. I still journal each morning, and I don’t count this towards the daily writing target.

I’m meeting with a couple of poets on Wednesday in an effort to revamp or recreate a poetry group where I can workshop my work. It’s at the least a time for me to read other people’s poems, I’m not very good at that either.

The boundaries imposed by a daily prompt, and a daily output requirement, have generated a lot of good work from me in the past, and I hope this will continue. I’ve stopped doing NaNoWriMo for my prose, as the practise is no longer useful, but I still see value in the poetry version.

Is anyone else doing it? We could hold one another accountable, or perhaps if you’re local to Melbourne/Naarm we could get a coffee and write together.

In all of that I’m going to try to get to some Melbourne International Comedy Festival shows as well, which starts on Friday 30 March. Things are picking up again after a couple of years of staying inside and waiting.

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Welcome to 2023!

01 Sunday Jan 2023

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

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Art, Goals, Inspiration, Melbourne, NaNoWriMo, NaPoWriMo, New Year, New Years Resolutions, Poetry, Writing

The last days of 2022 have been really rough – Mum wasn’t well at Christmas and wasn’t able to participate in the family event, plus my back pain issue has been really fared up for some reason. I’m ready to welcome in a new year with hopefully a few less challenges.

As usual, I’m setting some goals for the next year.

  • Publish Singular Purpose
  • Finish manuscript for horror short story collection and/or another novel
  • NaPoWriMo 2022 (April)
  • Keep up the blog
  • Craft projects, including crochet, painting, etc.
  • Read 5 books
  • Music performance
  • Travel/holiday

This list is shorter and more vague than some of my other lists. I’m trying to keep things a bit looser to cater to the various obstacles that might come up in the year that require my time and attention.

The horror short story collection is in progress, I have one quite short and one that might be about 20k already drafted. I also have a manuscript for a rom com that I wrote a while ago and have been rewriting that might be ready to publish for 2024.

NaPoWriMo has been a good exercise to keep my poetry practice going. To be honest I don’t do much poetry outside of April so I think that will be good. Plus it’s a smaller commitment than NaNoWriMo (which could take 2 hrs per day); it only takes about 30min per day.

In terms of craft and painting, these are mostly just for myself. I’ve been crocheting a little to keep my hands busy when watchin TV to stop myself scrolling through FaceBook endlessly. It does rely a bit on having some energy and not being in too much pain, so this might be up and down depending on how other things are going in my life.

I’ve added reading to the list, I noticed this year that I haven’t been doing much reading. I read three or four as part of my judging for the Romance Writers of Australia book of the year awards, but otherwise onle one or two. I have a huge ‘to read’ pile, including a few that were gifts that I haven’t gotten, it might be nice to get through some of them.

Music performance I’m keeping vague, I’m not sure the fate of Wasted Monday at the moment, and if it falls over I may or may not have time to another band or group. I also plan to continue with my piano lessons and the teacher likes to have twice yearly concerts with her students, so I’ll have that to fall back on.

I added a travel/holiday item. The last time I really went anywhere on a holiday was 2019, when I visited Morocco. It was pre-pandemic, and pre-car accident, so it will be different travelling now, but I hope it will be enjoyable (and doable) in 2023. I visited Brisbane briefly for a wedding in 2022 but it was just for the weekend; a fairly low-key dipping my toe back into the travel waters.

I will continue to experiment with cooking and pottering in my small garden. It’s looking a bit overgrown after a big burst this summer; my berries are producing a lot so that’s fun, though the fruit trees have yet to produce anything, maybe next year.

May you all have a beautiful 2023 in whatever form that takes for you. I look forward to seeing some of you in person and I hope you’ll enjoy keeping up with my work here and in publication.

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Disconnect

30 Wednesday Nov 2022

Posted by toearlyretirement in Writing

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Inspiration, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, social media, Writing

We’re always looking for contact, scrolling
But never quite connecting, separate

We never quite connect, separated
By a bubble, a wall around ourselves

Create a wall, a place to hide ourselves
And always longing, yearning to be seen

A longing, yearning for someone to see
Who we are, instead of who we present

To be who we are, not who we present
Terrified to be that real, that naked

Terror of being that real, that naked
Stops us from forming deep relationships

Unable to form deep relationships
We’re always looking for contact, scrolling.

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If I only could: or leaving things behind

03 Thursday Nov 2022

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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Goals, Horror, Inspiration, Melbourne, NaNoWriMo, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Romance, Writing

Tuesday was the first day of November and for the first time since 2012 I’m not going to undertake NaNoWriMo. I started doing this marathon drafting challenge when I didn’t yet know how to write novels.

A little over a year after I started this blog, the same time that I left a job I resented in favour of going back to uni. I did my first 50,000 words in a month, and since then I’ve done NaNoWriMo ten times, each time I reached my target. Cumulatively I’ve got 500,000 words from these sprints.

This year, I finished editing a manuscript in the last couple of days of October, and I thought about NaNo. I could have worked on a manuscript I started earlier in the year which is a little under 50k words, for Nano, or I could have started a new project. But instead I decided to start working on fun, possibly a novella or short novel. It’s a story a friend and I came up with for a film, one day we might make it, but novels are my bread and butter, so it seemed easiest to get my thoughts and ideas into a shape by writing it as narrative fiction.

The habits and skills I’ve developed over my years doing NaNo will never leave me. I am so glad I have learned to write first (and fast) and edit later–I find it so much easier to shape something when it’s all there, with an ending, than going over what you did last session, fiddling with it, then switching to write something new. I can sprint now, in half an hour I can get up to 1000 words, something I would never have been able to do before.

It feels strange to leave behind something that has been such a prominent feature in my calendar. I put it in my goals for 2022, but now November is here, I don’t have the energy or the determination to make it work. Last year’s version I aimed for 30k instead of the traditional 50k, and it was still tough. It feels right to let this go.

I’ll probably keep NaPoWriMo, the poem a day challenge in April, as I don’t write much poetry outside of that month. I enjoy the prompts, even when I ignore them, and it’s a good boost to my poetic productivity. For fiction, I don’t need it. I am producing at least one novel a year, which is my aim, and it looks like I’ll be able to continue that for the foreseeable future. There might be a time later where staying inside writing every day seems like a good idea, but it’s not going to happen this year. Post-covid restlessness maybe?

I think it shows growth that I’m not cramming all my output into one month, and instead am able to get 100k or more over spread through the year. Or it might just be that, after ten times, my competitive urge has faded. I also can’t rule out that I got old and tired.

Whatever the reason, I have a fun horror story brewing, perhaps I’ll make a collection, and a half-finished romantic comedy novel to keep my readers entertained after Singular Purpose. What good is being a writer if I’m not entertaining myself first? Comment below if you have any creepy pasta stories rattling around that might make a good addition to my horror collection.

Stay safe, and if you’re in Melbourne try to stay warm and dry until the weather sorts itself out and we get to have a summer of some kind.

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Poetry and travel

30 Saturday Apr 2022

Posted by toearlyretirement in Travel, Writing

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NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, Sydney, Writing

For the last thirty days I have been participating in the NaPoWriMo challenge. I have undertaken this challenge the last few years, and have found it valuable if not always easy.

This year I followed the prompts for each day, all except for the final day as I’m up in Sydney visiting a friend and didn’t have access to the poetry books at home to do a cento. Also, a cento seemed like a lot of work choosing lines from other poems to collate into a new one.

It has been strange travelling in this COVID-conscious world. The daily case numbers in Sydney are comparable to Melbourne, but mask wearing up here is much less common than at home. I guess we’re all still a bit traumatised after our two long lockdowns.

It was strange thinking about getting on a plane to come up here, but once I was there waiting to board it seemed normal. Most people were masked in the terminal, maybe 75%, and they were very clear on the plane that masks were mandatory. It was fully booked, so I wasn’t used to being so close to so many people, but I coped.

I’ve written a few good poems as part of this year’s NaPoWriMo challenge, and a few that might not make the cut. I’m sure you’ll see a few on this blog in the coming months and maybe in the next poetry chapbook I release (no dates for that, it’s still in the concept phase).

I hope you’re all doing well in the change of seasons; the weather has been varied to say the least. At least up here in Sydney I don’t need to worry so much whether I have a jacket and umbrella with me.

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I sing a song

17 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by toearlyretirement in Art, Writing

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Hope, Inspiration, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, Writing

I sing a song to pass the time
all the hours from waking to sleep

I sing a song of seduction
to flirt and flutter when speaking is too hard

I sing a song to comfort myself
for company through the lonely stretches

I sing a song of righteous indignation
for courage to challenge injustice in the world

I sing a song of lament
for everything lost and dying

I sing a song of exhaustion
for every time I fought the same battles

I sing a song of solidarity
for all my siblings in all our struggles

I will sing a song of new beginnings
and promise, to a new world we create together.

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Endings and Beginnings

06 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by toearlyretirement in Art, Writing

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day job, Inspiration, Melbourne, NaNoWriMo, NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, Poetry, Writing

April is my poetry writing month, as I undertake the Na/GloPoWriMo a month-long poetry challenge initiated by Maureen Thorson on the model of NaNoWriMo. Each day Maureen presents a prompt, relating to content, or form, or sometimes both.

I have written poetry since I was an angsty teen, some of my previous work still exists on my old website, as well as in my chapbook, Smells Like Teen Angst, but I often don’t make time for it, outside of April. I’m a member of a poetry workshop/collective, and I have been workshopping poems from last year’s NaPoWriMo all the way up to the start of this year’s challenge.

I’m heading out to the northwest of Melbourne to a writers’ retreat on the weekend. I’m looking forward to the stimulation and to the potential networking opportunities. I hope that I can get value from the content, as I haven’t worked with the organisers before. If nothing else, I will try to enjoy a weekend in the country. Maybe they will have a big bath that I can relax in, or a piano.

In my life outside of writing, I’ve resigned from my day job and will be starting a new day job after Easter. I’ve been working for the same organisation for almost six years, and it feels very strange preparing to leave it now. A lot has changed over that time; I’ve had three different managers, and we’ve been moved around departments a number of times, but a lot has stayed the same too. I won’t go into too many details, but I’m both excited and a little nervous about the new role. It’s with a similar organisation doing a similar job, hopefully with some more seniority.

Many of my colleagues have expressed their gratitude for the work I do, a couple have said I can’t leave, which I assume means something similar. The relationships I’ve forged with the people there have been the highlight, and one of the reasons I’ve been able to stay on so long. I’m sorry to leave the organisation, there will be a bit of messiness in the transition to a new person in my role, but I hope they’ll be able to structure things in a way that benefits everyone.

April seems to be a time for beginnings and endings. Closing one door allows another to open, I’m feeling pumped to find out what’s on the other side of this one. I might even be inspired to put up one of my daily poems too.

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Welcome to 2022!

01 Saturday Jan 2022

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Art, Inspiration, NaNoWriMo, NaPoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, National Poetry Writing Month, wasted monday, Writing

Here we are again, the first day of a new year, 2022. I am hesitant to say I’m feeling optimistic, since the plague is still with us, and travel seems like it’s not really on the cards yet, but perhaps we will be able to do more stuff this year.

I don’t usually make new years’ resolutions, anecdotal evidence suggests that resolutions last about three weeks, if that, so having goals seems to be better in terms of being consistent. I’ve set goals for the coming year for a few years running now, it seems to work better.

My goals for 2022 are similar to my previous annual goals, but let’s call it consistency rather than unoriginality:

  • Publish two manuscripts (titles and covers coming soon)
  • Finish manuscript for Singular Focus 2 (working title)
  • NaPoWriMo 2022 (April)
  • NaNoWriMo 2022 (November)
  • Keep up the blog
  • Painting projects, including a proposal for a mural in my apartment building hallway
  • Wasted Monday performances*
  • Piano open mic performance*

The last two, as with last year, are dependent on things being open for performances, but fingers crossed we should be able to get a couple of performances in somewhere.

I would like to spend a bit less time watching TV, more time reading and doing my various projects. Habits are the best predictors of future behaviour, so if I can get into the habit of doing a bit more than rewatching crime procedurals, that’d be good.

I’ll keep working on my garden, it’s looking pretty good these days. I have some berry bushes that produce pretty well and I’ve planted a couple of tomatoes that I hopefully won’t kill before they fruit too.

There was talk we wouldn’t get a proper summer here because of La Niña but the last couple of days have been hot and sunny, so perhaps those predictions were wrong. Outdoor gatherings of a few people seem to be the way to go these days, perhaps coffee outside at a cafe or two. So I will wish you all a very Happy New Year; may 2022 be kind to you and be full of joy and just enough challenge to keep things interesting, but not enough to make you miserable.

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  • Is this good tired?
  • 30 Poems in 30 Days
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  • NaPoWriMo 2023
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Melbourne, Australia
fleurblum@hotmail.com

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