Write Like It's November

 
Most writers know November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, we say as if speaking an alien tongue).  The challenge: to write every day for the month to achieve a total of 50,000 words, a good chunk of a novel.


This is my third year participating, my second year participating as a poet (NaPoWriMo?) and the challenge is to write a poem every day for 30 days.

In 2011, I did it just to see if I could.  I'm not a prolific poet.  Sometimes an idea for a poem will run around in my brain for weeks before it finally comes to rest on paper.  The concept of generating a poem every day was daunting, but I followed the daily prompts from the Writer's Digest and persevered, ending the month with 30 poems.  It's Day 4 of the 2012 challenge and I've finished today's poem, and it's barely after 8pm here in Iowa.

I have learned a few things about writing a poem every day.

1. I can only do it at night, staring out a dark window.

2. The soundtrack to 'The Hours' is mandatory. 

3. Prompts are simply leaping off points, write whatever comes.

4. I ain't writing epics here.

5. And I ain't writing brilliant verse every time, but if I get one or two decent poems out of 30, and a handful of salvageable lines to be used in another poem one day, I have succeeded.

6. Whether you're writing a novel or 30 poems, just fucking write.

Writers & Dogs

I am as confounded by dogs as I am indebted to them. 

                                              ~ Roger Caras

I share my life with two dogs, Jack & Joey.  Jack was a rescue I adopted in 2006. In the weeks and months following the death of my partner in 2011, he saved my life.  I cannot imagine how lonely my apartment would have been without Jack there to greet me every night, or sleep next to me.

This past July, Joey joined our household.  He was just five weeks old, born on a farm, and he was placed in my arms with a homemade twine leash by two teenage girls who used the annual Delhi Daze to find homes for Joey and his siblings.  It took less than five minutes for the four puppies to be snatched up.

I would never have thought of myself as the proud dog person I have become.  I would never imagined my dogs would become my muses (oh, how I despise that word), but their snuffling and romping and furry selves show up regularly in my poetry.

Today, however, Joey tested the writer. 

Like any writer, I have books.  Lots of books.  This week, I received a copy of Tim Gunn's latest fashion book (confession: I have seen every episode of Project Runway) and 'The Shape of Poetry' signed by one of my poetic mentors, Peter Meinke.  The books were on the coffee table, but while I was working, Joey dragged them into the bedroom and made confetti of Mr. Gunn (in fashion, one day you're in, the next, you're a dog toy).  Poetry did not taste as good; Meinke's book suffered only a couple of tooth marks.

Sure, I raised my voice while picking up the shredded pages; scolding Joey for such a desecration.  Then we went for a walk in the brisk autumn afternoon, my anger forgotten, and now he's sleeping at my feet as I write this. You can only forgive a face like Joey's.  You can only see poems in those sad, brown eyes.