I’m a big fan of
NaNoWriMo – and would advise every writer
to try writing 50,000 words in 30 days (at least once!) – but I’m not signing
up to the challenge this year. I’ve got too many other things going on in
November.
But I can feel the excitement of NaNo all around me as other
people begin their frantic scribbling, and it’s making me think I really ought
to commit myself to some sort of writing challenge. But what?
A smaller daily word count?
A set number of new short stories to be completed?
A set number of old, rejected stories to be rewritten and
resubmitted?
A set time to be spent on editing The Novel each day?
As I wandered about looking for ideas, I saw this on my
bedroom bookshelf.
Isn’t it beautiful? I was given this notebook for my
birthday. Inside its gorgeous covers there are pages of smooth, white paper
ruled with faint lines, a red ribbon bookmark, and a clever pocket at the back
for storing … Treasure maps? Love letters? Secret recipes?
The only problem is that after drooling over admiring it, I
had no idea what to do with it. Although it’s called a note-book, I didn’t want
to spoil it with the kind of random notes that I usually jot down in cheap,
jumbo pads of A4 or on the nearest used envelope. A beautiful book deserves
beautiful writing. Something like poetry perhaps. Except I don’t ‘do’ poetry.
And then I found something else on that bookshelf. A copy of
Stephen Fry’s
The Ode Less Travelled. This book was also given to me as a
present some years ago, but I’m ashamed to say I haven’t read it. I flicked
through it when I received it, and thought it looked interesting with lots of
examples of different kinds of poetry and exercises to try, but then I put the
book away for ‘one day’ which, of course, never came.
So.
I have decided.
I’m going to work through Mr Fry’s book
over the winter, and next year I will sign up for
NaPoWriMo – National Poetry
Writing Month – a challenge to write a poem a day during the month of April.
Are you doing NaNoWriMo? If so, good luck!
Have you done NaPoWriMo? If so, how did you get on?
