It's Almost That Time Again: Submit Your Poetic Confessions

We all have them: a vile verse, a crude couplet, a quatrain destined for the dump or just an embarrassing tale of woe set in poetic form. I'm now accepting more Poetic Confessions: a way to cleanse the writer's conscience. No matter how embarrassing, silly or sad your story may be, I want to hear from you. We all know that April is National Poetry Month, so we'll kick it off right by featuring some Poetic Confessions. But I can't do this alone--while I have many confessions to make, I'm sure my readers want more of a variety of confessions.

So that means I'm accepting entries of your own Poetic Confessions. Just email your story (short or long--doesn't matter to me). If you reference a specific poem of yours that's available online, feel free to include the link to it. You should also include a short (1-2 lines) bio and a link to your blog or website. Please put the words "Poetic Confessions" in the subject line so I won't lose it in the spam folder. I cannot guarantee that your confession will make it on the blog during the month of April depending on the amount of submissions I get, but it could be used at some point in the future.

From time to time we all have that poetic misstep, so go ahead and get it off your chest. I'll start posting confessions on April 1.

Coming Up in April

Ah, spring. I know the weather said it is supposed to snow soon, but I'm already thinking warm thoughts. I'm also thinking ahead to all of the events coming up in April, along with the projects I've created goals for. Here are just a few:

Camp NaNoWriMo

This is the no-pressure version of NaNoWriMo. I love it because I can set the word count, and I can work on a project that's been sitting around for awhile as apposed to working on something new. This year, I'm going to work on the same project I worked on last year. This time though, I will be finishing it off. I wrote about half of it the first time, and I've been adding to it here and there since. If I exceed my goals for camp this April, you may see another book out with my name on it before the end of the year.

National Poetry Month
Poetry--how I love you. I plan on doing a few things to celebrate National Poetry Month, including bringing back my Poetic Confessions. But sadly, I've ran out of poetry mistakes to admit to, so I'm depending on submissions from you this year. I'll be posting more information about that later in the week. 

You may also be seeing a giveaway as part of the celebration, so stay tuned!

Scriptwriting
I enjoy writing scripts, though I know it would be an extremely tough road to get anything produced with them. I'm definitely not connected to Hollywood--probably not even in six degrees of separation. April used to be the month for Script Frenzy, so I guess this is still a bit of a hangover of that. I just get this urge to write scripts in spring. I have one that I've been working on since the last Script Frenzy took place a couple of years ago. I want to finally finish it.  Once I do, it's off to Triggerstreet to watch people tear it apart (in a totally constructive way). Occasionally members get optioned. Who knows? Maybe it's good enough to get noticed there.

What are all of your writing plans for April?

Poetic Confessions #4: Best Left to Journals

At one point in my high school/early college writing, I decided that flowery language was out and simple words and phrases were in. Instead of writing a ghastly sonnet with every word to describe love without using the word love, I decided to just say what was on my mind. That's how "Ooh You" came along.

I am now very aware that simple language, unless the message is entirely new, does not always work well. That, and naming the poem after a song (sans the 'h' on Ooh) just makes the whole effort seem sloppy, now that I look back. But it is one of the unfortunate failures that will live on, since I sold full rights to Associated Content (now YCN). I hope they enjoy the $0.10 a year they make with advertising on it. I know I enjoy the $0.01 per year I make.

Welcome to National Poetry Month!

It's finally here: National Poetry Month. We're going to have some fun here at TSW with all things poetry. There are a variety of things in store that are new, and some that are carrying over from last year. First, I will be continuing Poetic Confessions. You can still send your own confessions in (check out that post HERE) and I will be offering up some more of my own confessions as well. I will also be featuring my own work with a poem of the day on all posts in April. And of course, guest bloggers can add to the conversation and submit a post (details HERE) so that I don't feel like I'm talking to myself all month long.

This year, I will also be posting stories about poets that have influenced me, discussions on different poetic forms and of course ideas for ways that you can celebrate too!



Poem of the Day:

LIFE OBSCURED

Everything in the universe

Can be hidden behind my thumb

To be duped is comforting

But cannot be reconciled

Originally published in The Poetry of Yoga, Vol. 1

Calling All Poets! Send in Your Poetic Confessions Today

We all have them: a vile verse, a crude couplet, a quatrain destined for the dump or just an embarrassing tale of woe set in poetic form. I'm now accepting more Poetic Confessions: a way to cleanse the writer's conscious. No matter how embarrassing, silly or sad your story may be, I want to hear from you. We all know that April is National Poetry Month, so we'll kick it off right by featuring some Poetic Confessions. But I can't do this alone--while I have many confessions to make, I'm sure my readers want more of a variety of confessions.


So that means I'm accepting entries of your own Poetic Confessions. Just email your story (short or long--doesn't matter to me). If you reference a specific poem of yours that's available online, feel free to include the link to it. You should also include a short (1-2 lines) bio and a link to your blog or website (free promotion!!). Please put the words "Poetic Confessions" in the subject line so I won't lose it in the spam folder. I cannot guarantee that your confession will make it on the blog during the month of April depending on the amount of submissions I get, but it could be used at some point in the future.


From time to time we all have that poetic misstep, so go ahead and get it off your chest. I'll start posting confessions on April 1.

Need some inspiration? Here are the confessions I posted last year:

Poetic Confessions #1: Cutesy Wootsy Bunny Wunny

Poetic Confessions #2: Beach Bummer

Poetic Confessions #3: Songs in the Key of Poetry

 

 

The Last Visit Before Spring?

I'm buried up to my knees in snow here, but for me that's a good thing--I can't get out until the snow melts, which means I can get more work done instead of finding excuses to leave the house. Sometimes Mother Nature knows how to work in my favor (though I'm sure others in the area probably don't agree). Hopefully it's the last visit, because I have way too many spring/summer clothes I haven't been able to wear yet. Well, without looking slightly ridiculous, anyway...

National Poetry Month is just a week away and you know what that means--calls for contributions. I'll post more on Wednesday, but I'm going to continue the Poetic Confessions series of posts I started last year. Hopefully, I'll get some other contributions so that no one has to see me drone on and on all month long. I would also love to get more guest posts so that I can provide all aspects of poetry and what people write, think, love, hate about it all. That post will probably come on Friday.

See... a little planning goes a long way. April should be a great month here at TSW.

Poetic Confessions #3: Songs in the Key of Poetry

At fifteen, my brother went from a basketball-loving dude to a guitar guy. Naturally, being his ever-present admiring little sister, I jumped on the bandwagon. He learned quickly, and soon he had dreams of fame and fortune. But being the smart cookie he was, he knew that most of the money came from songwriting. He started to pen a few early gems, but I didn't think they were great. So I jumped in and started writing songs for him. Needless to say, they weren't that successful. Most of them he wouldn't even attempt, saying they were too much like poetry, not enough like songs. He was right. Here's the evidence:

 

Carved in Stone

Love is in the Air

Love (is Like)

Not Who We Are

Stardust

Venus

First of all, I need to say that even if you don't click on the links, the titles are pretty pathetic in their own right. What does an 11 year old girl know about love? I guess the real question is have I learned about love since then? —probably not as much as one would think I have.

He did, however, attempt to write the music for Venus. It was the song I was most proud of and one that I really thought could work with a variety of different genres. My dreams of fame died when my brother joined a band and the lead singer was female. My song got thrown out of the window because the lyrics were for a guy and really couldn't be changed. Oh well. I still have hope maybe someday I'll see a royalty check for a Billboard #1.

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Poetic Confessions #2: Beach Bummer

I had a friend once. Or a “friend” as she liked to put it. But I'll give her a break on that one—I'm pretty sure she didn't know that quotes are not used to add emphasis to words. She loved to claim that if she could spend the rest of her life on a beach, she would. Reality check: we lived in the Midwest. No beaches—unless you count lake shores. Maybe this girl would make it to a beach once a year on spring break or something. But beach bum she was not. 

Read Beach Bum

I'll admit I was angry with her when I wrote this. I wanted something snarky that intelligently made fun of her, but it didn't exactly come out that way. Instead, as you can clearly tell, I gave up at the end, pretty much like I did with our friendship. I regret the poem, but I certainly don't regret the distance we now keep.

Poetic Confessions #1: Cutesy Wootsy Bunny Wunny

Easter is a great time to have a little fun being a kid again. Everyone loves the Easter egg hunts and the hollow chocolate bunnies to chomp on. Just never write a poem about a bunny. Ever. It doesn't work. I found out the hard way.

In 2009, Associated Content (now YCN) put up an assignment available to write an Easter-themed poem. I took this as an easy task thinking there's no way I could screw this up—all you really had to do was vaguely mention Easter. Well, here's proof that I could and did. Read Bunnies at Work and see what I mean.

I guess I was just in the wrong mindset at the time. Not only did I manage to write my hopping prose in about five minutes, I also managed to slip in the major frustrations I was having with freelancing at the time. If I remember this point in my career, I was having to take on so many jobs to meet my monthly financial commitments that I was working 60 hours a week and still only making about $1200 a month. Actually, remembering the story behind this poem makes me wonder why the bunny just didn't go on a killing spree with a fountain pen.

To add insult to my already shameful unremovable-from-the-internet poetic disaster, there's a comment at the bottom that just made my day when I read it nearly a year after the poem was first published. Someone named James wrote: “This is the [wors] poem I've ever written.” You wrote it? Well that explains it! I'm free from the humiliation. Thank you, James. Thank you.

It's National Poetry Month!

Well, we've finally made it--National Poetry Month! All month long I'll be featuring my Poem of the Day, Poetic Confessions (every Friday post), and also keeping everyone up to date on Script Frenzy and how that's all going. Are you participating? Here's my little corner of the world at Script Frenzy.

So far I have managed to stay on task the first day of this challenge. I'm doing a comic book script instead of a traditional feature length script which will hopefully keep me motivated. I'm actually working on comics about freelance writing, which chronologically take place after my College Chronicles comics. It's great to get all the scripts done... after April I'll just have to concentrate on drawing them. All 200+ (so far...).

So--what is everyone else doing to celebrate National Poetry Month?

Poem of the Day: A Dying Soul

Itching for Adventure (again)

After living in my parents basement for the past three weeks, I'm really looking to do something exciting, adventurous, and far away from here. I know that money is tight and this transition period between projects has gone on about three months longer than expected, but I need to bust out. I've tried looking for jobs ("real jobs" as the family puts it) outside of my immediate living area, but it's the whole chicken-egg debate: get the job first or move first? I've tried both options in the past, and both times it didn't work.

Instead of whining how I'm stuck, instead I'll just tell you I'm determined. Determined to break free (because the family is extreme enablers when it comes to my social isolation), determined to get my life back together (not that it ever was together), and determined to be successful at something. Anything. It could happen. :)

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And a slight problem with the Poetic Confessions submissions... I haven't received any! If you were thinking about submitting one, please get those in. Otherwise you'll have to deal with my sorry confessions all month long.

Snoopers

I must be paranoid about snooping. My family doesn't snoop on me, but as I look at my to-do list for this week, it all seems to be written in some strange code. It's like I don't really want anyone to know that I scheduled a block of time to write this blog post or that I want to write a certain amount of articles for the day. I know I've had snoopers in the past (an apology to anyone who's told me a secret since I started keeping a diary at the age of 11--I'm pretty sure someone knows your secret by now). I guess I'm just too private sometimes. Maybe I've just discovered why I can't get to the final stages of publishing. Letting people read your work is a hard thing to do. I just have to learn to let go. Okay... enough public self-analysis.

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Poetic Confessions: Still taking submissions! Read the original post

Monday Blues

...or if I was a less tactful blogger, I would have titled this post "Monday Blows!" I don't know if it's just the same old bad attitude many of us suffer at the beginning of the week, but this day just started off wrong. I have been writing a lot of news articles for work lately. I love them--gets me back into my journalism roots. But the pay is low (as always) and this morning the research was so vague and repetitive that I couldn't get the article to differentiate themselves from what's already been posted to the web. Really--how many different ways can you say that one celebrity is engaged to another one in just 100 words?

Needless to say, I wasted an hour working on these because for the meager wages, I cannot spend a lot of time re-spinning the articles. Similar phrasing picked up on whatever automatic anti-duplicate system they used sometimes cannot be helped.

So now I'm spending the rest of the afternoon/evening inserting poems into my Personas manuscript. There are still some that have to be revised, but it will be a good road map for what my project will look like once its done.

I also spent some time this morning writing a Poetic Confession. Want to submit one of your own? Check out the original post for details.

Poetic Confessions--Submit Yours Now

We all have them: a vile verse, a crude couplet, a quatrain destined for the dump or just an embarrassing tale of woe set in poetic form. I'm now introducing Poetic Confessions: a way to cleanse the writer's conscious. No matter how embarrassing, silly or sad your story may be, I want to hear from you. We all know that April is National Poetry Month, so we'll kick it off right by featuring some Poetic Confessions. But I can't do this alone--while I have many confessions to make, I'm sure my readers want more of a variety of confessions.

So that means I'm accepting entries of your own Poetic Confessions. Just email your story (short or long--doesn't matter to me). If you reference a specific poem of yours that's available online, feel free to include the link to it. You should also include a short (1-2 lines) bio and a link to your blog or website (free promotion!!). Please put the words "Poetic Confessions" in the subject line so I won't lose it in the spam folder. I cannot guarantee that your confession will make it on the blog during the month of April depending on the amount of submissions I get, but it could be used at some point in the future.

From time to time we all have that poetic misstep, so go ahead and get it off your chest. I'll start posting confessions on April 1.

Weekend Worker

This blog has had its ups and downs, but over the weekend I hit 10,000 page views. Of course a few of mine may count in there, but it's a milestone nonetheless.

This weekend was full of work. I normally work on the weekends, but this weekend all of the writing seemed to drag on forever. I think I need a little vacation, but it's hard to walk away from writing. It's nearly impossible when its my livelihood. Anyway...

On Wednesday I'll be announcing my plans for Poetic Confessions, a blog post theme that I'll be rolling out for National Poetry Month in April. Stay tuned for more details.

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