NaNoWriMo, again

Well, I’m back again. Late, as usual. My apologies.

I’ve returned to announce my second attempt at NaNoWriMo. Or, perhaps more accurately, NaPoWriMo—except in November (turns out there is an actual NaPoWriMo, but it’s in April). Like last year, I intend to focus on writing poetry this month—at least something every day, but with a preference to starting something new.

Last year, I found NaNoWriMo really helpful in getting me to write more; it was just the right balance of pressure to make me actually put pen to paper, but without the stress of deadlines (or even needing to actually finish). When it ended, I decided not to try continuing writing something every day. I thought of perhaps trying every second day, but I doubted that would ever really work—more than likely, I would just forget which days were on and which were off. So I just let myself off the hook. And predictably (including by me), I ended up writing a lot less. I would want to, and have ideas, but never really get around to it. And, in what I assume is a connected trend, I found that I had fewer ideas for new poems. Where it had felt easy and plentiful, I now just didn’t have as much to say.

So I return in the hopes of simply writing more. The doubt crossed my mind that maybe I wouldn’t be able to be creative, to write something new for thirty days straight. But I have a backlog of poem ideas that have yet to be properly sketched out, and on the first of November, while driving home from work, I was given around five or six new ideas. So I’m fairly confident raw numbers won’t be a problem.

To kick off the month, here’s a haiku I wrote on All Saints’ (though it perhaps is better suited to Halloween):

Setting sun’s last rays
On grave-markers cast shadows
As long as my life.

Happy writing!