Archive for the ‘Pep Talks’ Category:
Written on February 14th, 2014 by adminno shouts
It is half way through February and it is also V day! That’s right it is victory day because even if yo are behind on the challenge, you are writing and you have constructed poems, you have material to work with. Do not despair and give up either as there is still a lot of month left and it is possible to catch up!
And as always there are those who have already finished the challenge – to you we say – FANTASTIC! WELL DONE and KEEP WRITING! Now you have found your groove, now you have a system for getting the writing done. Do not loose that, keep going and see how much you can produced in the month.
If you are struggling though, take a deep breath and get a pen and have a rummage around the archives, there are lots of different writing challenges and inspirational pieces from poets.
Good luck everyone and keep writing!
Written on February 7th, 2014 by adminno shouts
The first week has zoomed by in a cloud of manic writing and/or despair, we have more gust bloggers to come and some delectable give aways!
The main advice for everyone at this point is – KEEP WRITING! – and to help with the motivation here is a web badge. You can put this image on your website or use as an avatar (profile pic) in social media.
If you’d like to put it onto your blog or web site, just copy and paste this HTML into a blog post or your site template:
<a href="http://wopowrimo.wigglypets.co.uk/" alt="WoPoWriMo">
<img src="http://wopowrimo.wigglypets.co.uk/resources/2013/Creativitea.png"
width="128" height="194" />
</a>
For those who want to just the image here is the code you need. If you feel happier with just copying the image from the site you are welcome to do that as well.
<img
src="http://wopowrimo.wigglypets.co.uk/resources/2013/Creativitea.png"
width="128" height="194"
I'm releasing the image under a Creative Commons licence, so you can copy it and distribute it under these terms:
Creativi-Tea by Sarah Snell-Pym is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Now get writing!
(And yes this is the same on from last year – there were requests to bring it back!)
Written on January 1st, 2014 by adminno shouts
2014 has began and it is time to start a fresh with the writing, if you are anything like us here at WoPo you will find that during the year your poetic focus drifts. January is the perfect time to fix this!
Look at your daily commitments, and slot yourself in for a writing space – each and every day. It only has to be five minutes but it has to happen. This will help you get into a routine. You may not write much at first but as the days pass you will find it easier to slip into the writing zone.
Ideas will then likely start occurring when it is not your writing time, to deal with this text yourself the idea or carry a small pocket note book to jot things down in. If you are stuck for ideas, do not fret, there are always plenty of exercises on this blog to help you.
HAPPY NEW YEAR – now get writing 🙂
Written on April 30th, 2013 by adminno shouts
It is the end of yet another poem a day challenge – April’s National Poetry Writing Month. Hopefully you have collected quiet a few first drafts and that the resources here have been helpful.
Put those poems away for a bit now – maybe get out the ones you did at the beginning of the year and begin to look through these older poems. Once you have forgotten what it is you’ve written you can read the poem with fresh eyes – a poem that seemed awful is a goodun and a precious piece is seen as the tripe it actually is.
Now it is editing time.
Regular writing exercises and tutorials on form plus guest bloggers will be appearing on this site too help you.
Written on April 1st, 2013 by adminno shouts
It is April the first and that can mean only one thing… no not the silly practical jokes and false status updates on Facebook but rather the start of the years third Poem A Day challenge NaPoWriMo. This was the first of the Poem A Challenges and as such has a special place in the hearts of us here at team WoPo.
The website has some fantastic stuff on it so check it out. Here on WoPo we will have daily writing challenges and guest bloggers plus general poetry how to.
The challenge for those who are new, is too write a poem a day for 30 days – the whole of April. It was modeled on the novel writing challenge NaNoWriMo.
To get you all started why not use April Fools Day as inspiration. Think about the silly playground pranks and how they sometimes go wrong, make a list of ten jokes and their consequences. Now write a stanza for each bullet point. The poem may want to grow using just one of the jokes – let it. This is the bones of a poem. Let it sit a while and come back to it on a later date. Do not worry about pinning it down into a specific form or rigid structure at this point – that will come with the editing.
Now get writing!
Written on March 21st, 2013 by adminno shouts
It has been several weeks since the manic poetry scribbling of World Poetry Writing Month – hopefully it helped to get you into a pattern were you are writing each day. If that is the case then keep going, put your poems away for about six weeks before attempting to edit them.
If you are not in that space and just stopped writing as soon as the challenge was over then it is time to start writing again. If you have something it can be edited but until you touch pen to paper or fingers to electronic device or hit the record button you have nothing. Many find that their had seems too full of fragments of poems – this is not a problem – no it is great! Write those fragments down, fill note pads with them, they are the beginnings, they are the sparks of future poems.
Once you have a selection of these fragments use them for response writing exercises, write the fragment at the top of a page, set a timer for 5 minutes and just begin writing, continue the fragment. Do not worry about what you are writing or weather it makes any sense just keep the pen on paper or you fingers moving until your timer bleeps. If you are struggling stop when the timer bleeps, if you are inspired just keep going. One of the WoPo team often doesn’t notice the timers bleeping if they are really into the writing!
Now off you go and fill that note book!
Written on March 1st, 2013 by adminno shouts
It was the morning after WoPo and all the poets sat forlorn not knowing what to do with their spare moments or those pesky poems that waited until the challenge had finished before saying ‘Write-Me! Write-Me!’.
The solution is obvious!
Keep writing – that’s right you heard correctly.
Try and sit down and just write for ten minutes everyday.
If you want to use writing exercises, there are plenty on this site under the heading of Exercises or there is Three Word Wednesday and Blue Monster for more inspiration.
The competition winners will be announced next week and some great guest bloggers shall be sharing their poetic secrets with you all soon.
But now well done! And make sure you’ve collected your Normali Tea web-badge.
Written on February 7th, 2013 by adminno shouts
We are at the end of the first week of the WoPo challenge and chances are that some of you are doing really well and that you have whizzed a head even, maybe even finished! Well if that is you well done but don’t stop keep going and continue writing everyday, why not see just how many poems you can produce!
Or alternatively maybe start editing them though we suggest you pop them away somewhere for a while first before going back and editing.
If however you have that life has gotten in the way do not panic!
No there is still plenty of time, even if you have not yet started the challenge just buckle down and get going with it you could still produce over 20 poems!
And part of the challenge’s worth is to help you learn a writing habit!
Written on February 1st, 2013 by adminno shouts
So WoPoWriMo begins again. A month of poetic madness.
The challenge should you choose to accept it, is to write a poem a day for the month of February. Now these do not have to be whole complete poems but rather the beginnings of poems. They are a base to work from and we here at WoPo plan to give you all the tools you need to craft your poems during and after the challenge.
If you wish to sign up go to here and make a comment, remembering that if you are putting the poems on your blog or other site to link to it. You do not have to put your poems on line – many poets do not as they want to keep the poems for traditional publication routes or are worried about copy right issues, but if you do we would love you to share!
We are running on the idea of honor for the sigh-up and completion after all if you lie about how you are doing the only person it hurts is you. Also we realise some people do not want to make it public that they are in fact taking part and that is ok too – lurk all you want there are lots of good resources around the site and advice from established poets too!
Ok so those of you who are ready to go wax lyrical, hold your horses and pick up your free web-badge!
If you’d like to put it onto your blog or web site, just copy and paste this HTML into a blog post or your site template:
<a href="http://wopowrimo.wigglypets.co.uk/" alt="WoPoWriMo">
<img src="http://wopowrimo.wigglypets.co.uk/resources/2013/Creativitea.png"
width="128" height="194" />
</a>
For those who want to just the image here is the code you need. If you feel happer with just copying the image from the site you are welcome to do that as well.
<img
src="http://wopowrimo.wigglypets.co.uk/resources/2013/Creativitea.png"
width="128" height="194"
I'm releasing the image under a Creative Commons licence, so you can copy it and distribute it under these terms:
Creativi-Tea by Sarah Snell-Pym is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
If you are stuck with Ye Old Writer’s Block already then you might want to have a noodle around the Exercises section.
You may have noticed a tea theme going on with WoPoWriMo this year instead of the normal muse monsters – this is because it is actually our 5th Birthday! So we are having a birthday tea but more on that tomorrow! Mean while enjoy the Creativity of Creativi Tea, think of her as a mascot as well as a web-badge!
Now go get writing!
Written on February 15th, 2011 by adminno shouts
It is over half way through the month which of course is one of the boons of doing the challenge in the shortest month! Now some of you are on target which is brilliant and some of you still only have one poem – but it’s a poem you wouldn’t otherwise have and there will be other ideas taking root in your mind as the month progresses!
“Keep going!” is the advice, even if you are ahead – even if you have more than 30 poem drafts – keep going! Put in your session every day! Or if you have really and truly poemed yourself out and have the month’s worth all ready maybe have a little look at what you have produced; but it is often best to leave the poems for a while before editing them.
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