Workshops, writing and what the....
Last Saturday I went to a workshop run by the Lazy River Writers (my writing group). Each year we choose a different topic, genre and presenter for our workshop and this year it was poetry and poet Peter Bakowski.
Peter ran a great workshop. Not only did he offer up so much information (that applied to all aspects of writing, not just poetry) he gave us the opportunity to write and generously commented on each persons attempts. Writing like this in a different location, with a group of people, some known some not, is not an easy task but I was impressed with what people had accomplished in such a short piece of time. Even those that classify themselves as non-poets wrote and shared with the group.
I find workshops are a wonderful kick up the butt. They inspire, they motivate and they validate some things that quite often I do know deep inside. Not only am I working on one of the poems I wrote during this workshop but I took home, for me, two very important ideas.
Firstly Peter suggests you have Nominated Writing Day - for him it's Mondays. He says friends now know that he won't go out and meet them for coffees etc because this is his day for writing. It's up to us to decide when we can fit this into our lives, often with negotiation with family/friends/work.
At the moment Wednesdays are my one day off so I've chose that day to be my Writing Day (capitals necessary) - watch this space to see how my efforts go.
The second idea I loved is having a list. A list of ideas of poems you would like to write about. I have started this list, it has a variety of ideas all ready on it, from family stories passed down to nuns in the catholic school I went to to my holiday in NZ.
So there you go, two ideas to get me motivated and writing lots of poetry.
the What the....comment comes from the fact that there are now Christmas decorations in the shopping centres. It's only October, we haven't had Halloween yet, but baubles and tinsel abound.
No wonder Christmas has lost it's magic for so many when we start to expect it months ahead of schedule.
Peter ran a great workshop. Not only did he offer up so much information (that applied to all aspects of writing, not just poetry) he gave us the opportunity to write and generously commented on each persons attempts. Writing like this in a different location, with a group of people, some known some not, is not an easy task but I was impressed with what people had accomplished in such a short piece of time. Even those that classify themselves as non-poets wrote and shared with the group.
I find workshops are a wonderful kick up the butt. They inspire, they motivate and they validate some things that quite often I do know deep inside. Not only am I working on one of the poems I wrote during this workshop but I took home, for me, two very important ideas.
Firstly Peter suggests you have Nominated Writing Day - for him it's Mondays. He says friends now know that he won't go out and meet them for coffees etc because this is his day for writing. It's up to us to decide when we can fit this into our lives, often with negotiation with family/friends/work.
At the moment Wednesdays are my one day off so I've chose that day to be my Writing Day (capitals necessary) - watch this space to see how my efforts go.
The second idea I loved is having a list. A list of ideas of poems you would like to write about. I have started this list, it has a variety of ideas all ready on it, from family stories passed down to nuns in the catholic school I went to to my holiday in NZ.
So there you go, two ideas to get me motivated and writing lots of poetry.
the What the....comment comes from the fact that there are now Christmas decorations in the shopping centres. It's only October, we haven't had Halloween yet, but baubles and tinsel abound.
No wonder Christmas has lost it's magic for so many when we start to expect it months ahead of schedule.
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