Month of Poetry (MoP)

Do you like poetry? I often prefer to write it more than read it, which seems strange, I’m sure. But then I find poetry sometimes that is a great read and all is well. 🙂

During PiBoIdMo in November, I learned of MoP — Month of Poetry. I said then that I would consider attempting the challenge which was scheduled for January. When this month arrived, if you have been keeping up with my posts, you know – I was involved with family things and being so busy that I forgot about #MoP until a few days in. Since it was still okay to sign up I joined seven days into it. Then for day two, here is my offering:

A poem a day
What was I thinking!
Rhyme, rhythm, cadence
My eyes are blinking.

My verse is too tight
There’s much I don’t know
For thirty-one days
My words have to flow
Poetically

Well … so I’m not a great poet, but that’s not the point, anyway. (fortunately for me) The inadequacies were creeping in, but once I got over myself they disappeared. The main thing is to have fun trying, writing and reading poetry, and we are learning some new styles and forms as we go along. Plus Kat (the originator and host of this challenge) has a few guest bloggers to encourage and educate us. It’s all good and I am enjoying it, and the fact that this challenge is set in Australia.

So, if you are interested in accepting the challenge to write a poem a day this month follow this link before opportunity to sign up ends. http://monthofpoetry.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/whos-in-month-of-poetry-2011/

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Did you make resolutions?

Wow! It is 2011 already! HAPPY NEW YEAR to you!

First, thank you for your support in reading my ramblings here. I appreciate you very much. 🙂

I had intended to post here for Christmas and the New Year, but I got overwhelmed with life and ‘stuff’ and couldn’t fit everything in. I was busy with all the usual things, but since this is the season I fight depression I had a bit of a struggle right around Christmas. Same as last year our two youngest daughters did not get home, and our two oldest daughters didn’t come out either but met us at my dad’s in early afternoon for our combined family dinner – only ten of us this year. It was very quiet here all morning with just my husband and our daughter’s little dog. Very unusual … the first time in all our years together that it has been just the two of us for Christmas. I missed our girls.

A sad time for us was that my aunt (Dad’s sister) was dying, and she passed away December 28, her funeral being January 1. That made for a rather rough end of 2010 and beginning of 2011 for my family. Not much unlike thirteen years ago when Mum passed away December 30, her funeral being January 2. Some years I get through the ‘anniversary’ just fine, but this year was not as easy. I think much of it was that I felt sorrow for my cousins, and it brought everything back more intensely for me.

How was the Christmas season for you? How did you celebrate the ‘holidays’?

On a lighter note … much to-do is made over New Year’s resolutions. Several years ago I gave up making them officially, but each new year I plan and hope to “do better”. This time I determined to ‘go through’ my house one room at a time to ‘fine tune’ things, and I have done one room so far. I also have business goals to achieve, writing aspirations to focus on, continued publishing of Christian newsletter Valley Sunshine and members’ correspondence to answer.

Last year I did resolve to read more, which you know by the page I set up here – My “have read” book list (Dec 1’09 – Dec 31’10) – where I kept track of my progress. Since that fun thing went quite well I set up a page for this year, too. I will finish reading the books of the Bible and add to my list as many more books as I possibly can. For some I will write reviews and I plan to interview authors as well.

All these are things that interest me that I want to do. But — I have to remember not to stress myself out when I can’t keep up. Right?

How is your reading coming along? Have you been inspired to read anything you have seen mentioned here? If so, I would love to know about it. 🙂

So, have you made any New Year’s resolutions/set any goals for 2011?

I wish for you a happy, healthy, accomplished 2011.

Thanks for reading, and .. Creative Musings! 🙂

NaNoWriMo 2010 is over — I WON!

Yes, NaNoWriMo is over for another year. If you have not been following my posts — this is the first NaNo challenge for me and I WON! That means that I met the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days – with a few words over just to be sure – and I now have the certificate to prove it. Yay!

My ‘novel’ is not completed, though. I stopped writing in a place where there are three conflicts set up to be resolved, but I think it was a good place to stop for this challenge. Now I have the personal challenge of completing my ‘novel’ and doing a LOT of editing.

Writing my last post I was SO TIRED, and I had to laugh today when I read it over and saw the typos I made last night. And I don’t know why I didn’t say in that post’s heading that I had won in NaNo. Too tired to think it through, I guess. 🙂

Last night I also signed the pledge to verify that I had completed PiBoIdMo, and now we wait to learn who, of all of its participants, win those great prizes that Tara Lazar gathered to give out on December 3 or 4.

Talking to my husband over supper tonight I realized that I really did accomplish quite a bit of writing last month (November) — 50K words for NaNoWriMo, 30 picture book ideas for PiBoIdMo (I actually got 44), and I completed and mailed out the Autumn issue of Valley Sunshine newsletter.

No wonder I’m tired. I am ending this day early. Hopefully tomorrow I can get more accomplished in my house than I did today.

And it’s now December! Time to get my house in order to start decorating for Christmas!

So, how was your day? Have you started Christmas shopping and decorating?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Day 27: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Saturday, Day 27 of NaNoWriMo. Wow! What a day this has been. First of all, in the morning my husband and I went to town to the Farmers Market where I purchased three Chr istmas gifts (just couldn’t resist) after I met local author Jan L. Coates – which is why we went there today. She is delightful! She signed my copies of her newest book – A Hare In The Elephant’s Trunk – and we chatted a bit. (Actually, I’m sure I talked too much. oh dear) I urge you to check out this website: http://www.wadeng.org

I have several books I am eager to read — three books for which I will be writing reviews. I will be posting those reviews here on my blog, just as I did on October 26 after reading Max Lucado’s book – Out Live Your Life. But I am especially so looking forward to reading Jan‘s book after NaNo is over. I heard an interview on the radio several weeks ago and was touched by the story, built around a true and tragic story. I will probably write about her book here, too.

When we returned home I got down to writing. For hours I sat writing, getting up to walk around or stretch, and to make myself a lunch in the middle of the afternoon. Just before midnight I punched in my new numbers. I’d managed to write 3525 words today! Yay! That takes me up to 38,527 words written for this challenge so far. Now it feels more as if I can win this NaNo challenge, whereas I was beginning to doubt myself the last few days. Now I have it 78% completed! Almost 11,500 words have yet to be written – in three days – but now it is reachable again. I just have to aim for 4000 words a day (which I haven’t done yet!) and I’ll have it, with extras as security. 🙂 Piece ‘o cake, right?… Right?

An idea for PiBoIdMo came through right around midnight. I now have 40 ideas for that challenge. It has been fun in a different way doing PiBo.

I believe I can call myself a writer after all this, what do you think?

What does it take for you to see yourself as a writer? Or if you are not a writer, then what makes you believe in your talents and abilities?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Day 26: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Friday, Day 26 of NaNoWriMo was a poor writing day for me. To start things off I got maybe four hours of sleep last night which would have been longer except for the fact that I was up early this morning to go to town with my sister. I had errands (banking, shopping) to do and she did some shopping, and it took longer than we had anticipated so I didn’t get back home until middle of the afternoon. I was SO tired and my writing didn’t amount to much tonight, but in looking back over my daily totals I discovered that it wasn’t my worst day. I haven’t let myself not write something each day because I didn’t want to get out of the habit of writing and into the habit of skipping days. As it is I am going to be doing major catch-up soon.

I have the NaNo challenge 71% completed, having added 768 words today which brings my written total to 35002 words. I had to get it over 35000 before leaving this for a longer sleep tonight. (It’s time to quit when I keep nodding off with pen in hand!)

When we were in town today we drove past the car lot which had been one of the sets used in a Jason Priestly movie last year. We were commenting on the look of it today, they had some strange goings-on there, and I joked about it – then realized that from what I said .. oh wow! A picture book idea for PiBoIdMo!

It’s amazing to me how so much around me can be converted into picture book ideas. (Thanks Tara and friends!) You can check out what I am talking about all the time by looking here: http://taralazar.wordpress.com

And before I quit I just want to say that I’m looking forward to tomorrow morning as I will be going to the Farmers Market in Wolfville to meet Jan Coates, author of A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk. She is going to be signing copies of her book there and I’ll be in line.

Have you met any authors and did you get a signed copy of that author’s book?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Day 25: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Belated HAPPY THANKSGIVING to any American readers of these pages.

Thursday, Day 25 of NaNoWriMo was not as productive as it should have been, but I did write 2055 words. This brings my total to 34234 and I have the challenge 69% completed. Stats says I will finish on December 7, so with only 5 days left in November it’s going to be very interesting to see how much I manage to write on each of those days. Much of three of them will be taken up with other things. The pressure is on!

For PiBoIdMo I came up with idea #38. I had sent an email to two friends and made a silly comment in it, then thought … oh my! I just came up with an idea for PiBoIdMo! I have learned to listen more to myself through this challenge.

I miss reading. I have been spending so much time writing for NaNo and PiBo and I’ve purposely stayed away from the books that I thought would influence my own writing. So, I miss reading! When December comes I plan to devour some books. 🙂

How about you? Which do you prefer to do, read or write?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Day 24: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Wednesday, Day 24 of NaNoWriMo was a good day. Today it rained and then snowed a little more, so I didn’t hang the laundry out to dry – which I prefer, but it takes more time to do. That just meant I had more time to do the ‘writerly‘ things I enjoy. So, I got Valley Sunshine all printed off on my cantankerous duplicating machine, collated into 63 copies, stapled, stuffed into previously prepared envelopes, sealed ’em up ready to go … but not in time for today’s mail. My sister stopped in and offered to take them with her to mail in the morning, so I kept the local ones to go here and she took the rest. Yay! They will all be on their way tomorrow!

With Valley Sunshine done I was able to start my NaNo writing earlier in the evening. Today I wrote 2849 words, taking my total to 32178. Now I have the challenge 65% completed! That is encouraging to me. With only 6 writing days left in the challenge I have to write almost 3000 words each day to win. Sadly, according to my stats on my NaNo page, at this rate I will finish on Dec 8. Okayyy, NOT acceptable!

I’m still getting ideas for PiBoIdMo. This afternoon I told my sister that I had yet to come up with an idea for it today, and she said “snowflake”. (It was snowing at the time.) I said, it has to be something different, I’m sure that’s been done to death. Then an idea instantly dropped into my mind, a storyline to do with snowflakes but something different. TaDa! Idea #36 which I wrote down and added to later as the story evolved. Then on Twitter I read something that gave me another idea, although it may be rather distorted. Some of my ideas are lame, some are crazy mixed-up ones, some have amounted to nothing more than a title as yet, but a few just might make it.

I’ve been really enjoying all this writing. It’s amazing that the month is nearly over already. NaNoWriMo has allowed me to see what my mind, given the chance, can create with words – beyond what I have ever attempted before. PiBoIdMo has been fun and very inspirational for me. I am hoping that some of the people I have ‘met’ through it will be people I can stay in touch with somehow. You know, ‘writerly’ types. 😉

Another bonus for me is that I have discovered the blogs and websites of some very talented people who love to write. Some have been published and some are still on the long journey to reach that goal.

If you are a creative person, have you had a chance to enjoy the company of like-minded creatives?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂