On Writing

Believe it or not I don’t think I’ve really written about my writing in a while. I’ve been busy writing, and busy doing other things, and working on transitioning back into living at home. But I haven’t blogged about writing for a while, and I thought that today would be a good day to do just that.

As I mentioned, I’ve been writing a lot lately. For a while now I’ve been working to write every day, and for the most part that’s working out pretty well. I miss a day here and there for various reasons, but overall I’ve been consistent. And lately I’ve been writing a lot of poetry. I mean, a lot. Really this is only worth noting because in the past I haven’t really written poetry at all. It just hasn’t been my thing. It’s never been something that’s clicked. So I’ve written a lot of lists and a lot of fiction and that’s been about it. And there hasn’t been anything wrong with that.

This past semester though, my last semester at UCONN, I had to write 10 poems for my Creative Writing II class. And I was really dreading it because, as previously mentioned, poetry isn’t really my thing. But then this wonderful thing happened. Writing the poems wasn’t hard. Not at all. Not even a little. I actually really enjoyed writing the poetry. It was fun. For the first time in a long time, if not the first time in forever, poetry wasn’t the enemy.

Once it was established that poetry wasn’t the enemy, I began writing a lot more of it. Like, a lot a lot more of it. I’ve kind of been on a poetry roll lately. And while I miss writing in prose, miss writing my dribbles and drabbles and whatnot, I’m really enjoying writing poetry. It’s actually right up my alley because poems capture a moment and I am all about capturing just a moment, or a series of loosely connected moments.

So to sum up this long rambley rant of mine, poetry has joined my repertoire of forms to write in. And life is good, writing is good, and I hope everything is good with all of you.

BrittanyM

Forms of Writing

I think it’s safe to say at this point that everyone who reads my blog knows that I write. All the time. I write this blog, and I have a journal. I write a lot of lists – especially to do lists. And otherwise generally when I write I write fiction. That’s always been my chosen method for as long as I can remember. I know how to put words into sentences into paragraphs into stories. It works for me.

I’m telling you all of this to show I don’t really write poetry. Sometimes I go through poetry spurts, and occasionally I’ve had to write poems for class, and really that’s about it. Poetry has always been one of those things that alludes me a little bit. How do people do it? How do they make it sound beautiful? How do all the pieces fit together when they’re not in sentences? I don’t think these are uncommon questions, but one might think I would have a slightly better idea.

All of this is leading to the fact that when my Creative Writing II professor told us we had to write 10 poems, that seemed like a lot. And because of scheduling issues 10 had originally been 12. So really 10 was a blessing, but I went into it with fear and trepidation. Even having a set assignment for the first poem didn’t alleviate my stress. What was I going to do?

And I thought and I wondered and I pondered and I realized that I needed a common theme. Then at least I would have something to work with. And because of what I’ve been reading and writing lately I decided on fairy tales, but not happy fairy tales. I wanted to focus on the darker side. (Note, this is not the darkest side which I’ve discovered through research for a paper. I just didn’t want everything to be all sparkly and shiny, because what if it really wasn’t?) And having some order helped. I wrote a couple of poems and realized the world wasn’t going to end.

By far my best poem thus far though has nothing to do with fairy tales. My professor had us do a collage poem which is (seemingly) incredibly complicated to explain. But think of the process of a collage. You take different pieces and fit them together. That’s kind of what you do with a collage poem. You take inspiration from artwork and ambiance and other slightly abstract things and weave it together into a poem. And not only was the process a lot of fun, but I love what I came up with. Personally I think it’s my best poem so far.

Poetry might not be my chosen form of writing, but I think I need to cut it some slack and maybe give it some more opportunities. This semester has reminded me that it really isn’t all that bad.

BrittanyM