Poetry Camp for NaNoWriMo

Hello April! I hope everyone is as safe as they can be. I am here to talk a little bit about Camp NaNoWriMo this year. This year is the first camp with the new NaNo website makeover. It was difficult for me last year in November to get the hang of what we were doing and how it all worked. I have since played around more with the site, and I am enjoying my camping experience. 

The best update I see so far on the NaNo website is that the cabins we had during camp have been turned into permeant writing groups. It certainly doesn’t mean you cannot leave the group you are in if you don’t like it. However, it does mean you have instant access to the buddies you have been writing with twice a year in November too. 

There were some other updates to the projects and goals I have not been as excited about. In the past, I used the hourly timed options as my goal when it comes to my writing. It was a way to build up my writing time during April and July. There are only options for the number of words now. However, you can make your project a little more specific now with drafting, editing, and publishing options as well as the type of writing you are working novel, short story, poetry, nonfiction, and more. 

While I miss the hourly goals, they have made two websites now one, and they more useable all year round. Just being able to talk to your writing group year-round is an exciting thought. If you wanted to track projects with word counts and dates, it is also a valuable tool for free. I think this was a brilliant move on their part to make Camp and Nano more uniform and user friendly. 

I have decided to join a couple of different writing groups this year. I am with my regular group this year. I have been a part of my regular cabin for two years now and a new writing group to expand my writing community. I have been getting to know new writers and chatting with my regular group since mid-March. I recommend trying out different groups if you have never attempted camp before, and it is such a great way to find new people to interact with in the world. 

This year for the camp, I am writing poetry. Poetry was how I started writing. I didn’t write short stories or a novel as a child. It was poetry that came out of me. I couldn’t figure out how to express the emotions running deep in me, so the way they came out was in the written word. For me, it was oral before it was written while I bottle-fed baby calves in the barn. Poetry was dancing in my head and then out of my mouth like a song I always knew but had never heard. I have missed poetry; she was always my first love. It was the thing that understood me before I understood myself. 

Poetry has been something that has trying to get out of me for years now after I tried to silence it. Poetry has been all along bubbling under the surface. I decided to let out this lion inside me out for a solid month to see what I could produce. I am not sure what will happen, but I hope it will help me process my life as my writing often does. I hope to see you in the CampNaNo world and if not…Just write. 

Poetry - Alone

I don’t even know where I am going 

As the car rocks me back and forth on

A highway I have driven in autopilot skitters by. 

Black asphalt ahead like film off of its projector and twirling against gray hues in the sky.

Brown plants along the edges of the road resisted these changes to their wilderness and died while trying to rebel.  

An emptiness encompasses me as tears begin to pool at the bottom of my chin before dripping in my lap.

Screams explode out of me into the silent car, and my throat instantly becomes sore. 

My mind longing to be changed and heart missing all connections. 

Finally, a car comes to change the scene as I wipe my eyes on my work shirt. 

My eyes are wiped when my head hits the roof of my car, and my chest punched hard.

I cannot open my eyes now; only darkness is there. 

Monday's Mug 010

Welcome back to the Monday Mug. I am enjoying this lovely weather we are having outside. I am having a little herbal tea tonight. I have no idea what kind because I didn’t look at it before I brewed it. The tea is excellent, though, with a little honey, it is better.

Would you like something as well? How about a brew you a cup?

This week has gone by in a blink, and it feels like I was just here talking to you. My process with submissions were I making a list of and looking for places to submit stories. I am focused on stories I want to submit. I have a few I need to edit and a couple of others I would like to complete. It seems like a slow process, and perhaps I am too hard on myself about the process. 

I read through a short story with a couple of writer friends, and it was fun to pull apart the story and see what was happening. When I was in school, it was part of our assignments, but I have to say it has been helpful to be able to pick some of the stories too. I need to start the Bradbury challenge to push myself further, but I am going to wait until December. It will be reading a short story, essay, and poem every day. 

Would you like some more tea night?

How is my marriage to writing going? It is a little bit of a bumpy start. There are times I question my choices, but I am a very analytical person, as well. I wonder about everything, but I am sticking to my decisions because, for me, right now, it is about love, and what at my core makes me happy. Writing does this for me still and always. Poetry has been sneaking back into my writing again slowly. I find when I am trying to make sense of the world, and poetry is how that happens often. I enjoy writing about hard problems in life and injustices. I could write volumes about romances that have gone wrong, but perhaps I will save that for later. 

So, this week, overall, has been pleasing. I am making slow and steady progress even though I am not as talkative in my writing community as I usually am. I am not sure why I am so quiet, but I think maybe it is just a time for me to observe and listen. 

I’m keeping it short this week, and off to get more writing done. Until next time… just write.