Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday June 17, 2022: 5 for 30

June 17, 2022 /
This week Michelle Kogan is hosting Poetry Friday. Hop over there for the roundup. 
 

5 for 30

 
I’m a big fan of learning about yourself and how you write best. I’ve taken a few classes about using Clifton StrengthsFinders for Writers at Becca Syme’s Write Better Faster Academy. She often offers a challenge on her Patreon called “2 for 30” where you open your manuscript for 2 minutes every day for 30 days. I’ve never done it as a group challenge, but my understanding is that once you get over the hump of opening the manuscript, the hope is that you’ll spend longer than 2 minutes working on it.
 
 
I took that seed of an idea and I started my own monthly challenge that I call “5 for 30.” I work on a manuscript for 5 minutes a day for 30 days. Each time I do this, I buy a special notebook just for that project. I keep track of the dates and the times and what I did each day.
 
 

5 for 30 Challenge 1: A Picture Book

I started doing this with a picture book I just couldn’t figure out. I worked on it for 30 days in a row (yes, including weekends). Some days I worked for 5 minutes. Some days I worked on it for 20. But at the end of 30 days, I had a solid draft. It still needs work, but it was progress on a book that had been puzzling me for a long time.
 

5 for 30 Challenge 2: A Poetry Collection

The next time I tried it, I worked on a poetry collection. I just barely got started by using this challenge, but it’s started and I got over that hump of starting something new that is always hard for me.
 

5 for 30 (or 80) Challenge 3: The Butterfly Hours Prompts

My most recent challenge for myself was to work through the word prompts in The Butterfly Hours by Patty Dann. I’ve known about this book for a couple of years. I’ve even recommended it to other people, but I’d never done the prompts themselves. In my other challenges, I had a clear idea in mind–I wanted to write a book that I’d been wanting to write for eventual publication (I hoped). But this challenge was just for fun. Just for me.
 
I quickly realized that my 30 days wouldn’t be nearly enough. So I spent 80 days going through each word and jotting down my memories. I skipped two days only during that 80 days and they were planned days off for my daughter’s graduation.
 
I still don’t know what I want to do with the work I created in those 80 days. I know there is a lot of raw material that might make some good poems. I also think there might be seeds of essays in there. If nothing else, it helped me remember things that I had forgotten about my life.
 

5 for 30 Challenge 4: Nature Journaling

I’ve been learning how to nature journal for awhile now, but I’m not consistent. This month’s 5 for 30 challenge is to work on my nature journaling for 5 minutes a day. More to come on that hopefully. 
 
While this started as a challenge for me to work on manuscripts that needed a jumpstart, my last two projects have been more exploratory in nature, which I like a lot because there is no pressure. 
 

What I’m Reading

by Patty Dann
Patty Dann utilizes words as prompts for short essays throughout her book. Her examples rotate around her own life and her teaching life. She also includes a full list of the word prompts in the back of the book.
 
I’m a big fan of books with text broken up into short bits. When I did my 5 for 30 challenge, I read one of her essays each day, then I wrote my own response.
 

Haiku of the Week

afternoon perfume

honeysuckle overwhelms

even the bees

–Photo and Haiku © 2022 Marcie Flinchum Atkins 

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