A Poem a Day

Yesterday someone told me they were impressed by my notebook collection. Impressed further still when I told them they were all filled save for the one I currently use.

I journal nearly everyday. Not just ‘this is what happened today’, but reflections and thoughts and emotions and prayers and poems and short stories and ideas and lists.

I thought, if I can journal nearly everyday, and when challenged write my novel every day, then why shouldn’t I just write creatively everyday, in general, without a specific purpose?

I’m thinking poems and short stories that won’t necessarily go into my journal, that won’t necessarily go into my novel. If I write something creative that’s not used in my novel, I usually end up deleting it. How sad is that?

I guess you could call this a 30-day-challenge or whatever, but know this is simply me being more thoughtful about expressing myself creatively. I’m not going to make this official, but by blogging about it perhaps I’ll be held more accountable, or less forgetful.

I want to strengthen my poetry muscles, as well as short stories or even just fictional paragraphs. Sentences! Creative sentences that don’t serve any purpose other than expressing myself! I just want to write creatively without it needing to fit into a box.

I won’t be able to blog for the first seven days of October, as I’m away on a camp (you’re looking at a cabin leader) but I will still write creatively in that time.

As I said, nothing official, but I noticed I only write down poetry when I’m emotional or prayerful. Which is fine, but I want to write poetry about the everyday things as well as the sad or praising. 

This poem-a-day-for-30-days idea came to mind because in the past month there have been numerous times when I’ve had a few moments to spare and absentmindedly made up a poem in my head. I do this often; make small rhymes, create songs that don’t necessarily mean anything other than ‘this is my everyday life’. But I’ve only begun to really notice it this month.

So I thought – why not make this a thing thing, you know? A blog thing. A thing I blog about. A thing I let you in on. A thing where you get to read my small creative bursts throughout the month even if they’re not very long.

I know I’ve said stuff like this before. Stuff like ‘oh yes, I’m going to be more creative on my blog’ so I post one poem and then never again. But this time feels different. Something’s shifted. And I’m excited.

Let’s do this.

Sarah xx