5 Things You Can Do Before Starting the November PAD Chapbook Challenge!
I’m excited to begin the 4th annual Poetic Asides November PAD Chapbook Challenge tomorrow. While the April challenge draws more comments, it doesn’t surprise me that many poets actually prefer…
I'm excited to begin the 4th annual Poetic Asides November PAD Chapbook Challenge tomorrow. While the April challenge draws more comments, it doesn't surprise me that many poets actually prefer the November challenge. For one, I just love writing during this time of year (and I'm sure other poets do too). Also, this challenge helps give focus to assembling a collection of poems, which can be a lot different than just writing one poem.
But November is a busy month for many, so I thought I'd share a few things poets can do to get ready for the November PAD Chapbook Challenge:
- Pay all your November bills. Once the prompts and poems start flying, you may forget to complete your regularly scheduled activities like paying the bills. So take care of them now to avoid realizing in December that you missed a payment.
- Stock up on food and water. These daily poem challenges can strike in ways that are similar to a natural disaster, so stock up on the essentials. Remember: Time that you're not at the grocery store can be time spent writing.
- Set your out of office message. Since you'll be writing poems all of November, there's no reason for you to mislead folks into thinking they'll receive a response to their e-maill messages before sometime in December (or January even).
- Buy earplugs. The outside world, including those who co-habitate with us, can be loud and ask questions and want help doing things and nag us poets about taking out the trash and doing the dishes, etc. If you use these bad boys, you can tune it all out.
- Get plenty of sleep tonight. Because starting tomorrow, you'll be up at all hours of November filling every second with a line and/or line break. Seriously.
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Connect with me on Twitter @robertleebrewer
And follow and report progress on Twitter through November by using the #novpad hashtag.
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
