Personal Challenge - Poetry Writing

Thanks to everyone who visits my blog ~ 

I have set a personal writing challenge for myself.   After getting encouragement from my son who is into poetry (Street Poetry), I decided to try my hand in composing and writing short poems.

I have not written poetry for the longest time so it is a bit of challenge to coax my writing muse out and give her the free rein.   I set the following goals for myself:

10 entries - poems about Love 

10 entries - poems about Life

10 entries - poems about Friendship

I hope to hit my goal on or before the end of May.    

I also set up another blog just about poetry but it is set to private so I can freely draft and compose my thoughts.   You might asked where my inspiration comes from and what do I do to  let my imagination run free.    

I chose these 3 topics because they are the most popular searched topics on poetry.   They are general enough to start with, and with my life experiences, I think I can write something about it.   

Next, I listed down random titles or topics concerning each category.    It is amazing what titles I can think of regarding Love, Life and Friendship.     Next, from each title, I randomly choose one, and just started writing about the title.     I usually play with words and phrases, so it is fun just letting my fingers write the words as it pops in my mind.   Sometimes, when I am done with a poem composition, I revise the title to fit my post or I come up with a different story altogether.

So far, I have about 10 compositions in draft, so it seems that the word prompts from the working titles are working.    To also get ideas, I read stories.   I don't read the poems of others at this point, because I want to develop my own style of writing.   Original content to me is important because it is what readers are looking for.     It is also the same when I started blogging,  I didn't read other's blogs until on the 3rd month when I was more confident of my style and presentation.   I didn't want to be intimidated by how well others are doing but after a while, I wanted to compare my style and improve on it.   That was when I started reading and commenting on the blogs of others.   

On the subject of improving my craft, my son encouraged me to join a forum or community about poetry so I can post my work and get feedback about it.   I have signed up for this, but I haven't yet posted my work.    I think I need to get pass my fear of negative feedback from others about my work.    Of course, I am my worst critic...  I don't post it until I have polish it enough to give it its unique message.     I am also careful not to overdo the editing part - it will never be perfect but if it is good enough, then I publish it.     

If you are into poetry writing, let me know what works with you.         

Hope everyone has a good weekend ~