I have a friend, a fellow writer, who has put together a list of words, and has challenged others to write a poem a day for the month of February. This list of words was posted on instagram, which I don’t ‘do’, but there was a link on Twitter from this person, and I certainly ‘do’ Twitter. My friend is Kathy Parker, and she is a fine writer, and keen blogger.
The idea is to use the given list for writing prompts, and write a new poem every single day in February based on the day’s prompt. It seemed like a fun challenge to me, so I said, yes, sure I can do that. So today, on the first day of February, and the first day of the challenge, here is my first poem, which I just finished writing. The poem refers to something that happened to me yesterday. I will explain a little about the poem after.
Poem a Day, subject – Heat
In the heat of discovery
Thinking on the past, things happened
bad things, good things, so-so things
but this new thing, this wondrous thing
has warmed my heart and my writerly soul!
I thank my former self, my untidy, creative,
even sometimes crazy self, thank you,
thank you, thank you, for this wondrous gift!
A novel written by a past me, hidden away
for some unknown reason, lost? Not sure,
but has reappeared, a first draft, with some
minor changes already on it, and with more
to add, change, explore, and wonder at, as
the future me, thanks the former me,
for losing this novel way back whenever,
for me to find again now, at a time when I am
eager, ready, willing, and able, to work
as needed to turn lost possibility, into found
certainty, as I read this novel and wonder
at the beauty and interest in my forgotten words.
I know this forgotten story, and these characters,
I’m remembering it, this lost story I lived with
for a time, back in my past, and now I hope
to read this story, edit, it, love it all over again,
and to share this story, with as many others
as I can, as a brand new book, in this new year!
So yesterday, as this new poem indicates, I did indeed find a manuscript of a first draft of a novel I wrote many years ago. I’m not sure how many years ago it was, & I’m not sure how I actually came to find this paticular sizable piece of writing, and why I took a look at it, and suddenely remembered it, of course, that story, those characters, hooray, I might be able to do something with this.
The manuscript is printed single spaced, it is 84 pages, and I suspect it may have something like 62,000 words. I’m going to check the going word count required for a book such as this one, before I get to far through the process of reading this story again for the first time since I put it away.
So I’ve just spent half an hour looking at word counts for books, and it looks like the best length is probably somewhere around 80,000 words. My very rough calculations put my novel at 62,000 words, as I wrote earlier. I’ve only just begun reading through my first draft of this book of mine, and I am adding, rather than subtracting from the word count, and I’ve discovered some notes I’ve written, that indicate I will need to add more to the novel to clarify some issues, so that will add further to the word count.
All in all, I am quite excited about all of this. By the way 2019 is looking, I may well actually end up writing at least four whole books in just one year! Woo hoo to me!
