Spring Has Sprung

April is coming very soon. It’s a busy month here at Experience Writing because it’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), and the A-Z blogging challenge. This year, since I photo-illustrate my posts anyway, and was so inspired by one word daily prompts last fall, I thought I would add a photo-challenge to the mix.

How will I do all that AND continue building healthy habits to finish my novels? Good question.

First, let’s look at all the fun challenges and events coming up in April.

National Poetry Writing Month

I started participating in NaPoWriMo in 2018. I really enjoy reading all the different responses to the prompts and the inspiration of the global community of poets celebrating poetry (language(s), perception, symbolism, creativity, imagination) together.

Writer’s Digest also has a Poem-a-Day (PAD) challenge through the month with daily prompts. I like to combine prompts, so I usually write to both.

When I renewed my membership with Academy of American Poets this year, I noticed that I can create my own anthologies: collections of poems I love from poets.org. I’m excited to do that throughout the month (and beyond). They also have special events like poem in your pocket day, and you can sign up for daily poems in your email, if you haven’t already.

Blogging A-Z

I have combined the Blogging A-Z challenge with NaPoWriMo since 2018. I really enjoy this challenge. I get to make up my own topic each year, so it adds another element to the daily poetry. For this challenge I like to explore words and language. Last year I explored Janus words; the year before it was musical terms. Look for this year’s theme on Wednesday.

April Daily Photography Prompts Calendar

I will be putting my one word daily prompts into a calendar like I did last November and December and include it with my A-Z announcement on Wednesday.

Haibun Monday

Today’s prompt for Haibun Monday at the dVerse Poets Pub is “cherry blossoms.”

Sprung

Last week, the house had a stroke. I plugged in the air-popper and the lights dimmed. Then part of the house was out of power, and my desk monitor was flashing madly. I ran to the fuse boxes, but nothing was flipped. The overhead light was pulsing and I heard a clicking noise.

I pulled the main switches down then sharply up again. The pulsing and clicking continued. I pulled each of the fuses to the right and then the left, and checked the water heater. It was the source of the rhythmic clicking, blinking rapidly on and off again and again, the beat to the pulsing lights. Not wanting to lose my newish water-heater, I shut it off at the fuse box. I unplugged everything. Turned everything off, and went to sleep with memories of cold showers, and expectations of hard days ahead.

The morning after the morning I called the power company–and they sent someone out and then some more someones and had the problem fixed by the afternoon–I opened the door to my cherry-plum trees in full bloom. I heard a loud electrical hum, and only imagined more electrical problems. I stepped outside and saw the trees writhing with bees in every blossom.

A yard book-ended in pink
overnight blossoms
pulsing in pollination

{Strange note: I started a draft of this post yesterday. When I came to work on it today, it was published, back-dated to March 8th. The only thing I can think of is the cat walking on the keyboard, and that’s pretty impressive, even for him.}