A New Year, A New Look for 2024

New Theme

Here we are in a new year and I finally found a new WordPress theme that I think will work with Experience Writing. I’m trying “Hever” which is supposed to adapt across devices, moved all the widgets to the footer, and most importantly, doesn’t have that weird text overlap spacing issue with headers that was driving me nuts.

You may notice things changing from post to post as I learn what I can (and can’t) do with this new theme, and please let me know how things look to you as I mainly see Experience Writing on a laptop. Plus, you are the readers, so I want it to be appealing and readable for you.

Reflection

2023 continued to build on my work from 2022, with a focus on revision and finishing projects. I started the year strong with reading novels like a novelist, and drumbeat poetry. I went even deeper into my study of abstract art and contradictory abstract nouns, while enjoying “The Modern and Postmodern” through Wesleyan University and SloMo ModPo courses through Coursera, and I continued to enjoy the prompts and community I find at dVerse Poets Pub.

April came and I tackled the daily poetry challenge of poetry month at both NaPoWriMo and Writer’s Digest along with the A to Z blogging challenge, finding some interesting contradictory abstract nouns by selecting contradictions that start with the same letter. I think Quirk & Quality was my favorite. During this exploration, I came up with my three axes of abstraction: fear, control, and bias which I will continue to ponder and explore in my writing and abstract photography.

During the summer I made a break through in my own thinking about big picture revision while working in my garden, comparing my problems with revision to my problems with thinning seedlings. It was an important realization for me and helped me make progress on my latest thriller novel.

In October I continued my favorite fall challenges—OctPoWriMo, Halloween Photo Challenge, and Writober— by providing the prompts for all three. Though I was sad to see that Tourmaline and Morgan did not return with their prompts and posts, I did my best to step in, and had fun doing it. I also designed and created my my velcro pockets ever-changing quilt calendar that I continue to make pockets for. It was a busy month. And then I surprised myself and attempted my first horror novel for NaNoWriMo in November and wrote daily poems for the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Chapbook Challenge while sick with a cold.

I wanted to finish my first draft in December but I didn’t get very far. I mostly caught up on some reading and book reviews and made Christmas gifts.

Intention

This year, you can expect some similar experiences. I signed up for the first SloPo course looking at the poems of Rosmarie Waldrop which starts January 22. I’m revising my poems from November and assembling my Chapbook to submit for the Poem a Day Chapbook Challenge, submitting photos to the Sony Contest, and working on finishing my horror novel draft. Then I’ll be continuing the revision of my thriller novel, because this is the year I finish a novel! ☺

Like last year, I want to add more music to this experience. I’m thinking of writing songs that explore contradictory abstract nouns as part of my study. My idea for this year’s approach is to stick with one pair of contradictory abstract nouns until I create an image, poem, and song that I think express that pair before moving on to another. So I may spend a week, a month, or a few months exploring one contradictory pair. We’ll see how it goes.

I hope you’ll join me for another year of experiences, and that we all find joy in 2024.

New Poem

dVerse Poets Pub is back from a holiday break. Today’s Poetics prompt from Sanaa, aka adashofsunny, has to do with “litotes.” Litotes (pronounced lie-tow-teez) is a literary device which uses a negative statement to create an affirmative understatement. “Not half bad,” or “You won’t be sorry,” for example.

Today’s poetry prompt has a few choices:

1. Write a narrative poem using litotes where the main character or antagonist stands out.
2. Write a poem using litotes and follow the example of Homer or Shakespeare. Give us something classic.
3. Write a poem by employing litotes as a part of everyday speech.

I’m attempting option three:

A Gray Day in the Country

You’re not wrong
We won’t be sorry
and I’m not feeling too bad
The weather is not unpleasant
so let’s not waste time
as we are no spring chickens
yet hardly unattractive,
and your cooking is not terrible
though you are not unlike your father
A picnic is not the worst decision
The wine is not unkind
the view not too shabby
and the company is not half bad
so the day won’t disappoint