April Round-Up - My First NaPoWriMo Complete!

NaPoWriMo kept me super busy over April as I followed the daily prompts at InkSeeds on personal mythology, writing a poem-a-day (PAD). I got four days behind on these prompts mid-way through due to illness, but still managed to write a poem each of the days I had off, penning a haiku from my sick-bed.

All the poems are up here at Swimming in Lines of Haiku: haiku, senryu, tanka, small stones, free verse and rhymed verse. I'm happy with all my poems (though some could do with a little fine tuning) and cherish the insights I've gained through this process.

The personal mythology prompts explored dreams, the elements, archetypes, memories - all that makes up your personal story. They're so much more than mere prompts - they're a conversation with your soul. And will be remaining up on InkSeeds: you can check out the first one here - Recycling the First Dream.

You can also read the poems other people wrote in response to the prompts on Fiona and Kaspa's Writing Our Way Home on-line community under April 2011 InkSeeds Poetry Project. Poems are still being posted and discussed here - come join us!

Here's how I'm doing on my 2011 goal of submitting poetry to a publication or competition every week:

• week fourteen - submitted 15 haiku to the Anthology of English-Language Haiku by Women
• week fifteen - submitted tanka prose to Haibun Today (first time submitting here)
• week sixteen - entered three haiku in the Klostar Ivanic International Haiku Contest, closes May 31
• week seventeen - submitted my poem "A Journey in Three Masks" to Excellent Writing (first time submitting here)

This month saw one of my photos printed in the local paper as the Weather Spotters pic for that week. I was surprised and excited about this as it's the first time I'd ever sent a photo into the paper, and when I still hadn't heard from them months later I figured it was no good. Great to be proved wrong! You can check out the photo on my Photography page.

I also spent some time playing around with text on photos. I put a few of my previously published free verse poems onto images and think they look amazing. It's a striking way to showcase both my writing and photography on the Internet. I made a few into haiga, doing some with tanka for the first time. I use an old version of PhotoStudio as my editing software, which is limiting. So I'm going to look into downloading the free OpenSource software (as I'm already using OpenOffice as my word processing software) and see if this is easier to work with.

I'm enjoying getting more involved with my prose again. One of my articles was a Friday "Speak Out!" guest post on the WOW! Women On Writing blog - "Writing Each Day Keeps The Doctor Away". And three of my quick tips for freelance writers will be appearing in issues of Excellent Writing - an e-newsletter for writers edited by Janie Sullivan. You'll see above that I also sent her a poem as a filler, which was accepted for the May issue. My post about that here.

This month I look forward to creating some more collage-style haiga and reading and sharing haiku on the NaHaiWriMo Facebook page where many people continue to write a haiku-a-day.