It’s a new year and you might be a little nervous about the long winter road that lies ahead. As a writer, what lofty goals and positive habits should you strive towards in 2017?
Fear not. This post from Without Bullshit, “10 easy New Year’s resolutions for writers in 2017,” has some practical ideas on what you can do to improve your writing craft and gain success this year. I personally plan to focus on #2 and #4.
http://withoutbullshit.com/blog/10-easy-new-years-resolutions-writers-2017
From Lit Reactor: Annie Neugebauer presents both sides of the equation in “9 Questions Writers Love to be Asked” and “9 Questions Writers Hate to be Asked.” I agree with many of her points, though because I’m not a full-time writer, some I can only relate to partially. Nonetheless, both articles are a great read.
https://litreactor.com/columns/9-questions-writers-love-to-be-asked
https://litreactor.com/columns/9-questions-writers-hate-to-be-asked
Big thanks to First Night Evanston for naming my poem "This is Not a Protest Poem" as an Honorable Mention in their second annual contest. I truly appreciate the recognition.
The winner was an amazing poem by Ms. Allison Joseph.
8-West Press aims to give space to those who find a sense of belonging in writing. I am happy to announce that my prose poem "Modern Love Story" is Poem of the Day over at 8-West Press!
https://8-westpress.com/2016/12/16/artwork-by-stephen-mead-modern-love-story-by-adrian-potter/
An awesome introduction if you’re new to the practice of submitting to literary magazines: Lincoln Michel’s “Lit Mag Submissions 101: How, When, and Where to Send Your Work.”
From MakeALivingWriting.com and Nina Amir – here are some tried-and-true hacks to unleash creative thinking.
I may need some of these to help me through my latest bout of writer’s block.
http://www.makealivingwriting.com/7-hacks-to-unleash-creative-thinking-when-writers-need-it-most/
“Remember that writing is not typing…Typing is this little transaction in the middle of two vast thoughtful processes.”
From Lit Hub: How to Be a Writer - 10 Tips from Rebecca Solnit.
Definitely worth the read.
http://lithub.com/how-to-be-a-writer-10-tips-from-rebecca-solnit/
Opossum is a new literary magazine animated by music. Big thanks to Opossum for including my poem "The Gospel According to James Brown" in the inaugural issue and on the accompanying record. It is awesome to hear myself on vinyl!
From Electric Lit: Lindsay Merbaum confesses how self-doubt holds her back as a writer. Like many writers, I can definitely relate to a lot of her points.
If you really look at it, the only distinction between free verse and a prose poem are line breaks. Yet I often read poems where the line breaks don’t do anything that the syntax of the sentence doesn’t already do on its own. Maybe this is just my pet peeve, but I own it and feel the need to talk about it.
Readers hesitate at commas,
and stop briefly at periods.
They’ll even pause when a phrase finishes
before moving on to the next.
So if the line breaks just echo the pauses and stops already inherent in the text, what’s really the point of writing a poem instead of prose?
When it comes time to revise, I challenge myself to think about the line breaks. Sure, some breaks just come together with the ends of phrases and sentences and effectively reinforce those stopping points. But I also consider how line breaks can offer a counterpoint to my syntax, creating tension between the rhythm of my sentences and the rhythm of my lines.
I’ve been working on this personally, and I think it might be a path to better poetry.
Subprimal Poetry Art was founded in 2013 to provide a community for quality thought provoking poetry and other art.
Big thanks to Subprimal Poetry Art for featuring my prose poem “Sanctuary” (with audio!) in their Issue 7.
https://subprimal.com/issues/issue7/sanctuary-by-adrian-s-potter
Over on The Millions, Nick Ripatrazone provides us with “20 Reasons Why You Should Read Literary Magazines.”
http://www.themillions.com/2016/10/20-reasons-read-literary-magazines.html
Big thanks to The Tishman Review for including my poem "Postlude" amongst their nominees for the Best of the Net Anthology, a project of Sundress Publications.
Check out the full list of nominees and read their words: www.thetishmanreview.com
When, if ever, should you write for free? Sometimes “exposure” can be more valuable than payment. Jane Friedman weighs in on this subject in an insightful post on her blog.
All aspiring writers should check out this comprehensive guide from Jane Friedman on how, why, and when to write a query letter.
Good read from Lit Reactor: Keith Rawson explores 4 Ways To Develop Your Non-Fiction Voice.
Check out this interesting piece from Scientific American on where creativity comes from.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-creativity-comes-from/
“Writing, on its own, isn’t bravery.” So very true.
It’s one of many truths on display in this beautiful post by Scott Nadelson.
http://hawthornebooks.com/blog/article/scott-nadelson-the-next-scott-nadelson-a-life-in-progress
A portmanteau is a word formed by the merging of sounds and meanings of two different words. Switched-on-Gutenberg has published my poem dedicated to these faux words - “Reporting Live from Portmanteaupia” – in its Issue 23.
Switched-on Gutenberg: A Global Poetry Journal has been e-publishing the best poetry it can find since 1995. This is the fourth time they’ve published my work, and I definitely appreciate the chance to contribute again…but those who know me know this is all a ploy to get something legitimately published with the word “incognegro” in it…
So it seems we all plagiarize, whether we set out to or not. Interesting. This New York Times article on cryptomnesia explains the science that drives secret copycat within us all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/science/cryptomnesia-demi-lovato-plagiarism.html?_r=0
