Give Yourself a Break
Give Yourself a Break. Stop writing for a little bit and do something else you like to do. Your words will wait.
I was writing a few poems today. I decided to start calling them Free Verse poems to clear up the complaints I have been getting about my poetry. In my mind, their still poetry. My style just happens to be free verse and doesn’t actually have a structure.
But it is still a poem that clings to one side of the page, like every other poem out there. It doesn’t have rhymes, sonnets, haiku or meter, but because it doesn’t have these elements it doesn’t mean that it isn’t poem. So with clearing up that my poems are free verse, hopefully I won’t get anybody ticked off about my writing.
I am not going to be the person that has to conform to society’s rules. I am above all, an artist, therefore I am going to break the boundaries. I’m going to rebel against the rules that other people fall into the way someone else wants you to write. I’ve been a writer for a long time, and since I was a little girl, I have been calling my poems poetry and I am not about to stop calling them poetry now.
And some days are just great to do other things besides write. Spending time with family and friends is a great release.
I also have been enjoying printing up a lot of my pictures from my photography archives. I printed up nine wallet sized pictures of each of my photos and am going to make a bunch of handmade greeting cards with them. I like to put them on nice vellum paper and have a simple black lined border around each picture with my lovely handwritten name underneath.
And I have been spending some time sewing and knitting. Two things that I had abandoned for almost three years. I was itching to make some new things. The yo yo quilt, my knitted skirt and some other small things.
Yo yo pincushions. This is a fun little thing.
And I also spent a week transferring my paper dolls from my Vistaprint website over to my blogs. I got tired of forking over $30 a month to Vistaprint and seeing no paper doll sales in return. At least with my blogs I can keep them there for a long time and not have to pay.
And then I had to go back in and fix things as the Paypal buttons were on the page layout and not underneath the products. Which I later learned how to do it, so I had to go back in and delete things and fix up stuff.
I’m later thinking of selling some of my knitted patterns that I create and perhaps some of the original patterns for some of my sewing projects. Which means I will need to make the items first so I can display a picture.
We sometimes just need to take some time to catch up on other things.
Jennifer Jo Fay
Copyrighted February 19, 2012
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February 20th, 2012 at 11:44 am
Good for you. Express yourself however you feel comfortable. Don’t let stupid rules about structure or anything else distract you.
February 20th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
i agree , very correct
February 20th, 2012 at 12:30 pm
Interesting peek into a writer’s mind.
February 20th, 2012 at 1:12 pm
Perhaps you should stop spreading yourself so thin. Doing all this,… don’t you have time for your kids? I was like this too, back in my twenties, but I didn’t have enough time for everything I wanted to do. I had to eventually come to terms with the fact that I was never going to be a famous artist, so I just stuck to novels. Anyway, it looks to me like you’re heading down a short road toward writer’s block. Be careful of that.
Don’t get your hopes up, though! Not even a small fraction of artists actually break boundaries… I was lucky to find a niche for my novels that I could have fun writing in AND get noticed for. I just came to triond to look around and see if there’s any worth joining. We’ll see.
Good luck in your endeavours.
February 20th, 2012 at 4:53 pm
Yes, Susan, I do have plenty of time for my kids. I am just fortunate to have a job where I can stay at home to promote myself and have time for them too. They also happen to be of age, where they are at school during the day, which gives me time while they are gone to do my thing. And Ebay is a great outlet to sell stuff and make money, which also gives me time for my other things I like to do.
And yes, I am not immune to writers block. It happens to all of us. Fortunately, I know how to not let writer’s block consume me so I can’t write anymore. That will never happen.
February 20th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
And you are so right that it is hard for artist’s to get discovered. Many never can get off the ground and the lucky few basically get lucky.
Many of us try everything in the book and still nothing. But at least we try. I would rather try everything in hopes of something working out instead of sitting back and watching the world go by.
But we should cling to hope. If we get it set in our minds that it’s not going to work, then it’s probably not going to.
I would rather have some hopes and faith in my dreams and goals and hope that things work out. I’m not going to let any doubts control me.
And yes, I probably wouldn’t pray for a miracle, but it’s nice to have some hopes.
Hope is what keeps many of us going in this world.