Freelance and Poetry Writing

Writing and Creativity

Any kind of writing involves creation and the creative process in my view. I write both copy and web content and articles for various clients and there are occasions when writing a dozen or more articles on the same subject can drive you up the wall. The only way to deal with this type of frustration I find, is to switch to the right brain and get creative by writing verse or poetry.

Writing Poetry

Take a picture, any picture and write down whatever the picture suggests, take about 5 minutes on this. Once you have your initial feelings on the picture pick out any words and phrases that speak more than the others - this is a good way to get started on a poem and something that we have been doing in the writing class that I attend. 

Remember, that poetry doesn't have to rhyme but it does need to have a metre or rhythm to distinguish it from simple prose. If you are just starting out on this then go for eight or ten syllables in each line to give your work some balance.

One of the things that you can do with poetry, once you have the words and the metre, is to see how it reads if you set it out on the page in different ways, e.g. as steps or shaped like a triangle. Remember that punctuation is important in poetry as it tells the reader whether one line runs into another or whether there is a break in the middle of a line. How do you deal with poetry? 

Happy writing