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Learn about this, my April 2014 Poetry Project, HERE!
Bicycle at The City Mission
Photo by Amy LV
Students - Today's poem took a bit of time to write, and I kept circling around it like dog trying to settle into a bed. I was home writing steadily, but it was slow. You can see my beginnings here, not much that remained in the poem at all.
Bicycle - Draft Page Spread #1
Photo by Amy LV
Then, below, you can see where things got going. The idea of a bicycle dreaming appealed to me. I had to go back, though, to see if any of the other thrift store objects dreamed. Nope. Just the boy in his old fuzzy footie jammies. So I decided to allow the bike to dream.
This is something I am finding myself paying close attention to this month - not just each poem on its own, but each poem in concert with the others. I do not want to use the same words or the same rhyme schemes over and over. Today's poem almost ended with "new" - but then yesterday's poem about the Navy uniform used "new." So I wrote another and another ending.
Bicycle - Draft Page Spread #2
Photo by Amy LV
Yesterday I videotaped some of my writing process. I am not sure there is much to learn from this, but I found the exercise both intimidating and interesting. It was a little scary to write on camera, and I stopped the video every few minutes so that the clips would not be too long. I did not keep this up throughout the whole writing session, but I did capture the sense (and the sound) of almost four minutes of being inside my writing head.
If you choose to watch this clip, you will see me writing the left side of the page you just read above.
Below, these last pages are simply working on the ending. Once again, this takes me a while.
Bicycle - Draft Page Spread #3
Photo by Amy LV
And guess who helped me write again?
Cali!
Cali Under My Desk
Photo by Amy LV
Please don't miss the wonderful post over at my other blog! Seventeen year old writer, Alex McCarron, shares her journals, index cards, and process over at Sharing Our Notebooks. Thank you, Alex.
Please share a comment below if you wish.
