Are you struggling to keep the creative momentum going on your writing this summer? Need some more poetry inspiration?
Throughout the Summer, our PBS poets are sharing their top tips to help aspiring poets and all those entering the PBS Mslexia Poetry Prizes.
Today's top PoeTips #4 comes from Amy Key, author of PBS Summer Wild Card, Isn't Forever:
- Be a fan. Being a fan of other writers is one of the most joyful things about being a writer. I love to write poems but being a fan of other people's writing is almost more thrilling. The more time I take to be a fan and a reader, the more I bring into my own writing
- Find your people. Create a kind of family group of peers that you 'belong' to. Share and comment on each other's work, share what you're reading and what makes you excited, support each other at events, organise things together, challenge each other. Share your successes and your perceived failures. You'll keep each other going.
- Not writing is ok. When you're not writing other things are going on. A friend shared this Rilke quote with me (the translation might be a bit off, but): "Let your judgments have their own quiet, undisturbed development, which must, like all progress, come from deep within, and cannot in any way be pressed or hurried. It means everything to carry for the full time and then to bring forth."... I try to think of the time not spent writing as 'carrying'. It is as valuable, in fact more valuable, than the time spent writing.
PBS Members can order copies of Isn't Forever by Amy Key here with their 25% discount.