Well, another April Camp NaNoWriMo is over – hope all you writers had a great time! Thank you to all of my readers for keeping me accountable and coming back to check out my daily poetry.
As some of you know, I was also working on a novel project in addition to my #StayHomeRhymeMo challenge. I didn’t get anywhere close to “winning” (writing 50,000 words) for my novel project, and instead ended up focusing on my poetry. However, it did help me start a productive writing schedule for myself.
I did “win” Camp NaNoWriMo with my StayHomeRhymeMo project by writing my goal of 30 poems in 30 days, which ended up being about 5,000 words of poetry about life during COVID-19! I’ve found that writing poetry during this time helps me to understand my thoughts and feelings and reflect on the world in a way that is productive, calming, and gratifying.
Although I don’t currently plan to write any more poems here, this blog is, at its core, a blog about my NaNoWriMo experiences. I post every day in April, July, and November, so I’m going to take a short break and see you all back in late June, right before July Camp NaNo starts!
In July, I plan to post every day about a new novel project. I’ll bring back my educational and fun NaNo tricks and procrastination breaks. Because of this, my blog’s name will be changing back to ProcrastiWriMo as July approaches. Its temporary name in March and April of 2020, StayHomeRhymeMo, has been my way to promote staying safe at home while writing coronavirus poetry.
Who knows what our world will be like in July. Maybe I will do another special coronavirus blog project or poetry then. In the meantime, stay safe, keep others safe, and always seek out ways to make people smile!
Some of my favorite poem quotes I wrote last month…
“it’s a monster under the bed / that everyone just kind of hopes stays put.”
-Our House
“We are visiting a new kind of Disney World, / except the attractions are sticky conveyor belts / and sales on electronics. / Cinderella’s castle is a newly replenished / tower of paper towels.”
-Lines
“every so often, a hand descends from the sky, / and gives her world / a shake.”
-Homemade Glass
“The cells in her body are brushing up / against each other in greeting; / they want her to move / more, feel / more, be / more. / They are loving the body they are in.”
-Another World Over
“I call this the rationing of shampoo.”
-Seven Things I Still Have Enough Of
“Perhaps the people are hibernating. / Perhaps they are afraid of the world.”
-Through My Eye
“knowing that at the end of the day / there is more than one way to breathe deeply.”
-Coffee Steam & Skype
“I spotted the girl in the mirror / from across my bedroom / when she wasn’t looking.”
-Mirror World
“now I rise—then again, maybe I won’t.”
-Book Title Poem
“if I look hard enough, the broken / jewelry will turn into anchors in a sloshing sea, or / keys to a kingdom of / lost things.”
-Things I Found in my Purse
“all I can see / are the baby birds / huddled on the ground / tilting their open mouths to the sky / and waiting for something to happen.”
-We All Want Someone to Blame
“supposing you brought the light inside the body.”
-Trump Wrote a Coronavirus Poem
“all these lives / united / beheld / everything, everything.”
-Book Title Poem
Lauren Hallstrom 