How to write Poetry the quick and fun way: 'The Ten Minute Poetry Challenge'!

Writing Poetry the quick and fun way:

The Ten Minute Poetry Challenge!

I stumbled upon a poem called ‘Good Books’ by Edgar Guest while sitting in my dentist’s waiting room this morning and it made me realise something: I haven’t written - or even read - a single poem in ages!

So, while I was sitting there I decided to try a ‘Ten Minute Poetry Challenge’ (I’m sure I’m not the first person to have such an idea ;-).

It involves having 30 seconds to quickly think of a topic and decide on which type of poem you’re going to write, and then use the rest of the ten minutes to actually write the poem. Try to give yourself at least a full minute before the end to read through and check for any basic errors. Then think of a title and hey presto, your poem is born!

And remember, while you are writing poetry, you are a poet. Maybe not a professional one, but at that moment you’re a poet nonetheless!

Here is my effort from the waiting room earlier today, called ‘Remember Your Shadow’:

Shadows are scary when you don’t know

What they belong to or where they’ll go

They change shape throughout the day

They have no name but they never stray

Yet they disappear in the dark

And it’s difficult to see one from a shark

Shadows follow you around the park

But they never ever leave a mark

You’re never alone when you’re with your shadow

But people forget, or just don’t know

Sometimes they walk right over it

Even if they didn’t mean to do it

You can make your shadow climb the wall

Or use it to make your hands into a ball

Watch it grow across the hall

Rise up to the ceiling, then quickly fall

Shadows can change

You can watch them rearrange

They can warn you

They can cover you

They can shelter you

They can scare you

Some have two heads

They can even have three legs

Others look like giant birds

Or like buffalo travelling in herds

Well, my ten minutes have now passed

No more shadow poetry will I cast

After reading this, please remember your shadow

It’s the one thing that sticks with you, wherever you go...

If you think this one isn't so bad, there a couple of 'bonus poems' I spent more than ten minutes on in my 'Smell of Poo' Children's Story Book Collection, here:

'The Smell of Poo' poems: 'Your Poo & You' + 'Who Dunnit?'

Coming from Liverpool, I’ve always been aware of poetry and a ‘poetry scene'. I think it takes courage to recite your own work in public. Here’s what happened when writer Marcel Theroux – son of acclaimed travel author PaulTheroux and brother of brilliant TV journalist Louis Theroux – came to Liverpool to write and perform some poetry:

Marcel Theroux tries live Poetry in Liverpool

 You can find out more about the thriving Liverpool poetry scene by clicking here:

Liverpool Poets

Here are some other links that might help inspire you:

"Top 100 famous and best poems of all time about life, love and friendship. Read the 100 most popular and greatest poems and limericks ever written in English poetry by famous poets all over the world"

All Poetry's Top 500 Poems List

The best poems of all time (in English)

Why not have a go at the ‘Ten Minute Poetry Challenge’ and share your work here? You can do it anywhere, whether in your break at work or school, while sitting on the sofa at home, or even when you stop along the way outside wherever you are, be it a park, cafe, waterfront, you name it..

Let your surroundings inspire you. You don’t even have to read it to anyone, just have fun with it, it’s a great creative outlet – though the trickiest thing can be rhyming, in which case you can cheat a little by visiting here:

Find a rhyme at the Rhyme Zone

If you want a few hints and tips, go to the ‘For Poets’ page to help start you off...

The writer's guide to Poetry

Take care, enjoy, and happy writing!!!

Self-publishing guide to POD with Createspace: 'Smell of Poo' Children's Book out in paperback!

The 'Smell of Poo' Children's Book Collection is now available in print!

FYI EDIT 2020: Createspace has now been merged with Amazon Kindle pages. It is now easier to format and publish a print book using 'Kindle Create':

Use Kindle Create to help publish your paperback book

***

After completing the rather arduous task of formatting the text and cover design to suit a high quality paperback edition (see the guide below so you may benefit from this experience), the 'Smell of Poo' collection is now available in print - for those of you who prefer to hold the actual book in your hands (I still prefer the feel of paper to holding my kindle, but maybe I'm just old fashioned?).

You can find it with all the information you need here:

The 'Smell of Poo' is now out in glossy paperback!

How to prepare, format and process your book on Createspace - an easy 'Print on Demand' self-publishing guide:

Even though I don't expect to sell too many print versions as they are more expensive than the ebook version, it'll be nice to give out a few copies to friends and family (my parents are afraid of anything with buttons anyway), so the whole POD process has already been worth it in my view...

With regard to the formatting process, people can charge a lot of money to help you but I recommend being patient and trying to manage it for yourself (as much as I appreciate Createspace and their enabling self-publishing authors to print on demand, I did raise my eyebrows at their fees - hence this advice).

If it's just a regular paperback you're going for, i.e. no colour or pictures inside, then it's not too tricky. Just remember to set your margins for the text, have someone redo your cover design with a blurb on the back, and tick all the necessary boxes in createspace in their step by step self-publishing process.

Firstly, for text formatting, you can see the margin requirements here (6x9 is the recommended book size for most regular fiction):

createspace printing options

For further advice on this, The Creative Penn is as helpful as ever:

Print on demand self-publishing advice

Then, go to Fiverr to find someone who can 'redesign' your ebook cover into a paperback cover with all the right dimensions, etc (it needs to be 300dpi, by the way). Personally I used 'Fluxydesign' who I hope you agree did a nice job:

createspace POD cover design

Here's the full glossy paperback cover with spine - not bad eh?

Createspace give you a choice of 'matte' or 'glossy' covers. They say that matte is better for fiction / glossy for non-fiction, however for children's books I was advised by an experienced self-published author (see the next link) to still go with glossy - aren't we all usually still drawn to shinier things after all..?

Matte or Glossy book cover?

For the book description section, make sure you have your 'metadata' ready with lots of keywords to help your readers find your book, while also making sure it matches what is in the book itself! Here's a few hints and tips from 'The Book Designer':

Guide to Metadata / Keywords for ebooks

Incidentally, Createspace also give you the option of choosing a FREE ISBN for your book, which will save you a fair bit of change if you're on a budget.

Everything else in the createspace process was so simple that I'm sure most people will be ok, i.e. selecting distribution channels, pricing and so on - it's a bit of a 'no brainer' really and basically depends on your own intentions.

However, it isn't too obvious that you can 'create' your own createspace estore! It is already set up for your but you can change the colours and background and even add your own banner. Here is a guide to help you along with this:

Guide to creating your own Createspace 'estore'!

For resizing an image for your banner (good luck with this!) I found the best way was to simply do a 'print screen', paste it into Microsoft Paint, then resize it there. This link might help you if you're as 'techno challenged' as me..:

Guide to 'resizing' with Microsoft Paint

Phew, having just written this post it actually seems like quite a lot - but compared to going through the process of finding an agent, then finding a publisher, then getting published and making any kind of profit or reaching a potentially large audience, Createspace and their kind are heaven sent!

Good luck with the self-publishing process! If you have any other useful hints or tips, please leave a comment...

The 'Smell of Poo' is now out in glossy paperback!

Recommended Writing Guides

The Best General Guides to Writing for Children

Thanks to the absolutely brilliant 'Read Liverpool Online Library', I could enjoy (and learn a lot from) the following books:

Absolutely crammed full of good, practical advice as well as plenty of idea examples to help give you a kick start. Cleaver covers all the fundamentals of children's story writing from setting, character and plot to structure and content.

There are endless vocabulary suggestions while there's also quite a comprehensive section on getting published, too. The layout of this guide is concise yet very informative and if this isn't enough for you, there's relevant further reading recommendations in each section of the book as well.

Coppard and Newbery co-wrote this book to great effect, covering just about every aspect of writing that any new children's author would need to know. They speak of their own experiences whilst also drawing on that of other esteemed writers.

It is a well structured and quite comprehensive guide and -along with the other books featured in this post - stands head and shoulders above similar 'guides' I have come across. If you need more than this as a general guide then you will probably need to read a number of books covering the specific content subjects.

Reading this guide from cover to cover is as rewarding as any online course I have seen and it even sets you tasks to help with your ideas and structure.

Some writers refer to this book almost like an aspiring writer's bible and having had a good look through it I can begin to see why.

Full of good advice from authors who have 'been there, done that' - such as JK Rowling and Eion Colfer - it also contains comprehensive listings of publishers and what they publish. I found this dedicated children's writers' edition to be much more useful and inspiring than the general 2015 yearbook which I also recently borrowed from the elibrary.

If you know of any other useful guides to writing for children please share them in the comments box. Also please refer to the 'Writing Guide' page on this blog for more useful hints and tips...

The online Writing Guide is here!

The online Writing Resource Guide is here!

I've been writing for a while now but only as a hobby. However, having taken a break from the day job to be able to spend some time finally producing a few stories, I first had a look all over the web for hints, tips, guides and courses that would help me hone my craft and learn more about the publishing process.

There was so much information out there it took a while to separate the 'wheat from the chaff', and to help save other writers precious time (which would obviously be better spent writing), I've compiled the best courses, links and resources I could find into a list that can be found in the page entitled 'Writing Guide' at the top of the screen.

There's something for everyone in there, covering everything from the best free online writing courses to advice on all aspects the writing process. There are also resources for poets and plenty of valuable information on marketing and publishing.

I've also created a page full of links to fun and effective language and literacy resources for young learners to check out.

Ok, that's enough from me, just click on the 'Writing Guide' page at the top of the screen and away you go!

P.s. If you have any other such useful links, please add them in the relevant comment sections, thanks! And if you're still struggling with the whole thing, just remember...