Three quick things:
- Let poetry inspire your writing. See the interview with Devora Busheri about her use of Hayyim Bialik’s poetry in her new picture book, In the Jerusalem Forest (Kar-Ben, 2019).
- Are any of you participating in Nanowrimo? I decided not to sign up this year. Instead, I’ve mapped out several days over my winter break to write and I’m on the waiting list for a summer retreat.
- Whose writing has punched you in the gut, gave you indelible images, made you think “I wish I could write like that” or “I wish I had thought of that?” Lately, I’ve been thinking about Erika Dreifus’s poem, “Kaddish for My Uterus,” that reminds me of my own uterine cancer in 2014 and subsequent surgery and radiation treatment. I never thought to write about it. If you haven’t yet ordered your copy of Birthright, I highly recommend it!
Have a great week, everyone!
The Whole Megillah 
I have never done NaNoWriMo. I don’t think I could take the pressure. I just read a book that knocked my socks off. The writing was AMAZING! It is The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld. Heartbreaking and wonderful.
Thanks, Rosi, for the book recommendation. I love when a book knocks off our socks. NaNoWriMo is a very useful exercise. I’ve done the November one twice and participated in Camp NaNoWriMo twice. At the Camp, you choose your own word count. The whole idea is to rough out a new piece of work and get something on paper. It’s fun to do with others.
Never heard of NaNoWriMo before.
Joanie, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) entails writing 50,000 words in one month or basically 1,667 words a day. It’s a way of getting started (or finishing) the rough draft of a novel (although it could also be another genre). I’ve done it twice to draft a chick-lit novel and a genealogical memoir. I’ve also signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo (in both April and July) to finish the draft of a novella and to write a nonfiction bio which later morphed to a biography in verse. There’s no risk. It’s no big deal if you don’t finish, but whatever you’ve written is more than you had.