Alison Aldridge is a blogger and writer of fiction novels. Her short romance story was published in the Scribblers Anthology to raise money for the Children’s Hospice. She maintains a personal blog on writing and organic beauty. She has contributed articles to third parties on gaming, fashion industry and writing. She was one of the first featured writers on Opuss for her poetry.
Alison has delivered courses to develop the English skills of her students. As well as education, Alison has experience as a model. She is a member of Scribblers, a local writers group and enjoys attending the annual Felixstowe Book Festival. Alison is an active member of many online writing communities.
Alison is currently reworking Drift, a coming of age Young Adult novel about a mermaid and first love as well as other YA fiction projects.
Why I took the challenge:
This was my first year attempting the NaPoWriMo challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days. I hadn’t even heard of the challenge before I started. Posting one poem a day sounded easy enough but I actually found it very difficult with my schedule.
I gave it a go because although poetry isn’t my forte, I do believe it is a great way to think about how you are using the English language in your writing. It is a great developmental tool.
What was my favourite poem:
Out of the 30 poems I created for this challenge, my favourite is: Day 8 – Magic.
This poem is based on the YA Fantasy novel I wrote in a few weeks and then spent years editing! I really enjoyed creating some of the scenes in the novel and based this poem on the chapters where Murray gets marked by a mermaid which grants him storm summoning poems. I wrote it from his perspective although the novel is never told from his view.
Do I recommend NaPoWriMo?
Yes, it will encourage you to try new things, think about your writing and so much more than you could imagine. It is healthy to push yourself out of your comfort zone and I tried to do the prompt each day but you don’t have to.
Even if you don’t manage to write 30 poems in 30 days, even if you only write one poem, you will still have more poems than you started with.
Others doing the challenge have been very supportive and I’ve discovered new writers to follow. I hadn’t anticipated the social impact of doing the challenge. My blog has attracted more attention than ever before.
While I don’t necessarily hide my real name, as my Smashwords and Facebook accounts both use it, I had started blogging as PCGuyIV well before I had either of those, and just never bothered to change it. I do kind of like the artificial anonymity it provides, but I don’t make a big deal about it if someone actually calls me by my name in a comment.
Of course, when I started blogging, I wasn’t doing it for the sake of blogging, but rather for the sake of showing off my skills with HTML and CSS, though I quickly learned to enjoy the writing process as well. But that’s just blogging in general. I didn’t get around to the poetry thing unil a bit later.
Whereas my decent into madness…er…I mean, my attempts at blogging began back in 2005, or maybe even earlier, I didn’t start posting poetry on my blogs until 2014. And that brings me to this year, when I found out about NaPoWriMo. I wish I could say exactly what possessed me to throw my hat into the ring. I know it was at least partially fueled by the thought of putting together a follow-up to my first poetry book, but I had one of those what-was-I-thinking freak-out moments as soon as I submitted my site to the participants list.
Now, here we are five days into May, and NaPoWriMo is over. While I did my best to stick with the given prompts, there were some days that I had to just go out on my own, but I managed to successfully write a poem a day, including one for the March 31st early-bird submission.
The thing that surprised me the most about NaPoWriMo was how much I enjoyed reading the poems from the other participants. I’ve often said that I’m not a big fan of poetry, or at least I’ve never thought of myself as such, so I was genuinely surprised at how much I started to look forward to seeing what others had come up with, and I find myself already barely able to stand the anticipation of next April.
Looking back over the thirty-one poems I came up with, there are a few that stand out, but it is difficult to choose a favorite. I finally settled on the submission for April 25th. The prompt for that day was to write a poem that served as a warning label for yourself. Without further ado, I present to you, “Warning Label”:
Handle carefully
To avoid unpleasantness
Provide with coffee
First up in our series of guests posts for May is Devika Mathur from My Valiant Soul. I asked her to tell me about how she found taking part in NaPoWriMo and to provide us with her favorite piece that she created during the month.
Devika is a published poetess residing in a country of stratified colours, India. Her work has been published/scheduled in Visual Verse, Sick lit Mag,Kitab.org, Subterranean blue poetry among various others. A lover of Oxymoron and words and a teacher, she loves to dance to rest her anxiety.
The national poetry month was not an easy thing to comprehend. I took a pause and wrote my stress disguised as poetry like a thunder, one could say. It made me sturdy from within and outside. The poetry month is like a spring that soothes one’s soul. Healing with emotions.
Time & You
I was the one
with bruises and stones
in my mirror-eyed reflection
a reflection of you, mother
the cacophony of time and hours
floating inside your eyes,
the heaviness of pebbles and rituals.
Your arm mocked your cerulean breast,
with its swollen stigma of memoirs
and some pictures, vintage.
I combed your concave mouths
of dripping forlorn fractures,
like a staircase bleeding
or a topology reversed and processed.
I am a soft song in your black-knitted bun
a piece of your chipped nail,
a sunflower, kissed and harassed
inside your turbulent head.
A cauldron, and a day full of nights
hid beneath your muffled chin,
a mole hanging beneath your shouts and dim- dreams.
Mother, you are a pool of madness
and a point blank.
Obscure, shadowy your tongue knits tears
and a sweet thread of touch, impeccable.
Sometimes, I glint in your orange censure
a pattern of love and you,
Your body is a dream.
and I fall in your loops of laps.
the uncontrollable seizures,
the uncontrollable laughters,
Scarlet red wires.
it’s all you, it’s all you.
The challenge has given me a belief of satisfaction. A casket of words and literature in my daily monotonous life. I have already written more than one poetry a day but this challenge is a catharsis I feel.
We’re at the end of April and I’m honestly not quite sure where the month has gone. With the start of May comes the end of NaPoWriMo and I must say, I’m sad to see this challenge reach its final day, even if I did run out of steam over the last few days.
For those of you who are blissfully unaware of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). April is the month where insane poets like myself undertake the challenge to write thirty poems in thirty days. A lot of us share these poems on our blogs or social media platforms, and it’s a great opportunity to seek out fellow writers who share the obsession of poetry.
This year I wanted to write a poem for each of the optional prompts that NaPoWriMo provided. As it stands, I have two poems still left to write as I missed the last four days and I decided that I’d still have a go at writing poems for those last four poems over the first few days of May. However, if you count up the total number of poems that I wrote during April, I did hit the target of thirty. In fact I wrote thirty-nine poems during April. Therefore I’m not too annoyed at myself that I didn’t write a poem for each of the NaPoWriMo prompts within those thirty days. In fact I’m pretty proud of myself.
So, while I reveling in my thirty-nine poems, I wanted to take a moment and look at some of the other poets who took part in this challenge. A couple of weeks ago I invited anyone taking part in NaPoWriMo to join a guest post series on this blog for May. I had six volunteers and the first of those will go online tomorrow evening.
The premise for the guest posts is simple. The poets just need to say a bit about themselves, share the poem they’re most proud of from the month, and then tell us about what NaPoWriMo meant to them.
For me, NaPoWriMo is about challenging myself to write poems in a style that I might not normally use. That’s why I try and stick to the prompts. Every year I look at those prompts and turn my nose up. Then I go away and force myself to write something for them. Some days I hate it, but it can lead to some interesting poems that I wouldn’t have otherwise written. This year wasn’t any different.
As for my favorite poem from NaPoWriMo 2018, I think it would have to be the first one I wrote. My response to the early bird prompt, Letters To Nowhere. I think I spent the rest of April chasing the same feeling that I got from writing this piece but never quite managed to grasp it again. So, that it what I will leave you with. My first, and favorite poem from NaPoWriMo 2018. I hope you enjoy it.
So yesterday morning I opened my inbox to find a shiny email from NYC Midnight The Screen Writing Challenge to say that the first round was officially open and we had eight days to write our twelve page screen plays based on the genre, subject, and character we have been assigned.
Well I had the following:
Genre: Action/Adventure
Subject: Earthquake
Character: Witness To A Crime
So everything should be fine right? I mean, eight days to write twelve pages? That should be easy. That’s a pretty nice genre to get, pretty broad ranging if you think about it. Witness to a crime, well that’s pretty broad as well. Earthquake is a little odder but not impossible to work with. What’s the problem?
Oh yes, I’ve not done this before and I don’t know how to write a screenplay.
Ah.
That might be an issue.
Now let me clarify something before we continue. I’ve written two screenplays in my life. Both were during six form. That’s now six years in the past.
The first was part of a extra-circular project in school and was a national competition. I wrote a piece about my Grandmother’s experience of moving over England when she was eighteen and starting to study nursing.
I don’t remember the exact plot but I do remember the playwright who was mentoring our school said I should included a bit about women’s suffrage. I nodded at the time but later realized that a) it was the wrong time period and b) my Grandmother was Irish so trying to shoehorn in English politics might be a bit of a stretch.
Screen play number two was written in a tea fueled haze at three in the morning, based on a collection of notes that I’d been given by a group of lads who wanted to shoot a zombie movie. They wanted someone to write dialogue and that was about it. I wrote it, they seemed to like it, they only ever shot the trailer.
Luckily for me there’s a short ‘how-to’ manual on the NYC Midnight site that explains clearly, and concisely how a screenplay should be formatted. It’s helpfully called ‘How To Write A Screenplay – The Basis’. If you’re thinking about trying to write a screenplay for the first time, or you want to make sure your formatting is correct, then I’d highly recommend printing off a copy. It was a lifesaver for me as I couldn’t dredge up a single memory on how a screenplay is supposed to be laid out on the page and as it turns out, there are quite a few rules to follow.
It’s actually a little surprising how quickly you get used to writing in the format. I thought I would struggle quite a bit as it’s a completely different style of writing from what I usual do.
For example. Take the following opening to my short story ‘The Last Of The Embers’:
Sunrise was not for another hour but already the sky had taken on the grey haze that suggested morning was just around the corner. Elaine let her rucksack slip from her shoulder and hang in the crook of her arm while she fumbled with the knackered zip. The bottle inside was almost half empty, not enough to see her back down the mountain, but enough to see her to the top. She wrestled it free and used her teeth to pry to cap open.
‘Are you coming?’
Damien watched from where he’d stopped further up on the steps, bare legs and arms, tanned and muscled. He was younger, fitter as well but that had little to do with age, at least that was what Elaine told herself.
‘Just give me a minute,’ she called. The water was lukewarm and sour on her tongue but she swallowed it and snapped the cap shut. Her sweat had her clothes sticking, every crease and fold in the fabric welding itself to her limbs. She could swear the last time she’d made this climb it had been easier, but then again, the last time she had more faith to help things along. A little more faith and a little more time.
‘Do you remember before?’ Damien asked. He held out a hand when she finally reached him. She let him help her and paused for a breath, lungs hitching as she dragged each mouthful of air in.
‘Which before?’ she gasped. ‘The one before this or the one before that? There have been too many changes, too many befores to count or to know which before you mean.’ She pulled her hand out of his and forced her legs to push ahead, ignoring the way she had to lock her knees on each step.
‘I mean the before when we were strong,’ he said. ‘When we were still gods.’
If this was written as a screenplay it would look more like this:
There is very little in the way of description in this apart from the scene heading and the action lines at the top. There is one other action line part way down where Elaine drinks from her bottle but the rest is all dialogue. This means if the dialogue falls flat, the whole piece falls flat.
Typing this piece out into a screenplay format also made me read this piece in a different light. When you write something and proofread it, you can miss certain blips simply from being too close to the work. By looking at it through a different lens you can sometimes catch those blips. The thing for me with this piece was noticing that the speaker isn’t always crystal clear when you’re reading the dialogue. You can be halfway through reading a piece of speech and notice that the other character was the one talking the whole time.
Aside from playing around with the format to analyse the dialogue quality of old short stories, I did manage to type up twelve pages of what I hope is a semi-decent screenplay that I can polish and tidy over the next few days.
The bit that got me, is how short twelve pages actually is. I could have written a much longer screenplay and as it is I’m worried I might have skimmed over too much in an attempt to fit more in within the page limit.
Either way, I have until Saturday to work up a final draft and submit it for the First Round and today has been a new learning curb for my writing, something that I don’t find to such a degree these days.
Also, there’s nothing to stop me going back to this screenplay when the competition is done and making it longer then. Actually, I think I might do just that.
Yes, it will encourage you to try new things, think about your writing and so much more than you could imagine. It is healthy to push yourself out of your comfort zone and I tried to do the prompt each day but you don’t have to.
Carol J Forrester 
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