If you do want to explore a new area in depth, there are ways to do this that will make approaching a new subject easier. There are many ways to start. Some people learn by reading. Some people learn by listening and watching. Some people learn by actively doing the thing they want to learn about. While any of these approaches can work when you want to learn a little about a subject, you will need to embrace all three if you want to develop a deep understanding of a subject.

Write as you learn

The important thing to do, as a writer, is to write about your learning process. Take notes about what you read and what you do. Record your story or book ideas. Express your thoughts as you go through the learning process. Doing so will put you ahead of the game when you start to try to make a living writing about the new area. Preparation always pays off in the end.

The reading approach

The quick and cheap way to start is with the web. Find blogs and other web sites that discuss the subject and read what they have to say. After that, you should invest in one or two well-regarded books on the subject. An introductory textbook is always useful, and they can often be found used through sites such as Amazon.com. See if the subject has any dedicated magazines, and subscribe to the most useful ones.

The watching and listening approach

Some people prefer to learn by watching and listening to others. People who like to learn this way should consider taking classes or purchasing video and audio guides such as documentaries and lectures. Apple’s iTunes store has a section called iTunes U which is filled with college level lectures on hundreds of topics. You can watch and listen to podcasts that are, for the most part, free. Another option available to writers is the interview. Find knowledgeable people in the area you want to learn about and interview them. This is a way to write and sell articles while you are still learning about the subject and will allow you to make valuable contacts in the area.

The action approach

The action approach is simple and direct. You learn by doing the thing you want to learn about. In many cases, this is the only way to truly get a feel for a subject. If you have never snowboarded, then all the reading, listening and watching in the world won’t make you a snowboarder. You have to actually go out and do it. If you want to write about something, you shouldn’t just do it. You should join groups of other people who do the same thing. Make connections within the community of people with similar interests. Embrace the activity.

Put them all together

To move beyond the basics, you need to use all of these approaches. Read about the subject. Interview people. Take classes. Listen to lectures. Join groups. Go out and get active. Just remember to write about it as you go.

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The first skill a technical writer should have, of course, is writing. You should be able to write in a clear, concise manner. Technical writing is not poetry or prose. Depending on where you work, you may or may not be able to add some stylistic flair. Either way, your job is to clearly tell your audience exactly what they need to know, and everything they need to know.

The second skill you should have is knowledge of a technical subject. My emphasis has always been in the field of computers, which is probably the largest segment of the technical writing market. Your knowledge can be in many other areas, however, such as science, medicine, engineering, mechanics, or law.

No matter what your area of knowledge, you will need computer skills, especially desktop publishing skills. At minimum, you should know the Microsoft Office suite of applications, especially Microsoft Word. Beyond Office, there is Adobe FrameMaker, which is used in many technical-writing environments. Other publishing packages such as PageMaker, Quark Express, and Interleaf can also be useful. In addition, online documentation tools such as RoboHelp, Doc-to-Help and Lotus Notes are great applications to have on your resume, as are HTML and other Internet skills.

In addition, you should try to develop interviewing skills, because you will probably find yourself interviewing technical people to get the information you need for your documents. Often, they will have no idea how to tell you what you need to know, so it is up to you to figure out how to draw the information out of them.

How do I become a technical writer?

This is my most frequently asked question, and a difficult one to answer. I can only tell you how I got into it. I have spent my entire adult life (and a good deal of my youth) as a writer of some form or another. When I entered college, I became first a reporter for and eventually the editor of my college newspaper. It was exciting, interesting, and very stressful. When I chose a major in college, I finally settled on creative writing, with a minor in English. I took very few technical courses in college and I have never taken a course in technical writing.

What I did do was work with computers, constantly. I got my first computer when I was 13 years old and I have never been without one since. In high school and at the beginning of college, I took some programming classes, but only about three of them. The rest of my computer skills I acquired either at home or on the job. When I transferred from my community college to the University of Arizona, I got a job in their computer department in the ‘Courseware Library for Instructional Computing’. There, I was exposed to just about every micro platform available at the time (IBM, Apple/Macintosh, Next, Commodore) and hundreds of software programs. I enjoyed it and I eventually began to teach seminars in Macintosh computing to the faculty and staff. While doing so, I wrote some short manuals and performed other various desktop publishing functions. After college, I had a series of jobs, all of them either computer, publishing, or writing related, until I eventually found myself out of work and needing a career path. I had done some technical writing as part of my past jobs, and I decided that I should dedicate my efforts towards building a career there.

Despite being broke, I managed to acquire my own copy of FrameMaker, and train myself on the package, adding that to my skills in PageMaker. I also taught myself HTML programming and learned to read C and other languages that I had not visited in many years. I sent out over 300 resumes and refused to settle for less than what I wanted. I used up all of my unemployment and dug myself deeply into debt.

Then, I received two job offers. The first one was to work as an Internet content developer for my local newspaper. It paid eight dollars an hour for 30 hours a week of work. I was willing to take it, and would have, but right as I was about to I got a call from a contract agency I had sent my resume to. Another local company was looking for a technical writer for a six-month contract. It paid $20.00 an hour, but much of that got sucked up when I opted for salary and benefits such as medical and dental insurance, holidays, sick days and vacation days. In the end, I started at $29,000 a year and after 6 months I renegotiated to $35,000. As my experience has grown, so has my pay.

What should I take in college?

As an undergraduate, I focused on creative writing and English. If I had gone to college with the goal of being a technical writer, I would still have majored in English or Creative Writing, but I would have minored in a technical subject such as computers or one of the sciences. For some, engineering may be a better choice than science. Even if you are a college graduate, you should consider supplementing your education. An associates degree in computers or another technical subject will prove you have learned the basics.

For graduate studies, more and more colleges are offering Technical Writing or Professional communications degrees. I recently went back to school to get a degree in professional communications.

I’m just out of college, and I want to be a technical writer, but I have no experience, how do I get my first job?

The first technical writing job is difficult to get, especially if you were a writing major and did not major (or even minor) in a technical subject. The first thing you need to do is prove you can write. This involves creating a sample of your work, which is not easy to do without having a specific project. What many people do is try to find a short, badly written manual (There are thousands) and re-write it. The other approach is to write a manual about something you know. The key is to have proof you can do the work.

Do I need a sample?

Yes. Prospective employers often ask for a sample of your technical writing. This can be a problem because these same employers are likely to tell you that what you write for them is confidential. For this reason, I use a ‘fictionalized’ sample. It is based on a short manual I wrote for one company, but I have gone out of my way to change any company-specific information. This was not fun, but it was the best compromise I could come up with. My sample is about 15 pages long. I keep it this short because the employers often want to keep it or review it, and they are not that cheap to reproduce, especially because I have my sample vellum bound with a transparent plastic cover. I also include an explanation of what publishing package I used and what the requirements and restrictions of the project were.

What is the best way to look for a job?

The Internet is a great way to look for work, and even better if you are willing to move around. I especially recommend indeed.com, which searches severl employment sites at once. I also try to hit all the local technical employment agencies. The easy way to do this is check the Sunday paper of the town you are interested in and look in the computer or technical employment sections. Look for agencies advertising several jobs and get either their fax numbers or e-mail addresses. They do not have to be advertising technical writing jobs. If they place technical jobs, then it is worth the time to get your resume and cover letter to them.

There has also been a growth in resume distribution services. These companies claim to send your resume to thousands of recruiters. I haven’t tried this approach, but if you are interested try: EmailMyResume.com, ResumeZapper.com, and ResumeXposure.com.

What should my resume look like?

Emphasize your technical skills. If you know a software package or computer platform or if you have a scientific background, make sure you supply details. I am a strong believer that good writing skills are far more important than knowledge of a specific subject or program, but the reality out there is that if you know the programs or subjects they’re looking for, then you have the distinct edge in getting the job. Writing skill is far down the list of what they take into account. I have gotten two jobs without even providing a sample of my writing. If you would like to have a professional work on your resume, try: Employment911.com or A and A Resume.

What kind of cover letter should I use?

If you are contacting an agent and not responding to a specific job request, then simply indicate a few basics about yourself. indicate you consider to be your strongest and most relevant skills. Don’t make it long and don’t go out of your way to provide details. If they want to know more, they will ask. Keep it short and simple.

On the other hand, if you are responding to a specific job description, especially if you are responding directly to the employer, then a careful cover letter should be written. Analyze the job description, and in your cover letter state specifically how you qualify for as much of that description as possible. Make them believe that you are exactly what they are looking for. Paraphrase their description as much as possible.

What should I ask for in negotiations?

Negotiations are a difficult process. Most agencies work on the “What pay range are you looking for?” system. This is a tricky system, but one that can be beaten. The key is to ask for more than you expect to get. Do this every time, and by at lease five dollars an hour. I give this advice for an important reason. If you are dealing with an agency and you under-price yourself, you are at their mercy. They will either give you what you ask for, or whatever the minimum in their range is. That is it. End of story.

However, if you ask for more than what their range is, they will then proceed to tell you what the range is. Remember, you aren’t dealing with the employer, you are dealing with the agent, and they know what the job will be bid at. When they tell you your rate is too high, ask what the range is and tell them that whatever the high number is will be good enough. It is possible to price yourself out of a job, but frankly, I’m willing to accept that risk. If you aren’t, then follow your own instincts.

If you are dealing directly with an employer, negotiations are more difficult. The key here is to wait until they are ready to extend an offer. If they ask early on what you want, tell them that you will be happy to listen to whatever their offer is, once they have one to make. If they get adamant about it, then you’ll have to name your figure and take your chances. Again, I recommend starting on the high side, but it depends on your instincts and whether you are willing to risk not getting the job in order to get what you want. I have been lucky enough to be pursued by more than one company at a time, and I have been willing to play the two off each other in order to get what I wanted. There is also a big advantage to already having a job when you look for your next job. You have the luxury of saying no.

The one most annoying question an employer can ask me is my past salary history. This has happened a few times, and I have refused to tell them on some occasions and I have told them on others. In both situations, I never got the job, so I can’t say which practice works best. I always take the question as a bad sign, however. Any company interested in this is not likely to treat their employees well, in my opinion.

What is a good technical writing rate?

There is, of course, no clear-cut answer to this. Rates vary according to geography, experience, benefits, and the current job market. As I write this, the market has been slow for a three years but is now starting to pick up. There are still more writers than jobs, but the numbers are evening out.

If money is a prime concern, then you need to be in a major market. I am currently working in Phoenix. Phoenix is a good market because there are several major technology firms (Motorola, Intel, AT&T, American Express, etc.) and there are quite a few smaller companies that employ technical writers. California in general and the San Francisco Bay area (also known as Silicon Valley) specifically are the largest markets, though they have also been the hardest hit by the slowdown in the technical industries. Dallas, Denver, New York, Atlanta, North Carolina and Washington State are also good markets. In those places, contract technical writers commonly make from $15-60 an hour. Salaried employment ranges from $30,000-90,000 a year. There have been more jobs in the lower part of this range during the slump, but compensation is also picking up.

Is it better to take a permanent job or a contract?

This depends on the job, of course. I originally chose to go the contract route because I knew that with a couple more years of experience under my belt, I would be able to command much more money than I would when I began, far more than I would be able to count on through raises. I also had no family to support, so I had a certain freedom to move around and to take risks. I did take a permanent position once, but permanence in this industry is an illusion. I have continued to take contract work and I prefer it.

If you do contract, you will find that you are generally treated differently from regular employees. This will vary widely from company to company, but you may or may not find yourself with a little less respect and acceptance, especially as a technical writer. You are disposable. Also, you will be expected to do your own training. Rarely will companies finance training for contractors.

On the up side, you generally attend fewer meetings and deal with less company politics. Also, I have always tried to get my training on the job. Moving from company to company has given me the opportunity to learn a variety of applications that I would be ignorant of if I had only been at a single company all this time.

To me the key difference between contracting and regular employment is one of attitude toward the company. When I am contracting I consider the company to be a client. I probably work harder to give them what they want, but I have less personal interest in the outcome. Even if I feel the project is flawed, I do what they ask because they are a client and that is my responsibility to them. As an employee, I get much more caught up in the reasons for projects. I am more likely to object to a course of action I don’t feel helps me or the company because I feel it is our mutual responsibility to succeed. I am more invested in the outcome and less concerned with pleasing the company. This may be different for other people, but I think it accurately reflects my past attitudes.

Why are there more contract/consultant jobs then there are permanent jobs?

The hard fact is that most companies do not value technical writing. They bring in writers to fill a specific need, often because they have been required to provide documentation for a project. Many companies bring writers in at the end of a project to document what has already been created rather than include writers in the full product cycle.

Why don’t more companies value technical writing?

Much more emphasis is put on the programming side of products than on usability and documentation because these are viewed as secondary issues. I strongly feel this has helped lead the technical industry into its current down cycle.

Technical writers are viewed as a luxury. As valuable as I feel my skills are, and can be to a company, the company can still function without me. If the programs or systems are undocumented, or if they are poorly documented by programmers or analysts, it will not damage the company as obviously as if the program fails to get developed. I happen to feel that a company that spends money on good technical writers will get a very high return for its investment, in more satisfied customers, smoother processes and greater institutional memory. I believe that dollar-wise this can make money for the company, but those are categories that are difficult to measure and often hard for management to comprehend.

Also, some companies do not understand what a technical writer does. Some consider writers to be glorified secretaries, and do such things as give them notes to type up or even have them take minutes at meetings. Part of the problem is that secretaries and administrative assistants have also become a thinning breed, and management (not the upper management, who have secretaries, but the lower management and team members) are desperate for anyone who can make a document look good. I once found myself at a company that constantly asked me to attend meetings simply to record the minutes. I comforted myself with the fact that I was paid $36 an hour to do it, but I also started looking for my next job,

What types of documents do technical writers create?

The range of writing a technical writer performs varies widely. Much is dependent on the technical specialty of the writer and of the needs of the company. You may find yourself a part of one large project, or overseeing dozens of smaller projects. You might write manuals, articles, proposals, white papers, product descriptions or any of a hundred other types of documents.

My specialty is writing manuals, especially user manuals and programmer manuals for specific software applications. This is the technical writing I enjoy most, because for me it involves solving problems and figuring out puzzles. To write a user manual, I need to think like the people using the program and try to tell them what they need to know, rather than what I would need to know or what the programmer would need to know. For me, this is a lot of fun and very fulfilling.

There are dozens of different types of writing that come under the banner of technical writing, however. Many people document processes. Processes can be just about any system by which something gets done. For example, in order for a company to generate a payroll, certain actions must be taken, such as logging hours and generating checks. All of those steps are part of a process, and intelligent companies document those processes so that, if an employee leaves or a system goes down, they have something to consult in order to get themselves on track. One name for this type of document is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).

Another type of documentation is SLA (Service Level Agreement). The SLA describes exactly what a provider (company or department) will do for a customer (another company, another department, or an individual). These can be highly technical documents or busywork, depending on the service and the company.

Proposals, often written in response to an RFP (Request For Proposal) document are much like SLAs. They describe what work will be done, but they require more writing finesse because they are also pitching the service. The company is proposing to sell a service. I have written several proposals, and depending on the request and the company, they can be quite interesting or more busywork.

These are just a few examples of the types of work technical writers perform.

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The 10 Days of Character Building project will consist of daily articles about different ways to develop characters for stories. The general way to participate will to be to craft a different character with each method and post your results.

If you want to take part in this project as it moves along I suggest that you:

• Decide on a single story (novel, play, screenplay or other work) that you will develop characters for.
• Spend some time thinking about the genre, plot and other aspects of your story so that you know what you are working toward.
• Think in general about what characters you will want for your story.

Ideally, the methods we will discuss will help you flesh out your characters, but they aren’t designed to have you create a character from scratch. As we go along, it will be helpful if you post your work so that others can see how you approached each method. As a way of getting started, feel free to use the comments here to discuss your general story idea.

Note: The more people we get to work together on this, the more useful it will be, so I encourage to tell your writer friends!

Here are some of my older articles to help get you get in the mood:

• Creating Memorable Characters
  
• Building Characters Through Adversity
• Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!

Update:

Here are links to the ten character building articles:

• 10 Days of Character Building: Character Bio Sheets
• 10 Days of Character Building: Basing Characters on Real People
• 10 Days of Character Building: 12 Questions
• 10 Days of Character Building: Building a Character Using Multiple Perspectives
• 10 Days of Character Building: Brainstorming
• 10 Days of Character Building: Interview
• 10 Days of Character Building: Biography
• 10 Days of Character Building: Possessions
  
• 10 Days of Character Building: A Day in the Life
• 10 Days of Character Building: Defining Characters By Their Roles

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1. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Why you should write poetry
2. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Yourself
3. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Writing About Issues
4. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry of Place
5. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Persona Poems
6. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Developing Your Voice
7. 30 Poems in 30 Days: About Forms and Lists
8. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Elegies and Memories
9. 30 Poems in 30 Days: A Brief Glossary of Meter
10. 30 Poems in 30 Days: The Good the Bad and the Meter
11. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Courting Controversy
12. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Syllabic Verse
13. 30 Poems in 30 Days: What is Your Writing Process?
14. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Repetition
15. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Imagism
16. 30 poems in 30 Days: Review Your Old Work
17. 30 Poems in 30 Days: The Constraint as a Tool
18. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Joining the Community
19. 30 Poems in 30 Days: About the Line
20. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Staying Positive
21. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Progression
22. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Breaking the Rules
23. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Confessional Poetry
24. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Say What You Want to Say
25. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Poetry Contests
26. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Free Verse
27. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Finding New Ways To Stay Inspired
28. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Word Choice
29. 30 Poems in 30 Days: A Little Advice
30. 30 Poems in 30 Days: Collaboration

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All Good Things

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Groucho Marx

We’ve reached the final day of our little poetry project. It has been quite a journey, at least for me, and I really appreciate those of you who took the time to post your poetry. I wasn’t sure, when I started this, whether or not I would get any participants and I was happy that a few of you chose to come along. It would have been a much harder journey without your poems and comments.

This will be the final day of the poetry project, but it won’t be my final post on the topic. When we started, I promised to discuss publishing options, especially low cost ones, and I will be writing about that over the next few days. Today, however, will be the final day of assignments.

The people who have chosen to write their poems and to comment on the poems of others have demonstrated my final lesson, the value of collaboration. Working with other poets is a good thing. Creating a community is a good thing. As I said, this would have been a much more difficult and longer month without the contributions of others. Reading other poet’s work has been invigorating. Reading other poet’s comments has been instructive. Having an audience of peers to discuss poetry with has helped me improve as a poet, and I hope it has helped others.

If you have the chance to work with, or just make friends with other poets. Take that chance. They will help keep your focus on poetry and on writing, which over the long haul can be more valuable than any criticism or praise.

Please tell me what you thought of the project. I would like to keep the energy. I am considering at least a weekly poetry post, complete with assignment, but I am open to other ideas. Please tell me what you think.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

I feel like ending with something technical but random. Don’t include any word with a single “A” in it, but do include at least one word with two “A”s in it.

Today’s Featured Poet

In keeping with our attempt to bring in international flavor for the final days, I am including Daniel Ladinsky. Ladinsky is an American poet but has lived in India and the Middle East for many years now. His work includes translations of the 14th century Persian poet, Hafez, who wrote in the ghazal form. Ladinsky is a somewhat controversial figure because many of his translations are not considered literal, and are thought to me more like responses to the original poems.

Books 

• Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
• I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
• I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
• The Subject Tonight Is Love: Sixty Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz

Poems

• Selected Poems
• More Selected Poems

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Six Quick Tips

We are almost to the end of our 30 day journey through the world of poetry. I still have several poems left to write and I am determined to do it, so I am not going to delve too deep tonight. Instead I am going to leave you with six quick tips to take forward with you.

1. Nobody said writing poetry was easy. If they did, they probably weren’t very good at it. Accept the challenge. Embrace the challenge.
2. Set aside time at least once a week to write poetry. It is easy to get out of the habit. I know.
3. Poetry is therapeutic. Poetry can be a great way of dealing with anger or sadness. It is good to write your way through something, whether the poem itself is good or not.
4. Buy at least one book of poetry a month. Try to support new poets and don’t be afraid to try someone you don’t like at first. You CAN learn from poets you don’t like.
5. Look for ways to do something unexpected in your poetry. It is good sometimes to take a poem someplace that the reader did not see coming.
6. Sometimes when you are stuck for something to write, it is because you are not doing enough things that are worth writing about. Take the time to live and embrace life, otherwise you may well run out of material.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Write the final line of your poem first, then figure out a way to get there.

Today’s Recommended Poet

In my quest to add a little more international flair to the poets I am recommending, I went looking for someone from England to read today. I found a interesting poet with what I consider to be a similar style to mine (he isn’t that big on punctuating his poems either). I haven’t read a lot of his work yet but I think he is worth investigating. Take a look:

Poems

• Four Poems
• the butcher’s craft
• fossil (an egocentric ponders coastal erosion)

Books

• The Last Bus
• Big Bella’s Dirty Cafe

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Choose Your Words Wisely

Some poets write what they feel and spend very little time thinking about which word to use. They rely on instinct. Other poets spend a considerable amount of time trying to choose exactly the right words. They analyze and consider every word. I’m not going to advocate one method over the other. In my opinion, it is up to the poet to determine their approach to word choice. I am certainly in the middle of the road with my approach. I care about word choice, and I will often consider the benefits of one word over another, but I would consider myself completely sidetracked if I spent more than a few minutes deciding on whether or not one word is more perfect over another.

There are six general ways to influence and analyze your choice of words. The type of poem you write can make a difference in your choices. A poem with a metered form is going to involve choices about rhythm. A visually structured poem will entail a greater emphasis on appearance. A persona poem will require an increased focus on style. Beyond form, there is the individual style of the poet, which leads to subconscious word choices. Below are the six methods that you can use to determine word choice.

Meaning: The meaning of a word can be important in several ways. Obviously you want a word with the correct definition, but there are other considerations. Sometimes you want to reflect on the alternate meanings of a word in addition to the contextual meaning of a word. For example, you can say “we were filming the movie” or “we were shooting the movie”. Both phrases are correct in context, but the word shooting brings in other images because it has alternate meanings. Filming is the more precise word, which may be what the poet wants, but shooting has connotations of both violence and achievement (shooting a gun, shooting for the stars) that filming does not. These differences can have an overall effect on the poem, especially if reinforced with other word choices elsewhere in the poem.

Style: Another consideration is style and usage. Some words are more formal than others. For example, “cannot” and “can’t” are essentially the same word, but cannot is the accepted formal usage and can’t, like all contractions, is considered informal. Even more informal usages, such as slang or colloquialisms like cain’t, create a much different effect.

Rhythm: The rhythm of a word is essentially its meter, which I have discussed in earlier posts. It is the general pattern of the word, stressed syllables versus unstressed syllables. Even if you aren’t attempting to write a poem with a formal meter, you may find that you want a particular rhythm, especially for words on the same line.

Sound: The way a word sounds is always a consideration in poetry. The following words all mean essentially (though not exactly) the same thing: apron, bib, smock, pinafore. Each of these words has a different sound. Apron and pinafore have softer and longer sounds compared with bib and smock. If the exact meaning of the word isn’t your primary concern, then you might choose one of the four because it fits your sound requirements. It may rhyme, be alliterative, be assonant or add any of a number of other qualities to your poem.

Length: The length of a word can have very definite effects on a poem. The eye and even the voice tend to move more quickly over short words than long, even if the total number of syllables per line is the same. Short words tend to present as more active than long words. Long words tend to present as more formal and intellectual than short words.

Appearance: The final consideration in word choice is how the word looks on the page. For some poets, especially those who work with visual structures, this can be important. The words “little” and “modest” have similar meanings, the same number of letters and the same stresses, but the letters of the word little are (overall) taller and narrower than the letters in modest. For a visually-oriented poet, this can determine which word gets used.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Write a poem that either uses no words longer than five letters or no words shorter than five letters.

Today’s Recommended Poet

Jenny Mueller’s first book of poetry, Bonneville, shows a great ability to create rhythm in free verse using repeated words, sounds and phrases. I can’t find too many examples of her work on the web, so be sure to take advantage of Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature to get a better look at what she can do.

Poems By Jenny Mueller

Allegory
Love Poem

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The Search for Inspiration

Sometimes I get stuck for ideas to write about. It is easy to get stuck in a rut as a poet. Staring at a blank page or a blank screen can be intimidating. Here are a few ways, presented in the tried and true list style, which can help you get started.

Call a friend and talk about old times
Collaborate with another poet
Exercise
Give yourself a deadline
Give yourself permission to write badly
Go someplace new
Interview yourself
Just start writing anything that comes to mind as fast as you can
Listen to your favorite music
Look at old photographs
Meditate
Read a magazine or a newspaper
Read someone else’s poetry
Read your own poetry
Review your old work
Start with a title
Take a swim, bath or a shower
Take a walk
Try another medium such as drawing or painting
Try something new

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Use one of the methods from the list above as inspiration for your poem. if you post your poem, be sure to write down which method you chose.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

If you truly want to get the poetry world all riled up, write a book of prose poems. If you don’t believe me, just read some of the reviews of Karen Volkman’s work. Better yet, go read the work yourself and see if YOU get riled up.

Interview with Karen Volkman
Karen Volkman: Poetry’s Latest Punchline
Karen Volkman – Vacancy’s Ambassador

Poems 

[I have a friend. My friend is a sky.]
There Was a Stare
When Kiss Spells Contradiction

Books
Spar
Crash’s Law

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Trading Safety for Freedom

I’ve touched on the subject of free verse before, most notably in the article about the pros and cons of meter. Free verse is poetry that does not use a regular meter or rhyme. While poetry without rhyme dates back many centuries, the practice of using neither meter nor rhyme was a poetic movement that began in French and Europe during the 1800s. The first popular American poet to write in free verse was Walt Whitman.

Free verse does not mean that there are no patterns or rhythms at all. Instead, the rhyme is determined, sometimes subconsciously, by the poet. The lines come in the form of thought patterns, breath patterns, visual patterns, and syntactic patterns. More to the point, the form tends to mirror the voice of the poet.

While in some ways, free verse does not require the discipline of metered and rhymed poetry, it creates new requirements. The poet must determine, without the crutch of form, when the line ends and what makes for the best line. They must find a way to make the poem still feel poetic without relying on some of the most accepted tools. With free verse, you cannot defend the use of a word or phrase simply because it fits the meter. You must determine where to end the line because there is no set length to fall back on. Even the length of the poem is now completely up to you. So, while you have less limitations and restrictions, you have more responsibility.

While free verse is ultimately freeing, it is not for the lazy of for those who think it will be easier than writing metered or rhymed poetry. There is no safety net without form. There is no literary excuse for a mistake, because you have all the power. If you choose to write in free verse, you sill have to learn to be confident in your own voice, because that is what you will be relying on.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Write the first draft of your poem in paragraph form and then change it into a free verse poem. Don’t be surprised if you have to change lines, words and phrases. That will probably be a part of the process.

Today’s Recommended Poet

Bruce Bond is a highly respected poet, teacher and the poetry editor for the American Literary Review. In this interview, he explains part of his poetic philosophy. “white space is one way of suggesting a kind of silent listening, an openness to the strange and what the language longs to accommodate, how words are taken to their limits. I like poems with silence in them, both the formal resonance of literal silence, and silence as a metaphor for the unknowable, the erotic, the sublime.”

Poems on the Web

• Will
• Testament
• Art Pepper
• Hospice

Books of Poetry

• The Anteroom of Paradise 2006
• Cinder 2003
• The Throats of Narcissus 2001

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You May Already be a Winner

There is nothing wrong with entering poetry contests. It is one way of taking part in the larger world of poetry. It also gives you the motivation to write well and to keep writing. If you win a legitimate contest, it is a great honor. Unfortunately, many contests are not legitimate.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again. There is no quick or easy route to get rich as a poet. Even making a living as a poet is a difficult task. The masses do not buy books of poetry. Exceptions to this rule are rare, and generally involve someone who is famous for something other than poetry. Keep this in mind at all times, because there are people out there looking to take advantage of you.

Poetry contests are one of the methods that unscrupulous people use to take advantage of poets. They offer a substantial prize, $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, $100,000 to the winners of their poetry contests. All you have to do is submit your poems – along with a fee. Even if they don’t ask for an upfront fee, they still have ways of making you pay. In fact, if someone is offering you $100,000 for a contest you pay nothing to enter, you’d better be extra careful about entering.

Be prepared to become a finalist. An unscrupulous contest promoter’s goal will be to get you to attend a convention at which the winner will be named. The convention will probably be at some pretty locale that is easy to get so, such as Las Vegas or Miami. The fee for the convention won’t be too unreasonable, because they want you to come, but make no mistake; you are paying for a trip along with many, many other people they named as finalists. It may be a nice vacation, but you didn’t get there on talent. I don’t mean to say that you aren’t talented, just that talent is irrelevant to the contest promoters.

As a finalist, they will also publish you. Your poem will appear in a nice thick book along with a bunch of other poems. The book will be attractive, possibly leather-bound, but the poems will just be a collection of whoever sent something in. The book will cost you at least twenty dollars, maybe more. They’ll be counting on you to buy several so that your family and friends can see your “accomplishment”. They’ll probably also offer to sell you a nice plaque, perhaps one with your poem engraved on it. Whatever the case, they’ll keep trying to find a way to get your money.

There is nothing wrong with entering contests, but it pays to do a little research before you enter. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and don’t enter contests if the sponsors seem unwilling to share the details of how the contest works. Look for contests that are sponsored by schools, newspapers, magazines, major corporations and reputable publishers. Understand that any fee you pay to enter is going to be used to fund the prizes. If the fee seems excessive, don’t enter. Five dollars is one thing, but as the price grows so do the chances that you are getting ripped off. It is better to make a five dollar mistake than a hundred dollar mistake.

Never pay an additional fee once you have entered a contest. Don’t pay to have the poem published. Don’t pay for a plaque. Don’t pay for a trip. If you are the one paying them, then you are not a winner.

Sorry for this fairly cynical post, but people need to be warned.

Today’s Assignment

Write a poem that begins and ends with the same word.

Today’s Featured Poet

I wanted to take this chance today to formally promote Rosemary Nissen-Wade’s recommended Australian poets. I have already discussed John Kinsella, who I found much to my liking. I haven’t had time to delve as deeply into these three poets, and I would appreciate hearing other people’s opinions about them.

• Dorothy Porter
• Alison Croggon
• Eric Beach

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