I really do not like most poetry. I like the idea of it - people bearing their thoughts and souls on paper. Practicing art. Engaging with themselves and community. But when I read it, I’m more often than not just annoyed that I forced myself through it.

During the month of October, I did a lot of prep work to get ready for NaNoWriMo. I powered through my typical WHR work for the next month so that I’d be completely free to write. This included making 30 Etsy product drafts (First on Canva, then on Gelato, then on Etsy for a total of ~90 files), writing 4 blog posts in advance, and writing enough poetry with doodles to post new things a couple times a week.

It's spooky day! Which (hopefully) means a lot of candy, a lot of fun, and some very eery make-believe. In the spirit of make-believe, I've made a list of 10 spooky and mysterious prompts to use for your fiction writing today. These are geared toward short stories; but, if you want an extra challenge, try to write a rhyming story!Bonus points to anyone who uses theirs as a ghostly Halloween tale to scare their friends and family tonight!

With my final class project finishing up on Sunday, and I finally getting my clean house back after a week of sickness, an ER visit (on my husband’s end - he’s okay now), and waking up at 3 am to get him soup, I am now a much less overwhelmed person. I did have a post written last week: I listed out 30-something October themed art and writing challenges. But for the above reasons, that didn’t go out and it’s now mid-October. We’ll try again next year.

A lot of weeks when I write these, I’ll find someone’s thought or content as inspiration and bounce off it. In the past that’s been @inspiredtowrite, Rajiv Surendra, or Austin Kleon. This week, I’m not feeling that. It’s not that it doesn’t exist or that creators aren’t making beautiful and inspirational things; I just haven’t had the capacity to take it all in this week. There are three fully written blog posts that I could put here today, but not one of them has that “it” factor for me. So what happens in this situation? Do I throw something on here because it needs to be done? Do I hope something strikes me later in the day?

"Today I’m doing something a little different. It’s getting to the part of the year where my work-life balance is shifting to where a bigger portion is the work chunk. While this is part of the normal flow of things for me, it’s also the first year I’ve had to seriously consider how it affects WHR. 

It took close to a year for me to really feel comfortable sharing We Have Rhymed, because it feels like it’s been in a continuous "set-up" phase. It still feels like that to a degree, but there are enough solidified pieces that it’s at least coherent now and I’m comfortable with that. The thing is, if I hadn’t shared it at all while it wasn’t coherent, I wouldn’t have had any push or nearly as much inspiration to bring it to this phase.

It has been a very emotional week on my end, and with that I managed to seek out some very touching writing and techniques that I wanted to share in a short thought today. One, so that you know what to look for when you want to feel that rush that comes from inspired understanding, and two so you can better write it should you feel the need to. There is something about good poetry that allows us to reach in and grab exactly what the author was feeling upon writing. That could be mourning, excitement, or the pure joy of creation. Your poetry doesn’t have to connect with everyone (it’s allowed to be just for you), but it’s really, really nice to find something that does genuinely connect with us.

This week I discovered the wonder that is Rajiv Surendra. He is best known for his role as Kevin Gnapoor in Mean Girls back in 2004, but he has since left acting and developed businesses, given Ted talks, and as of 8 months ago started a YouTube channel. Most of his content revolves around taking care of yourself and your home, and his attitude exudes patient, loving care toward everything he does and has; a complete juxtapose to everything I am as an artist and as a human.

I had a small scare the other day - I thought one of my favorite comic artists quit. He did not. It took me a day of wondering and a quick Google search to figure this out, but I’m happy to report that Invisible Bread is still going strong. But that solid day of “what happened” showed me a couple things about running a content channel, so while I am very sorry to Justin Boyd (the artist) for making this small experience the star of today’s post, I wanted to share the things I learned.

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Last week I listened to a YouTube video by Caroline Winkler which discussed her realities of living alone. One question that she was asked was "what if I get bored?" to which she said: just BE BORED (I may be paraphrasing, but not very much). And that's what I've tried to do.