Writing Poetry

I dislike admitting that there is a kind of writing I can’t do.

I will freely admit that part of this—and only part—is a pride thing. I make my living off of writing, and I like to think that I can do most kinds well.

The not-pride part of the annoyance stems from the fact that I do make my living off of my writing. My career revolves around my ability to communicate with words, and when I run across a style of writing that I don’t automatically adapt to, it bothers me. I’m still a baby in the industry, but one of my goals is to be well-rounded as a writer, with multiple areas of expertise and a fat bag of tricks that I can draw from should the need arise.

So, when I was assigned a homework project a few months back that immediately made me think, ‘Oh, but I can’t write poetry,’ it bothered me.

Because I never write poetry. Ever. It’s not in my bag of tricks, it’s not something I would ever think to do, and it’s not something I would ever, ever claim to be skilled at.

And it bugged me.

And because it bugged me, I did exactly what I always do in these situations.I decided to change it.

Because I am not great about tolerating things that bug me and leaving them in peace, y’all. It’s not my thing.

Since I am a hands-on kind of person and have discovered that my learning style is ‘sit down and do it until you have learned to do it’, I decided to add a document to my computer and fill it with as many bad poems as were needed to produce a few good ones.

In case you’re wondering, it’s a lot.

Less than I was expecting, however. In fact, once I got past the whiny voice in my head that was complaining about not knowing how to write poems, I found that I quite liked writing them.

Who knew?

My original plan of one poem a day was derailed by deadlines, homework assignments, and family problems, but the ones I did produce aren’t too shabby. I plan on sharing a few and continuing to explore this new medium in the next few months.

We’ll see how it goes!

When was the last time you decided to challenge yourself with something you ‘couldn’t’ do? How did it go? Tell me about it in the comments!