On Poetry Competitions and Unposted Poetry

        It presents such a dilemma when I am forced to choose between posting a poem for public viewing and submitting it (or saving it for submission) to a poetry competition. It seems as if the "system" wants to limit the public posting of such poems; of course, if the poet is significantly accomplished and eminent, such problems naturally dissipate. For example, the purpose itself of submitting to poetry competitions, as well as the complementary issue of being able to come up with good poetry consistently enough that posting some (and thus voiding their utility in competitions) cease to be a problem.

        And in creating something of a balance between posting and "saving," I have found a notable drawback: this creates the scenario that all poetry posted is poetry that was at some point deemed "inferior," thereby potentially decreasing the desire for people to read the poetry and also the desire of the poster to continue. This endless downward spiral is terrible and cannot be allowed.

        A potential solution? Make it so that poetry that is submitted can have been published beforehand, as long it has not won another competition and there is proof that the author wrote the original poem. Of course, this requires more work to prevent plagiarism, but it resolves the key issue that remained beforehand, namely, the existence of plagiarized submissions. I do not possess extensive (or even that much) knowledge of the anti-plagiarism (and as of now anti-published) "checks" the organizations that run competitions go through, but I believe the burden this solution creates can be mitigated greatly if the competitors are required to provide proof of originality and the like. As for what form this proof might take and how this can be verified, I am not entirely sure. But it's an idea.

        I suppose for now I will continue on my current system of posting most of my poetry, only withholding a small proportion in order to use as "competition material." Even that proportion I will endeavor to publish after the competition ceases to be, either having rejected the poetry or having lauded it. In either case, I will add an "originally written" date for informative purposes, and will try to fill the gap where poems were withheld with some shorter, less time-consuming (but hopefully just as interesting) poetry.

        Well, there you have it. A bit of a rant, but hopefully some food for thought. Who knows, maybe the system can be changed someday. But for now, on with the poetry!

Failures and Life Lessons (the two are pretty much synonymous)

I've learned.

After a sudden burst of inspiration, I endeavored to write a short story in a time frame of 2-3 weeks...but I failed miserably. The daily going-ons of life made it so that this chunk of work, much like a large object being shoved into an overflowing suitcase, just did not fit. Persevering in an auspicious moment, I managed to write up an idea and the first part of a potential short story; however, there the line was drawn. There came time after time of almost-opportunities in which I hoped to write the story, but in every instance I was plagued by work that sprang from nowhere, school projects that appeared out of the blue, or various other unforeseen obstacles. In short: progress failed to be made. And with this came a bout of stagnation: one look at the "last published on" Blogger message told me everything I needed (and desperately feared) to know. Driven deeper by this inevitable sense of failure, I pushed back the deadline with excuses, farther and farther back. And progress still failed to be made.

But looking back at the successful poem of the first few months, a question sprang immediately into my mind. Where did that time I had found to work on the blog previously go? Had it miraculously disappeared? It is true that several sources of extra time consumption have been introduced since then (on which I tended to blame the stagnation), but it still did not add up. I remained constantly surprised by how much I had accomplished before. What happened? What changed?

And therein lied the issue. I realized, probably like countless others over the course of history, that the problem was in how I organized the work. As an indefinite number of 5-minute poetry lines, the work seemed negligible. For what is a couple of minutes in the day? But as the clump of work I had deemed the short story, it had ceased to be so. It was not short but infinitely long, an enormous project-like goal that I could never find the time for. I had always assumed that I wrote my best in a 2-hour-long typing session, but this was no longer possible or practical. And thus I resolve to break up the work, to divide and deci(or however many days)mate the work, to split up what was a vast unknown into smaller, more manageable fragment. And the funny thing is, this all sounds familiar. Perhaps this is what every teacher or advisor suggests. Amidst the flurry of speech, it is just a suggestion among a million others. But in the reality of the world, brushing past the chaos and the downfalls of daily life, it is the truth.

We've all learned.

In fact, we've learned so many things that it becomes hard to pick out one from the rest. But experience is the best impetus. So go implement it; I've saved you the painful experience. And in the future, as well as now, with the short story looming ahead more accomplishable and irresistible than ever, I shall too. For everything that is old was new, and everything that is new will be old someday. And in pursuit of that day,

I learn.

Self-Newsflash: Poetry ≠ Fiction Writing

That's right, me! Fiction writing is obviously unfit for a blog such as this one, which is so clearly (and aptly) named "Pleonasm in Poetry." Thus, I will neither be posting spontaneous pieces of writing that culminate in a novel-like format nor be beginning such a story soon. Of course, it would logically follow that this nonexistent publication-to-be will not have been inspired by a suggestion I gave to a friend in need of short story ideas, and thus, it will not be short at all, as it will not have existed in the first place. Anyway, you definitely should not be expecting anything random anytime, especially within the next couple of days.

But as always, the (hopefully) daily poetry will be coming as always, unhampered by nonexistent novel sections and only by lack of time or opportunity on my part. With the end result of Inseafar (Poem 1) being largely successful, Poem 2 is already underway and will take us into yet another realm of wonders.