Katy and I collaborated on a poem in writing class on Thursday night.
Some say love is like
old cheese
Texture plus a bitter
taste
Blue veins and holes –
such a tease
Quite poor, although produced in less than five minutes, and
constrained by specific rules.
-
First sentence provided
-
Following two lines must have same number of
syllables
-
Final words of lines 1 and 3 to rhyme
What was the point of the exercise? I guess (because we weren’t told) we were experimenting
in the use of picking our words carefully.
Five minutes to select fourteen syllables. Imagine deploying the same amount of care to
my novel:
-
seventy-five thousand words
-
approximately one hundred and fifty thousand
syllables (what is the average number of syllables in a word?)
-
eight hundred and ninety-two hours
-
two and three-quarter years at one hour a day
(I’ve got a family and a full-time job).
Frightening.
Add to that time spent in class learning better techniques,
writing this blog and a few short stories, and the occasional bout of laziness.
That first novel might be some time off yet. Or, practice so that I can produce fourteen
syllables in less than five minutes.
What’s that you say?
Surely you can write faster than that?
Yes, on average, I think I write about fourteen words per minute. But then, at the end of the first draft, how
many further drafts? This is the point
of the poem we constructed – it takes time to get the right words in the right
place for maximum effect.
One last thought. It
was fun. Moving words around, seeking
the right mix. Looking for poetic
elements that worked. Understanding the
nature of cheese and getting the right context.
If you get it right – it’s also fun to share with the class. I’m sorry to say that we didn’t get it right,
but then, it wasn’t all my fault. I had
help.
Any comments from the very few people that read this out
there? How many words do you write per
minute? How many drafts?
Hi Robert.
ReplyDeleteTo produce anything at all in just 5 minutes is a great effort.
I try and create two blog posts a week but this can prove very very hard. Many posts don't feel ready and some never feel right (and thus never see the light of day), so I need to start several every week to just complete two.
I can spend 3-4 hours on one page of text and have sometimes completely revise a page 3-4 times before I am happy.
I am getting faster the more I do, but on this basis I could never write a book.