100 Days of Poetry: 10/100

When the idea to take on the challenge of writing one poem a day for 100 consecutive days struck me sometime during August 2022, it felt too big of a task to even attempt. I had been slacking behind in writing poetry for the last few months (a few months might be an understatement, it might have been a year or two). I desperately wanted to get back to writing mysterious verses and lines, stanzas about my neighbor’s tree, the stars at night, or just a random something that invited itself into my mind.

As a research student, I have been writing a lot, and while a writing habit is in progress, I missed writing for myself. I missed the excitement I found in opening my notebook or the digital app to scribble something out of the blue. If there is one crucial thing I have learned in the last six months is that writing is a difficult and exhausting task, and thus I must learn to maintain discipline and jazz up the process in a way that keeps me enthusiastic about the journey. I have tried to gamify the challenge by making it fun for myself, and I am grateful that some of my friends have joined in the challenge.

10 x 10

There will be 10 themes in total with each theme having sub-themes for 10 days each. Gamifying the process gave me more confidence. I know I won’t be facing the blank page alone; there would be something already waiting there – a theme, a prompt, a guide.

Theme #1: Rooms

The first theme for the first 10 days was Rooms. The idea was quite random. I have no logical reason behind why I chose Rooms other than perhaps it would be easier to create more sub-themes. I made a few posters and floated them across my socials. I’m lucky to have received encouragement from friends around me, and some of them joining the challenge has been quite the icing on the cake.

The idea with this theme was to go to each room and write something – like a trigger. I did visit a few rooms, but some were imaginative. I slacked off occasionally. Some days I wrote poems for two sub-themes, but mostly I was on track – writing one poem a day. Some days a stanza of four lines was the maximum output, and on some days I wrote more than two pages.

Overall, this challenge has given me something to look forward to in terms of writing. And I hope you can find something in it too.

If you would like to join the challenge, hop in! It doesn’t matter if you are late or cannot follow through with the challenge. And feel free free to mix and match themes in whichever way your writing ideas go. You can visit The Wordcastle’s Instagram account to find the themes.

Themes will be posted on The Wordcastle’s Instagram account.
You can tag or DM the account. I would be delighted to read your poems! But more than that, I hope you write, we write.

90 days to go!