Changing positions

First up, I have some news. Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that I hate writing poetry? Well...I'm reconsidering my position on that.

Shortly after that post went up the oft' talked about Tracy talked me into entering Ken Scholes' The Named Lands Poetry Contest. I had originally decided no to do it because well, it's poetry and with my insane self-imposed deadline I really need to focus on finishing the Cyberfunk. However, knowing that Tracy wouldn't let me live it down if I didn't submit something, forced my hand. I wrote a quick collection of haiku and sent it off. (Don't look at me like that. It was just six poems and haiku only take a few minutes to compose.) Last Sunday the winner was announced.

Me.

Fraking A.

I've never entered a poetry contest before. Heck, my writing period hasn't won any accolades yet so to find out my first was for a medium I only do under duress kinda really weirded me out. Add to that Ken's comment that he and the judge were "blown away" by the best of my six and you can guess how much my mind was blown. I was in a state of disbelief for a couple days.

So, yeah. Because of this (and something Greg Manchess teased me about the night before my win) I'm reconsidering my long standing hatred of poetry writing. I don't know if I'll start entering more poetry contests because of this. We'll see. For now I'm just going to try to ease into a more positive position so I'll feel more comfortable dabbling with the form. Baby steps are important. Especially when I have an imminent novel deadline. Speaking of which, I need to get to work.

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I have another guest post on the Fictorian Era coming up on Tuesday, May 14th. You won't want to miss this one. I laughed so hard when I wrote it.