: Re: How do you manage all the different aspects of writing poetry? Every time I try to write a poem I find myself incredibly stuck. It feels to me like poetry has so many different aspects- meter,

@Debbie451

1) Stop fixing everything at once.

Write your first round to get it on paper.

On your second round, pick one thing to fix: sharpen your rhymes, for example.

Next round, work on the meter.

Let it sit for a day. Come back with fresher eyes and work on word choice.

2) Kill your darlings.

Editing oneself is one of the hardest parts of writing. What this phrase means is that you have to be willing to let go of the perfectly-turned phrase, the elegantly metered couplet, if it doesn't fit the particular poem it's in. Put it in a slush file and start the line over. Rewrite the entire poem if you can't extract the line that's blocking you.

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: Re: How do you manage all the different aspects of writing poetry? Every time I try to write a poem I find myself incredibly stuck. It feels to me like poetry has so many different aspects- meter,

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: If your essay is analytical (and I'm struggling to think of any other reason you'd write an essay about The Great Gatsby) then I'd put it in the present tense. Gatsby loves Daisy, but

: How to determine rates to charge as a freelance writer While I have a few articles published, they were easy fixed rates. Today, however, I've received this email (identifying details removed):

: What's "fair use" for borrowing someone else's invented term? Let's say I'm writing a sci-fi novel. I want to use a word which another writer has coined, which has become well-recognized outside

: "Streamlined and useful"? Which means punctuation is useless clutter? Ask the legendary guy whose life was saved by Czarina Maria Fyodorovna's misplaced comma. ("Pardon impossible, to be sent

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