What do you know about writing a poem or novel?

some people are natural geniuses & don't need to work too hard at writing a real masterpiece of a poem/novel. The rest of us have to keep working and working at it. i have been writing for several years and still don't think i have mastered the art down to what it takes to have a bestseller. Keep working at it though. Find a writers forum that will critique your work and point you out to the right directions. Attend writing courses too. They help a whole lot. And of course, keep writing.

I do write poems and have discovered that all my poems have an emotional element which comes when I feel for something very strongly, that could be a moment (some time a few seconds), a person, a situation and so on. Novel, I do feel that I could write one but have never attempted. I do have ideas about short stories and wrote one but did not have time to fine tune it. I do hope that some day I will have time to write short stories.

I write sonnets. My book Cat-House Sonnets, 100 poems celebrating cats, was published by Jorlan Publishing. You have to write about what you know, whatever kind of writing you do. One of the most exciting things in my life was holding my book in my hands. I wish you lots of luck in your writing.

I have written many poems, but only a few short stories, and it is generally easier for me to write a poem than a novel or a short story. I am trying to write a collection of short stories at the moment and I find it harder than I expected. When I write poems it happens in a different way, I simply let the words come and I write down the sentences in my head. If I am stuck and can't finish I poem, I often find the missing words right before I fall asleep, and I always keep a pen and a notebook close to my bed.

I am actually minoring in creative writing, so I've taken courses on both of these! My latest course was a poetic forms course, which was very challenging, but well worth it. We got to meet famous poets Mark Strand and Stephen Cushman and had them talk to us about poetry and it was very worth it. Writing poetry may be easy, but writing "good" poetry isn't. Anyone can write poetry, but writing poetry that fits the contemporary standards, as I've found out, takes a lot of effort sometimes. I went into the class writing poetry and not thinking about technique or anything, but during the class I realized how important certain techniques were to writing and how they applied to all of my favorite poets. :) They just make the poems sound nicer to compliment the content.

I write poetry almost on a daily basis... it's therapeutic for me in so many ways. When I was in high school I started writing a novel, and I finally finished about a year ago. I'm going through a revision period with it now, but it's taking a while. It's historical fiction and took a TON of research as well.

I've written several poems, some of whose ideas struck me while I was just drifting off to sleep. lol Ideas come at the weirdest times. :D Currently, I'm writing what I hope will be my first short story. I don't know if I'm going to have it published, but I'm going to keep it just in case I decide to go to graduate school for a Master's in English. I think anyone can write a poem or novel. They just need to take the time to respond to what they see around them, then put it down on paper. Happy MyLotting!