Poetry Marathon 2014
Poetry Marathon 2014

I’m doing a half-marathon tomorrow. Working HARD for hours. And now that I have you thinking what a sleek athlete I must be, I’ll confess: it’s a poetry half-marathon. 🙂

The Poetry Marathon 2014 (24 poem/ 24 hours) also has a half-marathon option. That would be me. Even at 18 I wasn’t much for all-nighters. 24 hours?? I’ll be quite happy to crank out half that many poems, in half that amount of waking time!

Every so often, we need to s-t-r-e-t-c-h ourselves in what we love. For me, that would be writing. Especially poetry. So I signed up for a half-marathon writing poetry. Fun idea, and harder than it sounds, as it usually takes me hours to do just one poem. Tomorrow, I’ll have one hour PER poem. So much for perfection.

You know that saying, right? Perfect is the enemy of good. It;s been attributed to sages as diverse as Confucius & Voltaire. And for me, it’s bang-on right. It was years ago that I realised (finally!) that when I try to make ANYTHING perfect, it usually doesn’t get done…

So tomorrow is my foray into Nike land: just do it. I’m recommending you try that, as well. Think of something you love, and just do it. Which probably sounds totally contradictory to ‘stretching,’ right?

Wrong. The hardest thing in the world is to confront your own learning curve. It’s also the only way to grow.

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