A Poem a Day Might Win Me a Thousand Bucks

Since I'm in Martos and have a relatively large amount of free time on my hands, I'm trying to be as productive as I can, writing-wise. Work keeps the boredom away. And it might just win me $1,000.

My current goal is to complete a book of poetry, 50 - 100 pages, by year's end for submission to a specific contest. That way, even if I don't win, I've got a bunch of poems written and collected, with some thought given to how they're arranged and fit with each other. I'll have a more-or-less finished product that's all set to be pitched to other publishers.

So I'm going to post a poem a day. Sometimes more, but we'll see how it goes. Then you all, people whose opinions I trust, can leave comments or email me. It'll be easier, I think, then sending out mass e-mails and awaiting responses. Since I'm not really a poet, and am new to writing poetry, I plan on experimenting a lot with different themes and different forms, both traditional (i.e., sestinas, cinquain, etc.) and not (more visual poems that incorporate a bit more graphic design).

I may attempt to publish the poems under a pen name, or change my name to incorporate my mother's name. Knauth, as a last name, seems like an impediment to becoming stupendously famous as a poet (although I guess reality is also an impediment here). I'm also interested in incorporating Spanish into my poetry, either within a single poem, or writing English and Spanish versions of each.

I'll occasionally try out other things on this blog - short stories, mostly, and maybe very short comics or drawings. One project I definitely plan to post here is the story that is the namesake of the blog: The Saddest Viking. I've been kicking ideas around since 2007 and have written a bunch of scenes, but there's no finished story. The plan is to post, weekly, a "chapter", very short, and write a continuation for next time. Eventually I'll stop, and then I can figure out what I've got and how to edit it. It's probably going to be short, so the posts will be short themselves - a serial short story.

Also, read my nonfiction blog, about life in Spain as a teaching assistant in a bilingual school!