So I didn't do Poem a Day in November, or much of anything really. I've added to the store of notes and first lines on my phone but that's about it. I find winter a tough time to get motivated - it's dark when I leave home for work, and dark when I leave work for home. And December's so full of other things - work parties, present buying, present wrapping, seeing family, cleaning for family visits, food shopping, food prep... There's barely been time to stop and it's hard to believe there's only a week until Christmas.
Stories of Music: Volume 2 will be released on 10th January, and is available for preorder. Having looked at the proofs for my section, I'm really excited to see what the rest of the book looks like.
I've spotted a couple of free online poetry courses that I'm thinking about taking in the New Year. Sharpened Visions: A Poetry Workshop is run through Coursera. There's a new session starting on 2nd January, so a good way to kick start the new year, although there are at least three other session in the year. It wants four to five hours a week though. EdX is running The Art of Poetry, although it looks like it's an archived course with future dates to be announced. Both courses run for six weeks. I'm honestly not sure I wouldn't just be better of with a How To book, though - at least they're portable and don't send you spam. While I haven't had any trouble when I've taken Coursera courses in the past, last year I took an online poetry course (and I can't for the life of me remember from which site) and got dozens of emails every day - which weren't at all easy to turn off since you had to look in at least two different sections of the website. The forum interface was terrible, too. I bailed on that course pretty quickly.
I'd like to do something though, and the structure of an online course might help me to keep on track. Something to think about, anyway.
