How long does it take you to write a piece?

[Flutterings]

I knew a guy once who took about 4 weeks to produce one poem (3 stanzas)




.... how long does it take you to write something?


I'm usually under five minutes.

[RainbowChaser]

It took me 4 years to write one poem. I'm just useless at finishing what I start!

When I was writing regularly it took me 10-15 mins. Unless I was on a train, for some reason - it's really hard to physically write when you're one a train that should have been scrapped several years ago!

But now I tend to write lines (like the one in my sig) that I can't think of anything to do with, and then use them two months later :D

[NeenyWeeny]

It depends, Sometimes I an whip off 3 in half an hour. But I have 2 that I havent finished that I have had for years. I guess it all depends on the mindset x

[Flutterings]

I do that too Rain, collect 'lines'. I jot them down.

'star struck september' and 'scissor psychosis' were two of the lines i hoarded for ages. lol.

[RainbowChaser]

I guess it all depends on the mindset

Mindset and subject matter, mayhaps? I know I didn't finish that particular '4 years to finish' poem because I didn't know what feeling that way was actually meant to feel like. Which is crap really, because I still don't know why I started it :screwloose: :shhh:

[RainbowChaser]

I do that too Rain, collect 'lines'. I jot them down.

'star struck september' and 'scissor psychosis' were two of the lines i hoarded for ages. lol.

'scissor psychosis' is a brilliant line! :worthy:

[Flutterings]

Dont double post Rainy!!!!

and thanks, giggles.

Perhaps you and I should do a co-write Rainy? :)

[RainbowChaser]

Dont double post Rainy!!!!

Sowwy :( I really had hoped someone would post while I was posting the second one!

[Lady Frazier]

I've got page after page of lines all put into a folder.

I've had poems take me years to finish... Rough draft after rough draft... addition after addition...

Then again, I've had poems that I've written within five minutes and they haven't had one thing altered since.

It depends on the poem... the state of mind... and the way I feel emotionally and poetically at time of writing. Plus it depends on the subject of the poem.

[k2hsharpe]

this is almost embarrassing
one third of a century!

33 years ago I had one of those moments when you know you are exactly where in the universe you're meant to be, and exactly when you're meant to be there. When you feel sunlight has weight and grey can also be one of the most intense and happy of colours. And when you know the universe has consciousness and at it's heart is warmth. And love.
Two 3 line thoughts just sprang into my head. It would be another 15 year perhaps before I'd even hear of Haiku let alone Senryu. Over the years I'd keep fiddling with them, trying to make them accurately reflect my memory of what happened to me. Could never make that happen. A few months ago a young friend said to me to just accept that they probably never will. So I gave them a last rewrite and now I'm happy with them. Sort of. If not really.
(laughing))))

Twenty year after this I wrote my 3rd poem when the woman in my life was diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. And this past 6 month I've written another 4 or 5.

Aside from the first 2 they all write themselves in a few minutes but then I can spend a month or more doing 5 or 6 rewrites ( a word here, a comma there, a comma not there again) until I'm happy as I ever will be with it.

You poets live such a strange life, I reckon.

[Angel In Darkness]

For me it really depends on the type of poem I am trying to write. Some of them come quick some of them take me hours to write. It just really depends on what I am trying to write and how I want it to sound.

[smorzando]

It depends I guess... but I never really *finish* a piece. I might have something presentable, but I still keep on changing it, even years after I wrote it at the start. I'm never completely satisfied haha.

smorz.

[Aingeal]

Well, I have a hard time figuring out what I feel, and why and I have a hard time expressing myself, so it usually takes a couple hours to figure that out, and after that maybe 10 - 15 minutes. :o

[Nobody]

To me: Poems are never finished. You can always add or take away from a poem to improve it. It's kinda like the numbers 0 to 1. There's an infinite amount of smaller numbers inbetween them, so it seems like you can never really make something whole or complete if you will.

[Tiraka]

try almost 2 years.. still trying to write it... and my mind is in a complete blockage!! and it all doesnt make sense.. but i like it at the same time.. then sometimes i get these random out bursts.. and it doesnt fit that one poem... but i use it for another.

[madkill]

roughly?
I'd say 10mins to a few days.
5mins I can think of one and write it out, but then it takes me a while longer to read through it time after time and making changes till I think I've done the best I can with it. :)

[weakspot]

for me its inspiration that dictates how long a poem takes to write, some of my best work has only took me a mear 10 mins to write 4, 4 line stanzas , the longest time its took me to write a poem was about 3 weeks , wrote it in 10 mins edited it for three weeks to get it to where i wanted it to be, was hard cos i was working of making a poem from a photograph,

if i stop writing before i get to the end of a poem i tend to lose the thought proccesses and the thread of the poem , and when i come back to the poem it leads me away to another place , ,,,,,, i have had many poems un finnished and have lost the thread the delete button normaly get put into good use , if i cant find an end to the poem it wasnt ment to be

[weakspot]

i havent looked at other post;s, i find some poems just flow from the word go, if you have to work hard to produce a poem , it often feels constructed the best poems come from the heart and need little editing to create the effect

[Alfie]

Mine vary from 20 minutes to a couple weeks, but like Nobody, I don't believe a poem is ever finished. I can always go back and add more, edit, change and cut stuff, especially as I learn new techniques and stuff that I never applied to my earlier poems.

[Henry P]

sometimes it all comes out in one go and only needs a little adjustment, at other times it comes in fits and starts, and unconnected verses, which I then assemble and edit.

[danecobain]

It usually takes me 10-30 minutes, depending upon the length and the subject matter. Sometimes I'll write it in sections and write each section at a different time, though

[cutequotes]

it take me few days when i`m in a mood