Ten Things I Learnt from Writing One Poem a Day Every Day for a Year

Let today be the day you say yes to your writing life.

In 2022 I joined a free Winter Writing Sanctuary run by the gorgeously generous and talented author

Beth Kempton

(Kokoro, Wabi Sabi, The Way of the Fearless Writer). This was my first experience being part of a large writing community where I could share my words. Comforted and supported by other people in the same boat, I started to unpick the emotional blocks and barriers that were hindering a healthy (and fearless) writing life. One of those barriers was I’m not someone who can do that sort of thing.

The writing of poems isn’t the hardest element of growing a writing habit, it’s the emotional attachments and fears we must face to get to a place where we can begin.

As well as telling myself that I’m not someone who can do that sort of thing (i.e finish things, have any structure or coherence to my goals or writing projects), I was convinced I was the most inconsistent person in the world. I would receive huge waves of inspiration that I needed to recover from for twice as long as those periods lasted. I had around 200 poem starts in my Google Drive and about ten ideas for fiction and non-fictions books that all began with promise and fell flat the moment something else took my attention.

When carving time to put pen to paper, or choosing my writing over almost anything else, my boundaries were as disappointing as a weak cup of tea. I was the last person you’d expect to have written 365 poems in a year. But here I am. The journey I went on changed my life, but most importantly, it changed my mind. It changed my mind about what was possible.

The writing one poem a day officially started when I joined a prompt challenge in 2023 called #tinyspringpoem run by Beth Kempton (again, thank you, Beth). Every day a prompt was shared and we wrote on that for ten minutes a day. The challenge finished within a month, but I’d found a groove and didn’t feel ready to stop. Others wanted to keep going too, and I wanted to help them, so I created more prompts and carried the torch for those who wanted to continue. Suddenly I had people counting on me.

So I got started, but what about the expansive gap in between? How did I keep showing up when I’d planted seeds but couldn’t see anything sprouting through the soil? My mind worked overtime trying to fix the problems I believed could happen, and began negotiating with my inner critic who decided they were responsible for protecting me from harm, by telling me again and again that the best way to prevent failure is to stop just when the possibility of failure (and of reward) becomes too great to risk.

Does this sound familiar? The inner critic uses several clever tactics to protect us all from failing. The first is perfectionism. The more we try to attain perfection, the more others feel the need to keep up, and the more we feel we need to keep up with that ideal version of us. Perfectionism isn’t about making a poem perfect, it’s about making sure it isn’t anything if it’s less than perfect. Writing isn’t the same as math, there is no set answer - it’s subjective and preferential. So if we allow our inner critic to reign as supreme judge over our lives to protect us from failing, what do you think it will say? You should try something else.

Even if you make it off the starting block, you’ll notice that moment when momentum starts to drop, the initial dopamine hit of starting something new fades away and we begin to fall short of our own expectations. Then the inner critic deploys their next strategy, procrastination.

Suddenly we are doing everything but the one thing that makes us feel truly alive and free, the thing our soul aches for. The worst part? We believe this means something is fundamentally wrong with us, that we are lazy or aren’t committed enough and we begin to tell ourselves the lie, I’m not someone who can do that sort of thing, I’m not a writer. I can’t do this.

This is the most tenuous part of the journey because it is the most easily excused by saying hey, at least we tried. However, persevere through this sticking point and you’re running home free towards a fully-fledged writing habit and your life will blossom beautifully, trust me - it’s possible. It’s more than just possible, it’s your goddam birthright.

I never intended to write 365 poems in one year, doesn’t that seem like a lot? But focusing on one simple goal, to write one poem per day, means I’m now someone who can do that sort of thing. It didn’t happen overnight - but it did happen a little bit every day. And so I’m here to tell you, there is nothing wrong with you, you deserve this and others deserve to be healed and moved by your words. So if this is happening to you, thank your inner critic for caring about your health but politely decline its offer of protection.

I didn’t write 365 poems because I write perfectly, nor did I have the perfect writing conditions that writers imagine everyone else has. Perfectionism did not help me grow my writing habit, but there are a few things that did that I would like to share with you.

Making a small number of consistent tries helped me to make progress. Whenever I fell behind, I got back on track by re-focusing my attention on the goal: to write one poem for 10 minutes that day. Nothing more, nothing less. This was manageable. When I say ‘back on track’, I mean writing again. Letting go of the need to keep up with writing a poem every day, or with a certain quality of poem I wrote previously helped.

There were days when a prompt inspired me to look at an old draft poem in a new way and days when I could only write one line. I formatted it in an interesting way and these ended up being my favorite poems. I acknowledged my disappointment and replaced self-hatred with gratitude that I’d made an effort, and that was enough to keep me writing the next day.

Providing poetry prompts and sharing inspiration daily on social media held me accountable to the writing community. Connecting with others on the same journey helped me keep going when motivation was low or life got busy.

Receiving personal messages and comments on my poems reassured me that I wasn’t alone and that I was making a difference. This showed me that my words were not only valid but necessary and contributed to helping me shift from self-doubt into a more confident and active writer. So if you have a spare moment in the day to show another poet some love for their work, it will help to keep them going too.

That is why when I published my book, Plant Your Poetry: 365 Poems and Prompts to Grow Your Writing Habit in April 2024, I was adamant that I wanted to write daily with those who purchased the book over on Facebook, I showed up live every day and wrote with them for 10 minutes. At the end of each week I read every single poem and celebrated my favorite lines and particular poems I resonated with from those who had shared. This thriving community has become my favorite thing about writing one poem a day, and about publishing a book. It’s becoming so much more than I anticipated, another beautiful happenstance of writing one poem a day for 10 minutes.

It is also why I’m launching the Plant Your Poetry 2025 Prompt Calendar to subscribers of Plant Your Poetry on Substack, which will deliver 365 prompts to you for every day of the next year. On the first day of each month I will be holding a writing session via video to open the new monthly theme, we will write together on the prompt of the day and you will be sent a downloadable and printable prompt calendar to your inbox with the rest of the month’s prompts to collect and stick on your wall or so you can tick off the prompts. I will provide a space for you to share your poems and pieces on the prompts here in the chat, in a safe and supportive environment, I will read every poem and offer encouragement and share the lines I’ve loved from that month.

This will be just £3.50 a month or you can subscribe annually and get a discounted year’s subscription for £30.

If you want to check out the vibe before you subscribe, you can sign up as a free subscriber here and join us on the 31st December for a writing session to close off the year, which will explain more of what you can expect in the next year from Plant Your Poetry and the 2025 Prompt Calendar, plus we will get some writing done!

For now - I want to leave you with a sum up of what this past year has taught me and I hope it helps to steer you courageously into the new year and a more pronounced writing life.

Ten Things I Learnt From Writing One Poem A Day Every Day for a Year

1. You can't be behind or in front of your own writing journey (slay in your own lane)

2. You will never run out of things to write about (no matter how much you think you will)

3. More equals more, not less (poems are not a finite resource, but they must have somewhere to go, some space to live to make way for others)

4. Your books will begin to write themselves (I wrote and published Plant Your Poetry within one year)

5. You'll grow less worried about the product and more excited about the process

6. In the game between motivation and momentum, momentum will always win (motivation is short-term, momentum is long-term)

7. You'll save money on workshops and become your own best judge of what wants to be written (let the work do the talking)

8. Each day you show up is a step towards the life that is calling you, that says you are a writer and you are meant to be here (every day is a door)

9. You will be the reason you start. Your community will be the reason you keep going

10. You will run out of valid reasons to stop.

Thank you friends for taking the time to read this, and I hope it stirred something within you, something calling to you from the edges of your life. You deserve this.

Keep writing,
Louise Goodfield
A Poet on the Road