Motivation is the single most important factor of your writing life. Of course, a lot of it is right around you in your daily life: The "hot" new love you just met, the one who dumped you, a particularly nice full moon or camping trip……you name it. So look for the poem in what's around you. But there's also ways to stimulate and help your motivation along.

I'm going to paraphrase a few pointers from that great book "Writing Down the Bones", by Natalie Goldberg. Run, to that link, get a copy and read it! (You may purchase it right at that link!)

1. Buy a journal, a nice fat one with creamy paper and spring for a few good pens in your favorite color(s).

2. Write in your journal for ten minutes each and every day. Write down at least one page each and every day. Don't think about what you are writing about. Don't pause. Just write your heart out. Let it all ooze out. Make the time to do this every day.

3. Give yourself permission to write drivel! It's cool. What this exercise is about is motivating you to write and to free up the right (emotional) side of your brain, where the really cool creative processes come from.

4. NEVER be without something to write on. Sit at a bus stop and write a description of a person or a scrap of conversation you heard or set a scene. I'm so habitual about this I keep paper and pen in the bathroom and by my bed. I woke up at 2 AM one day and a line came to me. I wrote it down on my sheet. The next morning I saw it and wrote one of my better poems. You can never tell when or where the muse will materialize.

I'm not kidding. Get this book and read it and start doing it! Do it now! This regimen will do wonders for your creativity. 

A Sijos? Try a little different form of poetry. Remember, six lines divided into three couplets and no particular rhyme or meter (unless you want to).

Here's a few examples from "Anthology of Korean Poetry" compiled and translated by Peter H. Lee.

The first is by U T'ak (1262-1342) According to the editor Lee, U T'ak is the writer of the oldest extant sijo.

East winds that melt the mountain snow
Come and go, without words,
Blow over my head, young breeze,
Even for a moment, blow.
Would you could blow away the gray hairs,
That grow so fast around my ears!

By Yi Chon-o (1341 to 1371)

Who says clouds do not plot treason?
Floating in mid-air, high,
waywardly,
Idly,
For what reason do they cover
The bright light of the day?

Here's one by Chong Mong-Ju (1337-1392)

Were I to die a hundred times,
Then die and die again,
And all of my bones no more than dust,
My soul gone far from men,
Yes still my red blood, shed for you,
Shall witness that my heart was true.

And lastly, here's one by Chong Ch'ol (1537-1594)

Flowers are in splendid show,
Butterflies fly in pairs
Willows are green, luxuriant,
Orioles sing in pairs,
Birds and beasts are loving, always two together,
But why do I dwell here along.

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