6 Things to Do When Daylight Saving Time Comes to a Seasonal Pause
Feeling a bit out of sorts? Craving an extra hour of sleep or an extra square foot of pillow space to get those poetic beats afoot? You’re in luck! The end of Daylight-Saving Time can kick-start a whole lot more than shut eye. Open those dusty notebooks, the same ones that have been collecting hours of unrealized, punctuated plot lines and prepare to recharge your creative battery.
Set aside a few minutes in between hours coming and going and follow these recommendations
to fall back—fall back into poeting!
1. Change (recharge) the batteries in your writing routine.
Pause and reflect. Where do you draw your energy? Toss the freshly plumped pillow aside. Get
outside and write amidst leaves and the isolated, lingering summer breeze. Inhale. Exhale.
Breath. Collect stanzas, like a season to relish as the Earth spins, like weeds. Prepare for a coming season of inspiring poetic pauses. Gather pencils. Rake through drafts in progress. Count syllables and growth in poetic production alongside rings on a favorite tree’s waistline.
2. Flip your mattress, couch pillows, and writing chair cushion.
Freshen up your writing rooms—from tree stumps to kitchen nooks, to cherished corners with
drawers to boot. Boost your posture. Dust off bunnies and clear out rabbit holes. To ensure all
draft progress consistently, flip sheets of paper regularly. Debris from dusty ideas, inadvertent rhymes, and stale verbs accumulate in drafts over time. Apply a deep cleaning when revisiting. Spot-clean syllable pairs and poetic devices like alliteration, assonance, and repetition.
3. Wash your mindset and clear hands (and heads) of poeting distractions
Lace up soles to reconnect with inner souls. Consider hands-free voice to text meandering. Metaphors proliferate in natural settings. Apply fresh scents—whether pumpkin spice, apple cider, or an autumnal flower to infuse even fresher sense in a poetic response to nature (and natural longings to create).
4. Take stock of existing drafts
Check expiration dates carefully before discarding. Cans of half-baked ideas, themes, and
recollections can sometimes still surprise. Air-tight, vacuum-sealed notions of descriptive
phrasing and the human condition have a surprisingly long shelf-life.
Remember that proper nutrition depends on a balanced diet. Stock up on strong verbs, concrete
nouns, and sharp adjectives. Adverbs? Use with discretion. Check all filters for seasonal imagery.
Call in reinforcements if you need assistance navigating an unexpectedly heavy theme.
5. Clean those hard-to-reach (and harder-to-reduce) stacks of wish lists.
Clear your workspace of stale piles (whether “to-be-read” or on reserve) that have accumulated
since the last check on batteries, fuel, and remaining word counts. Before discarding, check for
fruitful reserves. It’s possible to secure 100% pure juice if directions are reversed. Wave (and weave) vacuum wands like a fairy would. Suck out layers of lint and hyperbole heavy of distracting dust to reveal a poem’s true worth.
6. Take stock of your emergency kits.
Take a moment to replenish supplies. From ballpoint pens with fresh ink to rudimentary No. 2. pencils with freshly sharpened points. Check the batteries in your musical (and poetic) devices. Fill bowls with nourishing personification, proper names, and nuggets of inspiration—vary word choice and include vitamins from A to Z. Many nuts (like poetry!) are known to promote creativity and supercharge brain activity. Whether your vice is coffee, cheese, or candy—consume in moderation to best promote idea longevity.
Remember: Flames can spark spontaneously. Keep journals, diaries, and napkins handy. If
you’ve depleted your emergency stock of lined paper (enjambment highly encouraged), colored
pencils (Troll-tips recommended), and Pinterest-inspiration (vision boards are rarely boring),
prioritize thirty-minutes to restock (support obscure pocket parks and avoid the Amazon, if
possible).
Feeling energized! Stop reading and start writing. Happy Poeting!
Written by Jen Schneider
Writer Bio: Jen Schneider (she/her/hers) is a community college educator who lives, works, and writes in small spaces in and around Philadelphia. She served as the 2022 Montgomery County (PA) Poet Laureate.