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Hey @emma-starr, I can’t say I’ve ever attempted a word count goal as a poet. To me, word count goals aren’t bad for prose writers so long as they’re editing too, but for poets, the closest thing to NaNoWriMo I’ve heard of is the poem-a-day challenge (where you try to write one poem every day for a month). Poetry is a different beast than prose and I think it should be treated like it is.

Anyway, that’s enough of my opinion on word count goals for poets; here’s my advice. Find a mentor who writes poetry to help you edit and keep you accountable to your goals if you can. If that’s not possible, try reading your poems aloud to yourself before each edit and give yourself plenty of time between when you wrote the poem and when you edit it. My mentor usually recommends a month or so. Also, I’d allot yourself time in every day to read other people’s poetry, go for a walk or something else where you’re alone with your thoughts, like prayer time or something, and write/edit your poems. It’ll be rough after the first few days, but routine and discipline will get you through.

Hope that’s helpful to you. Please let me know if you’d like any clarifications on anything I said or if there’s any way I can help. I’m pretty busy these days but I’ll respond and read posts and poems when I can. God bless!