Trifextra-an untitled 3 person POV non-poetic piece

This weekend's Trifextra Challenge is to write a scene from the point of view of at least three different people. And each POV needs to be exactly 33 words.

Here is my entry:

Shifting to her side, she gave him her back. She was tired of listening to him. She was a Lamb of God now; she knew He would make miracles happen with her money.
**
He heard her mumble something ludicrous about lambs and God. But she was nothing more than a sheep. She was signing her money away to strangers, money he had counted on for years.
**
It barely registered when the mother and son quit bickering; the minister was so caught up in processing the old woman's donation. Already, he could hear the waves lapping the beach-he couldn't wait.


I really wanted to make three poems, but I couldn't do it this weekend. Well, I probably could if I tried harder, but I like how this turned out as it is anyway.

Limerick Quest

Usually when I wake up in the middle of the night I have one or two lines of a song stuck in my head. No matter how long I am awake, or what else I try to think about, the song plays incessantly in the background of my mind. But the other night it was different. The other night I had the beat of a good limerick playing instead. So, in my half-asleep, still feverish daze, I tried to make every thought I had fit the pattern of a limerick. It was at the same time awesome-I wish I had thought to get out of bed and write-and annoying-it is much harder to go to sleep when your mind is actively working in such a way.

Unfortunately, all the extra practice I put in that night into limerick creation did not help me with this week's Limerick-Off over at MadKane's humor blog. As I have mentioned, I'm generally not ever funny on purpose. Sometimes I accidentally come up with something pretty good, sometimes my limerick efforts can even bring a small chuckle, but a lot of the time, like this week, they just aren't funny. This week's first line is: "A fellow was off on a quest" or "A woman was off on a quest". I couldn't resist the cheesy, obvious "chest" rhyme, if you don't mind I'll blame the extra lameness this week on the side effects of my antibiotics. ;)

A woman was off on a quest,
for he who the stories professed,
would dance upon strings,
and buy her nice things,
for the promise of glimpsing her chest!

I could promise that next week's entry for the limerick-off will be both funny and creative, but all I can promise is I won't be on any meds so I'll be able to try harder to avoid the obvious rhymes.

Misplaced Confidence

It's amazing how you don't realize just how awful you've been feeling until you start feeling good! My meds have lame side effects: nausea, dizziness, upset stomach, tiredness. Basically I have felt no different since starting the meds. But tonight, in that little window of time when the last dose of antibiotics was wearing off and the new dose hadn't fully kicked in, I felt amazing. Like I haven't felt in weeks!

I felt well enough this evening to actually sit and think and write for a bit. Tonight I decided to focus on the current Trifecta challege. The word count limitations are 33-333 words; I really like cutting my entry down to exactly 33 words, especially since I am still on my poetry kick.

This week's chosen word is "confidence" and the third definition is "a relation of trust or intimacy" and here is my entry:


Her voice rasped,
rattling on and on.
The younger girl waited,
listened,
waited.
She was close,
closer than ever.
Soon she would have
the old woman's confidence.
Soon a fortune would be hers.

Procrastination is not always for the best.

I procrastinate on many things in my day-to-day. It's always easier to put off what can be done later. And if it that something is optional it may be put off quite permanently. I even procrastinate on issues involving my health.

I put off going to the doctor over my fever and chills this weekend because I knew it was a virus. There is nothing that can be done for a virus; there is no point in seeking medical care. Especially when you are uninsured and funds are already tight. Even when your husband insists day after day that something is wrong. "When the Tylenol doesn't work anymore," was my response Friday night, Saturday all day, and most of Sunday.

When my fever returned Sunday evening I decided to go in, even though I didn't think it was as high as it had been and the chills had not come with it. This made me think I was getting better but I still felt really crappy and I had to work all week and the pressure from my husband had finally gotten to me.

I checked into the hospital with a 102.8° temperature (if this was my temp when I thought it wasn't so bad I wonder how high it was earlier when I was hot to the touch?!) and they ran some tests and suspected the flu. Which required a nose swab--a 4" long stick that was put in both sides of my nose way up into my sinuses. Ouch-I told her that next to childbirth that may have been the worst thing I had ever experienced!

Oh, one of my other symptoms that I have had for a couple weeks, therefore obviously unrelated, is a cramp/pain in my left side, which fluctuated from barely painful to fully immobilizing at times. Dr. Google suggested indigestion and gas pills would occasionally relieve the more severe pain. More proof that this was unrelated to my current virus. I did mention it to the doctor, as well as the fact that I had had three bladder infections in the last month, the first I self-treated with amoxycillin, the other two I caught early enough to flush out with cranberry juice (as I had been advised to attempt numerous times in the past since I get at least one if not several a year).

Turns out I have a severe UTI. I have no symptoms because it's not in my bladder, it's in my kidney but luckily the blood tests showed it has not progressed into the dangerous kind of kidney infection. It is severe enough though that they had to give me a shot of antibiotics as well as a 7-day script of pills.

The nurse asked me which side I wanted my shot. I told her I am right-handed, so the left side please. To which she replied: "No dear, it goes in the cheek-not the arm, and from what I've heard hurts like hell". Wow. She was not kidding. I mentally took back my earlier statement about the nasal swab being second only to childbirth. My ass hurt like hell!! And true to her word, it hurt all day today as well.

So the point of all this is to say not to procrastinate where your health is concerned!!

I survived...Barely.

That shouldn't be in past tense, but I'm wiped out so the day is pretty much over for me--it's six and I'm officially old now so it's okay to call it a day, right? Anyway, today is the big day. 30. It sounds so weird. Up 'til yesterday I could still call myself a kid and now I probably can't.

I wish I could say I was spending my non-blogging time the last couple days doing something productive but aside from some blog reading, browsing Facebook and finishing the book I was reading, I haven't done crap! I have a valid excuse (still just an excuse though). For the last three days I have ended up with a high fever, chills and a headache. Then once the Tylenol kicks in I feel like I am dying from the heat. I am sure I have some form of the nasty throat virus my husband just got over, but I have had no pain or issues at all with my throat. Very weird. Very annoying.

Since I feel crappy we stayed around home all day today. My cousin and his family brought over pizza and cake, after hanging out and bs'ing a while they had to leave, and my daughter went into hysterics! It was hysterically funny and awful and sad all at the same time..She ran up to their son, who is 7 I believe, and clutched his waist, shrieking and crying. And we let it go on for at least two minutes. Because we are all mean adults. She probably needed a nap, but she also loves her little cousin; I'm not sure he's always as thrilled to have a three year old trailing him when we're all together though.

I also received some exciting news as far as my writing goes, but I heard it third party so I'll wait until it is confirmed to commit it to the internet!

Tomorrow we are attempting the beach again, I will be wearing at least a t-shirt and maybe full pants. Since obviously putting sunblock on often enough isn't a strong point of mine. Plus I'm still suffering from last weekend's sunburn. And after that I am picking up a case of books to distribute for World Book Night, I'm very excited about that.

Thirty

I didn't have a post last night, I was working on my Trifecta entry. The term this week is "observe", using the third definition which is to celebrate or solemnize an occasion (that's obviously a paraphrase, you can find the actual definition on Trifecta's page).

I'm feeling a bit narcissistic and instead of creating a fictitious poem or short story I'm writing about my upcoming birthday. Last night I made quite a few starts but they all sounded depressing or depressing, none of them seemed to fit a poem-not without cheesy rhymes (who hasn't seen some variation of the dirty/flirty/thirty combo on a "For Her" birthday card before?). Tonight I started over and began with a lame paragraph that fit the requirements but certainly didn't please me, then out of nowhere this came to me:

The edge of thirty approaches,
How crazy anxious
I am becoming,
Random failed feats are finding me.
This day I no longer want to observe
Yells: "only a few short days left to go."

It's still a bit depressing, maybe a tad cheesy, but trust me-it is way better than what I could've posted! I don't know why I didn't think of spelling thirty vertically sooner, it made a huge difference in my thinking process tonight.

Thanks for reading :)

Annoyed, in haiku

After last week's embarrassing screw-up, where I miscounted my syllables several dozen times, I made sure to count these a dozen and one times!

This week's prompt for Sensational Haiku Wednesday at You Know That Blog is "Annoyance".

Here are three things that have recently or are currently annoying me:

Green lights equal go;
If the road is clear, don't drive
under the limit!

There's one little hair
Refusing to stay put; it's
Always in my eyes.

For lack of sunblock
I dealt with nasty blisters
Now it's time to itch.

Have a great night!

Woebegone Limericks

Limericks seem to have a bad rap. They rarely get face time in any of the serious creative writing classes-the only time I ever heard about them was on random St Patrick's Days in grammar school and maybe once during high school. I have always enjoyed a limerick when I came across one and since I recently found MadKane's Humor Blog I have been submerging myself in them! She is so incredibly crafty with these things!

This week's the Limerick-Off theme is "Woebegone Limericks" and the two first lines to choose from are:

"A man was recounting his woes"

"A gal was recounting her woes"

And here are my entries:

A gal was recounting her woes,
a fancy rhyme she tried to compose.
The pen wouldn't move,
A fact that could prove
She ought to be writing in prose.

A man was recounting his woes
As he sat on the street with no clothes.
His girlie was livid
the foreplay too vivid:
A vulgar man reaps what he sows!

Be sure to check out the other great entries this week!

I'm Not (very) Sorry. *Edited

I should be more apologetic for missing my post yesterday, but I'm finding it hard to muster much remorse this morning. I wish I had some awesome reason, but I really only have a few lame excuses...My husband's caught a nasty virus in his throat, my sunburn is killing me, the kids' sunburns are killing them which means they're bugging me, the dishes needed washing. Although all those excuses kept me from writing something worthwhile, they didn't stop me from playing mindless games on Facebook. While surfing the net last night in the hopes of finding inspiration for a creative blog post though, I came up with a character I want to explore. So in some small way my Sunday night failure wasn't that much of a loss.

One of the sites I like to play on is the Internet Anagram Server. I enjoy finding anagrams by hand, but this website is way better at them than I am! So when I am bored or searching for creativity (or working on the previously mentioned Mother Goose exercises) I browse through the search results to see what they come up with. Last night I plugged in my name-probably for the hundredth time since I discovered the site a few years ago-to see if anything new stuck out at me. Two words caught my attention--"Calla" and "whore". I'm no stranger to either word, but for some reason I kept coming back to them.

Now I have a new character and a bit of a story started in my WIP folder. Maybe now that she's on paper I won't return to her for months, or years, but I was so enthralled with her last night I even dreamt of her.

I'll be back later today with something of interest, I hope. The new Limerick-Off is up & the new Trifecta will be up soon, so I may work on those this afternoon.

**Edited to add: I have figured out why the name "Calla" continued to catch my eye--She is one of the main supporting characters in a book I started then set aside over a week ago!!! Here I was thinking that my Calla chose her name because of the calla lily, with Lily being too "pure" for Calla to keep a straight face when being introduced. Now I know for sure she will be set aside in my WIP folder for months or longer, so I can shake any connection in my head to Calla Moses in Jenny Wingfield's The Homecoming of Samuel Lake!**

A Short Set of Cause and Effect Examples

Cause: I chose to be frugal with the SPF.
Effect: I may now be buying market shares of Aloe Vera.

Cause: I am nearly burnt to a crisp.
Effect: My brain is too fried to write anything intelligent today.

Cause: I signed up for the April NaBloPoMo.
Effect: I am forcing you to read several lines of junk to lessen my guilt.

Hope you all had as fun a Saturday as we did...Hopefully you all wore sunscreen though (snow can cause sunburns too!).

Finally Friday!

It's been a long week, I am glad it is the weekend. My cousin invited us to go for a ride on his boat tomorrow--I'm excited but a little nervous because of the kids...My husband joked we could get the kid leashes we always make fun of other parents for. My brother-in-law is coming to visit, possibly to stay. He arrives Monday or Tuesday, I need to find out since I am his ride home from the airport, it will be nice to have another familiar face around here for awhile.

These pictures are from our trip to the beach last week, I try to be the only one to control the camera otherwise we end up with at least five pictures of my cleavage as I bend down to play with the kids!








Have a great weekend!

A Letter of Apology, in 33 words.

This week's Trifextra Challenge on the Trifecta Challenge site is to write a letter of apology in exactly 33 words. Salutations, addresses & closings do not count.

It's Friday the Thirteenth, and I wanted to go with something more Jason-ish rather than black cat-ish. Not counting the greetings or closing this is exactly 33 words.

Dear Mr. McAllister,

I feel I owe you an apology for
the death of your wife.
I cannot say I feel
any remorse for killing her,
only that I regret
you weren't available
to watch it.

With Deepest Regrets,
X

Storms Brewing

Sorry in advance for the potential rambling...And the run-ons, if you have read my profile then you have already been warned.

When I was younger, my sisters and I would lay out on the grass and watch the storm clouds-dark, swirly, angry-and count the seconds between lightning strikes and thunder claps to guess how far away the lightning was.

I still love a good storm, especially if there are strong winds involved. Everyone says storms bring change with them. But I feel like the recent change in my life is bringing the storms.

My husband and I thought that this move would be the best thing for our family, but we're almost two months into our new life and he is overstressed, I am overstressed, he is lonely, I am homesick. I keep warning everyone how much my husband doesn't like that he is stressed here. If we end up moving back the blame will fall on him, regardless of whether it is rightfully placed. The guilt of this fact, added to the stress and loneliness, weighs on me constantly. While I am at work I completely enjoy myself-I love working with my cousin (my boss)-and I am grateful for the opportunity we were given with the transfer. Outside of work though, I am not always so happy. I know there is always an adjustment period, I just hope it only lasts a short while longer.

There are so many things up in the air--every decision brings its own storm with it...To stay, something has to change for my husband and our stress situation--that alone is a storm to battle. To leave, a dozen storms will result! Just thinking about the fallout makes me anxious and depressed.

So instead of laying out and enjoying this storm, I'm trying to lock myself someplace safe where I don't have to think about it. It's not working well for me so far.

"Limerick-Off" Challenge

I have discovered ANOTHER fun poetry challenge to take part in!

Each week Mad Kane hosts a "limerick-off", where she provides a limerick and those entering the challenge respond with their own limerick using her first line.

For this week, you can choose between either of these gender specific first-line prompts:

"A fellow was starting to snap"
or
"A woman was starting to snap"

I love limericks so when I first found Mad's site I was excited, especially when she told me about the challenge. Then I felt discouraged today because I'm not too good with the funny. I can bring a random one-liner to the conversation once in awhile, but a whole 5 lines that have some sort of humorous kick? Ha, that alone is a challenge! But I am actually pleased with the two I came up with.

A fellow was starting to snap,
The others beginning to clap;
A girl they called Honey,
She danced for their money
Batting stray hands with a slap.

A woman was starting to snap,
The pea pile growing tall in her lap
The kids bitched and moaned
even the husband he groaned
"Why do I have to eat that crap?"

If you want to join the fun this week, visit this week's challenge post!

Sensational Haiku Wednesday-"Happiness"

I have written two haiku for today's Sensational Haiku Wednesday on YouKnowThatBlog. I know, what an overachiever hahaha!

My first haiku:

Both children napping
time enough to sneak off and read
just a few pages

My second haiku, and the eye candy that inspires it:



Indescribable,
her face lighting up
smiling up at me

Two completely different things that make me happy on a regular basis!
I don't like the double use of "up" in my second one, but it works for the form.


Thanks for reading ;)

Trifecta Challenge

One of the things I miss most about school is the assignments. I enjoy the pressure of a deadline, the forced focus on a particular subject. I have tried giving myself "homework" in the past, but it just doesn't have the same feel for some reason. Before I started blogging again I would look at challenge blogs-not just writing but crafting blogs too-and wish that I could participate. I probably could have taken part on my own, but like the self-assigned homework, it just didn't feel the same.

But now I have a blog! Now I don't have to sit on the sidelines! Now I can participate!

One of the challenges I am going to do is the Trifecta Writing Challenge. A weekly challenge with a single word prompt, your use of the word has to be based on the third definition of said word and your response needs to be between 33 and 333 words. Fun, right?

This week's prompt is "Scandal" and here is my response:

Within an ebony interior,
the letters smoked and curled,
crumbling to ash
Flames consumed the proof
written with her father's blood

Hope for his lover's child,
incinerated.
The scandal,
erased.
Her legacy,
untarnished.

You don't necessarily need to write a poem, but since it is still poetry month and I am trying to stick with the poetry theme most days for Blogher's NaBloPoMo I decided to go with a poem.



Thanks for reading!

Sidetracked...

I thought I was going to to write about whether to blog anonymously or not, and how I am a little bit of a coward. But a quarter of the way into the post I realized it was about bullying. So I won't be posting about anonymity or bullying tonight--the latter definitely needs more time to write itself.

I don't have a back up plan for an alternate post tonight. Since I started this blog and jumped right into a poetry themed NaBloPoMo at the same time, my posts this month have been and will likely remain heavy on the poetry side. But poetry, and even writing in general, is not my main focus for this blog, and I plan on sprinkling a couple more random posts here and there in the next few weeks. Along with my post on bullying, I am hitting a milestone birthday this month and will likely post at least once about this. This post is kind of included in the whole "random" topic thing, since it is not about poetry or writing, or anything other than why I don't have a poetry-inspired post tonight.

(I can't decide how I want to or if I should close my posts.)

Context/POV in my poems

I'm tired, I'm not sure that I am correct in calling this problem 'context' or not and it isn't important enough at this moment to research the correct term. But one of the things I have trouble with in my poetry is worrying that people will assume, correctly or incorrectly, that my work is about me. I don't seem to have an issue with this in any of the stories I write, I guess because they are longer and fleshed out more, maybe? Anyway, this is one of the things that makes me hesitate most often when it comes to sharing my poems.

In a lot of my writing I draw on material from my personal life, but in high school I didn't want anyone to know that (let's be honest I still don't want people to know that!), so I would try and make the poems more universal. Usually I would do this by adding in extra lines or stanzas that fit with the rest of the poem but were about situations that were obviously not my own. Here's an example from one such poem:

'Instead, I worry
how drunk my dad will be,
if my friends will notice the bruises on my back,
or if my boss will fire me
when he finds out
I am only fifteen
or that I am illegal.'

Anyone who would've read or heard this poem in my English class would know that at least two of these did not fit me, so I felt it would be unlikely for them to assume any of the rest of the poem was personal to me.

Another way I found around this was remaining gender neutral (well, back then I thought it was gender neutral, now I see that some of it could've been taken as a comment on my sexual orientation) by saying things like "my girlfriend or boyfriend", "my football coach", "my prom dress" all in the same poem. And I have several poems that are in second or third person instead of first person POV.

Even with all the work I put in to disguising the poems, I was still terrified someone would guess that some part of it was relative to me, even if only in a small way. I don't even know what I thought might happen-I kept to myself but wasn't picked on, I doubt I would become the subject of ridicule or anything.

I own several textbooks and handbooks that discuss this, and even though they explain it logically and I have heard people assure me that I worry for no reason, I still get nervous when my poems are read. If you happen to have a tip on getting over this, or if you do the same thing and want to share how you handle it in your work I would appreciate it!

Mother Goose Still Inspires Me

I mentioned the other day when I was praising captchas that I have a list of first lines from poems. I should have been more specific, because in reality I probably wasn't the first to come up with the idea and if I ever get popular enough for trolls to steal my ideas this one probably won't be thieved. I have a list of all the first lines of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. If I remember right I found the list through Project Gutenberg a few years ago-probably in the table of contents of one of the collections. I copied them into Excel so I can sort or search however I please.

So far I have only really worked with a couple of them, I was so pleased with the first one but then wanted to try different ways to explore the other ones instead of just transferring those same ideas from the first to the rest. I pick them randomly-first using the "close eyes and point" method, then using Random.org once I discovered it.

After I mentioned it the other night I went back and looked through the few I have so far. They are fun to play with and full of possibilities. Here's what I have come up with so far for I won't be my father's Jack:

~~~
I won’t be my father’s Jack

IWONTBEMYFATHERSJACK
A fabric jest, woken myth
Two jets fire back a hymn
Brace whom a jetty finks

I twist and turn and
Won’t say a word but
Be assured that I know
My day is coming. The angry
Father’s twisting the handle.
Jack in the box. Pop

Jack is the favored son
Jackie should have been a boy
Jack is a feminine boy. Goes by Jackie

I
Won’t won ton two not now
Be
My
Fathers father fat her stare hare hear hears share fare fares safe hate hater hates haters has
Sea seat feat fear fears ear ears are art heat heats heart hearts sear sat ate eat shaft
Jack
~~~

Some of it is just word play, random nonsensical lists of words. But some of it could be the start of an interesting piece of work. Inspiration can be found anywhere-even in silly nursery rhymes!

Favorite Poems

Lots of people can easily tell you who their favorite poet is or which poem they've read has made the most impact on their lives. I cannot tell you such a thing, because I can never pick a definite favorite anything. I love nearly every single book I have ever read. I love nearly every single song I like--if I don't like it I certainly don't love it. I love quite a few poems and poets and can't really say which would be my favorite. Well, I could say that I am my own favorite poet, but I have been slacking and am unpublished etc, so that would just be conceited on my part.

The closest I have to a current favorite is Langston Hughes' Evil. I have had it as my signature on one of my personal email accounts for a year or two. It is a short poem, a single stanza of four lines, but it is powerful. He was referring to racial injustice, but it can be applied to any theme in anyone's life..It's saying "Look this really pisses me off, and it may not piss you off yet but you're going to hear enough about it from me that soon enough you'll be pissed off too!" He just says it much better than me!!

If you've found your way to my blog today, what poem inspires or moves you?

Evil

Looks like what drives me crazy
Don't have no effect on you-
But I'm gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.

Langston Hughes

Tired of Being Good at the Good Show (my first bloggy rant!)

I am so tired of putting on a "good show" for everyone. I don't want attention, I just don't want to have to always pretend like everything is okay and that I'm incredibly happy all the time. Or, I'd like it to not be an act but I know that isn't the most realistic thought I've had.

We recently moved 3000 miles away from our hometown. The Internets were a little dishonest about the cost of living decrease, and we didn't do much more research than checking Sperling's and asking the one person we know who has ever been here before. So I under budgeted and now things are a little more stressful than we expected. A lot more stressful on my husband, which makes things even more stressful on me. But at work I tell everyone how great it is here, I tell my long-time customers how much better the weather is, I tell my family how excited I am for all the perks living in a major metropolis on the coast has to offer. I tell my husband when he says we should go back that I don't think it's a good idea, I tell my boss that it is just my husband who is unhappy and that it is mainly just a mix of stress and loneliness.

But I tell myself that I can't wait for the floor to fall out and we have no choice but to go home, and I tell myself that as long as I can make it through this moment right now eventually this all won't suck so badly. And I tell myself all the great things and reasons to stay and I want so desperately to believe it, because some part of me wants to stay here-I like it here. My over-analytical mind counters every point I make, positive or negative. One moment I will think that staying is the best choice in the long term, even if it is miserable in the short term--then I respond to myself (yes I talk to myself in my head, doesn't everybody?) with something about how it's just my pride not wanting to admit that we were too hasty in making this move, or how terrified I am of eating crow when everyone who advised us against the move laughs at me for returning. And in turn, I rename the good things.

I am just stuck on this mental merry-go-round and am helpless to get off and go straight. At this very moment I don't care if it is straight back home, or if it is straight forward in our new life, just as long as it was not up in the air.

Fake Funeral

I just posted a funny memory over on Blogher about my sister's fake funeral we threw as teens. While I certainly dread the thought of the real ones we will both have someday, this memory brings a smile to my face!

In Loving Memory Of...

Today's prompt for NaBloPoMo on Blogher is "What poem brings comfort at a funeral?"

I have been fortunate in that I have only attended a small handful, maybe 5, funerals in my lifetime. In 2010 I had the honor of creating the memorial handout for the service of a close friend's wife. I wanted to choose a poem that was meaningful for her and her family, something that wasn't just filler in the handout. After reading through a dozen or so poems I came across "To Those I Love" by Isla Paschal Richardson. Sure, there may be better funeral poems out there, but I could almost hear my friend saying this to her family if only she had had the chance. In fact, if I wasn't worried about being morbid I would tell everyone I wanted this to be read at my own funeral-but I need to wait a few years at least before making funeral arrangements. (The fact that it was possibly read at Sinatra's funeral was an added bonus as my friend and his wife is/was a fan of Old Blue Eyes and love random trivia facts).


To Those I Love

If I should ever leave you,
Whom I love
To go along the silent way
Grieve not.
Nor speak of me with tears.
But laugh and talk of me
As if I were beside you there.

(I'd come. . .I'd come,
Could I but find a way!
But would not tears and
And grief be barriers?)

And when you hear a song
Or see a bird I loved,
Please do not let the thought of me be sad
for I am loving you
Just as I always have.

You were so good to me!
There are so many things
I wanted still to do
So many things I wanted to say to you
Remember that
I did not fear
It was just leaving you
That was so hard to face.

We cannot see beyond
But this I know:
I loved you so
'twas heaven here with you

by Isla Paschal Richardson.

For love of the Captcha!

I have a lot of ideas for writing built up.
I have a couple different notebooks lying around with images or dialogue written down, usually the notebooks are well hidden when I need them but if I can remember what I wanted to write when I finally find one then I do.
I have a WIP folder on my desktop, most of the files only have a paragraph or two typed up but at least I know where they are.
I have an Excel sheet of first lines of poems and occasionally pick one at random to expand on and make it my own.
I have a dozen or so books on various creative writing subjects that I will do an exercise out of.

But my current favorite source of ideas is the annoying little "captcha" that so many sites use to verify you are a real person. I always see people ragging on them-because it takes an extra two seconds to figure out what it says and type it out. I love that you can refresh it as many times as you want-I'll flip through 5-6 of them for fun.

I have a list that I add every one that captures my attention for more than the second it takes to type it in. I especially love the ones that use real words that are randomly thrown together, but I also like some of the nonsensical ones too. There are so many possibilities in those little things! In fact, I chose the title of my blog from one of them-it just stuck out from the first few on the list. Others on the list seem like they would make interesting surnames or addresses. My absolute favorite one I am saving in case I ever become a food blogger or author. It's not terribly likely but I'm still keeping it to myself for now just in case!

So take a moment to think of me and the possibilities of those little words and numbers next time you are cursing the internet because you can't tell if it says "d" or "cl"!

No Sestinas, but here's a Haiku!

I am failing again at the sestina. Apparently my old college try isn't good enough, considering that my study habits in college were fairly typical in the whole "wait til 8 hours before the paper is due to open the book" method.

I did some googling to expand on what I already know about the sestina, but didn't find much other than the history of the form and a few suggestions on how to begin writing one from scratch. My typical way of starting, and never finishing, is the more common but least successful way: pick 6 end words and force them into line (haha). Several people suggest that a better way is to just write the first stanza of the poem and then the end words will be given to you by default. So I think I might try that method later this week.

In the meantime, I revisited 'You Know That Blog' for her weekly haiku meme. Last time I was blogging I participated a few times and decided now is the perfect time to start up again, what with my new blog and it being poetry month and participating in Blogher's poetry themed NaBloPoMo. If you aren't into her weekly haiku feature, the rest of Jenn's blog is pretty interesting. The lame thing about picking this week join in on the haiku fun is that it's an open theme week. I hate open themes. I prefer forced topics--sounds less creative but I feel like I get to spend more time being creative with my writing time rather than spending a chunk of it brainstorming. Even though I have a ton of ideas to use for "later", when I am actually sitting down none of them feel appealing.

Today, however, I wasted work time instead on brainstorming! This kind of reflects my mood this afternoon:

A complete lack of
Everything necessary
To survive this time

I'm annoyed with the "A", even though it works and if I was being objective could say it was kind of putting the emphasis on the rest of the line (it's a bit of a stretch but still). I feel a little like the "A" was a cop-out syllable. Oh and technically the second line is 8 syllables, but since I (and most everyone I know) pronounces it "ev-ree" not "ev-er-ee" I feel it works.

Now, back to the sestinas...

Sestinas, Pt 1

Hopefully tomorrow will follow with a part 2.

I have until tomorrow night at 11p EST to write a sestina in order to enter it in the Blogher Poetry Contest. This is the format, taken from the post on Blogher:

"Stanza One: A, B, C, D, E, F
Stanza Two: F, A, E, B, D, C
Stanza Three: C, F, D, A, B, E
Stanza Four: E, C, B, F, A, D
Stanza Five: D, E, A, C, F, B
Stanza Six: B, D, F, E, C, A
Envoy: uses two end-words per line (with three lines total) with one word appearing in the middle of the line and the other word still being utilized as an end word."

I have attempted the sestina twice before, and I suck at it. I love the challenge of a fixed form, as much as I love the freedom of an open form poem. But the sestina can be SO tough! When I have tried in the past, I have always picked 6 random nouns-completely random-and tried to force them into a prosy story that fits the format. Both poems are left unfinished in a notebook somewhere, because they really did suck. This time I am still going to go with some random words, but I'm not going to go with just nouns. Maybe that will help. If not I will still force myself to finish, even if it is past the deadline for the contest.

April Challenges Bring...

...about renewed commitment to writing? ...a sense of accomplishment? ...a reason to search for excuses to get out of writing? ...all of the above?

My timing for getting back into the whole blogging thing happens to coincide with
National Poetry Month, and in honor means the NaBloPoMo theme for April is Poetry! So even though I'm a day or two late I'm going to attempt this challenge. Along with any other random post I write, I will also post something involving poetry.

There are daily prompts available on Blogher based on the monthly theme, and while I won't use them everyday I liked today's prompt:

"What was the first poem you ever memorized?"

While I may have memorized a few lines here and there before 7th grade, the first few stanzas of 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' was the first I consciously had to memorize then recite in front of my 7th grade English class. I still remember the very first stanza, but since I haven't reread the poem in more than a decade I can't really recall any other lines. I was so nervous reciting it, which is funny because up until mid-Junior High I had never really cared about talking in class or anything, I even seemed to enjoy it. That time though, I was terrified, and have remained nervous and scared of public speaking ever since. While I could almost blame my fear of speaking on that one instance, almost, I defintely can credit my love of poetry to it.

"Hark, for morning in the bowl of night,
has flung the stone that sets the stars to flight.
And lo, the hunter in the east has caught
the Sultan's turret in a noose of light."

Complete and Utter Randomness...

That is what this blog will consist of. I have ideas for a handful of different blogs, each one devoted to just one topic. But I haven't the time or motivation to commit to more than one regularly, so I'm just going to post anything and everything here, and maybe one day I'll separate it all out. For now tags will have to do.

You will occasionally find posts about my life & family, photography, creative writing, crafting stuff, recipes, book reviews, rants, opinion pieces and whatever other random thing I feel like writing about.

This isn't my first attempt at blogging, my last attempt was a couple years ago but I overcensored myself because I worried what my imaginary audience would think, so I deleted the blog. Now, I am hoping to not worry as much and just write.