Eyes Tightly Shut

I have decided to start writing with my eyes shut.  It seems it is the easiest, and sometimes only, way I can get the words out of my head and onto the screen.  It all started this past November, when for the first time ever, I attempted NaNoWriMo. I made the decision the morning the challenge started, which happened to also be two days before working a week-long trade show in Vegas.

Needless to say I failed. Terribly. I barely got a paragraph out that Sunday before deciding that I would work on my novel mentally while in Vegas (my first ever trip to Vegas, btw) and would type out all my wonderful words after I returned.  Every night that week, while my co-workers were out partying it up in Vegas, I headed back to my room. Not to work on my writing though; after standing in a booth talking to strangers all day, instead of thinking about my characters or subplots, all I could think about was throwing away my dress shoes and sleeping forever. Neither option possible since I had to get up and do it all over again the next morning. And then I got home, and my kids and husband missed me and wanted my attention! And then I had to work late, to make up for the real work I missed while at the trade show! And then it was Thanksgiving! And then it was December! And then, and then! With all these fairly legit excuses I was doomed before I started and never really made a dent on the novel.

Usually I start over-analyzing everything and editing and worrying and I end up with a blank screen in the end, but that one paragraph I eked out on the second of November? I wrote that fully embracing the whole "write now, edit later" thing everyone seems to love about NaNo: I just sat down and started typing out my story. After a couple false starts, where I deleted and changed those first few sentences, I finally just closed my eyes and started typing. And it wasn't half bad, and I was actually proud of those words. Even though I haven't written much since November <insert excuse here, here and here>, for what I have written-a story start, several blog drafts, half a poem-I've found that closing my eyes and just typing silences the condescending voices in my head, at least long enough to get the words out, then I really do have to edit. 

It's a start, right?

Trifextra 91: My Beast

This weekend's Trifextra Challenge is inspired by The Tummy Beast by Roald Dahl, and the challenge is to write about a beast living in an unusual place.  Last weekend's Trifextra was supposed to be about a fear, and while I didn't enter last week, my entry this week fits both, as it isn't entirely fiction.


*
It's not real. It's not real.

"Prove it. Just look."

She almost gives in, but she knows.

Hiding in that darkened mirror, the beast patiently waits for her to meet his shadowed gaze.
*


My beast lives in the mirror.

I prefer not to voice my worst fears, I'm just superstitious enough not to say the words out loud, but I'll admit to one of my biggest fears, which is also my most irrational one. You see, I'm not scared of the dark, I sleep best when the room is pitch black, but I'm freakin' scared to look into a mirror if the room is not well-lit. And I know it's the stupidest thing in the world and I know there is nothing in there, but the tiniest part of me will not tempt fate and look into a mirror if it's dark-ish. Because, well, what if?

*

I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've entered a challenge on the first day it's been available! This gives you lots of time to check out the rest of the entrants and maybe take a shot at the challenge yourself!

Trifextra 74: Silence is deafening.

The current weekend challenge at Trifecta Writing Challenge is to mirror this quote in our response:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
--Henry James

My response is a little cliched, in fact all the ideas I kicked around seemed to be. Even so, I kinda like it:

There are three things I find ironic about silence. 
     The first: silence is deafening. 
          The second: silence is deafening. 
               And the third: silence is deafening.

Hope you're enjoying your Sunday afternoon!

A Final Act of Revenge, in 33 words

I feel like I'm still complaining a lot lately, not so much here, since I don't post as often as I could, but in emails or talking to certain people in my everyday life.  I realized last week that a big part of my complaining is just a means of escape from constantly thinking of what my sister is going through.  Another way for me to escape reality is to write, especially about topics that aren't my sister.  With this realization comes yet another attempt to get back into regular blogging, which brings us to the second challenge in a row that I am participating in.

This week's challenge at Trifecta is to use the third definition of the word bitch creatively, in 33-333 words. The third definition of said word is:

3: something that is extremely difficult, objectionable, or unpleasant

I tried to stay away from this overused cliche, but I just kept coming back to it and finally gave in.

She clutched the pillow 

tightly

and waited 

for the last sign of 

resistance,

before 

softly whispering

the words 

he had told her

every 

time 

she 

cried:

"Life's a bitch,

and then you die"


(I made my husband read this, he said I can't sleep with him tonight!)

Another Instance of Run-On Love

I can't manage to write, on time, 5 lines of verse for Limerick-Off Monday, 17 syllables for Sensational Haiku Wednesday, 33 words for Trifecta, 1 minute's worth of writing for One-Minute Writer, anything at all for Poets & Writers, or any of the other 38 challenge/prompt sites bookmarked in my browser*.

But...

I can write a 46 word, run-on sentence describing my surprise at enjoying the nail salon trip on Christmas Eve...

Well, I would "commit" to writing as a New Year's resolution, but I think I've already "committed" close to a dozen times in recent months, and we all see how well that has worked out for me!




*I just happen to have these five open at the moment.

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 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

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!

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"!