Poetry Anthology: Week 4

“You’re too old to lose it, too young to choose it,
And the clock waits so patiently on your song
You walk past the cafe but you don’t eat when you’ve
lived too long
You’re a rock’n’roll suicide”
-David Bowie

How Objects Tell Your Story

Some objects define a person, like Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon and Harry Potter’s Firebolt or Nimbus 2000. They say that that person has got to be nearby. as was pointed out to me today When a friend asked “Hey where where you? We thought you were dead.” “I was dead. How’d you know?” “We saw the garlic bread and thought that if there was frickin’ garlic bread around, you would be in the area, but you weren’t, and it turned out that you actually were dead.”
But it doesn’t have to be a physical object. It could also be a color, like yellow is associated with the sun, or like the violence associated with Trump rallies.

A Writer's Path

by Mindy Halleck 

In 2011,I embarked on one of the harshest undertakings; I placed what I thought was the final draft of my novel in a drawer for one year. Why? Because, as I told others in my most knowledgeable author voice, “A writer needs distance from their material before editing and rewriting.”

View original post 753 more words

Book-Thick Snowflake

 

HEADS UP! All poems that get 12 likes or more will be published in the environmental poetry and short story collection Before The Mountain Falls.

It was on a dark and stormy sea                                                                                                                      In the purple rain I saw you                                                                                                                   holding a bloody limb                                                                                                                             beneath your foot you crushed

a Book-Thick Snowflake                                                                                                                       Silent, silence

In the midst of

Breaking ship in a                                                                                                                                       dark and stormy night                                                                                                                                      on the wine-dark sea                                                                                                                                    the realization that you

Hard concrete, stifling buildings                                                                                                              So cold in the middle of a                                                                                                                           Stifling California summer                                                                                                                            hardly melting, still

Book-Thick beneath your foot,                                                                                                       Crushing it, and yet                                                                                                                                     still Book-Thick, it hardly melts                                                                                                               you  broke the ship but you can’t break

Cold ice                                                                                                                                                             intact                                                                                                                                                                      cold ice Snowflake                                                                                                                                          intact, surrounded by

Creaking, cracking planks                                                                                                                         you broke the ship, but that                                                                                                                       matters not to a                                                                                                                                              Book-Thick Snowflake

The concrete’s so hot                                                                                                                                      it shouldn’t be black                                                                                                                                    and yet                                                                                                                                                                     it hardly melts

you can be screaming                                                                                                                             Hulkify, the iceberg                                                                                                                                      but you just can’t melt                                                                                                                                 The Book-Thick Snowflake

Unblocking Writer’s Block

 

I found these things helpful while I had writer’s block. Try them out to see if they work for you.

#1 Paint, draw, sculpt switch gears from words to art. No matter what amount of artistic skill you have, it will relieve stress, distract you, and encourage creative thinking. Even simple coloring books will help.

#2 Make something new – like this vegan chocolate!

1/2 cup coconut oil – this hardens quickly                                                                                            1/2 cup cocoa powder                                                                                                                                      3 tb maple syrup – this sweetens it, use a little less if it’s too sweet                                                1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

Mix & pour in container of your choice. I find takeout lids a good choice, those who eat cheese or butter can use the lids of their containers.                                                                               It has a fast, easy reward, unlike writing!

#3 Read Every writer has to read.  You don’t what to be asked “Who are your favorite authors?” and come up with “Me, Myself and I.” do you? Even the Beatles had/have people they look(ed) up to. Would you like to be more self-centered than John Lennon?

#4 Journal this allows you to write down whatever you want, and thus is the easiest thing in the world to write.

#5 As to your actual writing project, talk it out if you’re lucky enough to have creative people around you, or someone knowledgeable about your topic, they might have ideas about what you can do. How would so-and-so behave under this-or-that circumstance?   They might give you an idea. Also, this forces you to put your problem in words, and thus have a firmer grasp on it.

#6 Map it out if you know the basic details, give them a location. This is like a visual outline. Below is Paul McCartney’s plan of Magical Mystery Tour, not a great movie but this give each event a time slot in the order that they occur. A sketch out to know where you’re going.

.