Over on Brain Popcorn this week I’m talking about creating illustrated found poetry using altered book pages. I couldn’t stop myself at one example, however, so the others are going here on the creative writing blog where they belong. Click the images to enlarge for easier reading.
So, in between a weekend festival, a week-long trip to Europe, Thanksgiving weekend and all the commitments that entailed, I managed to hit my (private, drop-dead-with-embarassment-if-you-don’t-make-it) goal of 25K words, plus a little before the month ended. I didn’t make it to 50K, but I’m still really pleased with what I learned from the whole process, and with the fact that I now have 25K words I didn’t have written at the beginning of the month.
What I took away from my first NaNoWriMo experience:
Things I learned about Schola Ariolos as I’ve been writing:
I’m still plugging along at the beast which is the Nanowrimo novel–due to European travel and the usual November holiday happenings, I’m only at about the halfway mark, so the chances of reaching 50K this week are slim. However, I haven’t given up yet, and I have posted excerpts from several of the book’s sections on the Schola Ariolos page, so enjoy!
This year I decided to jump into the wild and wacky world of NaNoWriMo to give my writing an extra boost and to help silence my extraordinarily critical inner editor. This project turned out to be a fortuitous combination of stories I’ve been pondering for a while, which it turns out, all are inter-related and happen in the same universe. The working title for this collection of interlocking stories is Schola Ariolos (Latin for “School for Wizards”). This moniker is, as the characters in the world discover, a bit misleading–Hogwarts it is not. If you’re curious to find out more about the project, you can find a page about it here or linked over on my sidebar.
How am I doing?
I need prodding, and praise, so help me along by jeering when my days are red (‘Get off the internet and write!’), nudging when they’re yellow (‘Par is not good enough!’), and praising when they’re green (‘Yay words!’). As I progress, I’ll post some of my favorite snippets and synopses of each book.
(And if any of you are also busy being Wrimos, drop me a note [Winikat on Nanowrimo.org] and we can be writing buddies. I make for a very good virtual cheerleader!)
Just a few snapshots from this weekend’s drop-in art and writing activity, “Grow a Poet-Tree” at PEM for the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Kudos to my intern Kate for drawing three beautiful trees for us to decorate with leaves of original and remembered poetry, illustration, and reflection.
Poets quoted included but were not limited to: ee cummings (the runaway favorite with at least 5 quotes on the trees), Robert Frost, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (the runner up in popularity, and not my fault), John Masefield (okay, that was my fault), and Shel Silverstein, with a hefty sprinkling of song lyrics (“Morning has Broken” for instance, though no “Amazing Grace”) and a few ad jingles thrown in. Other messages included variations on a theme of ‘save the trees’ (clearly I do my work as an Art & Nature specialist thoroughly…), a lot of ‘I love you’s, and a few witty folk who wrote things like ‘This space intentionally left blank.’ I was most amused by the inclusion of text speak and hash-tags on several of the submissions, I think, but I was also impressed by the way some of the participants chose to address some fairly serious themes even in 2 square inches of space on a public bulletin board.
A few of my favorite additions to the Poet-Tree forest, courtesy of PEM visitors and attendees of the Poetry Festival:
A few collected graphics to celebrate the way a few well-crafted words create such strong mental images. Huzzah for poetry!
My favorite of the official National Poetry Month posters (though this poem reminds me of high school chemistry class, the teacher was a frustrated poet, I think, better that than a self-identified Prufrock) As usual, pictures are links to their sources.
“Our family are great Novel-readers and not ashamed of being so.” Jane Austen, Letter to Cassandra, 1798
It is a truth universally acknowledged within my sphere of close acquaintance that I may find relationships between the works of Miss Jane Austen and daily life at the smallest opportunity or provocation. Therefore I encourage you to consider with what delight I greeted the idea of celebrating the day of my birth with an Austen themed party, only to discover that the chosen day corresponded perfectly with “Talk Like Jane Austen Day,” this Saturday the 30th of October.
If you choose to follow the link I have provided above, you will arrive at a page describing the intent of the event and several helpful suggestions as to grammar and vocabulary. For your further edification and delight I have compiled a few other destinations you may seek out at your leisure:
Take Back Halloween: Jane Austen — It is my belief that Miss Austen would approve of the efforts of these enterprising women, who seek to offer the costume-deprived with more interesting and intellectual alternatives to the ubiquitous ‘Sexy ____’ costumes for women.
Jane Austen’s World — I must list this as among my favorites of the plenitude of blogs available discussing the life, times, and works of the great Miss Austen.
Austen Films Underestimate Her Heroines — Here is truth indeed! I readily admit that I have often claimed Mansfield Park as my least favorite of Miss Austen’s works, but this critic has convinced me that I ought to look beyond my ‘first impressions’ and give Fanny Price another chance to demonstrate her worth.
And so on the occasion of my birthday, what has the lady herself to say?
It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.
Jane Austen, Persuasion
And as I shall be but eight and twenty, it seems I have yet much to anticipate. Thank you, Miss Austen. That is a great comfort.
Lots of people who write like to write about writing. Oftentimes what they say is contradictory, sometimes it’s too obvious to be truly useful, and yet occasionally you come across things which are genuinely interesting, entertaining, and elucidating. Here are a few I’ve come across recently:
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, on “How to Write like a Cartoonist,” breaks down some of the basic elements of writing humor.
I have long loved Patricia C. Wrede’s novels, and her blog often has really interesting posts on elements of the writing process. One of my favorites so far was on the difficulty of multi-person point of view and big complicated stories: “Complicated Webs”
The bloggers over at Writers’ Digest also can offer up interesting nuggets (assuming one doesn’t mind the plugs for the books available through the WD shop, etc.) One post which encapsulated one of the problems I had with Rick Riordan’s newest book, The Red Pyramid, was “The Biggest Bad Advice about Story Openings,” pointing out the weaknesses in the old advice ‘Start with action.’
And for sheer geeky writer glee, I must pass along the link which a fellow writer friend shared recently: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. It’s written in Middle English (with a few modern adaptations) and is several levels of hilarious, if you’re anything like me (By which I mean ‘spent a whole semester reading almost nothing but medieval romances and the like.’ An understandably small percentage of you, I’m guessing).
It’s a dragonfly summer, all red, blue and green,
All sizes dart fast and crouch still.
Hundreds more dragons than ever I’ve seen,
Blithe masters of aerial skill.
It’s a dragonfly summer, big-eyed and lean,
Rainswept and sunbaked by turn,
But prism-bright dragons on fencepost and tree
seem to preach a creed we’ve yet to learn.
Cruise when you can and rest where you may,
And hover a while, just for fun.
Winds fall and rise and directions will change–
In the end there is only the sun
Of a dragonfly summer and its flash of four wings
and the zip-sliding, slow-gliding of time,
Of emeralds and rubies, sapphire gleams–
Deep-dreaming, eternal, sublime.
One of the things I find frustrating when reading or listening to interviews with artists, illustrators, authors, actors, etc. is that so many times the questions are cookie-cutter in their predictability and thus so are many of the answers. If you’re looking for a fun take on interviews with authors, check out Questions That Authors Are Never Asked for some fun conversation.
Sea Dreams and Time Machines 