I write to keep me sane. I write so that my words may outlive my life. I write to find redemption
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Primetime Live
This Thursday on the ABC newsmagazine show Primetime Live they will be doing a piece on foster children. I don't often watch that show but I hope I remember to tune to it tomorrow.
I want to watch primarily because I have been hoping to one day write a novel about teenage foster children. The idea has been rattling around in my head since I watched a documentary on PBS about 3 girls in the foster care system.
In fact, I have been playing around with a first chapter of this novel already. I speak about in my previous post titled Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy. The novel would be told from the point of view of five 17 year olds who are about to leave the foster care system.
Song Lyrics of the Day
When I go by our old house I pretend that you're still there Waitin' for me on the porch But there's just an empty chair Wish I could see you just one more time Before I drive away So I could stop and go inside, and say "I miss you a little since you've been gone A few little memories keep hangin' on I miss you a little, I guess you could say A little too much, a little too often A little more every day."
I have organised all the poems that will go in my first album, a collection to be shared with friends and famiy. Hopefully it will be saved by someone who loves me even after I am gone and will be shared with future generations. I, also, have about 15 poems towards my second album. On Wednesday I wrote two new poems. One is called A Broken Girl and the other is Little Sin. A Broken Girl was inspired by a song on American Idol. I heard the word banish during one of the songs on the show ( I think it was when Meatloaf sang). And that made me think of the line banished to the blackest corner of her mind.
The poem grew from there to describe a girl who is hurt by a man and then abandoned.
Little Sin was inspired when I was working on another poem and trying to figure out the last line for it. I thought of making it
she lies, it's just a little sin.
But then I decided to make the last line something else. Still the idea stuck and I immedaitely started a new poem with
It's just a little sin bury it beneath blankets and blankets of snow that blows wild and piles high in wintertime in Chicago.............
That poem has three more stanzas. Anyway I thought I would share some of the ways my creative process works.
This blog won't be updated again until after the Memorial Day holiday. I hope everyone has a great weekend! And to all you writers out there, here's hoping you find some time for at least one productive writing session.
Song Lyrics of the Day For a momentwasn't I a king? But if I'd only known how the king wouldfall Hey, who's to say, you know, I might have chanced it all! And now I'm glad I didn't know The way it all would end the way it all would go Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain but I'd of hadto miss the dance . Yes, my life is better left to chance I could have missed the pain but I'd of had to miss the dance
Poems just keep flowing out of me daily. They are coming at a faster rate than I even want, but I am not complaining! A lyric off the car radio can start a chain reaction. I had to buy a little hard backed journal ( it is so adorable! Pink with the word explore written on it.) to write in while I am away from home. I have pulled together all my old poems, about 50, to put in a album to share with my family. But I have a good start going on a second album already. The first collection will cover 1991-2006. The second I was hoping to have cover about 4-5 years. But at the rate the poems are coming I will reach 50 by the end of summer. That is not a bad thing but I wonder how many poems my friends and family are willing to wade through. And I hate writing just for myself. It can be a great way to learn and improve, writing something no one else can judge. But if I hate what I wrote I want it destroyed and if I love what I wrote I want it shared. Still I will not try and shut off the flow of poems. Whenever I create anything I consider good it gives me such a high! If I create something I hate it has the opposite effect, it causes me to feel depressed and wonder about my writing ability. I was in that low place from Dec. 2005- May 13, 2006, as far as my writing was concerned. Now I am flying high again!
This writing day is really paying off. I have made excellent progress on my novel. It took hours to clear my head of the poetry that has been pouring from it for a week now. But I finally settled down enough to work on my fiction. After a few false starts I got into the groove. And did it feel good. I thrive off that energy that comes from writing something I think has potential. So far I have seven pages written today and, if all goes right, I am not done yet.
Song Lyrics of the Day I know a girl who was schooled in Manhattan She reads dusty books and learns phrases in Latin She is an author, or maybe a poet A genius but it's just this world doesn't know it She works on her novel most every day If you laugh she will say
Seize the day, seize whatever you can 'Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand Seize the day, pray for grace from God's hand Then nothing will stand in your way Seize the day !
This site showcases the work of writers who are hoping to get published. You have to sign up for a free account to read submissions. http://www.rosedog.com/search.asp
This link below is to an article about a teenage girl who self published her novel. Though there is some debate about self publishing I would say, as always, judge each book on its own merit. I haven't read this novel, rarely do I choose sci- fi novels, movies, or tv shows to watch. But if the story behind it is strong enough the genre becomes irrelevant to me. I am impressed by this girl's drive to take her publishing dream into her own hands and make it happen for herself. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/7/prweb259992.htm
Song Lyrics of the Day I blame everyone else, not my own partaking. My passive-aggressiveness can be devastating. I'm terrified and mistrusting
And you've never met anyone as,
As closed down as I am sometimes. You see everything, you see every part You see all my light and you love my dark You dig everything of which I'm ashamed There's not anything to which you can't relate And you're still here..... and you're still here.
My poetry has changed over the years. The first poems I ever wrote were in high school. I laugh now reading them. Not because they are so bad ( though they aren't masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination! They are very typical of a lovestruck teenager pouring out her heart about some boy who won't play her any attention). But because they take me right back to that moment, feeling, emotion from my youth.
Later, as my mood darkened, my poems spoke of my sadness. I just went back to writing poems after a five year haitus. I find the poems that flow from me now speak to being lost and also I am playing around with imagery more.
Out of all the poems I have ever written I have pulled together 35 so far to put in an album to show friends and family. Here are a few examples-
This poem is already on the internet. It is on poetry.com and at an aspiring writers msn group. If I remember right I wrote it in 2001.
The Burden Like a bird that can no longer fly her wings broken by the burden of his betrayal bitterness burned into her heart sadness scorched onto her soul crushed by knowledge better left unknown and the weight of all her dreams denied inhibits her flight Till the bird that once flew now crawls through the night.
The next poem I wrote yesterday. The Earth Rattles
The earth rattles knocking loose rearranging what use to pass for, masquerade as, the truth. Leaving left the same pieces, now a kaleidoscope of wreckage. Or is it a blessing? A forced beginning, sun rising over ruins that are destined to be renewed.
I wrote my mother a poem for Mother's Day. It kicked off a renewed interest in my poetry. I pulled out all my old poems and started typing them up. And I have written 7 more since last Saturday. Even though it is not progress on my novel it is helping to rev up those writing juices. I want to put all my poems in an album so that they can be shared with my family and friends. If someone was to happen to me today my family would be hard pressed to read my writing because most of it is in such disarray. The half finished novels, ideas for future projects, poems, and song lyrics clutter various notebooks and computer files, the location of which only I know. I am going to organise my writing in a more professional manner in order to make it easier to share with others and,also, to show respect for this written craft that I adore.
I started a new writing project this week. At this point I only have 400 words. That means it is in the critical beginning point where I might continue with it or put it aside depending on if I can get in touch with the voice of the main character. The Work in Progress title is I am a Writer. It is about a person who goes to a summer writing program and meets others aspiring writers. They are taught by a famous published author who is no nonsense with this motley crew. Since I have made Saturday my no matter what else I do this week I will write on TODAY day Then we shall see if I stick with I am a Writer or move on. Strangely Andre's story still speaks to me strongly but I just can't find the key to unlock the door to that first page of the novel, from which all other pages grow.
Song Lyrics of the Day She left her apartment at a quarter after eight Drove the mile to the clinic and walked inside the iron gate She was greeted warmly with reassurance in his voice A simple safe procedure but had she made the proper choice
And at the church across the street the band played on And the choir sang another verse of another lovely song
But her world was crashing as she paid the Doctor’s fee And she wondered if she would ever meet Someone from the church across the street ...
And at the church across the street the band played on And the choir sang another verse of another lovely song
There are two blogs I follow faithfully, the homeless guy and prison pete. There are plenty of other blogs I have stumbled along and briefly dipped into someone's life, dreams, desires and pain. This week I found a few more blogs to read.
I knew it would happen after I posted that last blog entry. I am having second thoughts about showing the world my writing process. What I posted is not my best work. It is the first thing that came to mind. But I think it is important to show the way my mind thinks. I can't post a whole novel on this site. And I will not post work I hope to get published. But I want to share something of my writing.
All I want is postive feedback. Let's be honest here who wants to hear" that is a piece of crap! Give up!" But what I need is critism that can help me improve. I wish I had a writing teacher to take my hand and lead the way to publication but that is not the way it works.
Song Lyrics of the Day We the great and small stand on a star And blaze a trail of desire Through the dark'ning dawn It's asking for the taking Come run with me now.... Let the river run Let all the dreamers Wake the nation Come, the New Jerusalem
I sat around Saturday night from 7 pm till midnight pondering what idea I should use to start working on my next novel. I couldn't settle on anything. But I didn't want to go to bed without writing anything at all so I did a writing exercise instead. Using free assocaition I wrote a page off the top of my head.
A Girl like Me
Don’t think I don’t know the truth. I always knew the truth. But I needed him . So I needed the lie. In the home I grew up in things were never stable. But you could get by if you knew how to play the game. I majored in playing the game but didn’t get out with a college diploma in Thriving Among the Madness or even Surviving Despite it all. But I got out with my life. That was more than some people in that house could say. I landed in the system with a thud a few days before Christmas after my mother flung the Christmas tree, the same one she had just set on fire, at her boyfriend and took out his eye. Ralph, a stray who followed her home from last call three months earlier and never left, walked around with a permanent dopey grin on his face. But his who gives a rats ass attitude didn’t extend to losing his sight or having his greased up hair ignite. The cops came and asked if Mom often had emotional outbursts. I picked a hell of a time to stop keeping my mothers secrets because immediately after I said "Every damn day,." she flung the baby Jesus at my head.She spent a few hours handcuffed to a bench downtown until Aunt Rosey, her five ragamuffins in thrift store pajamas trailing behind, bailed her out. Her horrible ordeal was over before the sun came up but mine would last until I aged out of the system. THE END
Everytime I get close to finishing a novel I seem to freeze up and not be able to get to those two magical words THE END. I think I have a phobia of finishing one because I will have to hold it up and show the world my creation. Since I started this blog I have made significant progress on three projects, even though I started maybe 20 others but they never got very far.Tripping Over Myself- my NaNoWriMo 2005 project- mainstream fiction. The story of Jasper Patterson a slacker 19 year old looking for happiness without much luck.. Come Back to Me- my first attempt to write a Harlequin Suspense. The story of Allie, a woman who was stalked across the country for five years after a man obsessed with her killed her aunt and uncle. Allie finds her soulmate in Spencer but will her stalker let her live long enough to have her happily ever after? Pisces Rising - my first attempt at Chick Lit. Jenna loses her job and her boyfriend, both of which weren’t anything to write home about to begin with, then loses her car and the roof over her head. But with everything she ever had gone she finds the chance to get everything she ever wanted.
Click on the link on the side of my blog titled Romance Writing Mom. Since the last time I visted her site she has updated the look. I was just checking it out and it is quite impressive.
By the way, I get all the comments that are left on this blog sent to my email address . Feel Free to comment on a post from the past and know I will see you comment and respond.
I won't have any free time Friday or Sunday but I pledge to write at least 1,000 words this Saturday. I've been slacking and letting weeks go by without writing. I know I need to write everyday for at least two hours. But instead of waiting around for my inspriration and determination to kick in I am going to start with a goal of writing every Saturday. I finshed You can't get there from here by Todd Strasser last night. It is the type of novel I would love to write. Not only do the characters come alive from his descriptions but the story is about something ( teenage homelessness). Although it is written for young adults I think people of any age would enjoy this book.Leave me a comment of you have read this novel and let me know what you think of it. http://www.toddstrasser.com/ Song Lyrics of the Day Oh you know I love my folks But I keep starin' down the road Just lookin' for my one chance to run
'cause I will soar away like the blackbird I will blow in the wind like a sea I will plant my heart in the garden of my dreams And I will grow up where I'll wander wild and free
After a long winter sans computer I finally have a new one at home. Now I won't have to fit in trips to the library to beg for online time with the other poor computerless masses or sneak in time when I am at friends homes. Hopefully it will also keep my writing more organized to be able to keep it in a computer file instead of a myraid of notebooks.
What I am reading now- You can't get there from here by Todd Strasser
