Prompt Me - Forest Angel

Would you look at that, it’s the first Friday of the month. Time for another picture prompt. :-D

This is the picture I couldn’t find for last month. You know, the one I already had the story idea for? Unfortunately, I never thought to write my idea down so I’ll be starting from scratch. Just like you.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a poem, story, or non-fiction article inspired by the above picture. You have until the last Friday of the month, and if you email it to me at carolrward(at)gmail(dot)com I’ll post it here. And just an FYI, the end of the month is a Thursday, so the last Friday is actually the 25th.

Now get writing!

The Blitz Poetry Form

Even if you’re not into poetry, you really need to give The Blitz a try. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have with a poetry form.

The form was invented by Robert Keim. The lines are super short - just a couple of words each. There’s no punctuation and it doesn’t rhyme. The first two lines both start with the same word. Lines 3 and 4 begin with the last word of line 2. Lines 5 and 6 start with the last word of line 4, and so on until you’ve written 48 lines. Line 49 is the last word of line 48, and line 50 is the last word of line 47. The title is only three words - the first word from the 3rd line joined to the first word from the 47th line by a preposition.

When writing a Blitz poem, it helps if you write it as quickly as possible. It’s a lot like one of those word association tests psychiatrists are reported to use, only faster. Give it a try, I guarantee you’ll have lots of fun.


Red With Clouds

Rose in bloom
Rose red
Red queen
Red and white
White as snow
White wine
Wine in a glass
Wine and cheese
Cheese whiz
Cheese log
Log on
Log off
Off and on
Off and running
Running amok
Running late
Late for work
Late in life
Life mate
Life and death
Death comes
Death mask
Mask your feelings
Mask the man
Man and woman
Man alive
Alive and dead
Alive for now
Now and then
Now and again
Again with this
Again with that
This and that
This and the other
Other than that
Other wise
Wise man
Wise woman
Woman rights
Woman power
Power up
Power down
Down town
Down below
Below zero
Below the clouds
Clouds of white
Clouds of blue
Blue
White

Bucket Lists

Do you have a bucket list?

No, I’m not avoiding the Monday subject, which is supposed to be a report on how my writing week went. It’s just I don’t have a lot to report and bucket lists have been on my mind lately.

But just to get the writing stuff out of the way first...the week did not start out well, writing-wise. The hubby was on vacation, although he spent most of his time working around the house. But just having him home all day kind of threw me off my game and I spent more time reading than writing.

I really struggled to write something for this month’s picture prompt, and when I didn’t have anything to post on Friday I ended up writing both a poem and a story for the weekly Brazen Snake Books prompts. You can find my story HERE, and you can see both my poem and Jamie’s HERE. It’s kind of freaky how we had similar ideas, although we didn’t see each other’s poems until they were done.

Saturday I spent pretty much the whole day agonizing over my picture prompt before deciding my idea would work better as a poem. I really wanted to do a story for that picture, but it just wasn’t happening.

Sunday I spent the first half of the day shopping and the second half entertaining the in-laws for dinner. I was lucky to get the post done for my regular blog, let alone anything else. As it was, I was up past my bedtime doing it. Hopefully I’ll do better this week. :-D

Back to the bucket list.

A bucket list, for those of you totally out of the loop, is a list of things you want to do before you die, or “kick the bucket.” It could be travelling to places, getting married, getting divorced, getting that dream job, running a marathon, making a million dollars ... you get the idea.

I don’t have a bucket list, although there are oodles of things I’d like to do before I die. But as I said, I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately, and then I started making a list. I say a list, because I think it’ll have to be refined before it’s my official bucket list.

I started listing random “stuff” and realized making a bucket list is harder than it looks. It’s not like there are any rules to it - no set number of items to include, no guidelines as to what kinds of things should be included...

In my case, I’ve come to the conclusion I’m going to need three lists: things I want to read; places I want to visit; and miscellaneous. And I’m putting a self-imposed limit of the top ten in each category. This will still give me a total of thirty items to work on.

I did a Google search for ‘bucket list’ and wow, there was 115,000,000 results in 0.61 seconds! Unique Bucket List Ideas; 101 Things To Do Before You Die; 10,000 Things To Do Before You Die; 10,000+ Bucket List Ideas ... However, I only did the search for fun, I’m not going to waste time clicking on any of those likes. I figure if I can’t think of it myself, it doesn’t deserve to go on the list.

Limiting myself to a total of thirty items on my list means I’m going to be thinking long and hard about what goes on there. Ideally they’ll be things I can actually do, and I’m not going to be including namby pamby things like losing 20 pounds or getting a tattoo (which I already have). I think the hard part will be limiting myself to just ten places I want to visit - I’ve always wanted to travel - and coming up with ten books I want to read - I’m a prolific reader so I’ve already read a lot.

This might actually turn out to be a lot of fun!

So... what’s on your bucket list?

Chaos Land

"I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!"

Yes, I know. This is the last Saturday of the month instead of the last Friday, but though I conceived the idea for the story earlier in the week, it just did not want to be written. First, a reminder of the picture prompt:

It seemed pretty simple - order on one side of the wall, disorder on the other. I had wanted to give it a bit of a twist so instead of the disorder encroaching on the order, I wanted the order to be the bad guy, so to speak. But try as I might I just could not make it work.

So I started doing some research on chaos versus order. Most of what I found was regarding chaos and I began to play around with a few ideas just using chaos as a theme, but none of those really panned out either.

And then I remembered my own caveat with these prompts - the result could be anything, as long as it was creative. For some reason my default seems to be prose, but since that wasn’t working I figured it was time to try something else.

I almost did a non-fiction piece on chaos, but then I began writing this poem:


Chaos Land

I was here in the beginning
before there was anything else.
I existed before the creation of the universe -
a formless void, the gap between heaven and earth.

I am disorder and confusion,
my behavior unpredictable
so as to appear random.
I am indefinite and indeterminate.

I am the spirit of God
moving upon the face of the waters.
From me all else originated -
the primordial state before creation.

I am the merging of opposites -
the darkness and the light together -
all of the elements twisted together.
I am the belief that is a magical force.

Who are you to try and tame me,
to wall me in with your discipline and orderliness?
Do you not know that without chaos
there can be no harmony.


Join me here again on Friday for a new picture prompt. Who knows, maybe you’ll find some inspiration as well.

Shepherds and Nymphs

If you take a look at some of my favourite poems written by other people, it’s easy to see how I ended up with such a strong sense of rhyme and rhythm. I cut my poetry teeth on the classics. To be honest, while most kids in my English classes struggled to understand classic poetry, I struggled to understand modern poetry.

This week I’d like to share one of my very first favourite poems. I love the rhyme and rhythm of it, as well as the story it tells.


The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

~ Christopher Marlowe
1599



And of course what would the shepherd’s plea be without his lady love’s reply?

The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complain of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.

~ Sir Walter Raleigh
1600

Miscellaneous Miscellany

The fact that I managed to get my blog posts done and up on time last week was a miracle in itself. The daughter was away for a conference followed by a mini vacation last week. This meant my part time babysitting hours were extended to full time - from 4 hours a day to 9 ½ hours a day. This didn’t leave a lot of time (or energy) for writing.

I had some serious flashbacks to when my daughter was little and I was struggling to find my way as a writer, and found myself comparing then and now. I wrote a long, whiny blog post about it but in the course of writing realized it was like comparing apples to oranges. Maybe someday I’ll write that blog post, but don’t worry, this is not that day.

You’re welcome. :-D

Lest you think I was a total writing slacker last week, I did keep up my journal - both my personal one and my writing one - and I wrote a couple of poems which I finished up over the weekend. The excerpt I posted on Friday was from a story I came up with in high school, and in the course of looking for it I stumbled across several other potential stories from that era.

I vaguely remember the first story I ever wrote in high school. It was science fiction (of course, because I thought I was going to be a writer of science fiction stories) and it had something to do with a group of people in cryo-stasis on a rocket ship. No idea where they were going or why, nothing of it remains (which is probably for the best).

The first book in my Moonstone Chronicles series, Magical Misfire came from a story I started in high school. I’d written the first twelve chapters and then abandoned it because I had no clue what to do with my main character once I got her to the magical realm. Come to think about it... I’m pretty sure the original idea for my Elemental series came from something I wrote in high school. It just goes to show you that maybe your mother wasn’t crazy after all, saving all your old high school compositions. You never know what might spark an idea for a story.

I think I’ve strayed off topic. ;-)

So. While I didn’t get much writing done last week, as I said in my Friday post I’d like to change that. I’m setting myself a daily goal of 250 words minimum - that’s like one double-spaced page - of fiction. If I can’t manage at least that then it’s time to turn in my typewriter. Or lap top. Or whatever. You know what I mean.

Once I’ve proven to myself I can be consistent with 250 words I’ll up it until I find a number I’m comfortable with. And then I’m going to start posting my proper wordage reports again.

Wish me luck - I’m gonna need it!

Trip Down Nostalgia Lane

So here we are again on a Friday. And it’s an in between Friday - not the first one where I post a picture prompt, nor the last one where I post my results, but one of the ones in between where I’m in a kind of limbo.

Originally I was supposed to post an excerpt from what I’ve been working on lately. Unfortunately, other than blog posts I haven’t been working on much besides poetry lately.

While I’m hoping to change that in the days to come, that doesn’t help me today. So after thinking about it for a while, I decided to give you an excerpt from one of my earlier works. And by early I mean one of my very first (if not the first) novel-length ideas I ever had. So early it was typed on a manual typewriter, which means I had to retype it on the computer.

It was a convoluted mix of fantasy and science fiction. Science fiction because it was set on Saturn and there were aliens and some technology involved, fantasy because of the magic and magical creatures. Most of what I have is notes on characters and creatures and cities, there’s a crude map, a brief history, and the beginning of a crude outline.

It seems to be part quest, part coming of age, part a hero’s tale. There’s not a lot to go on other than back ground information. All I really remember is that most of the action took place on Saturn, and Stonehenge was a link between Earth and Saturn. And the rings of Saturn are what keeps Earth from realizing there’s a whole civilization below. Yes, seriously!

There seemed to be two beginnings to this tale. One was in first person, the main character being a woman, and the other was in third person with the main character being a male. Since that’s the one that bore the title “Original Plot” that’s the one I’m posting here.


Untitled Novel

Tazrak stood and gazed at the distant hills as the sun turned the clouds from white to blood red. The sun sank below the horizon, yet still he stood watching. His hard, yet handsome features gave little indication of his thoughts. His sun-bronzed shoulders were tight with tension, and his brow was creased with lines of concentration.

It was the fifth day, of the fifth month, of the fifth year of waiting. It was the night that could bring despair - or hope. It was the first time in almost five thousand years that the ceremony of summoning was to be performed at the Circle of Stones.

“Tazrak,” called one of the guards, not daring to approach. “It is almost time.”

Tazrak nodded and turned from the darkness. He strode with long sure strides towards a large, green and gold tent. Lifting the flap he peered inside and saw that the Wizard Priests were ready for him. The priests had been sent all the way from the Great Temple. It was a great honour, and they had borne with them the ceremonial robe of the High Priest.

The moons started to rise as Tazrak donned the flowing white robe and placed the emerald pendant around his neck. A char howled in the distance - neither a hunting call nor a call to a kill but an eerie lament to the gods. A sudden wind arose as Tazrak, flanked by the two Wizard Priests, moved towards the Circle of Stones.

Tarzak turned and addressed the crowd below. “My people, tonight is the night we have awaited for five long years. We have awaited in fear and in hope. It is the night decreed by Zor that we may bury the past and for this night only once again perform the Ceremony of Summoning. Our need is great, my people. Let us hope that the gods are merciful on t his night.”


After that it skips to Earth where a young man gets lost in a cave system that opens up to a large chamber with a replica of Stonehenge in it. He finds a similar robe and pendant and on impulse puts them both on and steps to the middle of the circle. The date is May 5 and the time is 5 p.m.

Some day I may revisit this story - as cheesy as it seems, I think it has potential. All I have to figure out is the end game for the hero. ;-)