Bev-A-Lyn Rhyme

This is one of the obscure forms I found last week when I was researching the Sextilla. It was invented by Chazz Combs, and when I tried to do some research on him, I found two more forms he invented.

This is a 12-line poem that is both syllabic and rhyming, but with varying line lengths. The syllable count is 5,7,9,2,14,14,11,2,9,7,5,2 and the rhyme scheme is a a a b c c c d e e e f. The 2-syllable lines don’t rhyme and usually have their own message. Maybe it would be a little easier to understand with a schematic:

xxxxa
xxxxxxa
xxxxxxxxa
xb
xxxxxxxxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxxxxc
xd
xxxxxxxxe
xxxxxxe
xxxxe
xf


Technically, this falls under the category of a shape poem because you’re supposed to center it when you’re done. I’ve done other shape poems before, but I think this is the first one I’ve done that has a rhyme to it. I hate to admit it, but it was kind of fun, although the 14-syllable lines were a little tricky.


Autumn

Leaves are turning gold,
the weather is turning cold
Autumn is here, a sight to behold.
Changing
A hunter’s moon is riding high in the chill sky tonight,
bathing the sleeping world below in its magical light,
setting the stage for winter’s sharp, stinging bite.
Turning
White frost enshrouds the trees and the grass
turning the world into glass,
leaves falling en masse.
Ending

Writing Through the “I”

Poetry empowers the simplest of lives to confront the most extreme sorrows with courage, and motivates the mightiest of offices to humbly heed lessons in compassion.
― Aberjhani

...when a good poet is confronted with difficult facts that he knows to be true but also are inimical to poetry, he has no choice but to flee to the margins; it was...this very retreat that allowed him to hear the hidden music that is the source of all art.
― Orhan Pamuk

Writing poetry is a passion, ignited by thoughts, fueled by ink. A way to travel through another mind, where souvenirs of tears are tucked away inside your soul. Or leave you with smiles for miles, depending on which route you go.
― Renee Dixon

This was the 8th Masterclass at Writersfest, presented by Nancy Jo Cullen, a Canadian poet and short story writer.

The blurb for this claimed we would explore how to transform personal experience into poetry. To my mind, all poetry is personal, whether you’re sharing an experience or not, but still, I thought it would be interesting.

We began with a discussion of fiction and poetry and I didn’t take many notes, other than writing down a cool idea for a collection of verse.

According to Ms. Cullen, poetry is a vehicle to express feelings, thoughts, and ideas. Poetry using the “I” exposes you as a poet. There should always be some kind of arc in a poem.

Think of the poem as having a speaker – ultimately, it should be a performance. Although it takes direction from emotion, you need to distance yourself from that emotion. Instead, look for vivid things to share.

For our first exercise, we were to write five sentences to create a narrative of home, expressed as a poem:

It stands halfway down a hill
beside a busy road
inside is love and comfort
shiny wooden floors
and a kitchen smelling of bread.

Our second exercise was to write about the same home again, but using different images and words:

Use the side door, the front is only for company
The living room, with its huge fireplace, is seldom used for living
Needlepoint covers the seats of the dining room chairs.
There are faces in the wallpaper of the guest room –
A blonde man with a beard, hiding amongst the roses.

We did this again for our third exercise, but expanding the images:

Cleaning is done by invisible elves, but only when we’re not there to see it
Picnic lunches on the sunken, flagstone patio
Climbing the hill through the woods to reach heaven
Sweet peas, rioting along the road and in the fields
Carefree summer days followed by slumbrous nights.

For our final exercise, we were to write a sonnet using the images from the above three exercises:

When I think of home, I see
halfway down a busy hill
the house tucked ‘neath the walnut tree
with flowers on its window sill.

Enter through the kitchen door,
The kitchen smells of bread and spice
All the treats that we adore;
The wooden floors are smooth as ice.

My aunt was never seen to clean
We thought it done by phantom elves
Who trod the flagstone paths unseen
Through blooming sweet peas in the dells.

Home was love and open arms
A haven safe from all the harms.

Okay, so maybe it’s not the best sonnet I ever wrote, but it’s not bad for the limited we had to write in.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

This week I seemed to maintain a steady pace, although I didn’t pull ahead, as I’d hoped to be able to do. I had a couple of social obligations that, while pleasant, were a little time consuming. Actually, now that I think of it, every day except Friday had something else going on. Naturally, the kittens are still proving to be a bit of a distraction.

The hubby was not very receptive to the idea of putting up shelves above the medium sized bookcase I have beside my desk so I can get my plants off the window ledge, so I solved the problem by buying a taller bookcase to replace it. I figured the top two shelves would work great for plants.

The kittens and I had fun putting it together, but they were no help at all when it came to helping me figure out where to put the bookcase it was replacing. I didn’t like it behind my desk, and the only other place it might work meant blocking the window slightly, plus I’d have to unload it to be able to move it.

But then I discovered the new bookcase was not as wide as I thought it was, and the two bookcases just fit side by side against the wall beside my desk. Woot! However, I still didn’t get any extra writing done in my office because now I need to re-arrange bookshelves. LOL

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 2,455+462+298+1,024=4,239
Extra poem – 97 words
Total Words: 4,336 

UP 624 words from last week

Goals For Next Week:
Get my blog posts done on time and stay on track with NaNo.

NANO
Yes, I know NaNo doesn’t start until Tuesday, but I’m adding this category now as part of the NaNo prep.

No words yet, of course, but I have ideas. Lots of ideas. If anyone is my buddy on the NaNo site, you’ll have noticed I broke with tradition and declared my project last week, including putting up a cover. Normally I wait until November first, which is usually when I make up my mind.

And true to form, as soon as I put up the cover, a completely different idea popped into my head and I think it has even more potential – if I can figure out how it ends. It needs a little plotting and I don’t know if I’ll have time for that. If I start it as is, I can probably complete the story but it won’t be pretty.

AND THEN I considered doing another 30 days of flash stories. I had such great success with them last year. And I already have an idea for the first one that I really like. If I’d thought of this idea sooner, I could write more in this vein, but it’ll take some research.

So at this point, what I do for NaNo is anybody’s guess. Including mine. ;-)

EDITING:
16 pages
Finally, I got some serious editing done. But it was for someone else. LOL I had the pleasure of working on the final story in Alex Westhaven’s Death by Veggies series which is due to be released on Halloween.

If you can’t wait that long for your thrills and chills, you can download her story Jack from Amazon for free.

Goal For Next Week:
No promises on the editing – we’ll see how it goes with NaNo first.

MARKETING:
Okay, I think I’m going to suspend the whole marketing thing until the new year. It’s been months since I submitted anything, it just hasn’t been a priority. And with NaNo starting in a couple of days, and then Christmas right after that . . . Yeah, the new year it is.

TECH & TRAINING:
I’d still like to figure out Dropbox. At the very least I want to be able to backup to it automatically like I did before Staples got a hold of my laptop. And for extra back up protection, I’d like to unbox my external hard drive and start backing up to it as well.

Goal For Next Week:
Figure out how to set up the automatic back up for Dropbox. Set up external hard drive.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Last week’s form was a little more complicated than the one from the week before, but it had eight syllable lines, and I like eight syllable lines. :-)

I also wrote a very sad little poem for my poetry group, which met Wednesday night. It was only 97 words, but it still counts.

Goal For Next Week:
Share a new poetry form.

CRAFTING:
I crocheted a dozen bookworms in a variety of colours for the craft sale my stitchery group is taking part of in December. We had a meeting Tuesday morning, and this week I’ll be meeting with the others on the craft sale organizing committee.

I’m not sure how much crafting I’m going to be doing during NaNo, but hopefully I’ll be able to carve out a little time.

Goal For Next Week:
Figure out dragon pillow for granddaughter.

WHAT I’M READING:
Reading? Who has time for reading?

Okay, I did treat myself to a new book when I grocery shopped - The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris, by Daisy Wood, but I’ve only read about half a dozen pages in it. It looks pretty interesting, so hopefully I’ll be able to make time to read more this week.

Goal For Next Week:
Spend a little time each day reading.

GOAL REVIEW:

It was a busy week, I tell you what. But despite that, I still got my blog posts up, and on time, too. And my serial installment actually ran a little long. I had a great time editing that story for Alex Westhaven – she just gets better and better, leaving me with less and less work to do. If only I could have that much enthusiasm for my own editing. LOL

I already mentioned that I’m putting the marketing on hold until the new year, and I’ll probably do the same with tech and training once I get Dropbox set up properly. I’m seriously considering recycling old post for my poetry Wednesdays for the duration of NaNo. Some days the poetry can take a lot of time and I don’t know that I’ll have it to spare.

While I did get my bookworms made, it was a near thing. November would be an optimal time to do Christmas crafts but, you know, NaNo. I can’t believe I did so little reading last week! I think I need to make time for it in the week ahead, because it’s a great way to relax the mind.

It was a busy week, but a good one, and looking back I may not have done any words beyond my blog posts, but I still felt pretty productive.

Here’s to the week ahead!

The Pond - Part 13

Nikolai Antonovich seemed right at home among Katrinka’s friends. His shameless flirtations caused more than one girl to sigh with yearning. Izolda remained impassive, at least on the outside. On the inside . . . on the inside she was already making plans.

She watched with the others as Katrinka gathered up her things and took Nikolai’s arm so he could escort her home. Her hands were sweaty and her heart was racing. As soon as the happy couple were out of sight, chatter broke out among the group.

“I cannot believe Katrinka’s good fortune!” Marta said.

“I wish my parents had betrothed me as a child,” Svetlana said with a sigh. “As long as it was to someone like Nikolai. What do you think, Izolda?”

Izolda weighed her words carefully. “I think, if I were in Katrinka’s place, I would find it hard to wait to be married.”

Later, when she was alone in her cave, Izolda considered her options. Love spells were chancy things, and may not last long term. And love spells could only be used once. But a compulsion spell, well crafted, could be renewed if it started to wear off.

But compulsion would not be enough. Any fool could see that although the marriage had been arranged there were true feelings developing between the two. This had to be stopped. Attraction must turn to aversion, for both of them. This would be harder to achieve.

Her time was limited, however. The plan must be completed before Nikolai left for America, and he was scheduled to leave in just two weeks. Izolda chose her spells carefully and memorized them. Her plan would work, it was flawless. She had not felt such excitement since she vanquished Varnya.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Olga was a little surprised when Izolda and Katrinka became close friends. It was not that she had anything against the girl, it’s just she had no magic whatsoever. It just did not seem like Izolda to befriend someone like that.

Already having misgivings about her only daughter, Olga started keeping better track of her comings and goings, and who she was spending her time with. Because Katrinka was spending more time with Izolda, it was only natural that they were both spending time with young Nikolai.

That, in itself, was not unduly worrying, but when the couple became cool with each other, arguing over trivial matters, Olga realized everything was not as it seemed. Izolda appeared to be confidant to both Katrinka and Nikolai, sympathizing without taking sides.

Something did not ring true for Olga. Using her magical sight, she studied the threesome and the lines of magic connecting them, Katrinka and Nikolai to Izolda, First a chill filled her, then it was burned away by anger.

Izolda was breaking the most basic rules of magic. Every minute she spent with the couple drove them further apart. At the same time, she was laying a compulsion on Nikolai. Olga couldn’t quite determine what the compulsion was for, but she could guess.

For some time now, she’d known Izolda wanted something beyond village life. Never would she have dreamed her daughter would go this far to get it though. To ruin a couple’s future, to compel a man’s affection – it was unthinkable!

With a heavy heart, Olga sent Izolda off to pick some fresh goosefoot. The fact that the girl made no protest at leaving her friends behind meant whatever she was doing was working to her satisfaction. As soon as the door shut behind her, Olga offered the sullen couple a cup of tea.

“I think you will find it to your liking,” Olga told them. “It is a special blend I make myself.”

They accepted politely, and when they finished, Olga brought up her own magic. This time she didn’t just look at the lines of magic, she carefully pictured them being severed. With a soft chant, she made it so.

Several minutes passed and then the couple seemed to come out of a trance.

“Forgive me,” Nikolai said. “I seem to have lost the thread of our conversation.”

“I believe you and Katrinka were just saying your farewells.”

Nikolai looked at Katrinka and smiled. “I believe we were. We have much to talk about.”

“Yes,” Katrinka agreed, smiling back. “And many plans to make before you leave. Will you give our apologies to Izolda?”

“Of course,” Olga said. “I’m sure she will understand.”

The couple left and Olga settled down to wait. It was well it was early in the day, there was no one to witness Izolda’s shame.

Izolda returned with her arms full of goosefoot. She looked around in surprise. “Where are Katrinka and Nikolai?”

“Beyond your reach, at least for now.”

Carefully setting down the goosefoot, Izolda tried to brazen it out. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I know what you have been doing. You seek to come between a betrothed couple and set them at odds. Are you really so desperate for a man you must steal another’s?”

Izolda’s face went white, then filled with rage. “It was an arranged marriage, they barely knew each other.”

“And you think that makes it all right?” Olga let her own anger show. “It no longer matters. I have broken your wicked spells, including the one that compels Nikolai to turn to you for affection.”

“No! What have you done? He leaves in two days, there is no time to reset the spell.”

“That’s right.” Olga nodded in satisfaction. “In two days he will be beyond your reach. You will spend those two days reflecting on your shame.”

Pure rage suffused Izolda’s face. “You’ve ruined everything!”

She chanted a guttural spell under her breath and pointed her hands in her mother’s direction. Olga’s eyes widened in shock. She clutched at her chest and fell to the floor. Izolda stared down at the woman who had given her life, and felt not an ounce of regret.

Sextilla Poetry Form

I’m back to both a syllable count and a rhyme scheme, but at least the stanza itself is short. There wasn’t as much information about this form as I would have liked, but there was more than the one line I had in my forms list. And in searching for more information, I stumbled across several more obscure forms to add to my list.

The Sextilla first appeared around the 14th century in Spain and Portugal. It’s a six-line stanza, with eight syllables per line. You can have as many or as few stanzas as you wish, but they should be in one of the two following rhyme schemes: aabccb or ababcc.

Schematic:

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxb

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxc

I gotta admit, I really like working in eight syllable lines. They just seem to have a nice flow to them. I used the first rhyme scheme for the first verse, and the second for the remaining two.


The Battle

My heart beats with a quiet drum,
the dark night of the soul has come.
An eon since, the curse was cast –
another age, another life,
another hand to wield the knife
to fight the evil spirits massed.

The battle is as old as time.
The gods decreed that it be so
when wickedness was on the climb;
benevolence no longer flowed.
The balance must be kept you see,
The task has fallen, now, to me.

I stand between the life and death
of mankind in his many realms,
and battle with my very breath
evil seeking to overwhelm.
The battle, it is glorious
and I remain victorious.

Writing Vivid Characters

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.
― William Faulkner

The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.
― Milan Kundera

The characters who go to make up my stories and novels are not portraits. Characters I invent along with the story that carries them. Attached to them are what I’ve borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, bit by bit, of persons I have seen or noticed or remembered in the flesh – a cast of countenance here, a manner of walking there, that jumps to the visualising mind when a story is under way. I don’t write by invasion into the life of a real person: my own sense of privacy is too strong for that; and I also know instinctively that living people to whom you are close – those known to you in ways too deep, too overflowing, ever to be plumbed outside love – do not yield to, could never fit into, the demands of a story. Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I suspect it is when you can write most entirely out of yourself, that a character becomes in its own right another human being on the page. ― Eudora Welty, On Writing

I have a confession to make. I did not attend every one of the masterclasses. But I did attend the one about creating character, presented by Shyam Selvadurai

First we were told that the sense of character can come across effectively using simile and metaphor. This was followed by an exercise in which we were asked to pick 4 or 5 people from our lives and describing how we feel about them using simile and metaphor.

My father was stern, as only a former drill sergeant cold be.
My mother gave new meaning to the phrase “work-a-holic.”
My aunt was like a butterfly with a mother complex, always flitting from one thing to another to make sure everyone was taken care of.
My granddaughter is an unceasing ray of sunshine.
My sister is like an ostrich, always sticking her head in the sand so she can’t see what’s going on, and when she does raise her head she has her rose-coloured glasses firmly in place.

A well-developed character has flaws and limitations. They need to grow and evolve and have a basis in human nature, even if they’re not human. They should be unique – slightly different from the world around them. Thought should be put into them and their flaws and foibles.

On the other hand, a flat character has only one distinctive trait and is incapable of varying from that characteristic. Flat characters can be just as important to your story as a well rounded one. They’re predictable, so there are no surprises with them. The town gossip can never be trusted with a secret. The old man across the street can be depended on to keep track whatever is going on the neighborhood.

There are many ways of showing character. Authorial Interpretation is where the author tells us the character’s background, motives, values, virtues, etc. It allows you to move in time and space; lets you have control over what the reader knows.

The Direct Method uses the five senses to shape character. We humans receive our primary impressions through sight, but the other senses are important too – the limp handshake, soft check, scent (perfume or cologne, garlic or onions on the breath). Sound associations could come from the character’s name – Debby Downer, Mary Sunshine.

The contradiction between appearance and reality can be a source of conflict and tension to define character. Think of Alice in Wonderland. A character’s physical features, their shape, sense of style, clothing, or relationship to people or objects can help define them.

A significant character must be capable of causing Action and being changed by it. What does the protagonist want to have happen at the end? What Thought process must he go through? Work back from that.

There is a gap between suppressed thought and expressed thought. A person can’t control their wants and desires, but they can control what they do about their behavior. Achievement of that which we desire would be easy if the internal thought process was not so faulty. Idealism is often a good character trait.

Dialogue adds to a reader’s knowledge of a situation. It moves the story forward and reveals something about the speaker’s personality. It can dramatize the relationship between characters.

In the Indirect Method, character may be presented through the opinions of other characters through speech, thoughts, and actions. The character giving the opinion is also characterized. When we are not privy to a character’s thoughts, the internal conflict must be expressed in a contradiction between appearance, speech, and action.

Exercise: We were shown a photo of a garbage truck that appeared to be stuck, with two youths, one wearing a mask, standing beside it and several police officers confronting them, and then told to write a scene showing character using appearance, action, thought, and speech. Show, don’t tell. Use significant details.

It was just supposed to be for fun, you know? A lark, a prank. But no, good ‘ole Mickey had to go all out, like he usually does, and next thing you know, the garbage truck got stuck. What a mess! And the smell! Whoo-wee the smell was bad. We’re talking dead bodies in a sewer bad. Not that there were actually dead bodies in the truck. Lordy, how much worse would it have been for us if there had been? Then old man Krantz called the cops on us. The cops! Man, I can’t believe that. Like I said, it was just supposed to be a joke. Mickey, he looks like a choir boy, even in his mask. That’s why I let him talk to the cops. We didn’t mean no harm. But man, it was fun while it lasted. My mom’s going to kill me!

The final piece of advice we were given was to consider what we want the reader to think about our character, and have their actions suit that character.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

So . . . in order to make any progress with my writing, I need to start working at my desk in my office. The only problem with that is that the kittens like to be wherever the people (meaning me) are, whether they’re sleeping or playing. And it’s not that I mind them playing or sleeping in my office, it’s just that they want to check out the view from the window – the window with the ledge I have my plants lined up on. So either I write at the dining room table, which gets uncomfortable after a while, or I relocate some of my plants.

Just recently, however, the kittens have given me a third option. I use a lap desk when I’m in the living room. A couple of days ago I was sitting cross-legged in my recliner with the lap desk across my lap, and Dinsdale discovered the space between the desk and the chair made a perfect, kitten-sized cave. And if I recline my chair, I can raise my knees slightly and they both fit in there. At least until they start wrestling and I boot them off.

This was another one of those weeks where I started out strong and then it went downhill fast. It didn’t help that the weather was cold and miserable – lots of wind and rain. The unrelenting grey gave me a headache several days in a row, and I was fighting off the flu bug that’s going around.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1,957+675+341+739=3,712
DOWN 85 words from last week
Total = 3,712

Goals For Next Week:
Do some words outside of blog posts

EDITING:
0 pages
Remember how I took my laptop to Staples in the summer? And before I did that, I put all my writing files on a flash drive? Well, when I went looking for the thumb drive that had all my most current writing files, I couldn’t find it.

I checked every flash drive I own, including the ones that aren’t supposed to have anything on them, and I could not find the stories from last year’s NaNo, nor could I find the only copy I had of Elemental Spirit. They were missing. Vanished. Gone. Thirty stories and one novel. Poof!

I felt sick. All that work . . . Since I often use the arm of the couch as a shelf when I’m in the living room, I checked in the couches – found a crochet hook, a really nice mechanical pencil, and a bookmark, but no flash drive.

Finally, I emptied the messenger bag I use for my writing stuff entirely and found one last flash drive hidden in a fold. I checked it, and sure enough, there were my files. I now have them on the flash drive, my desk top, and I even backed them up to Dropbox (which does not look the way I remember it). Whew! Crisis averted.

Goal For Next Week:
Finish editing the story I was sent and get it back to the author.

MARKETING:
Honestly, why do I even have this as a sub-heading? I guess hope springs eternal. Maybe I’ll get something submitted sometime, but it sure wasn’t last week.

Goal for Next Week:
Submit something. Anything!

TECH & TRAINING:
I did go so far as to open Dropbox to check for the NaNo stories and it looks a lot different from the last time I saw it. And while it had some backups, my stories were not among them. Then I opened it again when I found my story so I could back it up.

Prior to that I was thinking that it was finally time to break out the ReMarkable and figure out how to use it. I could use it to edit flash stories in the evenings – it would be easier to manage than the laptop with the kittens around.

Goal For Next Week:
Check out the features of Dropbox. Figure out my ReMarkable.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I actually got the research done for a couple of different forms, and picked one at random to use for my form of the week. And yes, it was easier, with only a syllable count to worry about.

With NaNo fast approaching I’d like to get a couple of posts done ahead of time. Even if I can get the research done and distilled into the posts it would help. Then all I’d have to worry about are the examples.

Once again, I did not even give the anthology a passing thought. And I’m thinking I’ll have to put it on hold until after NaNo. There just isn’t going to be time.

Goal For Next Week:
Share a new poetry form.

CRAFTING:
Crafting? I knew I was forgetting something. Actually, I did think about it, but the truth of the matter is I was afraid to do my needlework with the kittens around. I’m sure they would love to “help” with the colourful threads. And I’m not even going to think about doing and crocheting or (God forbid) knitting when they’re so active.

But Christmas is coming, and if I’m careful I should be able to do some crafts at the dining room table. Maybe.

Goal For Next Week:
Crochet bookworms. Figure out dragon pillow for granddaughter.

WHAT I’M READING:
Finished reading The Guest List, by Fern Michaels, and then went on to read It Happened One Summer and Hook, Line, and Sinker by Tessa Bailey. Now I’m between books again. I’ve got lots of them, I just need to pick one. Or maybe even figure out how to organize my Kindle books in their “cloud” so I can start using it again.

Did not start my Goodreads list, but I did find some scraps of paper I’d jotted down books I’ve read on.

Goal For Next Week:
Spend a little time each day reading. At least start my list of books so I can update my Goodreads account!

GOAL REVIEW:

Despite my week kind of falling apart at the end, it wasn’t too bad. My blog posts were all up on time, and most of them were done early. I did not, however, get any extra posts done. The kittens are not as glued to me as they were in the beginning, and they’ve been testing out other places to sleep. Plus, I’m getting better at relocating them if they’re in the way.

I almost gave myself a heart attack when I couldn’t find the flash drive my NaNo stories were saved to. Thirty stories is a lot of stories, and I have no idea what prompts I used so there was no chance of re-creating them. But my editing is getting a boost this week from a story I received in my email, so I should have a better week in that regard.

The marketing and tech & training . . . *sigh* I keep thinking about removing them altogether, but there’s always the chance I’ll have something to show for them. As for the crafts? The closest I came to a craft was repairing a stuffed octopus for the granddaughter.

But still when all is said and done, I can’t say it was a bad week. It wasn’t a great one either, but at least it wasn’t a bad one.

Let’s see if I can make this week a better one.

Happy writing.

The Pond Part 12

Just because Izolda was spending more time trying to fit in with the other girls of the village, did not mean she was neglecting her studies in the cave. She still studied when she could, but it was getting harder to get away, and she was missed if she stayed away too long.

She was sixteen now, and though several of the young men of her village had taken an interest in her, she became adept at discouraging such attention lest her father get ideas about marrying her off before she was ready. The last thing she wanted was to remain in the village the rest of her days.

If she had cared to, she could have easily been the leader of the small group of village girls, but she did not want that kind of responsibility. A leader’s movements were kept track of, her absences noted. Explanations of her movements would be needed. Just being part of the group was exhausting.

Perhaps it would have made a difference if any of them had been the least bit interested in magic. Though she was very careful to keep her true power hidden, it would have been nice to have someone with similar interests. But these girls had little interest in magic, and most of them had very little in the way of power.

“I do not understand, mother,” Izolda confessed one evening. “Why is it that magic runs so strong in our family, but not in others?”

“Magic is a thing that must be nurtured, used, to make it grow. The women in our family have done so for years.” Olga shrugged. “It is not always so with other families.”

“At one time, marriages were arranged to encourage strong magic in the offspring,” her grandmother put in. “You would be wise to seek such a husband. Think of the sons you would have!”

Izolda ducked her head, hoping the red in her face would be mistaken for maidenly embarrassment rather than the rage it was. Why would she want to bear sons who could wield magic when she could not?

“Magic is status,” her aunt Anya added. “It is the reason your father is leader of this village, and well respected by others.”

"You could do worse than marrying for status," her said.

The following day, Izolda joined her friends, still mulling over what her grandmother had said.

“What is wrong, Katrinka?” she asked. Katrinka was normally the most cheerful of the group.

“Nothing is wrong,” Katrinka said. “Not really. My betrothed has told me he is emigrating with his brothers. Our marriage will be delayed until he is settled and sends for me.”

“I did not realize you were betrothed,” Izolda said in surprise.

Katrinka nodded. “Since we were small children. His mother and mine were friends and wished to bind our families.”

“And you had no say in this?”

With a shrug, Katrinka said. “He is pleasant to look at and comes from a good family. I could do worse.”

“Where are they emigrating to?” Marta wanted to know.

“America.”

There were gasps from several of the girls.

“America is so far away!” Svetlana exclaimed. “Won’t you miss your family?”

“Perhaps. But it is a chance to forge a new life in a new land. But it might take a year, maybe two, before he’s ready to send for me.”

The girls fell to discussing both moving so far away and having to wait so long to be married. Having never been far from the village, most couldn’t fathom going so far, even for the prospect of a good marriage.

“What’s he like?” Marta asked.

Katrinka smiled. “You will be able to see for yourself. He’s coming to walk me home later.”

There was excited chatter for the rest of the afternoon. At first Izolda had trouble picturing moving to America. She’d heard many stories about the wilderness and the savages. Two of her brothers had shown an interest in emigrating until Andrei put his foot down with a resounding no.

When Katrinka’s betrothed arrived to fetch her, she introduced him to everyone. When Izolda looked up at him, she saw her future. And it’s name was Nikolai Antonovich.

Kouta Poetry Form

I have a list I made a few years ago of several poetry forms I was saving for a later date. It wasn’t that they were extra hard or complicated, it’s just I didn’t have a whole lot of information about them, just the name and a single line of description at best.

Much to my surprise, and pleasure, when I researched some of these forms on the weekend, there was all kinds of information about many of them. In some cases, a little too much information. ;-)

The Kouta is one of those wonderfully short Japanese verses. It was popular in the 14th to 16th centuries, and was originally meant to be sung. Though it was also tied to geishas and love songs, it does not need to be romantic in nature.

A very humble form, the Kouta is traditionally about relatable, everyday topics. It usually celebrates the everyday life of the average person and is meant to appeal to a wide audience.

Like most Japanese poetry, this four-line verse is made of lines with either 5 or 7 syllables. There are two main variants – 7/5/7/5 or 7/7/7/5. Rarely you’ll find one with an extra line, with a syllable count of 5/5/7/7/5.

You can have multiple verses, but each Kouta should also be able to stand on its own. However, it’s permissible to use a common theme throughout. My example uses a common theme, but each Kouta is a different format.


The image in the mirror
comes as a surprise.
A stranger is reflected,
surely it’s not me.


Another birthday over,
the candle's puddles of wax
cooling on leftover cake –
the party’s over.


Age – just a number,
the years accruing
like coins in a piggy bank.
It’s too bad they can’t be saved
for a rainy day.