The Grayette Verse Form

Okay, I’m going to be honest here. I originally picked this form because it’s only 12 lines, and many of those lines looked really short. However, the joke’s on me. It’s got one of those up and down syllable counts, and some of those lines rhyme. *sigh*

The Grayette was invented by an American named James Gray, not to be confused with the James Gray from Scotland who was a friend of Robert Burns. There’s not much to be said about this form, other than the syllable count is: 2-4-8-8-4-2-2-4-8-8-4-2. Lines 1, 5, 7, and 11 do not rhyme. The remaining lines are rhymed thusly: 2-a, 3-b, 4-a, 6-b, 8-c, 9-d, 10-c, 12-d.

Here’s the schematic (lines ending in x are the non-rhyming lines):

x x
x x x a
x x x x x x x b
x x x x x x x a
x x x x
x b
x x
x x x c
x x x x x x x d
x x x x x x x c
x x x x
x d

I’m thinking that if you wanted to get all fancy, you could center this and turn it into a shape poem. But I’m not going to do this here. ;-)


After The Fall

After
the fall from grace
everything changed for mankind;
no longer did we know our place –
we were as lost
and blind
grieving
for what had been,
regretting the choice that was made,
creating original sin,
and leaving us
afraid.

On Different Note . . .

Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.
— Henry Ward Beecher

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.
— Plato

Words make you think. Music makes you feel. A song makes you feel a thought.
— Yip Harburg

Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.
― Robert G. Ingersoll

Do you write to a play list, or do you prefer the silence?

I’ve read several books where the author has included a play list of the music they wrote their book to. Even my favorite author, Charles de Lint, has acknowledged the music his novels have been written under the influence of.

The last few years, especially since the pandemic started, I find I often prefer the silence. Not just when I’m writing, but in my daily life. And I’m not quite sure how it happened.

Maybe it’s because the world has become such a busy, noisy place. After I’ve had to deal with it I crave the silence for a time. And after I’ve had to deal with a lot of people, I find the silence is very soothing.

That being said, I like to listen to music in the car. Usually it’s just the radio set to a classic rock station, but sometimes I’ll remember to bring a CD or two with me. The hubby made me a driving CD one time – a mixed CD of songs about driving with songs like “Highway to Hell”, “I Don’t Drive 55”, that sort of thing. :-)

But back to the writing. Like I said, the last few years I’ve mostly been writing in silence, but it wasn’t always that way. I have a large CD collection and used to have a kickass little stereo in my office. The radio was crap, but the speakers for playing CDs were great.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, especially electronics, and the stereo died. It was replaced with a boom box that does not boast great speakers, so the sound for the CDs isn’t all that great but they work really well for the radio, which also works great.

The problem is when I’m writing I prefer my music to be instrumental music. If it’s got lyrics then I find it too distracting – I’ll spend more time listening to the lyrics or singing along than I do writing.

So . . . what kind of music do I listen to when writing, if any? For my Moonstone Chronicles I listened to a lot of Celtic music. It’s lively and put me in mind of Ireland (or what I imagine Ireland to be like, seeing as I’ve never been) which was the inspiration for the magical realm. And the lyrics are in Gaelic, as a rule, so they’re not distracting.

Two Steps From Hell is great to listen to while writing. Some of it is really inspiring for fight scenes, and some of it is just plain inspiring. I listen to a fair amount of Audiomachine too, and soundtracks are always a good bet.

The rest of my music collection is pretty eclectic. The hubby is a diehard classic rock aficionado, and when the daughter was a teenager she used to find some of the weirdest music (she still does) ever. They can both be a bit snobbish when it comes to music, but think I’m more open minded.

For me, music is like art. I either like the painting, or I don’t. I don’t care how famous the person is who painted it. With music it’s either pleasing to the ear, or it isn’t. But I’ll at least give it a try before I pass judgement.

So, while you won’t ever see me doing a playlist of popular music to write to, I’m not opposed to writing to instrumental music. Sometimes, the silence can be a little too quiet.

Maybe that’s what my writing needs – a return to music.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

The best thing I can say about this past week is that all of my posts were up on time, and I didn’t have to stay up late to do them. In fact, a couple of the posts were started a couple of days in advance.

I updated my writing journal finally, and while I was at it included a few lines for potential poems. They may not have been story idea, but I’ll take them anyway.

I might have accomplished more writing, but I got hit by a series of cluster headaches. You can’t really ignore them and there’s really not much you can do about them, just put up with them. But it does make it a little hard to focus sometimes.

NEW WORDS:
1609+638+558+540=3,345
UP – 45 words from last week

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
0 pages
I’m still trying to work up some enthusiasm for Elemental Spirit. I’m actually thinking about skipping the beginning (that needs a total rewrite) and ignoring the historical records that are supposed to head each chapter, and just go straight to editing the rest of it. There’s no law that says I have to do it in the proper order, and I’m thinking once I have the body of it done, that’ll give me the incentive to do the rest of it.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

MARKETING:
Yeah, nothing new here.

Goal For Next Week:
Set up author page on Amazon; update book page on blog.

TECH & TRAINING:
Nope, I got nothing but thoughts about doing something.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn to use Dropbox properly so I can backup my files.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I got the informational part of my form done early, which was a good thing because the poem was a long one. I actually enjoyed the Trenta-Sei verse form, despite its length. I think I’d like to work on my example poem a bit more though – it ends a little abruptly and I’m not altogether happy with that.

It’s getting harder to find new forms to share, but if push comes to shove, I can fall back on the coded Welsh forms – there’s twenty-four of them but they’re all really hard.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share.

CRAFTING:
Well. The two bins I’d picked up for my fabric were just a little bit bigger than would fit comfortably into the closet of my new craft room, so I ended up having to buy some new ones. Three of them as a matter of fact. I divided the fabric from the giant bin in my old craft closet into them (and yes, it did take all three) and they fit nicely in their allotted space.

I used the old, opaque bin to hold donations for the thrift store and took a load up on Thursday. There is still a bin in the old craft closet that needs to be dealt with – it’s holding various knitting and crocheting projects I have on the go. I don’t have enough room in the new craft room for the bin, but I’m thinking I could use a couple of under-the-bed storage bins for them. Maybe one for knitting projects and one for crocheting. I just have to buy them first. :-)

Didn’t work on the afghan, but then that’s a project I usually do in front of the TV, and I didn’t watch much TV that was good for crafting to last week.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on the afghan. Finish craft migration.

WHAT I’M READING:
Read Midnight Bayou, and Public Secrets by Nora Roberts.

Still reading The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai, who ran the “Writing Vivid Characters” workshop at the fall Writersfest. It’s good, but it’s not a book I want to rush.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up my good reading habits.

GOAL REVIEW:

As I said above, I got all my posts done on time, and I didn’t even have to stay up late to do them. And I had half of my poetry post done on Monday, which was really handy when I ended up spending my allotted poetry time at a three-hour lunch on Tuesday.

No editing and no marketing, but lots of thinking about both. Now, if I can just move from the thinking stage to the doing stage I’d be cooking with gas.

I really do want to learn the ins and outs of Dropbox this week so I can back my stuff up to it. I’m getting paranoid with this computer – just this week it emptied my recycle bin without being asked to. Who knows what else it’ll do on its own?

This may not seem like a big deal, but I had a lot of stuff in my recycle bin (I have lots of space on my computer). Occasionally I’ll be looking for something from a while back and a couple of times I’d find what I was looking for in my recycle bin. It’s like getting rid of stuff out of your closet and then realizing you had a use for it after all.

I actually did my poetry post early, and I confess, while I didn’t stay up late Tuesday night, I only had three quarters of my poem done when I went to bed but managed to finish it before breakfast on Wednesday.

No work done on the afghan, but I am a step closer to finishing the craft migration. Two more bins and a work table and I should be able to call it done.

My reading is still being reasonable. Still not able to let go of Nora, but I’m not reading to the exclusion of all else, so that’s a step in the right direction.

I did not get back to my lists. Actually, I kind of forgot about them. But I looked at my day planner and didn’t like all the white space I was seeing – I’ve been using it to jot point form notes about my day for updating my journal. So I’ve been making an effort to do more with my days. If not writing, then at least something else.

So while I’ve been thinking a lot about writing, and some of the things I could be writing, the cluster headaches have been an impediment to that. If I can just get rid of them while I’m still feeling ambitious, I’ll be cooking with gas.

The Pond - Part 25

Time passed and things quieted down again. The heat of summer drove more people to the pond to cool off, but that same heat was causing the pond to shrink in size as the water evaporated faster than it could be replenished.

Izolda did not trust the quiet. Still, the miasma of corruption overshadowing the pond lessened, and the weight of the knowledge something was not right eased.

But the pond was not the only body of water affected by the drought. The water level in the river began to go down as well, until it was at the point where it hampered the working of the sawmill. Nikolai, however, was resourceful. The sawmill was not the only way to split wood.

He and his brother went to the city and returned with wedges to be used to split the logs into timber as they’d done in the old country. While split timber was much stronger than sawn timber, it also tended to be warped or crooked because it followed the grain of the wood instead of cutting across it. So they also brought back the large, two-handed saws to be used in pit-sawing.

The work was harder and the days longer, but no one complained and no one starved as they did in other communities. But then one day a body was discovered in one of the trenches that had been dug for the pit sawing. It was Sasha, Nikolai’s oldest brother. It was believed that he fell into the pit and hit his head on a rock, but no one could explain why there was water in his lungs.

A month later, when the community had barely recovered from Sasha's loss, the body of Nikolai’s foreman was found floating face down in what was left of the river. Obviously, he had tripped and fallen into the water as he was trying to cross. But no one had any idea why he’d felt the need to cross, and why he’d drowned when he was a strong swimmer and the water was not deep. Clearly, he must have hit his head, although there was no mark to show it.

Finally, the rains came and life returned to normal. The pits were filled in and the two-handed saws put away. The pond also returned to it’s normal size, but with the cooler weather few ventured near it.

The seasons changed and a layer of ice covered the pond. An ice skating party was planned as part of the Christmas celebrations. The day was crisp and cold. Laughter rang out over the pond as couples glided over the smooth surface while children darted in and out among them.

Suddenly there was an ominous cracking noise, and the ice in the center of the pond gave way. Screams replaced the laughter. Sixteen people ended up in the frigid water, but only three didn't make it out alive. The boy, Ned, who had narrowly escaped drowning the summer before, and though he’d vowed never to swim in the pond again he’d been talking into skating, and the two friends who’d saved him.

Trenta-Sei Verse Form

This rather interesting form was created by John Anthony Ciardi (1916-1986), an American poet, translator, and etymologist.

This thirty-six line poem (trenta-sei is Italian for the number 36) is divided into six, six-line verses, or sestets. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-c-c and there does not appear to be a specific syllable count, but I would think you should keep it consistent between verses.

Now, here comes the interesting part. Each line in the first verse becomes the first line in its corresponding verse. So line one in verse one stays the same, but line two in verse one becomes line one in verse two. Line three in verse one becomes line one in verse three. And so on, and so on. It’s kind of like a cross between a sestina and a cascade poem.

Because of the lack of a set syllable count, there’s not really a schematic to show, but I can show you how the repetition works:

Verse 1
Line 1 rhyme a
Line 2 rhyme b
Line 3 rhyme a
Line 4 rhyme b
Line 5 rhyme c
Line 6 rhyme c

Verse 2
starts with line 2 from first verse
Verse 3
starts with line 3 from first verse
Verse 4
starts with line 4 from first verse
Verse 5
starts with line 5 from first verse
Verse 6
starts with line 6 from first verse

The challenge with this form is to have a strong enough first verse to carry through the remaining poem. My lines are octosyllabic, meaning they have eight syllables each. This wasn’t a conscious decision, that’s just the way they worked out.


Time

Time after time, and time again . . .
often, I’ve found time is twisting,
it makes time tricky to maintain
time will be always persisting –
time is bending, time will scurry
time is slowing, time will hurry.

Often, I’ve found time is twisting,
past and present perform a dance –
sometimes you’ll find time resisting
it slows right down, and then advance.
Time turns, it spirals, then flows straight
but time does not accumulate.

It makes time tricky to maintain –
you cannot grasp it in your hand
it’s nothing that you can sustain
and yet we bow to time’s demand.
We worship time and yet we still
cannot contort time to our will.

Time will always be persisting –
it cannot be halted in its tracks,
there really is no sense resisting
for time will always wan and wax.
Sometimes it flows, much like a tide
and sometimes it races, magnified.

Time is bending, time will scurry,
time will follow its very own path –
passing time will make things blurry,
regret will fill time’s aftermath.
Time will not ever wait for you
But wasted time will oft accrue.

Time is slowing, time will hurry
whenever we don’t want it to.
Look at time with passing fury,
it doesn’t care; we’ve paid its due.
Time’s something we cannot outrun –
and suddenly our time is done.

Procrastination

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.
– Steven Pressfield

Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.
— Adam Hochschild

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
― Pablo Picasso

Overcoming procrastination is not, I repeat, not about cramming additional work into your day … overcoming procrastination is about simplifying your life to make space for the activities that matter most.
– Richie Norton

Procrastination is defined as the voluntary and unnecessary postponement of important action. It may surprise you to learn that there are many valid reasons for procrastinating, including low self-esteem, lack of interest, feeling overwhelmed, and fear of failure. Distractions like phones and other digital devices are also common perpetrators of procrastination.

But even without distractions, procrastination is detrimental to productivity. The worst part about procrastination is the stress and anxiety it leads to. Especially when you procrastinate over something that has a time limit. It creates worry that whatever it is won’t get done on time, which can cause tension, headaches, and stomach pain.

Another downside to procrastination is that when you wait until the last second to do something, whatever it is will get a rush job. There just isn’t enough time to do it right, so you do a rush job that isn’t quite your best effort.

Unfortunately, procrastination is simply more enjoyable that getting the work done. While we may feel more relaxed while procrastinating, we just cannot work productively this way. What we’re doing is building up a bad, unproductive habit. Continually giving in to the urge to procrastinate makes it harder and harder for us to be highly productive again.

So what can we do to break the procrastination habit?

I’m sure you’ve heard this advice before, but one of the things that helps is to have a milestone, or small target to achieve. Smaller goals can motivate you more that a larger goal, so if you’re facing a large goal, break it down into smaller chunks.

Find a "work and break" rhythm. Set a specific amount of time to work, followed by a specific amount of time for a break. You might need some trial and error to find the rhythm that works for you, but doing so can build your productivity.

Make yourself a schedule to guide you so you know what you should be doing during a specific time in your day. Break your day into time frames to accomplish specific tasks so you know what you should be focusing on, and when.

Use the reward system. Instead of beating yourself up for what you didn’t get done, reward yourself for what you did accomplish. Having a reward to look forward to can help motivate you. On the other hand, if you’ve been unproductive, you can also punish yourself.

There’s also a case to be had for procrastination to be a good thing. When you’ve got a lot of tasks to be done, it can be good to put off some of them to be done later so you can spend more time on the most important one. Sometimes putting off a task gives you more time to think about it and strategize. The increased pressure might create an impetus and create the motivation needed to start working.

Procrastinating can give you more time to think about the task. It gives you the time to seek out other opinions on what you’re doing. It can enhance your creativity – it gives you a breather so you can step back from whatever you’ve been struggling with.

But good or bad, procrastination is one of life’s challenges that we all must face at some time or other.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

The Kingston Writersfest is having what they call a Winter Writer’s Retreat. It’s in March, which I think of as spring, not winter, but who cares, it’s another chance to get away to do writerly things. I first heard about it just after Christmas and I’ve been checking their site once a week for details ever since.

Finally, the information on the masterclasses went up this week. Yes! And there are some really interesting workshops being offered. There are a couple focusing on poetry, one on writing dialogue, one on writing rom-coms, just to name a few. So I whipped out my credit card and paid for my four-day pass.

Ironically, the retreat is being held at the hotel I ended up staying at for the fall Writersfest. This time I wasn’t taking any chances and I booked my room right away so that I didn’t miss out on the festival discount. All total, the whole thing cost a little less than just my hotel bill for the fall Writersfest.

Now I can’t wait for March!

NEW WORDS:
1444+814+329+713=3,300
UP – 207 words from last week

Goals For Next Week:
Get all of my blog post up on time.

EDITING:
0 pages
I cannot tell a lie. I didn’t even so much as crack the file open on Elemental Spirit. Or any other file that needs editing.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

MARKETING:
Yeah, nothing new here.

Goal For Next Week:
Set up author page on Amazon; update book page on blog

TECH & TRAINING:
Nothing new here, unless you count fixing the wifi – again! I left the hubby in charge of the granddaughter (who had a P.A. day) and the kittens while I did a couple of errands, and when I came home again there was no internet connection. Even the phone was out. But I retained just enough knowledge from when I used to work tech support to get us back on line again.

Goal For Next Week:
Find external DVD drive so I can use it to install the printer software.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I did get a new form and example done last week, but I’m not altogether happy with the poem I wrote as an example. The final verse in particular needs work.

Ironically, I chose that particular form because I thought it would be easy to write the poem for an example because of the repetition. It was not. If anything, it made it a little harder because of the second repetition at the beginning of the last line of each verse.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share.

CRAFTING:
I fully intended to finish up the craft migration this weekend, but see the above post about procrastination and distraction. With one thing and another, it just didn’t happen.

No work on the afghan, but I did get some sewing done. This was one of those jobs I’ve been putting off for a while – hemming for the father-in-law. Some time before Christmas he sent over four pairs of pajama pants that needed hemming, and then a pair of dress pants he’d been given for Christmas. At least that monkey’s off my back now.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on the afghan – the person it’s for has a birthday coming up. Finish craft migration.

WHAT I’M READING:
Read Carnal Innocence by Nora Roberts. Then took a bit of a break for most of the week in an attempt to make myself do something besides read. Instead, I played more mindless games.

So then I started reading The Hungry Ghosts by Shyam Selvadurai, who ran the “Writing Vivid Characters” workshop at the fall Writersfest.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up my good writing habits.

GOAL REVIEW:

I almost skipped the Monday post on my other blog because once again there wasn’t much interesting going on. But then I figured even miscellaneous type post would be better than nothing, and then I hit on the idea to share my misadventure making Guinness stew. So a failed experiment saved my bacon (so to speak).

Once again, I did no editing, no marketing. But I still say fixing the wifi counts as something techy. :-)

I did manage to do a new poetry form, even if I’m not completely happy with the poem I created for my example.

While I didn’t get any work done on the afghan, I am a step closer to finishing the craft migration, and I got the bag of hemming finished for the father-in-law. Big “Whew!” on that.

My reading slowed down last week, and I actually picked up something other than Nora Roberts, which is good because I have a whole stack of books in my to-be-read bookcase that were not written by her (and four books that were). And yes, I don’t have a to-be-read stack of books, I have a whole bookcase full. ;-)

I didn’t get back to my lists. Well, I made one list, but it kind of got buried under a pile of stuff and I forgot all about it. This week I’d like to make a new list and actually cross a few things off of it.

Mentally I’m in a better headspace than I’ve been lately, so let’s hope this translates into a more productive week.

The Pond - Part 24

Twice Izolda visited the pond in secret, but no matter what spells she used, she could not undercover the source of the disturbance. There was something there, something unnatural, but the what of it eluded her.

“I know you’re here,” she shouted in frustration. “Show yourself!”

Her only answer was the wind, a wind that could almost be mistaken for a woman’s laughter.

Things quieted down for a time. If there were any more sightings of bodies or strange beings, no one was reporting it. Summer slid into autumn and then the winter passed. Izolda was delivered of another child, this time a daughter whom they named Pavlina.

Any joy Izolda felt for her children was overshadowed by the knowledge that there was something not right in her world. The mysterious entity that attached itself to the pond was only part of it.

For one thing, none of her children showed even the smallest sign that they’d inherited any of her magic. It sometimes happened in families that one, maybe even two children were born null, but for all three? She’d never heard of that before. Was it because Nikolai himself had no magic?

And her own magic appeared to be . . . waning. Casting her mind back she realized that ever since she’d set foot on this land there had been an almost infinitesimal drain on her power. She scoured her books for a possible source of the drainage, and more importantly, for a way to block it from happening still.

Blocking it proved to be easier than discovering the source of the drainage. She infused a blood red ruby with a powerful spell of protection, and wore it suspended from a leather cord around her neck. But there was no way of regaining the power she had lost, and this was of great concern to her. It was possible to renew her power naturally, but without the aid of the magic in the land itself, it would take much time.

She thought back to when Varnya had first arrived in the cave near her village. Could there be another witch trying to encroach on her territory? But no, the energy did not feel the same. The source was magical though, of that she was sure. But there was no way of sharing this knowledge without exposing her for what she was.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

During the deepest heat of the summer, a party youths were cooling off in the pond when one of them began to shriek.

“Help! She’s got me!”

His head disappeared under the water. The water churned as he flailed his way to the surface again.

“Help me!”

After a stunned moment of inaction, two of his friends splashed their way over to him. They grasped his arms and pulled. It was obvious something held his legs, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a match for two young men filled with adrenaline. They pulled him free and made their way back to the shore where the others waited.

“What happened?” one of the girls asked.

“There’s something in there,” he said, gasping for air. “Some thing. I could feel its hands on my ankles, pulling me under.”

The others looked at each other, then at their friend, who lay on his back on the bank, still trying to catch his breath.

“You don’t believe me,” he said flatly.

“I’m sure your feet were trapped by something,” the oldest of the boys said carefully. “But could you not have just dived down a little too deeply and got your feet trapped in some roots. There are all manner of things beneath the water.”

“No! I—” He broke off and looked at the sympathetic faces around him. “I guess that must be what happened. I just panicked when I couldn’t get free.”

He said this, but he didn’t believe it for a minute. He saw the ghostly face just under the water, he felt her hands wrapped around his ankles. There was something evil in that pond. Even if no one believed him, he knew it to be the truth. He never set foot near the pond again.

Orvillette Verse Form

The Orvillette is an invented verse form created by Virginia Noble. It’s written in four quatrains (four line verses), making it a poem of sixteen lines. The rhyme scheme is abab, acac, adad, aeae.

Written in iambic tetrameter, meaning eight syllable lines, it also has a rentrament, which is the repetition of part of one line as a line elsewhere in the poem. In this case, the first line of the first verse repeats as the first line in the rest of the verses. Just to make it more interesting, the first three syllables of the last line of the first verse are repeated at the beginning of the last line in the other three verses.

Maybe it would be a little easier with a schematic (I used z to stand for the repeated syllables):

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxa
zzzxxxxb

repeat of line 1
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxa
zzzxxxxc

repeat of line 1
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxa
zzzxxxxd

repeat of line 1
xxxxxxxe
xxxxxxxa
zzzxxxxe

Or maybe not. :-D But hopefully you can follow along with my example.


First Line

The first line is the hardest one
when I’m writing a brand new verse,
often the words are left undone
I struggle and make it all worse

The first line is the hardest one
no matter how often I try
to change a word or make a pun –
I struggle, the words go awry.

The first line is the hardest one
whether I write verse or write prose.
Oft it ends before its begun –
I struggle, but just can’t compose.

The first line is the hardest one
when you’re writing to save your life.
Once written words can’t be undone –
I struggle, words cut like a knife.