NaPoWriMo Day 3 & 4

http://www.napowrimo.net/

 The prompt for Day 3 of this ‘write a poem a day’ challenge was: a poem in the form of a fan letter.

I could think of lots of people I’d like to write such a letter to, mostly writers and artists who have inspired me, but I just couldn’t find the right way to start. By the end of the day, this was all I had produced.

Blank!

I need a poetry idea,

A flash of inspiration,

A clever thought, some pretty words

To boost my reputation.

My mind is blank, there’s nothing there

The muse has gone away.

Long hours tick by, the minutes too,

I’ll try another day.

***

Today, Day 4, was completely different. Prompt: the cruellest month.

My subconscious threw this up amazingly quickly.

The Cruelty of March

A perfect March day,

a day you’ll recall years from now

and assume you are seeing those clichés of spring

 - courting birds, blue sky, skipping lambs -

through lemon-tinted lenses

that make the greens joyous.

Good journey for once,

no hold-ups, wrong turnings or

crawling behind tractors for mile after mile.

Clear roads, windows down, music on

and, at your destination,

a vacant parking spot.

Lovely room, you think,

easy to forget where you are,

a pleasant hotel bedroom or private house perhaps.

Light and airy, pastel colours, a shelf

for all her cards and flowers,

a comfy-looking bed.

You smile, so does she,

and give your gifts with more smiles

hoping they’ll say so much more than your words.

Family news, a strained joke, idle chat

until the interruption of tea

gives blessed relief.

Beautiful view, you say,

as you stand and cross to the window.

The gardens are a picture today, have you seen?

Daffodils, primroses, buds on the trees,

and can you hear that blackbird

singing his heart out?

You hope for a moment,

she’ll ask you to take her outside or at least

make the effort to sit up and enjoy this first day of spring.

She lies quiet, still, eyes half-closed,

and you want to bite your cruel tongue

for talking of new life.  

   

I’m sure it can be improved, and I’ll keep it in my ‘to be edited’ file, but I’m quite pleased with this first draft.

NaPoWriMo Day 2

(I did write this on April 2 - honest! - but didn’t have time to post it here.)

Prompt: a family portrait

The only photo I have of my great-grandmother shows a very stern-looking woman …

Old photograph

Sitting so stiff and straight,

the great-grandma I never met

stares at the camera

down the years

towards me.

And these are her children,

only names on the family tree

except this young girl

who became

dear, old Nan.

I recognise her face,

but not the prim and proper pose

or solemn gaze so

unlike the

one I knew.

‘Ah, the old days,’ she said,

and laughed at the memories she shared.

‘Yes, times were hard, and yet,

we did have

such larks!’

I see a new picture.

Photographer nods, mother smiles,

children blink and stretch.

They did it.

They kept still

for a whole minute!

It needs tidying up, but I'm quite pleased with it. 

NaPoWriMo Day 1

I had no idea what to write for the first day of the NaPoWriMo challenge. Luckily, they post an optional prompt for each day on their website so I had a look at that. Today’s prompt was to write a LUNE.

It’s a three line poem with

                              five syllables in the first line

                              three in the second

                              and five in the last line

or you can use five, three and five whole words instead of syllables.

I tried the word version first:

                             Write a lune they said

                             so I did 

                             but is it a poem?

(My answer was ‘No!’)

After much pondering and editing I came up with this one counting the syllables:

                             In soft lunar light

                             courting loons

                             sing sweet lunes of love.

And then I tried both forms using the same idea:

          (words)   April the artist splashes pink

                                and white blossom

                                all over her brightest greens.

      (syllables)   April paints pink and

                                white blossom

                                on her brightest green.

Not happy with any of them, but it’s a start!

 

Strange times

A conversation I had yesterday:

‘Must remember to alter the clocks tonight.’

‘Ah yes, forwards or backwards?’

‘Forward one hour.’

‘So if I go to bed at eleven, I’ll have to change my bedside clock to twelve.’

‘You don’t have to. It doesn't officially change until two in the morning. But if you don’t, and forget to do it when you wake up, you’ll be an hour behind everyone else tomorrow.’

‘So that means I’ll lose an hour of sleep tonight.’

‘Unless you go to bed at ten.’

‘Good idea. If I go to bed at ten, change the clock to eleven, set the alarm for eight, when it rings it will really only be seven o’ clock. That means I’ll gain an extra hour.’

‘That can’t be right.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because, um, …’

We’ve been changing the clocks twice a year for as long as I can remember, so why does it still seem so complicated?!

Happy Easter

 whatever time it is where you are.

The real life benefits of made-up stories

It seems to me that there are two sorts of people: those who ‘get’ fiction, and those who don’t. While some of us see nothing strange in becoming totally involved with a fictional character who only lives in a novel, play or film, there are others who look on with puzzled frowns.

‘But it’s not real,’ they say. ‘There’s no such place, no such person. Why waste your time on something that’s pure make-believe?’

Here’s one of my reasons …

I was dreading going to the dentist. Over the years, I’ve had enough traumatic experiences connected with my teeth and dentists to fill a non-fiction book, one of those depressing misery memoirs. But, once again, I had a dental problem and knew I'd have to be brave if I wanted to solve it. Delaying a visit would only make matters worse.

My appointment wasn’t until the afternoon so, instead of worrying about it all morning, I tried to distract myself by working on my latest short story. I managed to write a few paragraphs, but the words weren’t flowing and I soon ground to a halt. I knew what had to happen next in the story but I couldn’t find the right way to explain it. After several attempts, I gave up.

In the dentist’s chair, I relaxed physically as much as I could while trying to convince myself that the ordeal would soon be over. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and – there it was! The next sentence in my story. It was perfect. It moved the story on quickly and clearly, exactly as I’d wanted. I ‘wrote’ the next sentence, and the next, repeating them over and over to myself so I wouldn’t forget them. (Yes, I did have a notebook in my bag but I didn’t think the dentist would appreciate me stopping his work so I could get on with mine.)

I can’t truthfully say I was oblivious to what was happening in my mouth, but having something more important to concentrate on certainly lessened the anxiety. I was almost sorry when the treatment was over. Another two minutes and I’d have been writing THE END.

As soon as I was back in the real world of course, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough!

Do you have any practical uses for fiction?

 

If the name fits

Most of my fictional characters are born with their names firmly attached. As soon as I have a sense of their personality, and a rough idea of age, appearance and occupation, I don’t usually have to think too hard to find a suitable name.

But, every now and then, I try out a whole list of names and end up rejecting them all. This has just happened in a new story that I’m hoping will be included in the collection I’m writing for Alfie Dog Fiction.

The character in question is a criminal who uses a false name, but his own name is revealed at the end of the story. The false name was easy enough to choose, but I couldn’t decide on his real name.

Hm, let me think. He’s up to no good, but he’s also clever and rather charming ...

Ah, yes, that reminds me of another lovable rogue.

I’ve borrowed his name; it fits perfectly.

(And if your name is Rufus – or you know a Rufus – please don’t sue me for libel. I’m not writing about you. Honest!) 

 

No more rejections?

During a decluttering session last week, I came across these cartoons that I drew way back in 1990 for the long-departed Writers’ Monthly magazine.

It occurred to me that they just wouldn’t work today because writers no longer collect piles of rejection slips – at least, not the paper ones.

Our books, stories and articles are still turned down by editors and publishers of course, but the bad news is more likely to be delivered by email than Royal Mail. Many smaller publishers, online magazines and websites don’t even bother to send any kind of rejection. They simply say that if they don’t contact you within 'x' number of weeks or months you can assume your submission has been unsuccessful.

There are some writing traditions I’m glad to have left behind – typewriters for example – but I wish now that I’d kept all my old rejection slips. I did have a cardboard folder full of them at one time. I tried to see them as a record of my progress rather than proof of failure.

For example, my first rejection from one magazine was an unsigned, Xeroxed slip of paper. The next one was the same, but with the addition of someone’s scribbled initials. My third or fourth was signed on behalf of the editor, and then - oh, joy! - I received one not only signed in person by the editor, but with a handwritten sentence added saying something like my story was nicely written but not quite good enough. It was still a flat rejection, but knowing that my work had at last reached as far as the editor’s desk made me even more determined to keep trying.

These days, I do keep ‘encouraging’ rejections for a while – those where someone has taken the time and trouble to explain the reason for rejection – but a standard ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ email is usually deleted straight away.

How about you? Do you keep your rejections? Do they depress you, or spur you on?      

 

PS  I’ve just noticed some other things that make these cartoons quaintly old-fashioned. Visits in person to the tax office are almost unheard of now, and the amount I spend on postage in the course of a year’s writing is hardly worth claiming as a business expense.

PPS  As useful as rejection slips can be, an acceptance is always better. Very pleased to report that the first few stories I’ve submitted to Alfie Dog Fiction for my story collection have not been rejected!