* a poem I once wrote a while back. a very long while back. *
They say you speak in riddles.
Spluttering utterances of injustices,
When mutterings of blind hope will do.
A devil in shimmering gowns of deceit.
Leading astray the unintelligible masses and hordes,
With all your belligerent symphonies and glistening lies.
The flawed offspring of anarchy, a child of dead dreams.
You emancipate souls and still they call you unwise.
Old wives tales and fables of foolishness,
Bringing change with your words,
Dressed in tomorrow’s hope and old sentiments.
They call you lost.
And still you speak?
They say you speak in riddles.
Harbingers of truth, Kings and Queens of the unknown.
Farmers of knowledge, teach them that reap while they sow.
They say you speak in riddles.
Posing as mortals, when in truth you live on,
Through prose and myth, music and lore.
Eternal in thought.
Gatekeeper, Peacemaker, Truth bearer, Sage.
They say you speak in riddles.
# # #
Namaste
Saturday
The Perfect Sentence
This week is Bubble-Bursting Week.
During this time we will help each other let go of baggage we can do without. Much like huddle-gossip; the fact that a friend’s lovelife is as private as the gaga person’s carnivorous fashion statements, will be discussed, at length even. So, with that in mind, to the writers; the perfect sentence does not exist.
I’m not at all bothered about the voices in my head (and probably yours too) that keep telling me otherwise. If it were to come to pass, I’d gladly retract this, and the perfect sentence were to exist there would be so much more to play with.
The perfect sentence, in my most sober thinkings, is not one that accounts for the use of all the elements of writing; the grammar, punctuation, aesthetics, connotation or otherwise in their most glorified individual form. This particular sentence would not play at all by the rules. Not recklessly rebellious, just effecting change. This would be a sentence that is the sum of all things. It would be less, not more.
And if you ask me, that’s where the problems start.
In order to write something, say a book that not only reads well - but flows too, you must be willing to cut back on what you think is the individually most-perfect sentence. Consider, it might be the same sentences that wrote you into a wall.
For your book (poem, play, speech, etc) to flow as easily as it reads it must be a harmonious system.
And I know that I don’t want to let go of that perfect sentence that seems so clever, it forgot to make sense.
Namaste
During this time we will help each other let go of baggage we can do without. Much like huddle-gossip; the fact that a friend’s lovelife is as private as the gaga person’s carnivorous fashion statements, will be discussed, at length even. So, with that in mind, to the writers; the perfect sentence does not exist.
I’m not at all bothered about the voices in my head (and probably yours too) that keep telling me otherwise. If it were to come to pass, I’d gladly retract this, and the perfect sentence were to exist there would be so much more to play with.
The perfect sentence, in my most sober thinkings, is not one that accounts for the use of all the elements of writing; the grammar, punctuation, aesthetics, connotation or otherwise in their most glorified individual form. This particular sentence would not play at all by the rules. Not recklessly rebellious, just effecting change. This would be a sentence that is the sum of all things. It would be less, not more.
And if you ask me, that’s where the problems start.
In order to write something, say a book that not only reads well - but flows too, you must be willing to cut back on what you think is the individually most-perfect sentence. Consider, it might be the same sentences that wrote you into a wall.
For your book (poem, play, speech, etc) to flow as easily as it reads it must be a harmonious system.
And I know that I don’t want to let go of that perfect sentence that seems so clever, it forgot to make sense.
Namaste
Monday
The Story Is In The Detail
Thinking back on the days when I used to read (it’s been well over two months now) one incident with a stack of pages; printed, bound and covered with a curiously misleading wrapping stands out.
A book I was offered to jump in turned out to be a bottomless pit of depressing detail. My doom was paved with monotonous explanation after monotonous explanation.
A book I was offered to jump in turned out to be a bottomless pit of depressing detail. My doom was paved with monotonous explanation after monotonous explanation.
One popular solution a writer might give to another is that of knowing all the detail (as the storyteller) of any story one writes. Great advice, as long as you approach with more caution than an alcoholic exercises when walking up to a bottle store.
This book I had a run-in with, yes we’re back to that now, was action packed with so much dreary and mind-numbing detail that less than eight pages into it I gave. No more. I’ve never seen that book since, and I must admit that there’s no love lost between us. I call back on this experience as a belt notch-collector would call back on a run-in with a nameless lover – without fondness or favour.
Just because the writer must know all the details of the story does not mean that all these details must be told to the reader (eg: the cream shawl which looked white once upon a time lay scrunched up on the chocolate corduroy l-shaped couch on the far east corner of the room, opposite the small television set that had become the live-in substitute of the 47 inch flat screen that had grown a mind of its own and had walked out on the legs of a burglar and his cronies). Yho. That’s a blemmin’ long sentence. In real life people who speak like this spray it (when they should say it) and have followers and virtual friends (none of which have invited them to a social gathering of any sort, ever).
Don’t tell the reader that the sun is hot (“the sun was hot that day”), show them (“eighteen ice-cold dumpies of lager later, Sue was still sweating like a pig, but now she was out cold”).
As a reader I know I don’t care much about the chequered or striped t-shirt hanging on the chair, not unless it’s the murder weapon or a kinky play thing. In other words, does it do anything for the story? Does it drive it ahead or does it poison the whole river? Is your gift of giving vivid detail killing your story or helping it? Know when to just glaze over the details.
Not every story must be 1000 pages long.
Namaste
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