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How to Write a Powerful Short Story — Write Your Great Novel

/ lyncrain / 2 Comments

At different times the short story form reigns supreme, only to wane briefly in popularity. And while I want you to never stop until you write your great novel, I also encourage every writer to embrace the short story form, and author one for both posterity and practice. A boiled-down idea, the short story has […]

via How to Write a Powerful Short Story — Write Your Great Novel

Quest for freedom

/ lyncrain / Leave a comment
Bird on the Wire
Leonard Cohen
Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
Like a worm on a hook
Like a knight from some old-fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee
If I, if I have been unkind
I hope that you can just let it go by
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you
For like a baby, stillborn
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me
But I swear by this song
And by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch
He said to me, “you must not ask for so much”
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door
She cried to me, “hey, why not ask for more?”
Oh, like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
“Bird On The Wire,”  ruminates on the impossibility of freedom in a world rife with tethers. Aren’t we always seeking freedom from some kind of oppression in our daily existence? And aren’t we always messing things up ? Our human spirit’s struggle against inherent frailties and external pressures often results in futility.  The real story is the effort we made to resist making the same mistakes again.

Looking at poetry styles

/ lyncrain / Leave a comment

I discovered a different one called Soledad. I love learning new and old styles of poetry writing, it opens one’s mind to different possibilities when writing. My humble attempt is included with Gorder’s, and Smith’s  below.

Soledad: 1. Three 8-syllable lines 2. Written in tercets or triplets alone or in sequence. 3. Rhyme Scheme: a-x-a b-x-b etc. X= unrhymed. 4. Often has internal consonance or assonance. 5. Octosyllabic lines were typical in 12th  Spanish poetry. The majority of the forms were couplets.

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Spring Ahead © Judi Van Gorder

Eyes droop from lack of sleep last night,
late night write, hour hand clicks to twelve,
skip ropes forward, I wake at light.

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Sacrifice Zones © 2012 Linda Varsell Smith

Exploited for profit and greed,

no rules to protect people, land

places disregarded we need.

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Fuel industry and create blight.

Pollution a catastrophe.

Deplete and decay–people’s plight

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Remove what stands in machine’s way

leaving dead land, mountain moonscape.

taking clean water, breathe away.

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Defeated people struggle, shout

renew, recycle, choose for life,

dead, dying zones doing without.

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In a Chaotic Moment ©Lyn Crain

Leaves flutter wildly in the wind

The colors burst upon my soul

 scattered thoughts defiantly pinned

http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/1023-soledad/

Click to access Soledad.pdf