Tag: poetry

Writing Exercise #1
Exercises From Workbooks · Thoughts on thursday

Writing Exercise #1

paulaacton8 Comments

This is taken from above posted book, now obviously I cannot post the chapter which goes along with the exercise nor am I going to print every exercise in the book am pretty sure the author would not be happy with that.   The idea here is every other week opposite my vlog post I shall look at an exercise in this or one of the other books I seem to be accumulating and give you my thoughts on how that particular book is helping me so for todays exercise I have chosen this one as with the new year approaching I quite like the idea of this…

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Now I confess I haven’t actually done this one but it ties in with a blog post a read recently over at One Handed Writers, they were discussing how they had a scent for each of their characters in their minds as they wrote about them and I think that is part of what I get from this idea.

To me this is not so much a five minute exercise as an on going project so what I intend to do is grab a nice new clean notebook and divide it up into the senses then actually make notes of various sensations.  I guess it will be a little like saying something tastes like chicken then trying to explain to someone who has never eaten it what chicken tastes like.  I think something I am guilty of at times is assuming that people share my experience of things a prime example is if I were to talk about the smell of a fire burning, my fires when I burn them tend to have a lot of rose wood in them where I have hacked back the wild rose that grows in my garden yet I know if I were burning pine boughs it would smell differently.  I can really see how this one will help me create more layers to my writing and especially my poetry and the idea of starting a sensory journal is quite exciting.  So what do you think is this something that could work for you?

Flights of Fancy · Tuesday Reflections

Hmmmm I Really Should be Blogging but Johnny Depp is Distracting Me

paulaacton14 Comments

I sat down tonight to prepare tomorrows post there was nothing on tv so I stuck a DVD in for background noise.  Now I have actually been working my way through my DVD collection, as between kids and the other half, none of whom associate discs with the boxes they are supposed to live in, many of the discs are scratched and the damaged DVDs take up valuable space on the bookshelves.  So I grab the next on the pile and stick it in not really paying attention to what I am putting in – big mistake!

I have ended up distracted by not only Johnny Depp but the actual film The Ninth Gate, which is one of his slightly more obscure films.

Basically the plot revolves around three ancient books and whether firstly one or all are genuine and secondly whether they contain a hidden meaning.  I am not really going to go further into it if you want to you must watch the film here is the clip…

On the plus side it has inspired me with a topic for later in the week about hidden meanings and whether they exist and if they do are they intentional.  I know sounds good, it might be if I get round to writing it but I shall leave you with my favourite example of a poem with dual meaning which is William Blake’s Tyger Tyger I was a young girl the first time I ever heard it and it was spoken by David Attenborough over the start of a wildlife programme on you guessed it tigers.  I wish I could find a version of the footage but this reading of the poem by Helen Mirren shall have to suffice

Now you can imagine my despair when an english teacher ripped away my pretty tiger images and replaced it with the scenes of industrial revolution.  Where I had seen majestic stripes now stood smoke polluted skies.  It was a long time before I was able to listen to the poem again without it having been spoilt for me.  I think the truth is that my vision of it was just as valid as the academic version.  Blake may very well have been writing about the coming of the new technological era yet one cannot help feeling that should he have lived now, the tigers plight at the hands of man, would have still inspired the self-same words.

Staring at the Screen
Characters · WIP Wednesday

Staring at the Screen

paulaacton5 Comments

Today my muse has left the building, I suspect she snuck off yesterday after my post because I intended to move onto my favourite example of intertextuality.  So that shall now wait until monday and by posted in the reviews section where it really belongs.

Rather than staring at the blank screen I had a little scribble in my notebook, wrote what a terrible day it is in my journal and wasted an hour playing games on Facebook.  The I stuck a DVD on.

It was one I hadn’t watched since getting it, you know how it goes you read the reviews fancy it but not enough to go to the cinema so you wait for it to come out on DVD only to discover it wasn’t as good as you expected it to be, not terrible but not great either just mundane.  For me Forgetting Sarah Marshall fell into that category despite the sexy Russell Brand being in it.  (Cue gratuitous clip of Russell…)

But what really struck me was the song over the end credits, a familiar song that even though you cannot understand the words you know each and ever one.  It reminded me of a day many moons ago when I accidentally placed a favourite record the wrong way up and fell in love with the spanish version.  So for your enjoyment I share the song from today and the one from years ago which both remind me that the sound of words can be almost as important as the meaning.  If not we would not write literature we would merely read dictionaries

Break of Day
Photo Friday · Poetry

Break of Day

paulaacton5 Comments

Let me hear once more the morning song,

Serenade me from my dreams.

Let cares drift away through shaded gaze,

With the break of day.

Every moment savoured with the promise

Of new horizons to be breached.

Nothing left for granted nor certainty bequeathed

With the break of day.

Though fate controls my destiny the future

My path already laid.

Each day I pray my faith be renewed

With the break of day.

And though the Mother calls me home

Into her loving arms.

For precious time my gratitude grows

With the break of day.

Fragments Of The Whole
Flights of Fancy · Poetry · Tuesday Reflections

Fragments Of The Whole

paulaacton3 Comments

MsKatykins turn this week to post on Udolpho and I promise to reblog when she posts, although should she get started tasting wedding cake samples we may have a little wait lol So for today something different…

I am not who you see

I can not show you all I am

The fragments of which I exist

Too varied for anyone person to behold

Friend, lover, slaughterer

The contradictions within

The light displayed

The darkness contained

I smile at you while

Mentally I twist the knife deeper

The same lips that touch yours

Sound profanities in my mind

The hands that hold a child

Capable of inflicting pain

With the caress of the keys

Sometimes I smile as you speak

But it is not your voice I hear

From within me they come

These fragments who are part of me

But cannot be part of you

The curse of the writer

Is that we can never give you all

For we must protect you

From those who dwell within

Highs and Lows · Poetry · The Muse · Thoughts on thursday

I got my fb back!!!!!

paulaacton13 Comments

I got up this morning and logged onto fb the warning appeared and I braced myself for yet another error message but instead it brought up my home page yay!!!!! Of course I now have loads to catch up on so for days post I am cheating.  I created this a little while ago for my fb like page but have decided to bit the bullet and let you all hear my voice, the poem is one I have posted previously but I hope you all enjoy it all the same.

Photo Friday · Poetry

Slumbers Illusion

paulaacton2 Comments

To remain in this moment

Unfettered by reality

Souls entwined in

Symbiotic harmony

Silence not fuelled

By words of attrition

Instead savoured contentedly

To stay in this moment

Basking in the afterglow

Of your embrace

Submerged in the symmetry

Of our perfect union

Faults and flaws forgotten

In the surrender of seduction

To remain in this moment

Just a little longer

To dwell within the dream

Yet all now comes undone

As slumbers caress slips

From my eyes

To face another day.

Photo Friday · Poetry

The Circle

paulaacton8 Comments

My first experiment using video and photos overlaid with a poem the images inspired, not brilliant but I don’t always have the best of luck with technology as you may have realised.

Idea’s on a Schedule…
Schedules And Lists · Thoughts on thursday

Idea’s on a Schedule…

paulaacton11 Comments

Okay I have been thinking about a blogging schedule, mainly because trying to edit with a runny nose and continual sneezing requires me to take lots of breaks.  Because I do my Weekly round up on a Saturday I propose to start the new week on a Sunday let me know what you think to the balance of topics and if you think they will hold your attention so here goes…

Sometimes Sunday

Sunday will be my day for posting with a little freedom.  It will be the day I accept any pending awards, post any extra book reviews or poems I have written during the week or pick somewhere I have visited to share some photo’s from.

Monday Musings

Monday will be review day.  most weeks it will be a book review but occasionally you may get a film, CD or other review depending what I have been up to over the weekend.  Occasionally if I have reviewed anything written by one of you my fellow bloggers you may get a second post with an author interview if I can bully persuade the author to answer a few questions
Tuesday Travels

Tuesday’s I generally spend visiting my Grandma.  Bless her I love her to bits but she is going senile, she lives quite a distance from me so I spend a few hours travelling with the monster with me.  Anything is possible on a Tuesday at worst  toddlers, grandparents and public transport will lead to some amusing rants but hopefully it will be more observations on life, family and people watching.  As I always have the camera with me hopefully a few pics along the way I did take some this week on my phone but they are a little dark and don’t lighten well in editing software.

WIP Wednesdays

Nope you are not being forced to read an excerpt each week.  Instead I thought it would be fun to put some of that research to good use and look at the places, people and historical events that inspired me to choose the subject matter I did.  I will be doing posts looking to all things Medieval and maybe giving a little useless knowledge along the way…for example did you know to stop their armour rusting knights actually peed on it!!!

I may even persuade my mate JL to do me an interview he actually makes armour and was the official Little John in Nottingham.  He can regularly be found at medieval events round the UK swinging his broadsword.

Thoughts on Thursday

This post will be my weekly writing journal I will discuss how I am feeling about what I am doing, my insecurities and possibly very rarely some positivity.  I will try to analyse how I feel my writing is developing aswell as update you on any submissions I have made and rejections I have received.  I am also thinking of a few links to other blogs where I have found good advice over the course of the week

Photo Friday

Friday will be a piece of work inspired by a photo from my hard drive.  I have so many images both of my own photos and those I have gathered from Facebook and other internet sites that the possibilities are endless.  Most will probably be poems or flash fiction pieces but there may be the occasional short story.  I want to use this day to experiment with ideas I have flying round my head that I have touched on in other posts.

and to end the week on Saturday we have

Weekly Round UP

These will continue more or less as they already are.  I may give hints about what the following weeks posts will be about  but I don’t want to make the structure to rigid.

Antway would love some feedback is there anything you think I should be posting about or any days where you think uurrgghhh not tuning in for that?

Time to get a Schedule?
Schedules And Lists · Thoughts on thursday

Time to get a Schedule?

paulaacton8 Comments

I am toying with the idea of setting up a tighter blogging schedule, I have notice lately lots more of you fellow bloggers are getting organised and setting up posts for certain days.

Part of me can see for the reader what the appeal of this is after all if you only wish to read say poetry having to pop in each day to see what is posted must be annoying on the other hand I like you popping in and sometimes at least one or two of you must enjoy what you read, you keep coming back!

I do like the fluidity of not having a schedule, while I normally try to just post once a day I like being able to throw in the extra one or in yesterdays case two. Would I still feel I could do that if I had a schedule to stick to?  I suppose it would cut down on rushed posts where I have panicked and realised I don’t have a clue what I want to write about on a certain days.  I  do have ideas for some posts I want to do that I keep deferring would a schedule make me get round to them?

I think I need to ponder upon this a little longer…What do you think? Is the idea of scheduling something which appeals to you?  Do you like to know whats coming up or prefer surprises?