Rather than using a tired cliché, create your own phrases that might become popular and memorable. Like this one:
“ . . Maureen Seaton wrote beautiful poems the way some people eat potato chips.” — Mario Alejandro Ariza, “Writers on Writing,” Writer’s Digest, July/August, 2024
#justwrite #amwriting #iamawriter
“While excess can be fun when writing nature poems, many poets find minimalism is preferable. Emily Dickinson wrote several nature poems — often in fewer than 10 lines — including ‘Who robbed the woods’ and ‘My river runs to thee.’
One of the most concise poetic forms is also a nature poem: the haiku!
Many poets debate the number of lines and syllables (not everyone believes in the 5-7-5), but every haiku poet agrees haiku should focus on a brief moment, provide a sense of enlightenment, and offer a cutting and season word.”
Excerpt from “Poetic Asides” by Robert Lee Brewer, Writer’s Digest, July/August 2024.
More about haiku and nature writing:
Why I Love Writing Ekphrastic Poetry
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“With nothing more than a pen and a notebook, nature journaling can help you slow down and create a reference you can call upon to bring your reader into the worlds you build on the page.”
Excerpted from “How Nature Journaling Can Help Your Writing,” by Maria Bengtson. Writer’s Digest, July/August 2024.
Go outside with pen and notebook, get settled, observe, use sensory detail to enhance your writing.
Bengtson suggests using these prompts
I notice . . .
I wonder . . .
It reminds me of . . .
“Your observations will create a reference that will help you transport your reader from their cozy chair to the world on your pages. Sketch a tree or flower or a critter you see.
The work of creating a rough map, schematic, or stick-figure diagram forces you to think about how things are related to one another, and how the environment and the things in it are structured.”
For example: Dave Seter’s poem, “Fox Trot.”
A curtain parted, beaded, of mustard grass.
Fox made an entrance and trotted across
an asphalt stage, expanse of empty parking spaces
stained with motor oil. Without missing a step.
The audience was wind, full of bluster,
phrased with pollen mitigated by a whisper
of unseen lilac. But the fox was seen
despite having gotten scent, or sixth sense,
college was closed, cars and people absent.
The fox’s coat was the color of caramelized sugar.
He/she/they paused like a debutante waiting
to be conferred royal title, the applause of a suitor,
but it was my nose that was in the air.
My heart on my sleeve hid a heart tattoo.
What is happiness, I asked, what sweetness
has been missing? But the fox didn’t answer.
Did the fox want to be seen frozen,
skilled as lawn statuary unmoved by wind?
Or did the fox just not want to give audience
dancing in a coat the color of caramelized sugar?
Dave Seter, civil/environmental engineer, poet, and essayist is the Sonoma County Poet Laureate for 2024-2026.
He is the author of Don’t Sing to Me of Electric Fences (Cherry Grove Collections, 2021) and Night Duty (Main Street Rag, 2010).
He writes about social and environmental issues, including the intersection of the built world and the natural world. He is the recipient of two Pushcart nominations.
His poems, essays, and book reviews have appeared in various publications including Appalachia, Cider Press Review, The Florida Review, The Hopper, The Museum of Americana, Poetry Northwest (forthcoming), and others.
He has been an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts, and has served on the Board of Directors of Marin Poetry Center.
He earned his undergraduate degree in engineering from Princeton University and his graduate degree in humanities from Dominican University of California.
“Fox Trot” can be found in “The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year.”
#justwrite #iamawriter #iamwriting
“An editor’s job is to make you, the author, look good and save you from embarrassing mistakes.” — Unknown source
Hiring an editor is like looking in a mirror before you leave the house, checking to make sure everything is where it should be and nothing is showing that shouldn’t be showing. — Marlene Cullen
Editing is like a captain having a good crew to help steer the craft. — Marlene Cullen
Let’s talk about editing. Or, as I like to think: Re-visioning.
Some writers love to edit . . . making their writing better and better.
Other writers loathe to edit . . . finding it tedious and nerve wracking.
Some writers are in the middle, or elsewhere, on the continuum.
The best scenario:
Writers and editors work together as they dovetail their skills and expertise to come up with a product that is ready for publishing.
It’s a collaborative effort.
Editors are totally valuable and necessary to fact-check, spot-check, double-check and to make you, the writer, look good.
A brief overview of editing.
The Revision or Critique Writing Group, working with peers, sharing manuscripts, helping one another to produce polished work.
The Developmental Editor can act as a coach or personal cheerleader and looks for continuity, discrepancies, clarity, and overall story development in terms of character, setting, plot, theme, point of view. Once these areas are addressed, the manuscript is ready for copyediting
Copy editing involves line-by-line checking for grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting and consistency. A copy editor checks facts; is it likely someone would travel from Mill Valley to Oakland on the Golden Gate Bridge?
Proofreading involves looking at the manuscript for typos, misspellings, inconsistencies in spellings or capitalizing.
Editors and proofreaders want authors to look good and their manuscripts to be polished and professional.
The Write Spot blog has many posts about editing.
Articles about Editing
3 Common Fears of Hiring a Freelance Editor by Hannah de Keijzer (on Jane Friedman’s Blog)
Is It OK to Ask for Before/After Examples from a Freelance Editor? By Hattie Fletcher (also on Jane Friedman’s Blog)
Do You need a developmental editor? By Shirin Yim Leos on The Write Spot Blog
Doubt is the Devil by Matthew Felix. also on The Write Spot Blog
Best wishes for smooth sailing with your writing and with re-visioning.
#justwrite #iamwriting #iamawriter
Going through an old (paper) file folder, I found something I wrote around 2011:
I am passionate about writing. It is my joy to find the exact right word for what I’m looking for.
Some people work crossword puzzles for a hobby. If there was such a hobby for finding precise words, that’s what I would do.
Well, it is what I do!
Grant Faulkner also appreciates discovering the right word, as described in his Substack essay, “A Grab Bag of Trinkets, Flotsam, Jetsam, Doo Dads, Dad Doos, Rusty Objects, Found Objects, Attempts at Erudition—and More (but not less):
“Words have halos, patinas, overhangs, echoes.” —Donald Barthelme
“I steal “frotteur” from James Salter, who said, “I’m a frotteur, someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible.”
As a frotteur of words, I love this quote, because a word is never a definite thing. A word holds textures and nuances and surprises. It’s erotic, shape-shifting, enticing, and elusive.” — Grant Faulkner
Back to me: Yes! Simply yes.
Your turn: Write what you are passionate about.
Note: “The Write Spot: Memories” was carefully curated to make sure all the words are “just right.”
#justwrite #iamawriter #iamwriting
“A lyric essay is a type of creative nonfiction that fuses personal essay with poetry to tell a powerful story or reinforce a primary message.”
“A meditative essay encourages contemplation, wonder, and curiosity.”
Example: “The Death of a Moth,” by Virginia Woolf.
A collage essay is a collection or patchwork of thoughts, of found things, that together point to a greater whole.
Example: “Going to the Movies,” by Susan Allen Toth.
A braided essay weaves multiple strands together with the goal of creating a work that becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Example: “A Braided Heart” by Brenda Miller.
The hermit crab essay takes on the form of the content type it inhabits.
Examples:
“Solving My Way to Grandma,” by Vivian Wagner, written as a crossword puzzle.
“Son of Mr. Green Jeans,” by Dinty W. Moore is written as a glossary.
In a counterpoint essay, the writer alternates between two narrative strands to convey a larger truth.
Example: “The Search for Marvin Gardens,” by John McPhee.
Excerpts from “5 Ways Into Your Lyric Essay,” by Kate Meadows. Writer’s Digest magazine, Jan/Feb 2024.
Your Turn. Choose a prompt and write a lyric essay.
Quick pacing hooks readers, deepens the drama, creates and increases tension.
How to pick up the pace:
1. Start story in the middle of the dramatic action, not before the drama commences.
2. Keep description brief. This doesn’t mean using no description, but choose one or two telling, brief details.
3. Combine scenes. If one scene deepens character by showing a couple at dinner and a few scenes later they have a fight, let them have the fight at dinner.
4. Rely on dialogue. A lot of the story can be carried by spoken conversation. Readers seldom skip dialogue.
5. Keep backstory to a minimum. The more we learn about characters through what they do now, in story time, the less you’ll need flashbacks, memories and exposition about their histories. All of these slow the pace.
6. Squeeze out every unnecessary word. This is the best way of all to increase pace. There are times you want a longer version for atmosphere, but be choosy. Wordiness kills pace and bores readers.
Paraphrased from Writer’s Digest magazine, January 2006, “Pick Up the Pace.”
Just Write!
#justwrite #iamawrite #iamwriting
You walk into an outdoor bazaar. Tables are filled with everything imaginable.
The sun is bright. Large colorful umbrellas shade the goods displayed on tables.
A box calls out to you, beckons you to come closer.
You pick it up.
Is it heavy? Light? What is made of?
You lift the lid, and . . .
#justwrite #iamwriting #iamawriter
The Big Windows Review is the literary magazine of the Writing Center at Washtenaw Community College (WCC), in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“We post a new poem or piece of short prose on the site every Tuesday and Friday. Then, four times a year, we’ll bundle up those poems and prose pieces to make a free digital issue of The Big Windows Review.”
Thanks to Dave Seter for letting me know about this.
Dave’s writing, “Weightless Hitchhiker” was published in the April 5, 2024 issue of The Big Windows Review.
Beyond Words Magazine features literary works with beautiful visual art from creatives around the globe.
“We offer a warm and welcoming stage for emerging writers and visual artists. We encourage diverse voices from different cultures and backgrounds. Share your works with us!”
Beyond Words accepts submissions of short stories (up to 1000 words), poems and visual art.
Thanks to Rebecca Evans for letting me know about Beyond Words. Her writing will appear in the May 2024 issue.