It should be a good afternoon, the previous one for Halloween went really well. I’m hoping friends will be able to come and listen to our group read stories and poems with a possible festive twist. We hope it will be cosy and cheerful.
Writers group
Tag: Writing
I forgot to post!
My brain must be decaying.
Or I’m getting very old?
I forgot my manners
And didn’t even post
Lacking sleep and busy
I just realised
No words were written down
No thoughts discussed,
No post forthcoming
I simply slept
And forgot.
Need to write
I’m in a writing group and I hand write stories and poems. But our latest challenge has me worried. It calls for us to write a piece 2000 words long! I suddenly feel like I’m back at school or college writing essays.
You need to understand that my computer is bust and I type all my blogs on my phone. My Parkinsons makes my hands and arms shake and my hands cramp up, so my jottings are usually brief, maybe too brief. But I like to be concise.
I find hand writing suits me more because I can place a note book on the arm of my chair and write things down as I think of them. But 2000 words? I can’t do a word count unless I add up say every 20 or 50 or so of them. Then total up the numbers at the end.
The other thing is reading out. I stutter now. My speaking voice is affected by Parkinsons, it’s frustrating when I want to get a good delivery of my words.
Oh well, I must keep going. X
Writing workshop.
What a hot day to get up early and go to a poetry writing workshop. Hosted at BArts in Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent.
Our writer had come up from Birmingham for the day. She beat boxed the sound of a thudding heart as she talked about nerves and performance anxiety. Then we did a series of tasks. First of all we split into groups of two and interviewed each other about our personality and likes and dislikes. I came up with things about whistling my cats or that I would fight off zombies with an umbrella!
Then we made up a poem with the phrase he/she/they are then the words we had answered with… It was interesting.
She is sponge
She is fighting with a brolly
She is fish and chips…..
It was strange but funny a bit bizarre.
We did more but I’m too tired and hot to remember!
Limerick for Esther.
Every Monday Esther Chilton posts a limerick prompt to use her chosen word of the week. This time it was FELL.
I had a bit of fairytale fun with this. I wrote:
He took his axe into the dell
The great oak tree he would fell..
But faerie folk came
Now he sits in shame
In an underground magical cell!
Esther’s 55 word challenge
Every week Esther Chilton gives us a challenge to use a list of words and write a set number of words..
This week’s is 55 words including :
- WHEEL
- CRUEL
- SOAK
- LABYRINTH
- YELLOW
- CRAB
Morning on the reef. A yellow crab skittered through the labyrinth of coral. It was headed to its feeding ground on the other side of the bay. But the cruel sea washed over and soaked everything in a deluge. Waves like great wheels curved up and back. In a moment the crab was washed away.
Keep forgetting to post
Writing is hard sometimes
Thinking of things to say
When I’m exhausted
Thoughts stray
Are unkempt like my hair
Struggling to make sense
Of my course through life.
I’m writing in a book too
Fighting with prompts
Trying to decide
What to say and do.
G-loss
I’ve joined a small writing group in my home town and we are being given prompts to write about. I’ll write up another one later but here’s a poem I did on the spur of the moment when I misheard the prompt Loss as Gloss:
Gloss over your loss
Hide it behind your mind
Don’t let it take hold
Your thoughts must not fold
Into a melancholy way
So be quiet and say
My life will be OK?
If I can find my way.
Light, Esther’s prompt.
Esther Chiltons weekly prompt was light. As I’m feeling rather sad it bought out a feeling of regret in me:
Light, a rainbow effect, but black? Darkness, hidden, lonely. Why do I want to sit hidden in the dark as the days sparkle around me? Is this my fate? I need to escape into light, but by the time my sad thoughts allow me it will probably be raining. We have been singing “this little light of mine” at choir recently. I need a glimmer of hope. X
Sketch time
Writing group today, I sat and sketched a couple of the group. Most of the stories and poems are autobiographical, I want to be more fictional. The woman writer was very atmospheric, giving a feeling of ‘place’. Using unusual descriptions to evoke childhood and adult memories of being drawn back to the sea. My poem about love was well received. I’ll keep going.
Mallaband-Brown 