Rhyme+North & South

"...I believe I have seen Hell. It is white. Snow white." --Margaret Hale, North & South

   Recently, I discovered BBC's 2004 mini-series North & South, based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. Mr. Thornton is played by Richard Armitage (The Hobbit, Thorin, the dwarf king). It's my new fave!! although there are some things I wish were different about the story. I haven't finished the book yet, though, so I'll save my criticisms for a review.

  Here's just a quick summary: it's a love story about two middle-class people--ex-clergyman's daughter, Margaret Hale, and cotton mill owner and town magistrate, John Thornton. It's set mostly in the made-up town of Milton, in 1850, so it's quite a bit more modern than Pride & Prejudice (which I also like!) and has technology like trains and machines in factories.  The two main conflicts are between 1) Margaret and Mr. Thornton, obviously, and 2) the mill workers and the owners, the "masters."
   Like all the shows I suddenly become crazy about, North & South influenced my writing. It started me on a story set in 17th century England and inspired this week's poem. My assignment was to work with rhyme. I had a long list of different types of rhyme to choose from: masculine (which I tend to use the most), feminine, perfect, slant, implied (I'll have to try to use this one sometime...), assonant, consonant, internal, and alliteration.

   I know I usually skip past the long poems in anthologies, but I hope you don't skip this! I think (I hope) it will be worth your read.

Free photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

"By Definition, Gentleman"

There was a man who fell asleep with head upon his desk

Linen collar, dinner parties—victories slowly won

A past of shoeless cold, and hunger, finally undone

The candle stubs left little room for empty flask or keg

He counted out no more or less than what his workers earned

A servant made the fire in his mother's sitting room

His sister wore new gowns and had a dowry for her groom

He lost no bets by making none, his businesses were firm

His strident shout was warning, and if scoundrels didn't know to run

They'd know his bloody knuckles, and boots would speed their flight,

Yet “Sym-pa-thy” he dictated and urchins learned to write—

Philosopher's and poet's works were ever on his tongue

But silence more than recitations bended ears his way

When most would boast or spit upon another fellow's pride

Or look the other way and twist the truth, he didn't lie

Curses, bribes, and flattery alike he brushed away

And though he rarely complimented ladies evening gowns

He rose when they approached and kept all crude remarks aside

And speaking of the ladies in their eyes were sparks alight

Some with scoffing, some with sighs—there was but one he called his own

Even in the streets his calloused hand kept hers enclosed

No one, no word, no weapon, and no will would come between

the guardian angel and the queen,

And though she stumble, turn away, his arms were never closed.

He may no longer tip his hat but he is still among the few

He who I see from time to time, changing flats in mid-July

Who puts his arm round baby sister still and lets her cry,

Passed down from eras past who if I find I'll hold onto, and who I shall never lose.

What...

         ...was your favorite type of rhyme?

         ...didn't make sense?

         ...did I leave out of the portrait?

Critique away.

Iambic Pentameter

   I planned to take my time writing a really deep poem on my day off (Martin Luther King, Jr.  Day, Monday). On Sunday, as I sat leisurely on the sofa, I glanced up at the clock. It was almost 2:00.
I thought, "Huh, I need to check Blackboard at 3:00 so I can read and critique people's poems..." And then it dawned on me. "I have to write, edit, and post this poem in one hour!!" Since I'm not Jack, I flew into a panic, furiously hammering it out and then hacking away the extra lines. Needless to say it was late, and I've been torturing myself all week with visions of terrible critiques.

 But it turned out to be ok, and I survived. Most of the comments were positive, even from my teacher. Whew! I guess poems are so subjective that even a bad poem with good meter will get good comments.

   The workshop gave me enough confidence to post it here. Critique away! Tell me what it made you think, what didn't work, what you wanted more or less of.

The Centaur

I saw a creature near an apple tree.

Above a man below a beast, he drew

His bowstring back, his contoured shoulders taut.

The sunlight set his burnished coat aflame.

A buck and doe crept into view and grazed.

I’ve wondered, does the centaur ever wish

That he could trade his iron hooves for flesh,

Or change his arms for forefeet, beard for mane?

Whistle, thump, a flash of scarlet fruit.

The tree boughs burst with squawks—the deer took flight.

He galloped past the tree to take his prize.

His merry laugh rang out, and then a crunch.

He wiped the arrowhead across the grass

A creature not horse and not a man.

He trotted off, I think, toward his hearth.

Creative Writing Class

   I'm finally taking fun classes this semester! One of this is creative writing. This poem really is my first assignment from that class, and it is mostly true.

 Assignment One

It can't be hard to write a poem

Concrete with abstract undertones

Memories rise up scene by scene

Of Baba shelling long, flat beans

Of tents I made with chair and sheets,

Of Mama saying, “No more sweets!”

Of laughing till I nearly cried

On days with lumpy pillow skies

I type a line and pause to think

Until I'm dying for a drink

I stare at my computer screen

The plain white space looks back at me

I stab the backspace key again

I clear my throat and tap my chin

Erase, erase, a blank white screen

Too loud, the sound of this machine

My eyes are heavy, red and dry

The light is fading from the sky

I pull my hair, I whack the air

I jump up on a kitchen chair

I take a breath and try to smile

I sit and ponder for a while

My eyes have crossed—they might be stuck

I look like a strabismic duck

Why waste five hours of Saturday?

I'll try it the old-fashioned way.

I'm armed with paper and a pen

I write about my three best friends

I sigh and think my homework's done

I write, all caps, ASSIGNMENT ONE

I smile and read it one last time

To check my spelling and my rhymes

My jaw detaches from my face

I thought I'd covered every base

But abstracts litter every line

I'm just about to lose my mind

I snatch a pen I haven't chewed

I take a breath and open to

A page that's crisp, unmarked and white

A page that's crisp, unmarked and white

An Ailing Imagination & Ghost Writing

   Goal: write 100 pages of the same story by May 2013
  I'm so happy to be writing instead of just talking about writing! I'm going to post my progress for two different works in progress (which I guess basically all my writing is a WIP): my Wynnna story and my Thibault story.

 24 pages     5 pages

    Even though I'm finally out of my writer's desert, there's one thing that makes me worried. I don't know if there's something wrong with my imagination (is it sick? is it lazy? is it dead?), but I can't invent characters straight out of my head anymore. I base them all off of someone, mostly an actor/actress or some other celebrity, and sometimes an acquaintance. What do prescribe for an ailing imagination (assuming it's ailing and not expired)? Right now I'm giving it a regular dose of The Fellowship of the Ring.

 ***

   I learned about ghost-writing just recently. Basically, it's like this.
1) Someone has a brilliant idea for a book but doesn't have the time, patience, or skills to write it.
2) That person, the client, hires a ghost-writer to write it for him. (The client may be an expert on something, or he may want the world to know about his extraordinary life, or possibly he is dying to see a riveting plot that is stuck in his head to be made into a novel.)
3) The ghost-writer then interviews the client and writes the desired book from scratch or from a rough draft.  Ghost-writers are like actors, because since they are writing for the client, it has to be in the client's voice and communicate the client's message.
4) The client look at what the ghost-writer has written and edit and revises until he approves.
5) When it's finished, the client is pronounced an "author" and the ghost-writer can be pronounced anybody from co-author to officially non-existant as far as the writing is concerned.

   In the interviews I read, ghost-writers say they love their jobs and are dedicated to their clients and don't mind getting partial or no credit. All of their answers to questions seem to say one thing: "If you think about it, everyone should have their own book ghost-written!" But no matter which way you slice  it, I would have a problem with the process.

If I was the ghost-writer, I would feel so unappreciated to not get credit for all my hard work. I would feel cheated.
  And if I were the "author," oh, I would feel royally important having someone interview me and ask for my preference on everything, and it would be so easy! But I would feel like such a cheater to not do the hard work on "my" book.
   I guess it all depends on what type of book you are writing and how much credit you give the ghost-writer, but as of now, I'm not quite convinced.

What do you think about ghost-writing?

Have you kept your New Year's resolutions the first 8 days of 2013?

The Cricket Apocalypse

This is a modified snippet from the comedy-fantasy short story I wrote for my friend as a Christmas present. FYI, this takes place inside Braum's (an ice cream shop).

           The mouse-size cricket chirped as it washed its face. Then it raised its head, and fell silent. Suddenly it jumped up on the table, and people screamed when it dunked its face in the sundae.

            “It's eating ice cream!” Sasha said, putting her hands up to her head and stepping back. The woman in the track suit returned. “Oh, this is just bizarre!” she said. Suddenly, Sasha's hand slipped and gathunked into her head. She felt something hard and metallic in her grasp. There was more screaming behind her as she pulled her hand out of her head and wrestled a metal spoon from her hair. A broad grin spread across her face for a moment, but it slipped as she realized a spoon wouldn't do her much good. She stashed it and looked down at her body where the utensil had just been absorbed. Concentrating hard, she imagined her hand gathunking into her body and grabbing something more useful. She closed her eyes and reached in, and her hand closed around what felt like a knife handle. She opened her eyes and swung out with it, making the runner lady jump back.

            “Careful with that dagger!” she said.

            “Here goes nothing.” Sasha raised the knife over the cricket and took aim. In one swift slice and a crunch the cricket's head fell to the floor, still latched onto the ice cream. A couple drops splattered Sasha's new white TOMS.

            “You did it!” Danny said. “You figured out how to use your metal-absorbing superpower!”

            “That is so freaky,” Sasha said.

            “But awesome!” Danny said.

            “Bizarre!” said the runner lady.

            By now, several people had run out of the store screaming, several had called the police, and the rest were either watching in horrified fascination or complaining to Patrice, the manager on duty.

            “Oh, that's just bizarre!”

             Sasha barely heard Runner Lady's declaration. What she did hear was a strange clicking sound. One look at Danny's wide eyes staring behind her made her whirl around. A huge cat-sized cricket crouched on the table in front of cone line. It gave a chirp, and before Sasha could use the six-inch blade that was in her hand, it leaped to the ground and dug into both the peanut butter cup ice cream and the smaller cricket's head.

            “Ugh!” Danny said. He stood up in his seat and hopped over the table to the aisle. A strange noise came from the bug, and it slowly increased in decibels. It sounded like, “mmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMM! YUUMMM!” Then it lifted its shiny black ice cream-smeared face. “Heh! Yoo tink yoo so bigbig cause yoo kill bugbug?”

            “Ahhhhh!” Sasha and Danny both screamed and jumped back.

            “Look out, yoo hyoomans. He is coming. DESDEMONE is coming. He is big, and he is coming to get yoo.”  To Sasha's horror, it pointed two spindly antennae at her.

Merry Christmas!

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

  Well, I failed to wish my readers a merry Christmas this morning, but in my last two minutes...Merry Christmas!! Have a fun and safe time. Maybe use your extra time to write a poem about what Christmas is about or what it looks like.
   I don't have my story handy to update you on number of pages (for my goal project) but I did write a 14-page story for my friend at work! Here is one of the illustrations.

A Change in the Weather

 
 Winter arrived yesterday. As we get into December and start to feel a little more frigid, are you thinking about New Year's resolutions?
   In my Intro to Human Behavior class, our last project was to make two goals, one long term and one short term (3-6 months). Guess what I picked for short term? To write 100 pages of one story by May 2013! That might seem like a lot to some people, and to others it might seem like nothing. But it will definitely be something for me who has probably never written more than 25 pages of the same story. Especially recently my greatest obstacle to writing is...writing. Actually sitting and putting the words down.
   So help me keep my commitment and reach my goal! Once I decide which story to stick with, I'll start page number updates.

What are your short term goals?

*Free photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net