the story of a woman in poetry.

so i've started working on my manuscript for the contest and i'm very excited about it. i've decided that my poetry will have a loose theme of telling the story of a woman's life. different events that can happen. i have no clue what i will call the manuscript. the nice thing is that if i don't win this contest, i will have a manuscript all done and can send it to other contests that want full manuscripts. i've never worked on making one so i've never sent my stuff to those contests. i've got about 12 poems so far that are ready to go. hurray!

i've added a new website to the side of this blog. actually i've added a bunch of new one's, but this particular website is for artists that live in the chicago area. so if that is you, you might want to check this website out.

writing contest

well good karama has kicked in for once. you see karma and i are not friends. we do not text each other, but yet karma likes to kick me in the ass. well karma has owed me a big one and maybe finally it's paying back. you see jeremy got an email yesterday about a writing contest. he doesn't konw why it came to him (he's not a writer, heck he barely reads) and he doesn't know why he opened it. but he did. and when he saw it was a writing contest he forwarded it off to me. well i opened it and actually read the email and couldn't believe my eyes. it's a contest for a collection of poetry or short fiction stories. if you win the contests you get your collection published and you get 10 free copies of the book plus $1000. so after i read the email i went to the website and checked it all out. and i've decided i'm going to try for it. everything is due august 31st. and if i shut myself in a little bit, i know i can get it done. i'm totally excited about it and know i will start working on it tonight.

cantigny park

here i am at cantigny. jeremy took it while i was lining up a shot of my own. you can kinda see the flowers in the background. that place is so beautiful! i will definatly be having some flower poems coming up. the colors and the arragements of the flowers are just so inspiring! the shot on the right is another photo jeremy took. i'm sitting in front of a rose garden. jeremy said he decided to name the compostion mollie rose. and not just because i'm sitting in front of roses. this picture is a better representitive of what the flowers look at cantigny. it's just such a beautiful place it's unbelieveable! i can't wait until i get my pictures back. i will have to scan them into the computer but, that's ok. i will scan them in and then have the corisponding poem with it so you can see how i was inspired.

sestina

so i love it when i find styles of poetry to write in. this time i've found sestina poetry. now that i've found it i am going to have to try and write in this style. i think this might take some time, but it will be cool in the end. here's the description of what sestina poetry is. sestina poetry is a highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada), for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time; if we number the first stanza's lines 123456, then the words ending the second stanza's lines appear in the order 615243, then 364125, then 532614, then 451362, and finally 246531. This organization is referred to as retrogradatio cruciata ("retrograde cross"). These six words then appear in the tercet as well, with the tercet's first line usually containing 1 and 2, its second 3 and 4, and its third 5 and 6. sounds crazy doesn't it? well here's an example to help explain how it's written:

Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

action baby!

yesterday was amazing for my brain for two reasons!

the first one was jeremy and i went to cantigy park and took awesome artsy photo's. i can't wait to get my photo's for there's a couple that made a poem line stick out in my head. so i'm really excited to get the photo's back so i can finish the thoughts that are in my head. and the reason i have to wait to get the photo's is because i used a film camera, just incase your wondering.

the second reason yesterday was awesome for my brain is because i got to sit in on a nothing special productions (nsp) practice for their next show. which i have to say is giong to be amazing! if anyone live's in the chicago area, i strongly suggest going. but watching them perform and just run read through's and then interacting with each other really helped my idea i have. and watching mikey as the director made my mind explode! i loved it. his actions and everything really insipired an image for my director.

so all in all yesterday was a very good brain storming day!

theatre

so yesterday i talked to my friend nick who is the president of a theatre group called nothing special productions (http://www.nothingspecialproductions.com/) and he has kindly agreed to let me sit in on their practices for their next show. i asked if i could do this because i have a story idea that has to do with people in a theatre group and it's been so long since i've been in a show that i asked if i could sit in on their practice to get some ideas flowing in my head. he said that is fine and so this sunday i'm going to be sitting in on their practice. i'm excited to do it! i have some questions that i'm giong to ask some people after their practice but other than that i'm just goign to watch them and just write down everything that helps me with my story. i haven't decided if this story will be a fiction story of if i'll try to write it out as a play. either way i'm excited to sit in on their practices. and then of course i'll go to one of the showings of the play.

tuna

so today i wrote a poem about when i had gone to the store for my mom and instead of buying 2 cans of tuna i bought 20 cans. i totally thought her list said 20. but it didn't. hehe. it's a poem that i will never send to get published. it would only probally get published if i was making a book of poetry and even then that depends. so it's just a fun little poem. here's a link to it. this website i post my poetry for people to read. so feel free to go to it and read my stuff.

tuna poem

manners

so i take the train when i go and visit jeremy. which means i'm on the train a bunch of the time. and it also means i'm with people a bunch of the time. and i learned from a writing class that the best way to write people perfectly is to observe people. you'll get down their manerism, speech patterns and things like that. well i have observed people and decided that people have the worst manners in the world these days! no excuse me's. kids are mean to their parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles. also parents don't discpline their children. and i understand you're in a public place but i'm sorry, sometimes children need to be disciplined right then and there. heck, some of the parents i've seen need to be disciplined. i'm not saying i'm perfect, but i was raised to be respectful, always say please and thank you, excuse me. so i've decided that i might have to write a manners book for our time period. i know it seems out of date but man people need one. it will be a fiction story but the story will be driven by manners. hopefully someone will take it to heart and learn something!

writing

so i've decided to change this blog just a little bit. it's not just going to be about my one story i'm writing but i'll post about all the works i'm working on. for i have a bunch of different things that i'm working on. so here's my first post in that field. i'm still working on my story. but i'm also working on getting published with some poetry. i have 4 different poems sitting out in the world waiting to here back from the magazine's to see if i will get published. also there's a magazine that wants a flash fiction story about the first time a person had sex. so i'm trying to come up with something for that. mine wasn't all that eventful (not saying it wasn't enjoyable, but it's wasn't like 'holy crap amazing!'). and so i don't know what i'll write. but then again i could just have it as the person not overly enjoying it. i'll have to think on it. and i have time before the deadline.

that is the question

so i've decided to have shakespeare's monoluge of hamlet's to be or not to be in my story. i know it's a little over handing the suicide thing. but that's the whole point of the book. i'm going to have the main character (sarah) be studying it for a class and so it will continusly pop up in the book. little parts will show when it coinsides with a scene or an emotion sarah is feeling. in case your wondering what the monologue is here you go, in all of shakespeare's amazingness.


HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

facts and figures

i've been looking up facts about suicide and saw some of these figures:

- The WHO (world health organization) notes that over one million people commit suicide every year, and that it is one of the leading causes of death among teenagers and adults under 35. (1)
- Men are three times more likely to attempt suicide than women, but rates among women have risen alarmingly fast in the last decade. (1)
- Worldwide, suicide rates have increasedby 60% over the last 50 years, and the increase has been particularly marked in developingcountries. Most suicides in the world occur in Asia, which is estimated to account for up to 60%of all suicides. China, India and Japan - because of their large populations - may account for up to 40% of all world suicides. (2)
- People die by suicide more often during spring and summer. The idea that suicide is more common during Christmas is a common misconception. (3)
-Sati is a Hindu funeral practice in which the widow would immolate herself on her husband's funeral pyre, either willingly, or under pressure from the family and in-laws. (4)
-Many religions consider suicide an offense towards God due to religious belief in the sanctity of life.
-Japanese views on honor and religion led to seppuku, one of the most painful methods of suicide, to be respected as a means to atone for mistakes or failure. (5)

footnotes:
1)http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1071203.html
2)http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/wspd_2008_statement.pdf
3)http://www.suicideinfo.ca/csp/assets/alert16.pdf
4)http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/news/words/general/020807_witn.shtml
5)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku (i realize it's wikipedia, but it does have some uses)

*i thought Sati was the most interesting. i've spent a crap load of time looking it up and i think i've gotten another story idea around it. so i've writing out my idea's for it and tucked it away for when i'm done writing this story. either way i found it way interesting and will probally go to the library today and take more notes about it.

critics

so i was looking at my book of quotes i have. it's a spiral that i have that when i find a quote i like i write it down (i'm on my second one now). and i came across this quote that goes perfectly with what i was saying about critics and symbolism.

"a critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote." - mignon mclaughlin.

little by little

so i had been stuck a little bit for what to put after the opening scene (which is the death scene) and then the first scene after wards (which goes back to start to tell about her life). but now i've figured it out and i'm very excited about it. i won't get to write it until tonight, but i'm ok with that. i get to think about it in the back of my head all day long at work. and any major ideas i'll write down on a piece of paper and just stick it in my pocket. then tonight i'll pull it out and get going! : ) i'm very excited about this story. i think it has great potentional.

last of the mohicans

so i bought the barnes and boble classic version of the last of the mohicans by james fenimore cooper and that means after the story there are notes that a professor has written to help you along the story. usually there's a time gap from when the book was written to today, so the notes are really just to help with loctions or maybe the author quotes another book form the time; and the notes in the back just help explain what the quotes was. well at the beginning of every chapter in the book there is a quote from poetry or verse drama, like shakespears plays. and there's a note about it in the back of the book. the note says: "american novelists of this era widely employed the convention of using passages from poetry of verse drama as chapter epigraphs in prose ficiton. the procatice followed the example of the scottish novelist walter scott and helped give novels (still considered a frivolous form of reading) the veneer of higher culture - which is why so many epigraphs are taken from canonical writers like shakespeare." now i thought this was interesting. that fiction novels were considered a low art of literature and that people needed to quote shakespeare at the beginning of chapters to make it more worth wild to read. that just blows my mind. i guess its because today literature is considered a higher art. espically a book like last of the mohicans. for today it is considered a classic and one (by most critics) that is thought of as a book that everyone should read. i know critics don't know what they are talking about, but it still blew my mind about how authors would put quotes from other works to make their book better.

i know that really dosen't have anything to do with my book. but it does. in the sence that i wouldn't put quotes in the beginning of my chapters unless there's some message i wanted to convay with those quotes. i wouldn't try to to just put them there for to try to make it a higher art. but i don't have to anymore. literature writing is considered a higher art.

33 does not always equal jesus.

so i thought i would elaberate on why i don't like symbolism. my buddy rhode explained it best.
"You know, it's not that symbolism is bullshit, it's just that it should actually deal with the action of the story. I think where symbolism becomes tedious and stupid is when it's not so much symbolic of what's physically happening to the characters but rather is just heavy imagery that invokes some kind of tone or mood that was already implied by what was happening. So yeah, fucking use symbolism, just make sure it adds to the action of the story, not just the "way the story feels."" he posted that on my facebook. and i agree with his statement. what bothers me is when critics and teachers teach a book's meaning when the author has never said one way or another. when an author has a character die and aged that same chacter 33. so the critic would say that the author was paralling jesus' life with that character. and if the author has never come out and said that how does the critic know? they don't. they are assuming. and i hate assumtions. 'assuming makes an ass out of you and me.'

so that's why it's such a big deal to me that i'm using symbolism. for i'm using it the way i hate it. but i'm going to use the colors as part of the action of the story also. if that makes sence. colors can be part of action. so yeah. i hope that explains it better why i don't like symbolism. though i am explaining that i'm using those things for the symbol. so yes critics you can say that now. i give you permission.

indesign

so there are advantages of having a graphic designer/artist as a boyfriend. i was talking to jeremy last night and he said that after i have my story all written out in word i should send it to him so he can put it in indesign and then make it all fancified. since i'm not doing numbered/titled chapters he said he can make sure i have the right dashes inbetween my sections and other things like that. and then after he has it in indesign he would make it a pdf. i actually don't remember what the advantage is of that, but i'm sure it's only good. jeremy wouldn't steer me wrong.

inspiration

so i was just in the shower, yes i realize it's 12:30pm and i'm just now showering, and i wasn't really thinking about anything when it hit me how to set up the chapters for the book. instead of your normal chapters i'm giong to do it in just scenes. some chapters in some books are many days and many different scenes. i'm giong to just have it be in short spurt of a scene and then it will be a new chapter. the biggest thing is that i don't want the time line to matter. the only thing about the time line that matters is that these scenes happen before she kills herself. ("Time line?!?!? This is no time to argue about time! We don't HAVE the time! ..."- the movie star trek: first contact)

inspiration tends to come to me like that. i'll be at work and i'll just being typing away (i do data entry) and all of a sudden it will hit me on how to write something; and so i'll have to scribble away real quick and then i'll go back to work. if i want to get something done, i have to not think about it and then it will hit blindside. which to me makes it all the sweeter. sometimes i'll be in the middle of a converstion and i'll have to write something down real quick because i totally just figured something out for my writing.

x-acto

so i was writing and to have the girl kill herself i'm using the old slit your wrists way. well i'm having her use an x-acto knife. well when i was writing it i originally put exacto knife. i spell how things sound. (and in case you don't really know me, i'm a horrible speller. but i say that is why there are editors. hehe.) microsoft word told me i spelled the word wrong. so i right clicked the word to see how it was spelled, and there was nothing like my word. so i messaged jeremy (my boyfriend) and asked him how to spell the word (he uses them all the time for art). and he said it's x-acto. so i typed that in and microsoft word still yelled at me. well i know that jeremy spelled it right, so i just made word add it to the dictionary. i was just surprised that it didn't already have the word in the program. but i guess that it can't every word konw to man in the english dictionary in the word program.

day one

so this is my first post for my new fiction story i'm writing. so far i've decided to call the story different days. i'll have to wait and see if that stays or not. the story is about a girl who goes through life and in the end kills herself. the point is that i want to show that suicide is out there and that many people die from it. most stories i've come across that have suicide tend to have the character live. well i'm not having that. people die.

so far i have the death scene and the beginning of the first chapter. i am using some symbolism. which i'm a huge person against. why does there have to be symbolism in everything? there isn't. sometimes i just want it to rain, not because the characters are sad am i having it rain (the great gatsby). but i'm using two colors for the meaning behind it. green (midori) for the meaning of eternal life, youth, and misforutne. and blue for the meaning puirty, feminity, life, stability, and depression. also i'm naming the main character sarah. sara from the bible stood for beauty, was blessed and she was the princess of the tribe.

well that's all for now. for this journal i will not be caring about spelling and whatnot. that's for my story. if you have any thoughts or cares, feel free to share. by for now.