? for writers...

[bsfins]

Ok,this is too all the epople on the board that like to write things,poetry and such.

I started writing...umm something,like a metphor/peom/story type of thing....I was walking,and it just came to me.As soon as I was done,I ran in the house,and wrote everything I could remember on Microsoft word.The problem is,I remembered how it started,and remembered,sort of how I wanted to end it...But forgot,how I connected the begining and the end.

I've looked at this ...story/poem/metaphor... just about everyday in hopes of maybe remembering what I was thinking.

Is it gone forever?
Was it just a passing thought,that wasn't ment to be remembered?

Or was this Like Dave says,in a different moment,different place kind of thing...

[crazy_scar_man]

That has happened to me before. I'm a writer by nature, mostly prose instead of poetry.

My only advice is that if you don't remember how your story connected, then there is probably a better way to bring the two points together.

Something that has always helped me when trying to decipher how a character of mine interprets or reacts to his present is to visualize that character ten years after the story is finished. Where is your character in ten years?

That usually helps expound on the present.

Good luck Lil B. When your done I'd like to read it.

[Sunstroke]

If I were faced with this situation as a writer, I'd probably write down both the end and the beginning as completely as possible, but then I would blank the ending completely out of my head. Once I had nothing but the beginning to play with, I'd develop the storyline from there in different directions (probably in skeletal form, rather than fully written out, to save time). If the middle that you'd forgotten doesn't reappear while you're playing with storylines there, then I'd look at the ending again, to see if that jogs the missing original connector from its hiding place. Even if it hasn't, I'm betting by that point, you've figured another way of bridging your "once upon a time" to your "happily ever after" anyway. 

[bsfins]

Unfortuanately,The whole thing is sort of a memory,alittle like looking at the past.I'm trying to write it as...ummmm....If someone starts to describe a Beautiful woman,as a Fine wine,but as they are describing it,you're not sure if they are talking about the woman,or the wine......

I've had this for a month now...So I'm getting quite frustrated ...I thank you guy's for the suggetions,I think I'll try them out...

[SCFinFan]

Lil B, you may try walking again where you were so that the memory or idea may come back to you. Or, in an option that I don't think has been explored yet, you may just leave the poem as is. Plenty of Poems are unfinished and yet still popular and famous. Ever heard of the poem Kubla Kahn? Unfinished. Much of the works of the Romantic poets are unfinished (By romantic i mean people like Keats, SHelley, W-Worth, Coleridge, etc).

Let me tell you something, Lil B. I try to write, but I'm just no good at it. I couldn't string words together if I try. But, I can connect things. One of the best unfinished poems I ever read was Wordworth's Prelude it's mostly a nature, biographical poem, and it contains some of the most beautiful images ever constructed in English poetry. If you ask me, it's the best poem ever written. If you get a chance go get a copy and read a bit of it, I promise you, if you give it time and don't just toss it when it gets a little tough, the images and lines of thought you'll dredge up will be well worth it.

Question: I've seen numerous people on this board say they write. I was wondering if anyone would mind if I post a poem I wrote once. Is that ok? Or is that like... gay or something?

[Sunstroke]

Lil B, you may try walking again where you were so that the memory or idea may come back to you. Or, in an option that I don't think has been explored yet, you may just leave the poem as is. Plenty of Poems are unfinished and yet still popular and famous. Ever heard of the poem Kubla Kahn? Unfinished. Much of the works of the Romantic poets are unfinished (By romantic i mean people like Keats, SHelley, W-Worth, Coleridge, etc).

I list Samuel Taylor Coleridge as my favorite poet, and I love the romantics in general. Coleridge was a little "out there" by the time he wrote Kubla Kahn in 1816, and even Wordsworth couldn't help his friend gather his thoughts to finish it.

Question: I've seen numerous people on this board say they write. I was wondering if anyone would mind if I post a poem I wrote once. Is that ok? Or is that like... gay or something?

It is never gay to post poetry. Dave posts the occasional poem, as does Scarface. I often take verses from poetry I am writing and put it in the signature block at the bottom of my posts.

Fire us up here, SCFinFan...what's the verse that can happen? 

[bsfins]

Well, the good thing is using Stokes forget about the ending,got me anew paragraph of the "middle".

(This is going to sound really wierd,strange,odd,like I'm on some drugs)
I walk an hour (minumum,typically 1 1/2 ) a day,not including walking to and from work.I walk aound the outside of my house,in the yard.I just do laps around my house,and my white trash nieghbors think I've lost my mind.During that time,my mind wanders,thinking about anything,and everything.I get in such deep thought,almost like meditation,I don't even feel myself walking.This is where this writing came from.I've been in that state at least a dozen times since I've wrote it,and Nothing...

I'm just no good at it. I couldn't string words together if I try.

I'm a redneck,that Speaking/writing in english well,is a little bit of a stretch.I'm better with pictures,drawings,doing things with my hands.

My biggest realization about this project is....I think I wanted to be closure for a part of my life,That part of my life crept back in for an instant recently.

P.S. It's about a friend Not an Ex-girlfriend...(I read what I've typed,and it might have sounded like it was mourning an Ex girlfriend.)

SCfinfan...write away,to each his/her own...

Thanks again....I'm off to clean the aquarium...

[Dave Gray]

Lil B,

Every writer has their own way of doing things.  Often, the original idea I have doesn't work for me once I put in down, and I end up changing things around.  In poetry, sometimes I can't get the cadence right, or when I was writing my novel, I couldn't get things to flow naturally.  ...but it's important to try those ideas, because they often spawn other good ones.  What I do is jot down ideas as soon as I get them.  I used to use a little note pad, with random thoughts (not even plot points, but little quirky things I notice about people, places, or objects).  Now, I type them in a notes program on my phone, since it's always on me.

Is what you're missing an actual plot point, or is it just a smooth transition?

[bsfins]

I have to admit,It changed...I'm trying to compare my relationship with a friend of mine,to a bridge.Kind of a story of us,kind of thing....I originally wanted this light hearted,looking mainly at some of the good times,the little things,short story.

I've sort of turned it more honest,darker,more sad if anything...

I think it's transitions....but I've added more plot points,to explain things alittle better.

Example...
Even with everything changing we continued to build. I admit, along the way I saw little cracks and possible defects. Things that  were minor when we were younger, became major structural problems later.

This was just a thought in one of the paragraphs,i'm going to elaborate,and be more honest about those cracks.Instead of glossing them over just stating there was Problems.


Right now it's only about 6 paragraphs really...It's far from a novel...

I think asking for help,is the best thing I did for it.

[SCFinFan]

Lil B, those are excellent metaphors! You know, I've always thought that it's much harder to act in a comedy than it is to act in a tragedy. It's also much easier to write something dark than something funny. That just seems to be the way of things, at least for me.

Anyway, not to steal your thunder, but here is something I wrote once, or at least part of it. I wrote this as a poem to an ex-girlfriend. For some reason or another, I couldn't get over this girl. I'd really like some feedback on it, if anyone wouldn't mind. I don't care if you slam it, i'd just like to see what people think. (Thanks to everyone who coaxed me into doing this.)

O gentle beach breezes that once kindly
Gave Wordsworth his creative inspiration,
His gold-plumed world, come to me now.
For I speak of something just as grand in topic
And reverential in essence, as that grey-beard
Did once. For not but a few days ago, did I
Find myself sitting amongst the cold, grey
Chairs of an airport. The place was devoid
Of all humanity in its design. Cold edges
Wrapped around heartless window displays
And fake plants collecting dust under surgical
Lights. Smells struck out like pioneers from
Their warm beds in some chain restaurants,
Only to be met with foreign smells which
Battled with them for space and property,
Mix’t and mutated them in to new strains.
And I amongst that human and olfactory traffic
Sat, nervously awaiting with cologned neck.
Primal fears from ancient relatives bubbled
In my mind and in my stomach. Aesthetic
Doubt had clouded my every decision that
Morning, as I desperately calculated the
Probable sum total happiness she may have,
Dependent upon which clothes I wore. Never
Before had such ideas crossed my mind. No
Person, place, or thing had ever caused me a
Moment’s grief in deciding what well-woven
Threads should adorn my frame. But now they
Did. What wonder had she conjured in me?

Planes landed as my fingers fumbled over one
Another in an attempt to speak a humble prayer,
“O Lord, let this be perfect, let my every action
Be illuminated by you. Might I for once show
A grace and a care that would allow an int’mate
Garden to flower between she and I.” I continued,
“O Lord, please let…” and trailed off did I, for
Perchance my eyes had glided across the surface
Of my watch. Time had passed and she was late.
The cold screen said the plane was to be on time.
And the even colder attendant asserted its truth.
Yet I had not seen her. The cold nervousness in me
Now stopped, giving way to horrific visions,
Planes crashing and turban-headed men making
Some bloody statement to a world weary of both
Statements and Blood! Yet no sooner did
Such sights appear and curtsey before my mind’s
Eye, than did a familiar buzzing in my pocket
Alert me to the fact that she was calling me.
When the conversation was done, a new joy
Had entered my mind. She was safe! And she
Was here! I had been the dupe pawn of
Poor chart-reading skills (ne’er had I done
Well on those damned standardized tests)
And had perched upon a chair in the wrong
Gate! This had not been so bad, had one
Discounted the fact that there were but
Two gates in total. And yet she seemed
Not angry at all.

 Rushing past vanguard of security men
With hands hovering above guns and tazers, I sped
Quickly as a quarterhorse fresh out of gate.
A thousand or more faces flew by me, noses of
All shapes and sizes: hooks, crooks, pugs, bulldogs,
Italian crested peak noses, big enough to start
A civilization on. Then, having broken out of a
Forest of tall lawyers, clad in pinstripes and grey,
I saw her.

Vision, Milton cried when he lost you.
No longer could he see “holy light, offspring of
Heav’ns first-born”. Yet never was Milton, blind like
Homer, a better expositor of truth than when he
Wrote of missing “human face divine”. Philosophers
Search for deep truths, and artists look to recreate
Reality, but all fall short. Reality, iconoclastic
Reality, breaks all molds  and lithely jumps out
Of any box the human mind wishes,
In which it could entrap her.

O vision, I praised God that day that
I was a man who could see, who could see such
A one as her. Thin wrists flowed up into soft arms and
Nude shoulders. White skin wrote a symphony
Of sight. Light bending round a waist that even
Greek sculptors could never match in perfection.
“Fearfully and wonderfully” she was made. Hands,
Not Ivory, but crème, and lips, opened slightly,
Drawing in sweet breath of life and expelling
Words like honey’d syrops tinct with cinnamon.
She does not have a face like an angel or goddess.
No, they have faces like she. Blue eyes, blue not like
The sea, and not even like the sky, but like home. Blue
Not of ice, or of air, but of comfortable moments,
Deepened with good friendship, light cheer,
And mirth. Warmth beaming from a face that would
Convert the heart of the darkest savage. A need in me
Arises. A deep desire to drop to one knee. No marriage
Would be proposed, but from such a prostrate position
One would be well-equipped to take in such a
Woman. Woman, that word, all words, even the best
Are an imperfect tool, running from the mouth
Of an imperfect men, or slipping off the quill
Of an imperfect writer, as I am one of such. No,
Her beauty, her very self, they cannot be contained
In words. Words do not make a fitting home and hearth
For her qualities. Even at their height they
Fall, and become but a mere prison, conjuring
Impossible images. No, her beauty is beyond words
And for once, I can understand what that means.

She sees me, and the rest is a blur of happiness...

So, yeah, there it is. I really wanted to write like Wordsworth but this was the best i could do. What do you guys think?

[Dave Gray]

SC,

I read your poem and don't really know how to comment.  I don't really GET poetry.  To be honest, I only write corny limericks, rather than real non-rhyming stuff.  ...I've studied it in school, but never really understood it.  I am only writing this to you to show that I appreciate you letting us read it.

[SCFinFan]

Thanks, Dave.

[Sunstroke]

A longer response in my PM, but I enjoyed that poem quite a bit. I could never write anything in that style nearly as eloquently, that's for damned sure.