Thursday, October 20, 2011

dawning lights

every picture has a story
to be told
to young or old

every picture holds the future
within the eye of the beholder
expounding truths
dispelling lies
to those
who are willing
to listen with
open ears
welcoming hearts
the truth heard
resounding in
dawn's early light
darkness will disperse
to hear this new verse
of solitude and joy
for the writer to employ
an entire mind's eye
among letters of remorse

Monday, October 17, 2011

a fatal error?

ok, so, i know this type of thing is completely inappropriate, and as many critics will tell you, this is not allowed, but since i have yet to publish anything, other than in a school newspaper, i am doing this regardless of what any critic will advise ... i am going to write about writing!
i have been working on a new story for almost a year now. this new one does not involve much death, there are no vampires to be seen and the two main characters have something a little more intimate happening than friendship, while i do not know quite what that is yet, i do know this: it is NOT a vampire novel and the events of said story line will always prevail in the favor of the two aforementioned characters .... eventually.
now, the reason for the gross diversion of tactical writing could have been due to many things, but the main reason is this: my vampire novel was becoming my life.
every song i heard on the radio held some relevance, every person in my life reminded me of some character, every movie i was watching had a vampire in it, every book i was reading had a vampire in it, and yes, even customers became the basis for some attribute of my characters, and i was even beginning to think of myself as a character! EVERYTHING began to hold some relation to the story.
now, some of you may think that this type of immersion is a good thing. it means that the story is truly within you and the flow of the plot is moving along, and viola! you have a wonderful piece of work! sadly, i have found this not to be the case, and in truth, i think it became more of a hindrance than a motivator.
so, after printing out my draft in its entirety (over 300 pages) and giving it to a dear friend to read, i ditched it.
at first i had thought that i just needed a little break, a few weeks while she took a look, but the weeks soon became months, and months soon became a few more months, and i soon found myself on the other side of the story .... and suddenly a new set of characters came along and decided to settle into my creative space for a while.
the while turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months ... and, yeah, you get the idea ... i suddenly had another story line to work on and the characters of my vamp novel went into the background.
the truly amazing thing about this, is that they did not return until i gave them the ok.
none of them were anywhere to be seen until my mind realized it had been almost a year since i had printed out the draft, and that's when the main character came back to me, and she made me realize something scarier than any vampire novel that could ever be written - claudia is me!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

light time



when something

gets taken away

when something

misses its mark

when something

blocks the light

nothing can get through

there is no shine

there is no shimmer

there is no light

there is no shadow

there is only darkness

there is only despair

there is only deceit

there is only defeat

there is only time

patiently waiting

to shine through

the darkness

to shine through

the shadows

of yesterday’s sorrow