Hey everyone! As promised, here's the sestina I mentioned last week, A Week In The Life.
I try to warm myself in the shower
After that, I eat something that could be considered a meal
Then I head onto campus for my lectures
I note that tomorrow I need to pick up groceries
I spend the rest of my day working on my computer
Giving up, I resign myself to my bed
It takes me hours to get out of bed
Even longer to bother with a shower
Apparently, I’m too busy at my computer
Another sad excuse for a meal
I can't be bothered with the groceries
I finally make myself presentable for my lectures
I hate early lectures...
I've half a mind just to go back to bed
Finally got around to those groceries
No real point to a shower
At last, a proper meal!
Late into the night, and I'm still working on my computer
I wake up with my face lying on my computer
Get ready 5 minutes before my lectures
Reheat some leftovers and call it a meal
Now that I'm done for the week, I head to bed
Forget about the shower
Forget about the groceries
I didn’t buy enough groceries
Nothing else to do but mess around on the computer
Hang on, I'm overdue for a shower
No lectures
Just me in my bed
On my bedside table, a beautiful meal
The plates are still on the table from the meal
No need to buy groceries
No need to get out of bed
An inactive computer
Another day without lectures
Hissing water from someone else in the shower
Almost every meal is eaten at my computer
The most exercise I get is from getting groceries and walking to lectures
Everywhere is cold except for my bed or the shower
Monday, 20 January 2020
Tuesday, 14 January 2020
A Year of Starting With This: Limitations
Hey everyone! Here's my second blog post in a series inspired by the writing podcast Start With This. Each post will revolve around a certain episode's subject, where I'll talk about my experiences with the subject and present the piece I've written for the assignment given by that episode. Today's topic is limitations, both in writing style, but also the medium and tools you have available to you.
Limitations, while obviously inhibiting what you can do to some degree, can be turned into a tool for expressing ideas by working with the limitations instead of against them. As a writer, limitations are most noticeable in structured poetry, with consistent rhyming schemes and conditions to fulfill. The appeal to write a structured poem is to figure out what you can do despite, or even because of, those restrictions. I've tried my hand at this myself in the past, writing a sestina for my second year Creative Writing paper. A sestina has you picking six words and writing a poem where the six lines of each stanza all end with one of those words. However, a traditional sestina must be six stanzas long, changing the order of the ending words as follows:
1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
The seventh stanza has three lines, using two words at a time. It's a very interesting structure, where even though you pick the words you're going to use, you're restricted in where you use them. How I used it was to use the structure to characterise the life of a student growing more disorganised over the course of the week. I chose six activities typical of student life, and wrote around the activities order getting arranged and rearranged. In the end, my sestina came out as an internal narration/monologue about their week, starting off strong but eventually falling apart. To save this post from becoming too long, I'll post that next week, but I can definitely say that I can appreciate structural limitations to some degree, even if they can be frustrating to work with.
Speaking of frustration, the conditions for my assignment were not kind. I had to take random things from three different lists: I had to incorporate the title from one of 50 Bluegrass songs, a line from a meal review, and include a city from a list of the 50 most populated US cities. Then I had to write an record a short monologue using those three things.
The city in question was Tampa, Florida, and my mind immediately jumped to the idea of Florida Man before dismissing it. For the uninitiated, Florida Man is a form of folk figure inspired by a myriad of ridiculous Florida news headlines, be they real or inspired fiction. Look Florida Man up sometime, you won't be disappointed. However, at the time, I wanted to try something more serious first.
The Bluegrass song title was High On A Mountain, by Del McCoury & The Dixie Pals, which I couldn't use literally because Tampa was as flat as a washboard. Finally, the article I had to use was on Peri-Peri chicken, which is where things started to pick up. One of the lines described Nando's Peri-Peri sauce, which gave me a setting to use. The only thing to figure out at that point was how to use 'High on a Mountain', which I figured would have to be used figuratively, like 'High on a mountain of drugs'. I was pondering on how best to incorporate these three things, but then the answer hit me: Florida Man.
In hindsight, I ended up bending the rules without realising: Since I play two characters, it's not one monologue, but two with one in the middle. It was also supposed to be two minutes long, but there's no point worrying about it now. It's done, and it was surprisingly fun to do once I figured out what I was doing. I don't think it plays into the limitations as well as it could, but it's certainly serviceable.
Join me later this week for the poem I mentioned earlier, and later for my next post, concerning Feedback!
Limitations, while obviously inhibiting what you can do to some degree, can be turned into a tool for expressing ideas by working with the limitations instead of against them. As a writer, limitations are most noticeable in structured poetry, with consistent rhyming schemes and conditions to fulfill. The appeal to write a structured poem is to figure out what you can do despite, or even because of, those restrictions. I've tried my hand at this myself in the past, writing a sestina for my second year Creative Writing paper. A sestina has you picking six words and writing a poem where the six lines of each stanza all end with one of those words. However, a traditional sestina must be six stanzas long, changing the order of the ending words as follows:
1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
The seventh stanza has three lines, using two words at a time. It's a very interesting structure, where even though you pick the words you're going to use, you're restricted in where you use them. How I used it was to use the structure to characterise the life of a student growing more disorganised over the course of the week. I chose six activities typical of student life, and wrote around the activities order getting arranged and rearranged. In the end, my sestina came out as an internal narration/monologue about their week, starting off strong but eventually falling apart. To save this post from becoming too long, I'll post that next week, but I can definitely say that I can appreciate structural limitations to some degree, even if they can be frustrating to work with.
Speaking of frustration, the conditions for my assignment were not kind. I had to take random things from three different lists: I had to incorporate the title from one of 50 Bluegrass songs, a line from a meal review, and include a city from a list of the 50 most populated US cities. Then I had to write an record a short monologue using those three things.
The city in question was Tampa, Florida, and my mind immediately jumped to the idea of Florida Man before dismissing it. For the uninitiated, Florida Man is a form of folk figure inspired by a myriad of ridiculous Florida news headlines, be they real or inspired fiction. Look Florida Man up sometime, you won't be disappointed. However, at the time, I wanted to try something more serious first.
The Bluegrass song title was High On A Mountain, by Del McCoury & The Dixie Pals, which I couldn't use literally because Tampa was as flat as a washboard. Finally, the article I had to use was on Peri-Peri chicken, which is where things started to pick up. One of the lines described Nando's Peri-Peri sauce, which gave me a setting to use. The only thing to figure out at that point was how to use 'High on a Mountain', which I figured would have to be used figuratively, like 'High on a mountain of drugs'. I was pondering on how best to incorporate these three things, but then the answer hit me: Florida Man.
In hindsight, I ended up bending the rules without realising: Since I play two characters, it's not one monologue, but two with one in the middle. It was also supposed to be two minutes long, but there's no point worrying about it now. It's done, and it was surprisingly fun to do once I figured out what I was doing. I don't think it plays into the limitations as well as it could, but it's certainly serviceable.
Join me later this week for the poem I mentioned earlier, and later for my next post, concerning Feedback!
Thursday, 2 January 2020
A Year of Starting With This: Idea to Execution
Hey everyone,
I haven't been using this blog since last year, which is mainly because I forgot it existed, even when I had a piece to share. Now, however, I've found something I want to work on that involves having a public platform to post my content to, so I figured I'd use my blog as that platform.
Over the next year, I'll be making posts inspired by episodes of Start With This, a writing podcast where the co-creators of the podcast Welcome To Night Vale discuss their experiences with certain topics and then give the audience things to both consume and create based on the topic. I'll be posting the results of my exercises, as well as talking about my experiences about the related topic as a university student and aspiring fiction writer. I'll be doing one post every two weeks, keeping a consistent schedule while allowing me plenty of time to work on these alongside my university work.
This episode was Idea to Execution: The many benefits of consistent execution as well as making sure you don't get so caught up in ideas that you forget to execute them. I generally make sure to write ideas down someplace so I can come back to them later, but I tend to find myself juggling multiple projects at a time without much concrete progress on any of them. That's why I stopped working on a singular novel and focused on an anthology; my reasoning was that if I finished anything, it would contribute to my overall goal. I've also gotten better with executing in general: I've finally got around to finishing some pieces just so I can put them behind me, and it's nice to say that I've finally finished something, even if it wasn't subject to all the nitpicking I'd have done if I edited it forever.
This exercise was to take an idea I had, write a piece on it in the span of one hour and put it somewhere. I chose the concept of a modern-day daughter of Ares trying to live her life despite her overbearing dad and Hera sending followers to kill her. Said daughter's characterisation is another thing I've wanted to write for a while; A badass who's just tired of all the dangerous stuff she gets thrown into and just wants to chill. As stated before, this was written in an hour, and I forbade myself from doing any editing once that hour was over, so excuse any mistakes you see.
“Hey honey, how’s it going?”
“Hey dad! I’ve been good, was about to head out to town.”
“Out to break hearts, or kneecaps?”
“Neither, dad, I’m trying to relax...”
“You say that like seeing a good fight isn’t relaxing.”
“Hey, you’re the God of War here, not me.”
“You’re my child, what’s your point?”
“I’m not JUST your child, you know.”
“But it’s sti-” Hippolyta hung up. An argument with a being dedicated to causing conflict was not how she wanted to start her evening. She sighed, threw her jacket on and headed outside.
The snow-tracked streets greeted her, the overcast sky making them a dull white rather than a more blinding shade. Perfect weather for a nice cup of coffee, but her options were limited at this time of night. She started walking, hoping that she could find a cozy place to eat in, maybe find some entertainment.
“Hippolyta, child of Ares!” She turned to find a young man staring at her, wearing a peacock pin on his duffle-coat.
“Hera sent you?” He grinned and nodded.
“Listen, I’m not really in the mood to deal with assassins right now, so I’m going to call a rain check on this.” She swung her foot into his shin, sending him crumpling in pain. “I’ll deal with you tomorrow,” she said as she started to walk away.
“No, you’ll deal with us now!” He snarled, struggling to pick himself up. “In the name of Hera, we will set right the mis-”
“The mistake that is my birth, I know. Wait, did you say we?” Hippolyta looked around for others before a loud crack heralded a sharp pain in her arm. She dove behind a fence and looked at the thankfully minimal damage.
“Your friend’s going to pay for ruining my favourite jacket!” She shouted to the first guy.
“We have the Supreme Goddess on our side! Your life is forfeit!” Hippolyta heard the sound of a revolver chamber being spun.
“Yeah, the other ones said that too!” She threw off her jacket; Fixing bullet holes in her shirt was less of a problem. She waited for the first assassin to turn the corner before rushing up to him, putting his neck in a chokehold and throwing him behind the fence with her. Another kick to the face had him unconscious, probably worse. Hippolyta looked for the dropped gun; she saw it lying in the snow, just out of cover. She still didn’t know where the sniper was, but she figured she’d find out once they took a shot. In one motion, she rolled out of cover, picked up the gun, and aimed it at the rooftops across the road. Their first shot went too high, and Hippolyta shifted her aim to where it came from before firing. An impossible shot for anyone but the daughter of Ares.
Hippolyta walked into the diner, having been denied entry from several restaurants for her appearance. Her hair was mostly free of snow, but her jacket’s prominent bullet hole raised far too much suspicion. She walked up to the counter and a concerned cashier.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Just get me a coffee.”
Join me in a fortnight for my next exercise, focusing on recognising limitations!
I haven't been using this blog since last year, which is mainly because I forgot it existed, even when I had a piece to share. Now, however, I've found something I want to work on that involves having a public platform to post my content to, so I figured I'd use my blog as that platform.
Over the next year, I'll be making posts inspired by episodes of Start With This, a writing podcast where the co-creators of the podcast Welcome To Night Vale discuss their experiences with certain topics and then give the audience things to both consume and create based on the topic. I'll be posting the results of my exercises, as well as talking about my experiences about the related topic as a university student and aspiring fiction writer. I'll be doing one post every two weeks, keeping a consistent schedule while allowing me plenty of time to work on these alongside my university work.
This episode was Idea to Execution: The many benefits of consistent execution as well as making sure you don't get so caught up in ideas that you forget to execute them. I generally make sure to write ideas down someplace so I can come back to them later, but I tend to find myself juggling multiple projects at a time without much concrete progress on any of them. That's why I stopped working on a singular novel and focused on an anthology; my reasoning was that if I finished anything, it would contribute to my overall goal. I've also gotten better with executing in general: I've finally got around to finishing some pieces just so I can put them behind me, and it's nice to say that I've finally finished something, even if it wasn't subject to all the nitpicking I'd have done if I edited it forever.
This exercise was to take an idea I had, write a piece on it in the span of one hour and put it somewhere. I chose the concept of a modern-day daughter of Ares trying to live her life despite her overbearing dad and Hera sending followers to kill her. Said daughter's characterisation is another thing I've wanted to write for a while; A badass who's just tired of all the dangerous stuff she gets thrown into and just wants to chill. As stated before, this was written in an hour, and I forbade myself from doing any editing once that hour was over, so excuse any mistakes you see.
“Hey honey, how’s it going?”
“Hey dad! I’ve been good, was about to head out to town.”
“Out to break hearts, or kneecaps?”
“Neither, dad, I’m trying to relax...”
“You say that like seeing a good fight isn’t relaxing.”
“Hey, you’re the God of War here, not me.”
“You’re my child, what’s your point?”
“I’m not JUST your child, you know.”
“But it’s sti-” Hippolyta hung up. An argument with a being dedicated to causing conflict was not how she wanted to start her evening. She sighed, threw her jacket on and headed outside.
The snow-tracked streets greeted her, the overcast sky making them a dull white rather than a more blinding shade. Perfect weather for a nice cup of coffee, but her options were limited at this time of night. She started walking, hoping that she could find a cozy place to eat in, maybe find some entertainment.
“Hippolyta, child of Ares!” She turned to find a young man staring at her, wearing a peacock pin on his duffle-coat.
“Hera sent you?” He grinned and nodded.
“Listen, I’m not really in the mood to deal with assassins right now, so I’m going to call a rain check on this.” She swung her foot into his shin, sending him crumpling in pain. “I’ll deal with you tomorrow,” she said as she started to walk away.
“No, you’ll deal with us now!” He snarled, struggling to pick himself up. “In the name of Hera, we will set right the mis-”
“The mistake that is my birth, I know. Wait, did you say we?” Hippolyta looked around for others before a loud crack heralded a sharp pain in her arm. She dove behind a fence and looked at the thankfully minimal damage.
“Your friend’s going to pay for ruining my favourite jacket!” She shouted to the first guy.
“We have the Supreme Goddess on our side! Your life is forfeit!” Hippolyta heard the sound of a revolver chamber being spun.
“Yeah, the other ones said that too!” She threw off her jacket; Fixing bullet holes in her shirt was less of a problem. She waited for the first assassin to turn the corner before rushing up to him, putting his neck in a chokehold and throwing him behind the fence with her. Another kick to the face had him unconscious, probably worse. Hippolyta looked for the dropped gun; she saw it lying in the snow, just out of cover. She still didn’t know where the sniper was, but she figured she’d find out once they took a shot. In one motion, she rolled out of cover, picked up the gun, and aimed it at the rooftops across the road. Their first shot went too high, and Hippolyta shifted her aim to where it came from before firing. An impossible shot for anyone but the daughter of Ares.
Hippolyta walked into the diner, having been denied entry from several restaurants for her appearance. Her hair was mostly free of snow, but her jacket’s prominent bullet hole raised far too much suspicion. She walked up to the counter and a concerned cashier.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Just get me a coffee.”
Join me in a fortnight for my next exercise, focusing on recognising limitations!
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