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Posts tagged ‘poetry’

Oct 20

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How to riff your way to more ideas

Earlier, I wrote a post about word riffing—applying the musical technique of riffing to find just the right word. Sometimes, I use this riffing technique to generate ideas for plot, character traits, or anything else I might be stuck on.

Often an idea will grab my attention and I’ll follow it, riffing along to see where it leads me. Riffing is like dominos–one thing leads to another. To really get my brain going, I ask questions such as: What if? What’s next? How does it feel?

This happened recently when a friend was diagnosed with an illness. She told me how the doctor’s words felt like a curse. The idea of words as a curse intrigued me so I started asking myself questions. Below is the poem that was born from my riffing: Read more

Sep 12

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Four tips to choosing a book title

Choosing the right title is an art. Sometimes, titles come in a brilliant flash of insight. Sometimes, not. I write poetry so I’ve had years of practice with titles. With most poems, I can usually find an intriguing title fairly quickly. Not so with my memoir. I’ve spent hours and hours and hours trying to come up with just the right title. In the process, I’ve discovered a few things to think about when choosing a title. But first, I’ll share some of my title failures and why they failed (no laughing out loud!)

My memoir is the story of how, as a child, I used the intuitive gifts inherited from my Norwegian great-grandmothers to transcend my father’s dark legacy. Below are the titles I’ve used along the way, in order of appearance. (I’m sharing the bad first so you can see how I learned from my mistakes).

The Language of Thorns. Okay, yes, I’m a poet. This shows it by being too literary and dramatic. Read more

Sep 6

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Three ways to use word riffs

One of my favorite writer’s tools is to practice word riffs. To me, word riffing is like playing a musical instrument (of course, that’s where the term riffing comes from). I’m learning to play guitar and one of the things I like to do is randomly strum away, making up my own little songs (often sung to my cats and starring their names—they just love that).

First, some tips for word riffing:

  • Make it fun and playful. Don’t make it serious—if the right word doesn’t come this time, know that it will next time.
  • Use a timer and write fast without stopping. This helps keep me focused and to the point. It allows me to go deeper and find more gems. I set my timer for 5 to 7 minutes.
  • Let it all out—first, you have to dump the garbage to make room for the treasures. Think of decluttering your office space. Once you get rid of the clutter, everything seems to flow better, doesn’t it? It’s the same thing with your brain. Write down everything that comes to your mind—the dumb words, the clichés, etc. If you don’t, you’ll just be storing it to come out later.
  • You can use word riffing for a phrase as well as one single word. Though I find focusing on one word at a time easier and more fun! Read more

Aug 31

How photography & art can inspire your writing

As a freshman in college, I wrote one of my first poems in response to a painting that hung on the wall of an art gallery where I worked. It was an abstract painting of a woman’s body and I wrote my poem in an abstract style—mimicking the curves and nuances of the painting. I even titled the poem “Abstract Painting #6” after the name of the painting. I remember this because it was the first poem I ever published. Firsts tend to make an impression on me.

As a writer, I’ve trained myself to be observant of my surroundings. But I don’t always succeed—there are days when I’m so involved with my “other worlds” that I literally don’t notice what’s happening around me. Once, when I worked at a law firm, I went for an entire day before noticing that my colleagues had rearranged my office. (Something they thought was hysterically funny for some reason).

When I enter a new environment now, I try to notice my surroundings—I look for what’s unusual or unique. I look for those “firsts.” If I find something intriguing, I store it away for later use in a poem or story. Read more

Aug 23

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Three ways to feed your muse: hunting down inspiration, Part 2

You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.  Jack London

Inspiration comes from many places. Sometimes, it’s a visual image—fog settling over the bay, a blue jay teetering on a phone wire, a dead leaf swirling on the wind. Sometimes, inspiration comes in the form of sound—a phrase overheard, the sound of water rushing over rocks, silence when the power goes out.  But too often, inspiration doesn’t just come out of the blue—I have to go hunting for it.

One of my favorite ways to find inspiration is to read the work of others—poetry, fiction, nonfiction. As a writer, we train ourselves while reading to have different levels of awareness running at the same time. Kind of like having multiple computer programs running at once.

On one level, we’re fully immersed in the story or poem, but on another level we’re noticing language, syntax, the arrangement of words, metaphors, rhythm. We notice how the author or poet uses concretes and abstractions, how she presents her characters or builds suspense.

As you read, notice if the piece grabs you. And, if it does, where does that happen? Be on the lookout for what inspires your muse.

Sometimes, an idea or inspiration will come in the form of one word. One wild word that sparks your muse into action. Read more

Jul 26

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Two reasons to keep a poetry or writing journal

Shortly after Joan Larkin published her latest book of poetry, My Body: New and Selected Poems, I took an afternoon writing class from her.  I’d been writing poetry off and on for twenty years and had developed my own style for writing and saving my work. It looked something like this:

  1. I go for a walk, or do the dishes, or some other activity that requires little thinking. As I walk or scrub, I let my mind and eyes wander. Let them flit over ideas and objects until something seizes my imagination. I ask questions: What does this mean? What could this mean? What if?
  2. At some point, the words start coming. If I’m still walking, I speak into my iRecorder but eventually, I sit down and write out my first draft by hand—usually on a piece of lined notebook paper, but not in any particular journal or notebook. Read more

Jul 6

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Six guidelines for turning rejection into success

Rejection hurts. No matter who it’s coming from, or what part of your life it’s directed at, it hurts. As writers, we have to risk rejection if we want to see our work in print. 

What’s the best way to handle rejection? Can we turn it into something positive?

When I began submitting my poetry to literary magazines, my mentor told me I’d need to develop a thick skin and to look at those rejection slips as stepping stones: with each rejection I received, I was one step closer to getting published. Though I accumulated a bonfire-size pile of rejections, I kept writing and kept submitting. When I received my first acceptance letter, I jumped up and down in a little victory dance. All that work paid off. My second acceptance letter came the following week. Read more

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