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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Everyday Canvas
"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
David Whyte
This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts.
January 17, 2016 at 11:19pm January 17, 2016 at 11:19pm
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Prompt: “The best actors show you the flaws in the writing.” —Sam Shepard
What do you think about this? Should we ask a few good actors to read our work?
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Actors go through an interpretive process of the material in a much more insightful mode than writers or average readers. An actor sees himself as the character within the entire scene and the story or novel. He may even have ideas how to fix the surrounding issues so that the character assigned to him shines.
At times, the way some actors handle a play comes very close to some form of psychosis. They even forget about the material that what they are reading is a book or play or that it’s for an audience, even if the idea of an audience is lurking in there somewhere like a ghost. Yet, the better actors feel they are now the character and also the book or the play, while still being aware of the presence of the audience from the periphery of their vision.
The best actors can show you the flaws in the writing, but good luck, if you can find one to agree to read your work. They probably won't bother with work that is not a script for film or stage. I believe their critiques are efficient because they question the writing from inside out, asking probably, “OK, now what?” or “Where is the relevance of this scene for this character, story premise, or theme?” or “Where is the attitude, the voice?” or “Does this mean what we’re trying to make it mean?” or “Can it be constructed some other way?” Their kind of questioning is more valuable than anything because of their persistence in finding the essence of a story. A good actor won’t let a writer get away with shoddy planning, although another writer/reviewer without the stage experience may.
If we look at our own first drafts with the stance that an actor would take for interpreting them on stage, we would be better writers. For the same token, I think it would help young, budding writers to consider taking drama and acting lessons, rather as an aid to their writing than to any ambition they may have for stage or film.
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January 17, 2016 at 2:18pm January 17, 2016 at 2:18pm
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Poetic License According to Britannica:
“Poetic license, the right assumed by poets to alter or invert standard syntax or depart from common diction or pronunciation to comply with the metrical or tonal requirements of their writing.
As a general rule, poetry has a carefully controlled verbal structure. The metre of the poem, the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, and the sounds and modulations of the words themselves all affect the subtle meanings and feelings that the poet may be trying to convey or evoke. Poets may distort normal prose patterns for the sake of form and therefore assume poetic license; it is solely a matter of aesthetic judgment and sensibility as to whether the alterations enhance or detract from the total effect of the poem.
The term poetic license is also sometimes used in a humorous or pejorative sense to provide an excuse for careless or superficial writing.”
Okay, not just poets but I’d like to cut some slack to all writers if what they write pushes forward an idea or a feeling more forcefully than any other way. I may even look over a slight grammatical booboo in favor of a farce or mimicking an accent.
Still, I cringe at badly written song lyrics, even if I don’t expect any one of them to be 100% correct. It is one thing to try to create a dramatic effect and another thing to botch up the meaning or the language. I don’t want to give examples here for fear that nowadays music lovers may have my head for that, but there has to be a line drawn between blatant errors and poetic license. Especially in music. For the simple reason that we remember things better when they are set to music. Music has a way of infusing into our consciousness. For example, I can’t remember the day-to-day events that happened during the 1950s, but if you hum an Elvis song under your breath, its words will come to me in a flash.
Yes, I strongly believe grammar is important, and it is especially so when words are set to music. Moreover, let’s not forget what Michel de Montaigne said, “The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to questions of grammar.” 
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