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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.
Previous ... - 1- 2 ... Next
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PROMPT: When you've fallen behind on tasks, chores, or obligations, what's the easiest way for you to catch up or buy yourself some extra time?
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Ask me if I am ever able to catch up on things I am supposed to do and want to do, and the answer will be, “Never!” This is because I always have long lists, and I can never catch up.
Supposing we minimalize those obligations to the absolute essentials list, then I may have a half-cooked answer to this prompt’s question. So, with the absolute essentials, I take into account what needs to be done or take a look at the list (as sometimes I have written ones), and I pick the most important ones, which usually are the ones I can’t get away with. I do those first, then I continue with the others. This is the most common scenario; however, it may not be my only approach.
There is another scheme that lets me revise the list, which means rather than do the items on the list, I delete or postpone those items and make a new list that is more writer-friendly. Using other people to work in my place or delegating responsibilities would work very well, too, but unfortunately, at this time in my life, I have no such opportunities.
What works well for me the most, however, is doing something that needs to be done immediately, on the spot, and finishing with it for good. This is the best scenario, but it doesn’t always lend itself well to outside conditions beyond my control. For example, I can’t vacuum the house when hubby is sleeping or I can’t go to the bank to talk to the bank manager after hours or I can’t write something for a contest after the contest is closed, although the last one I have done numerous times, just for the heck of it. 
In short, I have no clear-cut answer, except the truth. which is: I wing it...most of the time...or just maybe...always. 
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Prompt: Let's look at the world from a bird's eye view. What does it see? Mundane or exciting it's creative Saturday have fun.
Bird’s eye view
So very juvenile
those spring primers
bloodroots, daffodils
forsythias, crocuses,
with graceful profiles
fighting one another
to become nannies for
late bloomers like
magenta tulips!
And I say as I perch,
in my elfish way,
high on a buttercup branch
“Such wanton cravings,”
while I watch them
from afar,
then worry about
my lost feather tails.
Shouldn't we all know,
feathers, petals, or not,
when life has us in its claws
we cannot dance alone
without making circles
around each other?
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Describe the worst nightmare you've ever had. Did it re-occur more than once?
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During the years starting with 1993, I began doing some dream work, which meant I was writing my dreams down into a notebook when and if I woke up after a dream.
I had one dream that could be called a nightmare, which in a weird way came true, years later. I now realize it was a nightmare of some sort. I’ll type it up, here.
1/5/1994
Wednesday
We are living in a big building in NYC. The building’s façade is of gray stone. My husband is away on business and I am feeding my two sons who are children (At this time, in real life, they were in their twenties). Then, I look out of the window and see a huge airplane circling above with gray clouds of smoke coming out of it. The sky turns gray, too. Then the airplane goes away and I think we are finally safe and go inside. The next second my older son calls me to the window. “The plane is above us,” he says. I look up but I only see a part of the plane, which was on top of our building.
I make the kids put their coats on and we leave the building. Just when we are exiting, an alarm rings. Hordes of people are on the streets, escaping from the plane. We go into a side street and stand on gray cement in front of another building. There we see the plane. It is a huge one.
Then another plane shows up about to hit a building. On top of it USA warplanes start circling, but they cannot help. The second plane hits a building and the first big one is standing on top of another tall thin building, although it hasn’t hit yet but it is kind of standing on it.
People are screaming. We think the building will collapse under the weight of the big plane. I urge everyone move to an opening like a large field so we will all be safe from the gray smoke and the debris. At this time, the large plane hits the left side of the building, making stones rain on us. My kids are both screaming. We all start running, and I manage to keep my kids safe, but the older one runs in front of me and a stone hits him in the back. But he seems okay.
Someone has called my husband and he is waiting for us in a restaurant. He keeps eating while scolding me for leaving the apartment without taking my purse and important documents because the building is about to collapse and we have important papers inside. I am upset that my husband doesn’t recognize what I did and doesn’t even mention how I urged people to find safety on the field or how I kept our kids safe. He just keeps eating food and getting mad at me.
Now, this was the first dream. Very long but I wrote it down during the early dawn as noted on the side of the page that it is the early dawn. I had similar dreams like it, later, involving airplanes hitting buildings and NYC. In all of them, my older son was in the dream. I didn’t make much of those, until 9/11 happened, years later, when my older son was working in NYC, downtown, commuting from LI.
That day, he was caught in the human flood and had to walk toward the north of the city. When the planes hit around nine-fifteen in the morning, he was just walking out of Penn Station. Had he decided to get to work earlier, he’d have been in that uproar.
After 9/11, I stopped doing the dream work since I had other dreams, too, that were halfway correct and something like them did happen in real life later on.
I am not the kind of person who believes in weird stuff. This all could have been my mind weighing all the possibilities, behind my back, and giving them to me in dreams, but whether there is such a thing as dreams being warnings about the future or it is that clown of my mind instigating such stuff, I don’t want to know about events beforehand, So I am not writing dreams down anymore, but sometimes, I tell them to my husband, in an abridged form, of course.
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Prompt: "Oh! Darkly, deeply, beautifully blue. As someone somewhere sings about the sky." Lord Bryon Write anything you want about the color blue.
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Most anyone I know likes blue as a color. It is the favorite color for some of us, although I have grown to like lavender and purple better in my old age.
Nature’s favorite color is blue, too. Blues are the colors of sadness, denims, the logos of many corporations, and flags of about 53% of the countries. Blue is the water and the sky, as it is a cool, wet color.
Blue’s being the most common favorite color may have to do with the sky being blue, which implies infinity, spiritual stuff, peace, and serenity. It may also have to do with it being the color of the ocean implying cleanliness, strength, and coolness. That may be why blues emit a sense of trust, loyalty, understanding and cleanliness. People who dress to impress usually choose dark blue suits maybe because aristocracy means being blue-blooded.
Then Greeks and people of the Middle East and the surrounding areas believe that the color blue wards off the evil eyes.
Plus, for the Cinderellas among us, Prince Charming is called the Blue Prince in some places in Europe. Then whoever likes art must also recall Sir Thomas Gainsborough’s painting, The Blue Boy. now in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Come to thnk of it, I wonder if that blue boy could be the original Prince Charming.
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Prompt: "Let's accept the invitation, ever open, from the stillness, taste, its exquisite sweetness and heed its silent instruction." Paul Brunton What invitations to events have you received that made you feel special?
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Every invitation is special, and in the past, I had many that I appreciated and had fun attending to no matter the occasion. Such an invitation makes a person feel like he or she is part of something, and being considered a guest in an event is always a good feeling. In the near future, my son and daughter-in-law are inviting us to visit them in their new home, which I am looking forward to, and another couple is giving a birthday party to my husband in May. That will really be special.
Then each time, I fly to visit family back home, my cousins always give large dinner parties, which are exquisite, and I really feel special and grateful that I have such a wonderful family.
As to Paul Brunton, I hadn’t heard of him. When I checked, I found out that he was a theosophist and his real name was Raphael Hurst. He was the proponent of Oriental Mentalism. He is also the person who talked to Meher Baba and introduced the famed Ramana Maharshi to the western world.
The above quote, however, I couldn’t find anywhere, although I came across many quotes by him. With or without the quote having an origin, I wonder if a theophilosopher-mystic like Brunton who was busy with the quest of genuine enlightenment, finding the overself (superself), and being non-materialistic would care about being invited to any place or if any kind of festivity to where people are invited would interest him. It may just be that he is talking about being invited by higher beings, nature, and the like, or about being invited into a path to God or spirituality.
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April 25, 2017 at 11:21am April 25, 2017 at 11:21am
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Prompt: When I was a kid, to put me in my place, I was told, “It is not all about you!”
If someone were to tell you “It is not all about you,” what could they mean in general, and to what, do you think, the word “IT” might refer?
I assume these words are uttered to tell a person not to be self-absorbed. The word "IT" may mean the existence of everything else, the entire creation. As a warning, I think "It is not all about you" is a fair admonition, as it means to pay attention to the world and what happens around the person rather than to or inside the person.
When we look around us, instead of always thinking what happened or what can happen to us, we come up with interesting insights; thus, the awe we feel for the creation can be enormous, and it can divert our attention to the world with a feeling of admiration. in other words, these words are meant to induce self-transcendence plus a feeling of connectedness to others. These words also encourage a person to wish for the greater good rather than working toward one's own selfish ends.
When a person is locked inside himself or herself, anxiety and worry can take over. Looking outside of oneself, realizing other things and people exist, can lessen the burden of constant worrying and the weight of unrealistic expectations from oneself. Looking outside of oneself also makes a person more open-minded and, even, more likable.
In some ways, we are all self-absorbed at times, and that could be a healthy thing to think about ourselves, to fix our wrongs, and amend our misdeeds; however, if we get stuck inside ourselves, we lose the world and that sense of awe that the natural world and creation deserve.
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Prompt: Do you think that shame can be a trigger for anger? How?
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I think it could be, although it may not be detectable as some people direct the anger inward compared to those who show it outwardly.
Anger due to shame is possible because shame involves a negative look at oneself either from the point of being judged or from the point of judging oneself. In either case, the feeling is uncomfortable, and anger surfaces as the result of this discomfort.
Everyone may feel shame sometimes, but it may not overwhelming or toxic, usually. When shame is magnified, however, the energy to protect oneself may easily exhibit itself as anger.
It gets even worse when a person experiences shame in his or her whole being, rather than when the shame is focused on a certain aspect or behavior. It is important for grownups and all people not to blame or embarrass a kid or any other person as a whole, on account of one specific behavior. For example, "You just tripped over that thing on the floor" is addressing a specific aspect, whereas "You're so clumsy. You always trip over things," involves a whole being.
Toxic shame may be created as the result of neglect or physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, too. In such cases, anger may turn inward or burst out suddenly wrapping itself around the person’s entire being or show up as unhealthy perfectionism or being argumentative and controlling. In extreme cases, the angry person can become destructive and a threat to others.
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April 23, 2017 at 12:27pm April 23, 2017 at 12:27pm
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What is your take on remarrying after your partner passes? Yes or no, and why?
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Absolutely, definitely…NOT!
Here I have to quote William Carlos Williams.
“I tried to put a bird in a cage.
O fool that I am!”
Then, in addition, I have to quote my younger son, when he came home after the first day of Kindergarten. “I am done with school. I learned enough.”
Whatever these quotes may imply, in real life, my hubby is a gem, who I think would be served better if he had chosen a different life partner; although out of politeness and his sense of righteousness, he’ll probably deny this.
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Prompt: Toiling and bubbling... something in a cauldron that you are preparing for someone else, what is it? Poison or a love potion? Perhaps a Frankenstein of your very own design. It doesn't need to be liquid or even physical but produce something by way of this mysterious art in your blog entry today.
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Toiling and bubbling and somewhat troubling, I am preparing a sonnet tonight for "Dew Drop Inn"  . It is neither a poison nor love potion, just a poem inspired by our kids visiting us during the weekend; yet, my silly sonnet is not about them either, but their dog. Leave it to me, to take some serious form and turn it into something inconsequential.
Anyhow, although I sometimes write it for discipline, I don’t like form poetry because it has a way of distorting the poet’s meaning in favor of its rules. To me, a poem is a poem because of its meaning and any poetic tools used should be carefully hidden and not glaring at my face as a form. I may or may not be alone in this feeling, even if some of the poets in here may (and do) take me as a bombardier of some sort. 
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Prompt: Let's have some fun with fictional Friday. Write about a woman who literally has ice in her veins. Is it an ability or a handicap?
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After submitting my papers at the reception desk, I wait for my turn inside the lab for my blood to be drawn. This waiting room, in a walk-in-closet size, has three chairs, accommodating three people. The other patients line up outside in the corridor. I am in the middle chair, staring at the large framed picture on the opposite wall.
The picture, a reproduction for sure, shows an oceanside community consisting of small colorful cottages with boats tied at the docks in front and a pelican perched on a bollard. I recall my childhood when my uncle used to take me fishing. In those days, I had a perfectly functional body. What a magic slate, a sleight of hand, the memory is; now you see it, now you don’t!
The guy to the left of me says, “Why do they make this place so cold? I am freezing.”
The old woman on my right answers, “They have no consideration for the patients. I am so cold my fingers can barely move.”
I keep staring at the picture and say nothing. It isn’t easy to tell people that I am a walking freezer. The woman to my right bends down a bit and inspects my face. “You, too, my dear. Your color is gone like death walked over.”
Shouldn’t the phrase be ‘warmed over’? But I don’t correct her because there is nothing warm here. There is nothing warm wherever I go. I take the chill within me everywhere. Just then, a nurse calls the woman inside. A young man enters and takes her place as soon as she leaves.
When I am inside, next, I ask the nurse, “Is there any way you could make me wait in a separate room next time? I am making everyone shiver in there.”
“They were complaining again, weren’t they?” The nurse shakes her head, frowning. Since I am routinely checked, she knows of my plight. “People are so sissyish! they can’t take a little bit of discomfort.”
“Maybe they should be told,” I say.
“No, don’t you dare! There will be pandemonium to the nth degree. We’d have a lot more trouble then.”
“I didn’t say anything, and I won’t.” I sigh, then smile to appease her. The government and the doctors are letting me live free among people with the condition that I won’t tell anybody about the mutation in my genes.
I agreed to this, and I won’t tell the others that the same thing is about to happen to them, too, and that ice will form in their veins soon, also. They’ve already been through enough with the effects of the nuclear war that shook the earth five years ago; although, I am one of the first with this mutation.
I suddenly think of the robin flinging itself to the ground right in front me. That was four years ago. Small birds were the first ones to turn into ice from inside out. Then, the same mutation was observed in other larger animals, however sporadically.
I am not sure if I am the first one or one of the first with this. All I know is, they’ve installed several chips in me to watch and control me inside out, while they are trying to reverse this mutation or make it easy enough to live with.
“You’re done,” says the nurse pulling the needle out and pressing on its prick with a cotton swab. I hold the cotton swab in place with my other hand while she reaches for a tape. “It took a while to get the blood through the ice particles,” she murmurs.
“What will happen at the time when you won’t be able to?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
She looks at me with a sad smile and pats my shoulder. Once more, the image of the robin that flung itself to the ground reappears inside my mind.
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April 20, 2017 at 12:02pm April 20, 2017 at 12:02pm
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Prompt: It is said that the Archer is in love with the Virgo and is always trying to catch her. If he catches up with her and they fall in love, would the planets rotate? What would happen to the stars, moon and the sun? Have fun with this and write what you want.
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Constellations are in the skies viewable by us at different times during a year. Archer or Sagittarius is the largest constellation and it has many bright stars in it. As to Virgo, it is viewable now during April and May in the evening sky. It is believed to be a galaxy cluster with one very bright star, Spica. All these factual stuff I found on the site, earthsky.org.
As to the mythical content of the saying, Virgo is supposed to personify Demeter’s daughter Persephone, who was abducted into the underworld. I don't think the archer, who is a much better, bigger, and more valiant being than the said maiden, should go that far for Virgo. My such opinion is due to the one person I know who was born under Virgo. Virgos can be too nitpicking and nasty. I would advise the archer to leave her alone.
Prompt: "When the past becomes the future. Time becomes a dream. Welcome to the dawn." Lyrics from a Prince Song, The Dawn
Write what you want about this.
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I never thought about this, but if my past became my future, I wouldn’t like to live through it again. In fact, I’d do anything to avoid it. Maybe Prince meant something like, “history repeats itself.”
If so, it could be that the fates are conspiring in our favor by repeating stuff, so the second time around we fix what we messed up when we had no experience and made mistakes. Maybe through repetition, we might be able to find a hidden treasure, too. This may have something to do with the idea in the movie, The Groundhog Day.
Only a few lyrics inspire me, mostly those written by Paul Simon. Otherwise, I bypass most of them, like this one. Must be my age.
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Prompt: Describe the voice of a loved one who is no longer with you or write about your inability to hear and recognize it as a memory.
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Note: This person has been deceased a bit more than twenty-five years. Since I’ll try to remember it as it was, I am going to answer the prompt in the present tense.
He lowers his pitch when he talks to me as if whispering. His voice is smooth, warm, soft, never loud. But it is also breathy as if that slight windy noise is caused by a turbulence in or near his throat. I always have a distant feeling that he is telling me a secret that he can’t put into words. Unfortunately, this alerts me to something unapproachable; thus, whenever I answer him, my voice come out creaky, muffled, annoyed, and somewhat darkened.
I think his voice would be classified as a high-baritone. He rounds his lips sometimes when he pronounces certain words, especially those with a lot of vowels in them. His rhythm is like that of a well-trained musician, although he isn’t a musician, and a few mannerisms accompany rhythm, usually involving his facial expressions, as he rarely uses his hands while speaking.
Yet, when he talks to other people, his voice is much stronger, more certain, more vibrant. His tone, pitch, and speed are more pronounced also, and his answers to what others are saying have a more commanding tone.
I guess I could make this entry more poetic, but I wanted to make it logical and more like an auditory judgment.
Prompt: What is the purpose of sarcasm? How can people recognize and handle sarcasm when it is directed at them?
Most of the time sarcasm shows annoyance but it can also be complimentary, depending on the inflection and the tone of the voice or if any humor is injected into the speech. Sarcastic people, however, may have the quicker grasp of the situation or what’s being said than others and are able to come up with a fast reply. I say this because, in the face of a situation or a negative word or line thrown at my face, I freeze at the spot and can’t find a proper answer, even if I may be able to recognize the situation.
I think the best way to handle it, although I can’t do it, is to answer the content of the remark possibly with a joke or another sarcastic remark. Something like, “Brilliant! tell me about it!” “Maybe you’ll like to try it my way,” depending on the situation. It is best not to get defensive and say something to explain myself like, “No, it isn’t what happened” or “I didn’t mean it that way.”
If unable to answer, it is better to ignore the sarcasm and not show anger. I'm working on this one at the moment.
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Lost Pathways--- if you found yourself on a road in the middle of nowhere with a storm approaching, how would you make your escape? What does the storm represent to you? What meaning does the road itself hold?
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As to the forecast on my cell
a storm’s afoot, but when it’ll break
hard to tell. The news
hasn’t thawed out, yet
and I can’t bet what it’ll be,
killer rain, gale force winds,
hail, a blizzard, who knows?
Something to snap, drop, bulge,
or open my nutty flesh
to show what I hide
in my insides?
Hard to tell on short notice
and flimsy information.
Why is climate a form of persecution?
And the road I’m on
an avenue of emptiness
of an insecure future
freighted by worry in tripled stacks,
on its hollow sidewalks
where dreams stream in circles
and biased obsessions
as if an exhibit of my internal weather.
I seek no escape
since my habits
make a tightly woven kit
for this road
is a universe revolving
to shape my awkward silences
while I reach everywhere
and get nowhere.
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April 14, 2017 at 12:40pm April 14, 2017 at 12:40pm
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Prompt: The Handkerchief Dilemma-- when you wake up sick what is it that you focus on? Getting better or all the things that aren't getting done. Do you force yourself to do them anyway regardless if you're sick or do you just leave them until you're feeling better?
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I so hate being sick. Most of the time, I deny the not-feeling-well situation until it becomes undeniable. With my attitude, I push forward to do things, at least the doable ones. It is a miracle that I get better despite my denial and little to no rest.
In case that I wake up sick, I usually recognize something isn’t right, but I push on anyway or try some medicinal remedies that I can think of. I don’t deny, however, that I have gotten sick and I do attempt to see a doctor, just in case. I only minimize the symptoms mentally to some degree and try to live my life despite them.
Denial is my coping mechanism with the stress of illness because when I am ill, I lose control of my own life and I feel vulnerable. I don’t think I am a controlling person where others are concerned, but I get mad at myself when I lose my own self-control.
I also understand that denial has a dark side and it can be unhealthy, heaven forbid, if I might get a really serious illness. Downplaying the possible consequences of a healing rest can make a serious illness worsen. I hope I never get to that point.
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Prompt: "Authors like cats because they are quiet, loveable wise creatures and cats like authors for the same reason." Robertson Davies.
Do you agree with this statement or does this apply to dogs? Write what you want about this.
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I am not sure I fully agree since all cats may not have all those attributes of being quiet, lovable and wise, as this statement might be the result of starry-eyed human imagination, giving human traits to animals. For the same reason, this may or may not apply to dogs.
Speaking for myself, I believe every animal has its own characteristics, and having cats and dogs live with me in my earlier life, I have come to experience and respect each animal’s very unique behavior and likes and dislikes.
It is a fact, however, that authors have historically loved their cats and used them in their work. When we went to Key West and visited Hemingway’s place, I was stunned by the large number of cats living there. This was due to the fact that, during his travels, Hemingway was given the gift of a six-toed (or polydactyl) cat he named Snowball. Hemingway loved this cat, and in 1931, when he moved to Key West, he let Snowball run wild, creating a small colony of cats that populated the grounds of his home.
Hemingway was not the only one, though. T.S. Eliot, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mark Twain, William Butler Yeats, Charles Dickens, and many other authors, historical or contemporary, have followed in their footsteps in making friends with their cats. The reason is the authors' sense and aptitude of looking inward and finding in their cats what they couldn't find in other human beings so readily.
Cats know when and how to let people in, and they can purr and ease anxieties and lighten traumas. Plus, a cat can be as narcissistic as the author and can make him exert himself for the cat’s affection. Spending time and effort on a cat as if a cause or a project can alert the author to the cat’s being, so he familiarizes himself with the cat and comes to feel love for it. Then, at the end, after seeing the results of his efforts and feeling the success, he becomes enslaved by the cat.
I think this is exactly what happens to the authors who can’t be without cats.
By the way, the cats I had were not quiet and lovable all the time, but they were all wise. Some of them wanted what they wanted when they wanted it, but they were also very sensitive creatures who knew when I needed their friendship and affection better than any human could.
Prompt: Earth is our home and nature gives us so many gifts. Do you agree?
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Yes, of course. To begin with, I don’t see myself adjusting to any other planet in existence with this earthly body I am made to live in. Through this body, I am related to all other life forms here, and as I am part of the earth, its gifts are for me as well as for the other creatures living in this world.
The most important things the earth gives us are free, like the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil we raise our crops, flowers we enjoy, and honeybees, birds, and other animals that enrich our lives. Unlike the American Indians, however, we aren’t taught to give back to the earth.
Forget about giving back, we humans even destroy the earth’s gift-giving capacity, just like a person who cuts the tree branch he’s standing on. Thus, for our species to survive, we need to learn from the mistakes we are making, and we need to change, not in the distant future but immediately before it is too late.
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Prompt: What may be some of the ways a person might limit or unnerve oneself while dealing with his or her loved ones?
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I think some of those limits begin in childhood and they continue into adulthood, unless carefully examined and discarded. Later in life, when people do things along the lines of the stuff that bug us from childhood, we usually burst out in anger, shame, sadness, or guilt, even if those people have entered our lives in adulthood.
Unfortunately, what happens in earlier life and its effects are not easily recognized. If we resented loved ones who were liars and manipulators, for example, we may resent and dislike even more deeply those other people who lie and manipulate in later life. Thus holding on to earlier resentments is one limiting reaction that grows into our later lives.
Another one is what I like to call the pushed-over-saint reaction. It is something the religions applaud but one that works against the person. If we have been pushed over or made to care for others while a child, be it physically or emotionally, we end up learning not to put ourselves first. In the rare case that we indulge ourselves once in a blue moon, we die of guilt inside. In other words, we are more judgmental of ourselves than anyone else.
Then another one is trying to live up to the others’ expectations. There is nothing wrong with wanting perfection if the person wants it for himself or herself, but it is a hurtful thing when we kill ourselves with work of any kind only because a parent or another adult put that expectation into us, which we may not even realize or recall that they did.
Yet, another limiting response to life is the fear of success. If a child might have been put down consistently or rebuked for little things, he or she comes to believe s/he can’t succeed and if s/he does, s/he doesn’t deserve it, so s/he may do things to undermine herself even if s/he has succeeded.
When we seriously examine our false illusions and behaviors that limit our thoughts, beliefs, and happiness, and then either work with them or eliminate them, we begin to appreciate ourselves more and to also treat others with compassion and understanding. Then hopefully, we might make the world a much better place to live in for everyone.
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Prompt: Tolstoy tells us, writers, to “shine with a gentle gleam.” What do you think that gentle gleam is and how can it be applied to writing? Just guess if you are not familiar with Tolstoy.
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This is something I can only guess, even though I have read Tolstoy's novels and his letters of advice to other aspiring writers. His advice seems to be different for each person, but then, from time to time or from writer to writer, he must be changing his own opinions on various elements of the writing craft.
What is sure in Tolstoy’s work is that he lets his characters grow and change. He also gives a lot of information but leaves some slack for the reader’s imagination as well. He values clarity and sincerity, I think. He may sound easy, but what he writes is very difficult work. He is at times an artist and at other times just plain human.
Thus, I think, by the phrase “to shine with a gentle gleam,” he means sincerity and inner content, and feeling with the characters with what they go through. To do that, he feels it is important to choose the right thought after probably considering a thousand of them.
His lines that impress me the most are: “Just as in speech the spoken word is silver and the unspoken one gold, so in writing––I would say that the written word is tin, and the unwritten one gold.” His “gentle gleam” might just be not what he says in so many words, but what he hints at without saying.
At this time, I am reading a new book, first printing in 2016, which I borrowed from the library, with the title How to Write like Tolstoy by Richard Cohen. Not that anyone can write like Tolstoy or would want to, but the book gave me the idea for this prompt. I would say, so far that I have read—about to the middle of it--, the book is about in writing in general, although it mentions Tolstoy here and there, but it also mentions many other authors, too. Still, I am enjoying the book immensely, especially because the author backs up his claims with many excerpts from many authors worldwide. Some of what he says, I assume, we may all be familiar with, but there are interesting pointers, as well. A good book on writing in general, I think.
PROMPT: Did you watch or take part in WDC's Quill Awards that happened on Saturday? You can see the winners here: "Note: Congratulations to all..."...tell us about a piece or a person you're familiar with.
Is my face red! These last few months have been rather hectic for me. Although I was told, a while ago, an item of mine was nominated, the whole thing passed me by, until a friend wrote a congratulatory note in my notebook, a day ago. I didn’t even know that Elle had taken over the Quills from Andrew, either. 
Anyway, to commemorate this, I made a trinket, which you are welcome to. Here it is:
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Prompt: Have fun with these 8 words, academy, grizzly, accommodation, evacuation, crawler, hollow, pimp, pickle.
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It was a long overdue action, but for the accommodation and the welfare of the student body, the academy's president had to act as if a grizzly bear would, a dim path to follow like a pimp in a pickle, but his hollow stance did deliver results and worked well to shake those capricious people’s lack of responsibility and disregard for the schedules and the rules, forcing the evacuation of such crawlers who called themselves underfunded and underpaid professors.
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Lyn’s Prompt: Tasteful features-- Think of the way you savor your food, how you take your time biting into it, chewing, tasting, and then swallowing. Apply something that gives you a similar feeling to a personal relationship (not biting) but how do savor that person. How does it feel to partake in their conversation and company?
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After you finish your Tiramisu, you lick your lips and scribble his name on a napkin and dream he was at the table with you because he is the sun that warms you and the wind and the lightning that whirls around you.
When he is away, even for a day or a few hours, your tears rise to the clouds, and you find the pages of your book to turn blank and meaningless, and you miss the sound of his voice as if you miss your favorite desert. You feel like falling when illusory meteors from the unknown keep hitting you and making you lose your balance.
You are so lost in his skies that you cannot rest or sleep; still, he commandeers your dreams.
So, you go in your kitchen to cook up something for him, for you know he’ll return. Milk and honey, rice flour, vanilla, butter, dark chocolate chips…all organic.
The food takes wings, and when ready, it sits on the table with red roses and tapered candles, and you wait impatiently for the seven wonders of the night.
Surely, he returns sweet and sour, salted by the outside world, but in his smile, you taste wine, in his words poetry, in his arms the heavens where sparrows sing, leaves tremble, and the grass curls, while you both take it slow and choosy to savor the taste of each other. That is when you realize magic exists in an extraordinary way, and you know he’ll cause you to smile. He’ll cause you to care. He’ll cause you to be joyful, and he’ll cause you to see your own true self.
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My final note:
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Prompt: When I took scrapbook classes, the instructor said we can't scrapbook every event or moment of our lives. Can the same be said about writing?
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Yes, of course. In fiction, we need only to include what is relevant to the theme, the plot, and its conflict and characters. Unneeded descriptions, scenes, or actions only crowd the story and hinder its progress.
With non-fiction, also, when writing an article or an essay, one would write within the framework of the subject, thesis, or the impression one needs to impart on the reader. For example, if you are writing a science article about deep-space exploration, you can’t suddenly mention the anatomy of a rhinoceros, thinking they both have to do with science.
Prompt: April is National Poetry Month. Write about poetry and poets.
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During the earlier days and in the old world, people wrote poems in a single mode and called it verse. During the romantic period, only the lyric poetry was deemed to be the true poetry. (To tell the truth, I agree with that to a degree.)
Later on, was born the lyrical prose, which we call prose-poems.
Poetry, however, does not live on lyricism alone, as some hard-core meter-and-rhyme-loving folks insist. Thus, they assign a set of rules to poetry and call it prosody. Prosody is the theory of a language system assigned to poetry, which theoretically determines the structure of a poem or its form, which can be organic or external and formal.
Aside from prosody, a poem can be--in context—dramatic, lyric, or narrative.
As for me, lyricism matters. Sound matters. Even rhythm matters to a degree, but what matters the most is the meaning. I don’t care how well constructed a poem is, if it lacks in meaning or if its meaning is distorted due to flawed form use. Unless the poet is a seasoned formal poetry writer, a poet can make a fool of himself. I should know!
I have written formal poetry, from time to time, and still do, but it isn’t my favorite way to write poetry as I find it constricting when it comes to meaning. In free verse, the words that express the right, lyrical meaning and the sound are more available since my choices are not limited by the requirements of syllable count and meter.
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Prompt: Does your mind wander to the scariest thoughts possible, about what could happen in any given situation, even if the chances of the scary stuff happening is minimal? If you could come up with a nervous character like that in your writing, what would he or she be scared of and in which situations?
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Not really. If I sense a slight threat with anything, that might happen, but it is highly unlikely. One reason is that when I was in my teens I read the essays of Montaigne. One line from them has been a good reference for me. “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”
This helped me a lot, then, because at the time, we were living in a wood-frame house and there were many fires around. Each day I went to school, I felt terrified that our house would catch fire with my mother and grandmother in it, and stress hormones flooded my mind and body. Reading Montaigne calmed me down, and our house never caught fire. I guess I was a nervous kid in my very young days because each time I’d take a test, I’d worry that I failed it or received a lowly grade. That, too, never happened. I was actually a very good student. My mother never believed me when I told her the test didn’t go well. This went on all the way to college.
I think people develop such fears and insecurities out of not being in control of their lives, and I believe I am cured by now of expecting disaster. If anything, I am on the smug side, but if I were to come up with a character like that, I would make her or him have serious enough phobias, fear of flying, clowns, closets, driving, etc., and I would probably give him or her an unusually strong imagination and then, have some things happen, a la Stephen King, to cause these fears. The story could be a tale of terror or a comedy, plus with other menus of possibilities rising from the character’s inner world of imagination in conflict with his/her outer world of reality.
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Prompt: Leonard Cohen said, “A state of grace is that kind of balance with which you ride the chaos that you find around you. It’s not a matter of resolving the chaos, because there is something arrogant and warlike about putting the world in order.”
What is state of grace for you? Do you agree with both sentences in the quote, and do you think trying to put the world in order is arrogant and warlike?
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Our peace is usually interrupted by outer and inner conditions and circumstances to bring conflicting emotions and purposes. State of grace is the kind of grace or calm and flexible state of mind that we allow ourselves to experience by riding the waves, no matter how choppy the seas. In that, I agree with Leonard Cohen.
I don’t agree with his second sentence, though. Trying to fix something is not arrogant and warlike, but it shows courage and smarts; although I think, Leonard Cohen may be taking this concept as fighting against God’s will.
As to the origin of the term ‘state of grace’, state of grace is basically a Christian and especially a Catholic term, but the idea of it is prevalent in most other religions. Being in a state of grace shows being favored by God when the person acts as the result of the influence or spirit of God operating inside to fortify and toughen her or him.
According to the religious, God’s grace is freely given, merited or not. It means surrender to the higher power’s will without complaining, to forgive others and not dwell in negative emotions like fear, resentment, blame, guilt, anger, or shame. It also means being compassionate, thankful, and of service to God and others. In short, according to religious leaders, grace is the spirit energy that is given without any conditions on it, which leads the person to be in a state of grace.
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