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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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The Writing-Practice Journal
New Intention:
Now in 2017 and the following years, if any, I shall use this journal for whatever I please to write. 
Still, I reiterate: Read at your own risk!
Old Intentions:
Now, starting with June 2013, I will use this journal for the entries for "I Write in June-July-August "  . Afterward, I'll go back to the part I have down below in red. Still, read at your own risk. 
Now, starting at the end of 2010, I am going to write into this journal directly, without making any other copies. Freeflow, but from prompts. I may use prompts or simple sentences as prompts, which I'll put on the subject line. I'll probably use some of the prompts from the Writing.com app.
And yes, I do intend to make a fool of myself, because I miss writing on a good old fashioned typewriter with no other cares. Maybe some ancient and wise author like Dickens will watch me from Heaven, shake his head, and say, "You haven't made a dent." Not a dent, but making my own mud is my intention. So, if you read, read at your own risk.
Truth is, I had started this journal in 2002 for the different reason of writing down ideas on the craft of writing. Over the years, my personal blog took over what I wanted to do here. Afterwards I continued with writing exercises with no order or plan to the entries. And now, this.
Who says I can't let my hair down! Okay, I can't because my hair is short.  But I've got nerve.
  
December 6, 2007 at 8:58am December 6, 2007 at 8:58am
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In the planning stage of a story, most writers do not include the same character and even the same type of a character, even though creating a good quirky character is a job and an already created one can be unproblematic. This is because writers write for the challenge of creating original work, and if they cannot face that challenge properly, their writing does not make sense to them.
If so, why do we find the same character in several books or in series of books in the writings of the most noted authors, then?
This is because the practice of using the same protagonist, antagonist, or even a secondary character can be very successful with character driven stories. The author, after creating the character, lives with him for a long time, and that character becomes somewhat of a friend who haunts the author, telling him he has so much more to say. In addition, the author may want to show the change in a special character over a longer period of time than one or two stories can allow.
Let us take as an example a twenty-first century character, Odd Thomas, who has appeared in successive books of the very popular novelist, Dean Koontz. When the reader is first introduced to him, Odd Thomas is a twenty-one year old short-order cook. What is odd about Odd Thomas is that, being psychic, he sees ghosts. Driven by his sixth sense and disturbed by the atrocity of events, Odd Thomas brings the murders and the mysteries to light and seeks peace at the end of each novel. Because Odd Thomas is a good but quirky person and has something otherworldly about him, he entertains the reader and possibly the writer as well. What's more, since the other characters in Dean Koontz’s books are so perfectly drawn, this one familiar character does not bore the reader.
Another reason to use the same character in successive stories has to do with the reader’s feelings. Especially in mystery stories, when the readers are fond of a detective, they see that detective not only as the solver of the mystery, but also as the witness to their reading and the friend with whom they have shared other exciting mysteries. A few examples for this type of detectives are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, Tim Dorsey’s Detective Mahoney, and Leslie Charteris’s Simon Templar, better known as The Saint.
On the negative side, sometimes, the writer finds out that the character he so lovingly created cannot go through major changes after a few stories in a row. Although the character may still show some deep-seated problems, he has everything worked out in the earlier stories already. Therefore, the writer downgrades the character to a steadfast one who needs other troublemaker characters to pep up the story at hand. If the other characters cannot do the job, then the writer and his stories are in trouble.
A writer must never forget that the reader’s attention is the most important thing to capture and keep. Sometimes, out of sloth or greed, the writer uses the same character with the same psychological traits but with different physical ones. Although the writer may give the character a different name and change a few things about him, the character and the stories can lose their readers easily, since readers are quick to catch on to the writers’ shortcomings especially when the writers are not being true to their craft.
To avoid the downfall from such a practice, a writer needs to perfect his character drawing skills. Then, even if he decides to keep his favorite character inside several stories in a row, he can surround him with other remarkable characters that can spice up and carry his stories.
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December 5, 2007 at 4:41pm December 5, 2007 at 4:41pm
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Editing is best done by the writer himself. A writer who does not read what he has written should not consider himself a writer. A writer has to read his work as soon as he puts the last period on his manuscript to make changes so the meaning comes across more effectively.
Then he has to read it again for copy editing purposes. Copy-editing is checking the grammar, spelling and punctuation in the text so the text is in its best presentable condition.
Revising one’s work requires objectivity and heartlessness. Most writers are emotionally attached to their work and they may consider them as their children; however, one needs to discipline his children for their own welfare. This is the same with the written work. The written work also deserves to be disciplined so it makes the best impression that it can make on its readers.
In revision, a thorough reading first while editing out excess words, phrases, paragraphs, sections or chapters is the first step. The question to ask here is: Is the message of the piece clearly presented and do the paragraphs and chapters flow smoothly?
Once the structure is intact, another thorough reading to spot grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. Then, most of the time, reading the text aloud also helps to pinpoint anything that may have escaped the attention.
In addition, taking a day off and looking at the material the next day or a few days later may also give positive results. Getting someone else with a keen eye and understanding of the subject to read the text is the next thing to do. Another person may be better able to comment on the clarity of the message or the expression.
With a careful editing, the text will probably go through several revisions before it will be good enough to submit it to an agent or a publisher.
Another step could be to pay a professional writer or editor who is familiar with the genre or the subject to look through and review the text.
Proofreading and copy editing are not the same things, even if they may be considered to be same by some people. Editing by the writer of the text is the first thing to do. Copy editing is next, which can be done by someone else, but not necessarily so, and proofreading means checking the proofs (printed pages) against the edited manuscript to make sure that the printer did not make new mistakes during typesetting.
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December 5, 2007 at 4:25pm December 5, 2007 at 4:25pm
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Grandeur and illusion go hand in hand. When Edgar Allen Poe wrote, “The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome,” he was not exaggerating. If grandeur is the quality or state of being impressive or awesome, in western civilization, Greeks and Romans own that crown, for they created great literature from the illusions of mythology.
“If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: "Thou shalt not ration justice." Sophocles
How humble Sophocles was, but how majestic is his work!
Accordingly, the Romans who followed on the footsteps of the Greeks also feared them. Virgil said:
I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.
Still, at the east side of the world, alongside the Greeks and the Romans, the culture of China, India and the entire orient should not be cast aside. They, too, possessed grandeur and illusions.
After China entered the world history around eighteenth century B.C. and the Shang dynasty held power over he lesser tribes, the Chinese civilization gained a regal importance. With the advent of a unique writing system of 5000 characters, the literature of China was born on 'oracle bones'.
Oracle bones were fragments of animal bones and tortoise shells on which questions to gods were inscribed. To this day, I-Ching, or "The Book of the Change" has been the oracular tool for the people of China. A quote from the I-Ching asserts:
He who possesses the source of enthusiasm will achieve great things. Doubt not. You will gather friends around you as a hair clasp gathers the hair.
In India, too, the oldest known language Sanskrit produced majestic works such as Veda and the Upanishads, the Mahabharata , the Ramayana, Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti, and Jayadeva. A quote from the Bhagavad-Gita attests to the majesty of Indian stories, of kings and their sons fathered by the gods:
If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty one ...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.
Closer to the West, Egyptian writing and literature flourished dating back to 3000 B.C., but the West only found out about it when the hierglyphs were decoded in 1812. Among the sun-kings of early Egypt, Akhnaton was the only monotheist. Some historians claim Akhnaton to be the same person as Moses and Oedipus, because of the coincidence of the time-frame inside which all three existed.
Yet, the grandeur did not stop with the Orientals or with works of the Greeks and Romans. It seeped through the centuries to reach the pens of the writers of the Renaissance, and it found fresh voices to sing through, like that of Cervantes who gave new life to chivalry in Don Quixote.
The Russian screenwriter and composer Samuel Hoffenstein said: Our grandeur lies in our illusions. As mad as Don Quixote might seem, he fought for his illusions. Without them, he would not have existed.
Thus, the majestic human drama was handed down over the centuries, from Aeschylus to Shakespeare, and the foreboding for the man's fate was sealed in grandeur.
Macbeth: Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
As Dante penned it down, the grandeur in literature is inseparable from the illusions and achievements of man, even though the man's fall is sometimes inevitable.
"Oh human race, born to fly upward,
wherefore at but a little wind
does thou so easily fall?" |
December 5, 2007 at 4:14pm December 5, 2007 at 4:14pm
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At one time or another, each poet is impressed by a place. Places encourage poetic sensibilities and leave their mark on the poet’s work. Those places are sometimes real, sometimes imagined, but they usually serve as metaphors for concepts and feelings more powerful than any certain place.
In Carl Sandburg’s Chicago, the reality of the city is vivid, dominant, and action-filled.
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
When he talks of his imagined garden of love, William Blake says: <br>
“I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
Blake, with idealistic verve, also tries to unite the spirit of two real places in <i>Jerusalem</i> when he says:
“I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.”
Then, Emily Dickinson brings together the spirit of the place and her imagination in: By the Sea:
“I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me.”
Rudyard Kipling takes the wider, epic view.
“Cities and Thrones and Powers,
Stand in Time's eye,”
Sometimes, a poet internalizes the place he lives in and etches its landscape on the pattern of his life. Robert Frost spent the later years of his life in New England, and his most noted poems allude to that area.
“The firm house lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear A number in.
But what about the brook That held the house as in an
elbow-crook?” From A Brook in the City
Walt Whitman was born and grew up around Huntington, Long Island, New York, and without doubt, the place and its surroundings left an impression on his poetry.
“Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west,
and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;”
From Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Sometimes a place is not a town, a country, or a region with a name, but still a place where a poet has warmed up to and made his own, as John Howard Payne has said:
“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;”
Donald Justice, too, took a liking to a bus stop.
“Stand in the rain
So quietly
When we are gone,
So quietly . . .
And the last bus
Comes letting dark
Umbrellas out—
Black flowers, black flowers.”
Some poets use a place starting with its cinematic overview or describe it inside their poem; others do not mention a place name or attempt a description, but judging from the poet’s background, the readers know that a certain place has inspired the poet’s work.
To sum it up, places influence poets, and poets have their own hiding places, because they are childlike. As Alberto Rios says,
“We live in secret cities
And we travel unmapped roads.”
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© Copyright 2023 Joy (UN: joycag at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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