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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.
  
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Déjà vu, page 131 from The 3A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley : Write a short sketch of a scene in which a character has an experience that causes her to recall a similar past experience. Juxtapose the present scene with the past scene. Show the remembered scene in italics.
Moonlight on Snow
The awning on top of the porch had let only a dusting of snow. She reached for the red broom and, with precise motions, swept the snow out into the backyard. By tomorrow, more snow would come and she’d have to sweep again, but it didn’t matter. Didn’t she always do things over and over again like Sisyphus pushing the stone up the mountain? She turned off the porch light and looked ahead.
The rays of the half moon glimmered over the white coat in the backyard like nobility walking on red carpet in fluid splendor. By the next day, all her sweeping would be for naught and the moonlight would go away. The fields around where she had grown up had shimmered under snow on moonlit nights, too. From her mother’s cottage, she could watch the whole area wearing the white cloak with all its spangles.
She turned to go in, but the door was stuck. She forced it but couldn’t open it. On second thought, she gave up.
The same way the door got stuck now, her window in her room in her mother’s cottage used to get stuck. The window from which she used to watch the moonlight on snow. The window from which she had sneaked out to meet her lover on one moonlit winter evening. It was that window later that had gotten stuck to prevent her from getting inside the house to save her mother when the electrical wiring caused that damn fire.
Her mother with the gap in between her front teeth. Like the black gap in the face of earth where their cottage had once stood.
She raised her arms to the moon and tossed back her hair like a character in a bloody tragedy and screamed. “Nooooo…”
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June 14, 2010
From The Daily Writer by Fred White
"Write twelve what-if questions. Write a page long synopsis for one of them."
(The advice is to write the page long synopsis for each what if question for 12 days, then to develop one synopsis into a novel or a novella. I will, however, do one synopsis today and probably leave others to another time. This exercise might be useful for NaNo.)
1. What if the late sixteenth century Puritans had a secret community still in existence in a mountainous area and their conclave held their meeting inside a cave to decide to purify he USA of today?
2. What if Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Seminole Indian had killed a Florida Panther instead of his sailor killing an albatross (The Rime of Ancient Mariner)? What would Coleridge write?
3. What if a dictator in an imaginary land had prohibited visual arts, that is, painting, movies, TV, computers etc.?
4. What if a person remembered everything, every single thing? What would his life be like? His relationships?
5. What if an envious, bitter woman who habitually undercuts her sister’s success and self-confidence suddenly starts helping her? What brought on the change?
6.What if a rich, megalomaniac man who owns an island (or two? Several?) on the Pacific Ocean steals other people’s children, all of them the same age, to put together a new nation? Also what if a stranger is shipwrecked on this island when the children are fifteen years of age?
7. What if while giving someone a haircut, something goes wrong in the hairdresser’s mind and she shaves the one side of the head totally? (Comedy?)
8. What if a stranger keeps following another person around while the stranger does the same as that person does? Like ordering the Mocha Lattés in Starbucks or the same dinner in a restaurant, offering to share the same taxi ride, going to the movies to see the same show, etc.
9. What if an average child with 105 IQ turns (slowly?) into a prodigy?
10. What if a heroic character, to feed a small populace in a forlorn place, tries to bypass a tyrant who has locked all the food in storage?
11. What if our internet can be accessed from other galaxies?
12. What if a chemical causes paranoia among a group of cruisers and they accuse one another all the time? What kind of a sight-seeing cruise would that be?
Synopsis for no. 6 :
What if a rich, megalomaniac man who owns an island (or two? Several?) on the Pacific Ocean steals other people’s children, all of them the same age, to put together a new nation? Also what if a stranger is shipwrecked on this island when the children are fifteen years of age?
Chapter 1. The rich egomaniacal man with his posse inspects the 300 well-built cabins on an island while he tells his second-in-command of his dreams for future.
Chapter 2. The rich man donates to the schools to pinpoint candidates for children who will assume the leadership roles. Everyone adores the rich man for his altruism and encouraging actions for education.
Chapter 3. The gathering of ten-year-old children has begun. Most children are kidnapped from the orphanages. Those to assume the leadership roles are taken from the private schools.
Chapter 4. Children are kidnapped, drugged, and brought to the island. This island is for habitation. Two other islands are for raising crops and making things that the children will need.
Chapter 5. The Children are made to believe that a catastrophe (An asteroid hitting the earth?) is in the near future and that they are here to save the species. They are also taken daily to the other islands to be made to work, that is, to raise or produce what they need.
Chapter 6. Four of the children (the smartest) form a secret clique.
Chapter 7. One child from the clique yells at a teacher or rather an agent of the rich man that he doesn’t believe in the asteroid fable. He is secretly taken away from the community of children to a a re-indoctrination center resembling a prison.
Chapter 8. The other three do not believe what they are told, but they are smart enough not to show it, since they have guessed that something bad happened to their friend for yelling out loud what he believed in.
Chapter 9. The re-indoctrinated child returns and tells the other three about the re-indoctrination center. The other three convince the fourth that he had been brainwashed.
Chapter 10. The four children slowly start convincing the others that their benefactor (the rich man) is a crazy guy and no asteroid is going to hit the earth.
Chapter 11. The children revolt. They are met with tear gas and punished with hunger. The rich man explains his coming and going to them by saying that he has a home in a very tiny fourth island and that he’ll leave the ruling of the community to the most industrious and obedient child.
Chapter 12 A hurricane hits the islands. Three children among the 300 are dead. The rich man convinces them that the asteroid has hit the other side of the earth.
Chapter 13. A shipwrecked sailor swims ashore at the island. Two of the four children find him. The sailor tells them about the hurricane and that no asteroid ever hit the earth.
Chapter 14. The shipwrecked sailor, threatened with death, is silenced by the so-called elders and he stays in the island with the children.
Chapter 15. Years pass. The children are fifteen and quite happy. They are encouraged to procreate to re-populate the earth.
Chapter 16. A big ship passes by, visible to all the children who believed, up to then, that they were the only living beings on earth. The ship’s existence throws suspicion.
Chapter 17. The shipwrecked sailor has managed to make friends with the four non-believers in the rich man’s words. By this time, two of the four have become lovers and they want to escape for better or worse.
Chapter 18. The two open to the sea, in the middle of the night, together with the sailor. The other two try to keep the elders and the other children at bay for about half a day.
Chapter 19. The sailor and the two kids are on the open sea. In the distance, they see a liner and are picked up by the crew whose captain sends word to authorities even though he doesn’t believe in what he’s heard.
Chapter 20. By now, the sailor’s escape with the two is discovered. The rich man tells the community that they drowned and their bodies were thrown ashore at his home island where he buried them with his own hands.
Chapter 21. As he talks, several navy ships appear in the horizon. Everyone in the community runs to the beach as the rich man takes off in his helicopter. From one of the navy ships the two fifteen year-olds with the sailor watch their friends waving at the ships from the shore.
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Duh! I'm so NOT going to write this!
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June 10, 2010
Evil
Exercise from The 3AM Epiphany by Brian Kiteley
“Write a fragment of a story about a villain who gets away with a serious and perhaps brutal crime and enjoys the fruits of his crime (or simply enjoys the fact that nothing happens after this crime). Love this character and try to make him at least somewhat lovable to us. …Crime is often an act of envy. According to an early meaning of the word, someone is evil who crosses class boundaries (more below).” 600 + words
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“Sonova bitch, rich kid!” Lou lifted the heavy bag to the back of the SUV and closed the hatch. Rot in there! he thought, panting from exertion. He had walked from the back of the theater to the town’s parking lot, carrying the load.
This one had been easy as cake but he didn’t have time to dawdle or appear nervous. Under the shade of a tree a few feet away from the SUV, he took off his jacket and switched it inside out. Double-sided jackets helped him in cool weather and in his work, the work he was meant to do; the work he wasn’t paid for and not the work of a manager in the theater complex.
Without hesitating, he passed through the brush into the parking lot of the theater.
“Lou!”
Who was calling him now? “He looked toward the back of the theater.
Jules! His assistant manager.
About 300 feet from Lou, Jules’s overpowering figure stood in the backdoor. Darn! Had he seen him? Jules was turning his head from side to side as he called out for Lou. Maybe not. Maybe Jules had not seen him.
Lou moved fast, squatting down among the vehicles, to the west wall of the building and entered the theater from the side door where the restrooms were. He dashed into a stall to quiet his panting.
“Hey, Lou! Are you in there somewhere?” Jules’s voice.
“Yeah!” Lou answered. “Coming!”
“I’ve been looking for you all over the place. A little boy's asking for you.”
“What little boy?”
Lou walked out of the stall to the faucet.
“Is something wrong?” Jules asked
“Man, it must be something I ate. It’s killing me.”
“You ate the black bean pancakes again, didn’t you! Well, never mind. It’ll go away. A kid says Uncle Lou promised him something.”
“Oh, I sort of remember it. I told him I’d let him into the Saturday matinee.” Lou tossed at the waste receptacle the paper towel he'd dried his hands with.
“Lou, why do you do this all the time?” Jules looked at him accusingly.
“What? Making a poor boy happy? This boy’s mother. She’s a cashier. They’re dirt poor. What if I let him in for free?”
From behind him, Jules closed the door with the sign of a stick-figure of a man on it. “Lou, you gotta stop giving away freebies. The place will go bankrupt.”
“I only give to the poor. The rich grab it from us anyway.”
“The rich can make us rich, too. Remember that!”
“Where’s the boy?”
“Right over there, by the popcorn machine.”
“Oh, yeah. I see him. Thanks, Jules.”
In the foyer, Lou took long strides toward a boy about ten years old, a boy with the coal black hair and large dark eyes.
“Hello, Danny!” He shouted from afar, and when he reached near him, he stooped down a bit to stare directly into the boy’s eyes.
“Denny. I’m Dennis,” the boy said, pulling at the hem of his faded tee-shirt
“Yes, of course, Denny.” Lou slapped his forehead. “I goofed. How’s your mother?”
“She’s okay. She dropped me off.”
“Let’s see…Do you like popcorn or candy?”
The boy nodded, his eyes looking down.
“Both?”
The boy nodded again. Lou signaled the girl behind the concession stand. “Roxanne, put one of each from those bars in a bag and a large tub of popcorn with extra butter, for my pal here. Give him a large coke, too.”
“You’re such a kind person, Lou. Now, how’s he going to carry all that?” Roxanne laughed.
“I’ll help him.”
“Thank you,” the boy said hastily.
“Don’t thank me, thank your mother.” Lou grinned. “She introduced us, right?”
Lou waved off the ticket taker and led the boy into the hallway toward door number three. When he turned to look back to the foyer, he glimpsed the three policemen talking to Jules and smirked. He had nothing to worry. The policemen just did their jobs, took down notes, and never came out with the real culprits. Theexcitement was in not getting caught.
He led Denny inside the theater, to the middle of three empty seats. The boy held on to the popcorn as he sat. Lou leaned closer to him, placing the coke in the cup holder and hanging the candy bag from the arm of the seat.
“This seat next to you is mine,” he said. “If someone wants it, you tell them it is your father’s, okay?”
“My father’s dead.” The child’s voice wavered, hinting at a deep wound inside him.
Lou patted Denny’s arm. “Mine too,” he said. “Tell them the seat is your uncle’s. Uncle Lou's. I’ll be back to check on you and the movie. Believe it or not, I want to see it, too, even if I can see it in parts.”
The boy smiled at him as Lou exited the theater.
Lou walked unhurriedly toward Jules and the policemen. “What’s up, Jules?” Then he turned to one of the policemen. “How can we help you?”
“Another young man is missing, boy actually. Blond, about five-foot six, fourteen. Blue eyes. Black shirt and denims. Sneakers.”
‘This is just about anybody.” Lou frowned. “Is there anything more specific?”
“It’s been two weeks. He’s the son of the Whale Coast Mall’s owner.” One of the policemen held a photo of the teenager in front of him. “He told his parents he was going to the movies to meet up with someone.”
“He could have been here or not,” Lou said. “I just don’t recall. I don’t recall seeing him here, ever. You are welcome to ask our employees if you wish.”
“Kids! They say one thing; they do another.” Jules shook his head.
“Thank you, Gentlemen,” the policeman who had held the photo in front of Lou’s face said. “We’ll see what we can do. There’s been a string of kid killings lately, and we’re at a complete loss.”
“Let us know if we can help,” Lou said, as the policemen exited the brightly lit foyer.
“Why were they here again? Are we suspects or what?” Jules had a worried look on his face.
Lou shrugged. “Nah, they’re just doing a job. Surely, all kids will say they’ll go to the movies to split off to God knows where.”
He moved away from the foyer to theater number three where Denny, the boy who had become his protégée, was waiting for him. Denny deserved the best because he was like what Lou had been. Unlike those others with gruesome, money-oozing carcasses that could make anyone sick. Those carcasses whose killer would never be found.
Lou felt a surge of energy coming from the rejoicing that he knew how to clear evidence perfectly. Being good at something made him proud. With a renewed hunger at retribution, he scanned the inside of theater number three. No one was bothering Denny. Good.
If any of the spoiled rich dared to make kids like Denny feel less, they’d go with the others. Lou would make sure of that.
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From: Fiction Writer’s Workshop by Josip Novakovich
Write a scene of a story from a glimpse you have had of a group of people. Sketch the characters in their setting and let them interact. Write one full page.
Objective: To find out if you can make much out of little.
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The woman who brought a note sent by another doctor glimpsed at the people in the waiting room of the urologist. She handed the note to the receptionist, smiled at Margie, raised her eyes to the flat TV high on the wall, then left the room.
As she exited, “So much energy in this century-old house,” the man on the screen announced. The program about ghost hunting had lured the seven pairs eyes in the room.
Ghosts! We’re all ghosts with blood oozing from every hole and crevice, while we’re here only for a short time, Margie thought as she suddenly felt self-conscious in her red golf shirt and white shorts. After the woman who brought the note, another youngish woman had entered the waiting room. She had on black flare pants and a finely tailored ecru shirt. Her beige shoes matching her Coach bag screamed of finesse and money.
Margie peeked at her own sneakers. She hadn’t even worn socks with them. What the heck, looking casual and sporty fit her. It suited her purse and her self image. But if so, why did she feel uncomfortable when a better-dressed woman showed up in the same place with her and probably for the same thing?
The others in the waiting room were men. After all, this was the urologist’s office, and at an advanced age, men had more trouble than women, where urologists were concerned. Margie looked at the gentle Latino, in his forties, with the short stature and rounded facial features who was filling out forms. What had brought him here?
The chic woman in black and beige walked up to the receptionist’s window and jotted down her name. Right then, receptionist’s glass window slid open.
“Senor Morales, sus tarjetas, por favor.”
The chic woman stepped aside, as the Latino arose from his seat up front. Holding the forms he hadn't finished filling yet under his arm, he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and handed his insurance cards to the receptionist
Margie turned her gaze to the two men sitting by the adjacent wall. Their interest ebbed away from the ghosts, they talked in a low voice about something, about a PSA test. Cancer? Poor guys, Margie thought. If her doctor hadn’t make her come here, if they hadn’t found the blood in her urine, Margie would never set her step in a urologist’s office. Not after she had lost her husband to prostate cancer.
A couple entered the room, the man much older than the woman, but it was the woman who checked in at the reception window.
“Why do we have to listen to this crap? I can’t believe they put that on TV,” the man with the metal-rimmed eyeglasses said.
“Better than nothing.” The old man who had just entered with the much younger wife scanned the room as he lowered himself down on a chair. “Quite a few waiting here.”
“Yeah, and they haven’t called anyone in, yet. At least since we’ve been here,” one of the men talking about the PSA test said.
“We should be the one sending him the bill,” Margie said under her breath, causing everyone to grin. Maybe she shouldn’t talk out loud and attract attention to herself.
She had been feeling the urgency to use the bathroom for a while now. No bathroom was available in the waiting room; she had to ask to use it and she was embarrassed to do so with all those men here. Plus, she was sure she’d be asked for a urine sample, if and when they called her inside.
She started tapping her foot to divert her own attention. Lucky, she had the sneakers on and they didn’t make any noise.
Just then, the door to the examination area opened and the nurse, looking at the file in her hand, announced Margie’s name.
Margie arose straightening her shorts. She froze abruptly. The backside of her shorts were soaking wet.
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