It Came From Outer Space…

Over the weekend I wrote just over a page related to the “Condor” story I have had ongoing. It’s not brilliant work but I’m glad to actually be being able to carve words out of the stone again.
I’m going to continue trying to write a little bit every day. It’s like walking on treadmills a slow page until I can work up to a jog and then a run.
I think this is a very good sign that I’m getting better: my creativity is returning. I found myself sketching a little bit on Friday night and on Saturday I also made a necklace and Sunday matching earrings.
If I can keep this up it will be wonderful, but I also don’t want to push myself too hard.

I wrote this around Thanksgiving 2004 after witnessing my grandfather’s last moments. Magee was his and my step-father’s nickname for each other.

Mist fills the glass
Once twinkling bright
Leather once pink
bruised grape paper
Claw grips tightly
Squeezing me raw
I am without moisture
but weep
Callous, I am
helpless unable
spiraling rapid
caught in your tornado

I’ve been a bit distracted from blogging lately. We’ve had a lot of chaos at the house. I think it would have been smoother if we had set up a bunch of dog ramps and hosted Krufts out of our back yard.

We have tile floor that’s been torn up, mildew that’s needed to be cleaned up, trees that have fallen down in the back yard and knocked down other trees. All these are stressors which make it hard to write and remind me that I need to really work on giving myself an environment that is conducive to writing and getting myself into the groove again. It’s all well and good to say that I want to be a writer and that I have all these ideas but when they don’t go anywhere except circle around my head fighting to come out it doesn’t help.

However, there really is no one to blame but myself for that. I think perhaps I actually need to force some things out just so that I’m writing again, even if it is blood from a stone it will be something written and it will get me back into the rhythm of writing and once that happens perhaps I can then get to the meat again.

This was written around the end of 2004 beginning of 2005. My fiance and I were trying to plan a wedding while he was in the Police Academy and working part time and I was working full time and doing grad school part time. We barely saw each other and when we did we were often very snippy.

Running and scraping by…
We brush each other but never…
Connection is a fleeting…
Passage of wakefulness…
Even tide and shore meet more…
…
I could not understand your cry
I could not will my
self
If we were on a different world
Perhaps things could be un
done
I do not wish to be this way
I do not want to hear you
say
Maybe if it is alright
I can be with you tonight

I went on one of those magnetic poetry sites and this was inspired by some of the phrasing that was coming out. Written some time last year.

I met my tumbling dream thief
below this night float
worrying with my day cloud;
your river so gentle
each ocean jumps from hated tears.

I swept the rumbling tear thief
under the purple moonside
Truffling, scuffling, ruffling
the wire so torrid

The help beneath the saving grace.

Good planning is very important when it comes to stories and it’s taken me a few years to realize this. A lot of time I’ve just started writing based on an idea and then got stuck because the plot starts to turn and contradicts itself, or because I haven’t fully planned things through and suddenly got completely lost as to where things are going to go.

While you don’t have to plan down to the minor details like whether or not a house that your characters use has copper sinks it is important to map out character motivations, fears and plans. As well as what characters are doing with each other, how they feel about each other and how their course is going to progress through the story, who is going to grow and learn who may stay stagnant.

This was written in mid 2005 about a relationship with a friend that was on the skids. She and I were not talking because of some things that I will not get in to and she called, and this came out of my head after the conversation.

To say or not to say
To breath or hold
That
break
in time
between the speech
and the a n s w e r
do I say? scream? break?
do I cry?
do I ask why?
Breath. Breath.
Close your eyes.
Please say something.
Speak.
You have to.
Silence.
Silence is worse.
Silence means displeasure.
Silence means it’s over.
You have to take that second step.
She took the first.

It’s over…
…that hanging over the precipice feeling
hung out to d r y
pendulum caught upswing
h e l d o n t o o l o n g
the journey itself still…
…waits
path mapping as we go
but now–
now the task is clear
downward swing approaches
we can begin

Deep down inside it was a given,
Journeys that have criss-crossed so many times,
Cannot be negated by one
complete
and utter
f*ck up?
sometimes however a path,
should be cut and broken,
bale-fired and laid to rest,
knowing which is which
that is the true test.