Writing Lessons #2: Sparrows

(The prompt for this week is surroundings and we were encouraged to focus on one aspect of nature as it relates to the story.  I chose sparrows.) Out the back gate, across the farmer’s field and into the woods I go in search of the child, knowing that she comes here frequently, alone, despite the […]

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Post Up At “One Woman’s Day”

Travelling As Is is posted on “One Woman’s Day”, a project of the Story Circle Network. The Story Circle Network is a collaborative that supports women “with stories to tell”. Check it out!

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How Illness Improved my Writing

It’s no mystery that stripped of all obligations and confined to a bed provides the coveted time to pursue writing skills, however; it is the actual experience of illness (in my case ME/CFS) that provides the platform for expansion.  Although I have been a ‘writer’ since my early years, the past four have marked a […]

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Blogs I Count On

Every morning, I open my email to find a slew of new messages indicating that my fellow bloggers have been busy.  Typically, I scroll through and prioritize.  These are a few of my must reads: Soul Gatherings is my first go-to place.  Theresa offers a dose of daily inspiration served up with beautiful graphics. cookingforthetimechallenged, […]

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Why Write Poetry

First, a disclaimer:  I am in no way an authority on poetry; it is just something I happen to do… a lot.  In fact, my original blog, One Woman’s Quest, is dedicated to my poetic escapades. A cancer scare prompted me to start writing a blog in the first place – I needed somewhere to […]

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A Tapestry of Poems

I write poetry.   I play with images conjured up while sleeping, until a message appears.  (I describe this process in an earlier post:  Composing Poetry. )  I’ve noticed that the dreams, and consequently the poems, will follow a particular theme, and I thought it might be interesting to introduce the poems of a series to one […]

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Composing Poetry

I’m going to let you in on a little secret:  my technique for creating a poem. First, I pluck an image from the Dreamtime: …trying to break the door down, mermaid legs…. Then, I pull the words apart, like petals from the flower and line them up in a column: trying to break the door […]

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Determining Audience

“Who is the audience?” As an English teacher I often asked this question, to which many students would reply: “Everyone.” Everyone, of course, is not the correct answer, but I understand how difficult it is to define such as elusive entity as ‘audience’. “Imagine,” I would invite them, “that you just failed an important test and […]

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Pestilence of Words

Words, like crickets, leap from my mind – chirping pests whose trajectory eludes my dulled reflexes, scuttling around the periphery of my awareness. Harmless, really, in the singular; a cacophony in multitudes threatening to multiply further and rob me of this semblance of sanity. I must intuit their rhythm, define the notes in workable phrases, capture the […]

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Punctuation, Anyone?

I am contemplating the importance of punctuation when writing poetry. Please be advised that I am not an expert – either of the period or the poetic form – just a woman, who having stumbled upon the possibility of penning a word or two, has found herself questioning (which definitely needs a question mark, doesn’t […]

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