Outline to Write
Topic: Outline to Write
I remember how much I hated doing outlines during school. I was terribly surprised, then, when I tell people to write an essay or short story by starting with an outline.

Start with the basic ideas of your story. This part you can do in your head in many cases. If you do this on paper, leave lots of room between entries. Your story will just about write itself. You might start with something like this:

boy meets girl


boy and girl fall in love


girl is killed in a car crash


boy is devastated


Take each basic idea and write a sentence about the idea. This sentence should be your basic action or plot of that particular part of the story. The sentences don't need to be elaborate. This is basically just the blueprint for your story. And, since it is your story, it can change as you go along. You can even add more than one sentence per subplot. Just make sure you have enough room to write. An example, very basic, would be as follows:

Boy meets girl during summer vacation.


Boy and girl fall in love and arrange to attend the same university in order to be together.


Girl is killed in a car crash when she is on her way home from a late class. It was a drunk driver who fled the scene.


and so on.

Once you have your basic sentences done, start filling in the details. You might need more paper for this. You might even just start with a fresh piece and write the story following your blueprint. Just write. There is no right or wrong way to tell your story; it is your story.

Give your characters names and backgrounds. Describe where the story takes place. Describe how the characters interact with each other, what they think, and what they do. Build the details of how they met and what it was that made them fall in love.

I guess the general idea is to have a plan before you begin. The best plans are subject to change but have a better chance of success if thought out in advance. An outline is just one type of plan. What I diagramed above isn't really even an outline but is only based loosely on outlining principles.

Good luck!

Stimulating Creativity (When Words Won't Come)
Topic: Stimulating Creativity
There are a number of things you can do to stimulate creativity. Many of these things I should be doing myself.

1. Read other's poetry and figure out how you would have written the same poem. Be careful with this one since many writers would not appreciate this exercise. You might try offering a suggestion or two of what you came up with. You might try this with a classical artist. I think it would be fun to write a modern version of a Shakespear epic.

2. Try magnetic poetry. If you do not have magnets, take a paragraph out of a book. Use these words found in the paragraph to write. Don't change any or the words either. It doesn't have to be great. Once you're done, see if any of it is salvageable. If so, take what you have and go with it or post as is. If there is something worthwhile hidden in your work, by all means, edit. This is now your own creation, add words, remove words, change the word forms, do whatever it takes to make you happy.

3. Take the same text to see if you can create a poem that summarizes the paragraph. See if you can find a better, more imaginative way of saying the same thing.

4. Read some of the classical authors. Read the work of others on a poetry site. Just read. And don't just read, think about what the author has written. Why did he use the rhyme scheme he used? Why did he break his lines the way he did? Does it make sense? Just because a particular poem or author has been published, doesn't mean that we can't perform and in-depth critique of the work.

5. Take one of your old poems and view it with a critical eye. Try to rewrite it. Put it through a workshop if need be. If it is a poem that you didn't particularly like, figure out why you didn't like it and try to fix that aspect of it.

6. Brainstorm. Take a word or an idea that interests you. Write down everything that comes to mind about the selection. Don't stop until you have developed a good list. Review the list to see if anything is worthwhile. Play with the selections.

7. Take the list you created in your brainstorming session and write sentences or ideas for each of the words in your list. Review what you came up with to see if there is a common theme other than the original.

8. Work with a friend and swap brainstorming ideas. Let them write sentences for your words and you write sentences for their words. This is based loosely on the idea that the grass is always greener...

9. Try another form that you have previously not written. The oriental forms are actually quite a disciplined art, but well worth mastering. For this, you might try one of your brainstormed ideas and see if you can fit it into the haiku or tanka pattern.

Don't Force It
Topic: Don't Force It
Say that you sit down to write a stunning haiku and the syllable count just doesn't work out, write it anyway. The restriction of haiku is self-imposed. Write what wants to come out, it may result in a more satisfying free verse. Once you're done, that haiku may be hidden in what you've written.

I don't know how many times I've sat down to write something and it just didn't work. The poem that was so good in my mind just wouldn't stay as a poem but made a great couple of paragraphs. There have been times when I've taken my finished paragraphs and written the poem from it. In this case, you may be able to avoid frustration in not accomplishing what you set out to do. You may also accomplish twice as much.

There's nothing worse than a forced rhyme. If it takes that much forcing, maybe it would be better not to rhyme. Rhyming poetry is probably one of the most difficult things to write. Rhyming, itself, is easy. Creating a natural sounding rhyming poem is much more challenging. It may be that most of use attempt to use the end rhyme or perfect rhyme. There are so many other options available. And, there's also the option of not rhyming at all.

Consider it brainstorming if you just start writing wildly about your chosen topic. Put down as much as you can without worrying about wording, images, and anything. Simply write. Later, you can crawl through what you spouted and pull out the finer morsels. Use these morsels to create the perfect meal. This is, by the way, one way to stir up the juices of inspiration.

More Kissing
Topic: More Kissing
One shouldn't aspire to write the great American novel on their first attempt at writing. Something shorter that allows us to ease into the process is more the ticket. Maybe a short story would be a good project. A short story can always grow into that great American novel at a later date.

Tackling too large of a project at the outset can cause problems. When we get stuck, we might feel a sense of failure. Starting small offers a sense of achievement in accomplishing specific goals. It offers a sense of completion as well. Commitment to a smaller project is often easier.

You ask who I am to be offering such advice. I am only an ordinary citizen who likes pen and paper. So, feel free to disregard my advice and tackle a major project. I would still advise to break that down into smaller, more manageable pieces. Give yourself the sense of accomplishment for completing a small piece. It may provide enough incentive to keep you going. Face it, we like our rewards and sometimes writing has few rewards to offer.

Know your subject and what you want to do with it. Break it into bite-size pieces so it is easier for you to digest. And, go for it!

KISS
Topic: KISS
There are three things I wanted to touch upon today. 1) Keep it simple, sweetheart (its my blog, I can make it what I want!) 2) tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them and 3) write what you know.

If you're just starting out in writing, KISS is very good advice. Keep it simple! Simplicity applies to the topic, the language, the vocabulary, and the conclusions we make. Once we try to complicate things, we end up in trouble.

Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them. I've heard this for years. Truthfully, I think we're telling them too much. Repetition is good for effect, but too much repetition is overkill. This, again, is another way of saying that you need an introduction (what you're going to tell them), a body (tell them), and a conclusion (what you told them). This is also a possible way to set up a paragraph. Put the important item first, explain the item, and then summarize or conclude.

Write what you know. Of course, we are most comfortable with what we know. If we were to write what we don't know, we would be forced to do research or come off sounding exactly like we are, unknowing and dumb. Most of us have some experience under our belts. That experience will often relate to other areas. For example, I once helped a school teacher apply for a job as a store manager. If a teacher can manage a classroom why couldn't she manage a staff of employees? Experiences in the classroom will often translate to experiences elsewhere. Unfortunately, they were not my stories to tell, but I was able to see the relationship and am able to build upon that.

Subjective Appreciation
Topic: Subj. Appreciation
The written word is so subjective. What I write and what I mean may not be the same as what you read and what you interpret or understand. The written word, in one sense, allows for a greater depth to be given to our thoughts. We can use language and illustration to make ourselves understood. We can use the proper jargon or syntax to aid our case. We can reduce our explanations into laymans terms if need be. Even then, it doesn't always work. There must be a meeting of the minds in order for communication to take place.

This reminds me of a television commercial involving a car salesman who makes his pitch. The parents hear exactly what the salesman is saying. The child hears garbage...until, the DVD player is mentioned. In this case, I was call the phenomena selective listening. Our previous example may be more of a deductive matter although I somehow fail to see where logic enters the picture.

There is also the distinct possibility that some people are just plain idiots.

I digress. We can't allow one misinterpretation to divert our attention from the goal. In this case, we haven't actually defined our goal, but masterpiece was part of it.

Another Day
Topic: General
Writing requires some standard or uniformity. We write because we can and because it is easily transferable and portable. It is a way of capturing our thoughts for longer than the breath it takes to utter them. If we can't say something well and if we can't say something meaningful, should we bother to say it at all? Once we decide there is something to be said, we are left to answer even more questions.

What form will our daily novel take today? Shall we use prose or poetry to express ourselves? Will a quick note do the trick or is a sonnet more in keeping with the mood of the message? Is formal language needed or would slang be acceptable? Who needs to hear my message and exactly what is that message?

I think therein lies some of the problems with writing and writers. There are too many decisions to be made and too little time in which to make them. There are too many subjects to cover and too little paper to capture them.

At some point, the well runs dry. What do we write about today? There are only a vast number of topics to be written about. Technically, this is a finite number of topics and many of them have already been well exhausted. What can I say that is so different from those before me?

Well, there seems to be one topic that is always popular. We can always write about writing! There's a neverending subject in that one. There's why we don't write, why we can't write, why we shouldn't write, why we do write, how we could write, and a whole host of others.

Obviously, though, I'm babbling. I expect when I finish, though, I will be able to piece together some extraordinary masterpiece.

Feeling Better
Topic: Art vs Science
I came up with something the other day and now I need to decide what to do with it.

Anything we do in poetry requires moderation. Poetry is both an Art and a Science. It is an Art in that we need vision to see what we want to say. It is a Science in knowing how to say it.

It rather goes well with the following:

"It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary." -David Bailey

and my comments to that:

The same thing goes for writing. What really hasn't already been said? It takes a lot of imagination to find new and improved ways of saying the same old thing. Think about it!

I need to examine the relationship between art and imagination. The way this has been outlined above, there seems to be a direct correlation.

One definition of art from Dictionary.com:

a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
b. The study of these activities.
c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

"The conscious production or arrangement" of words fits right in there with poetry. The production would follow art, however the arrangement may be more of a science.

To go just one step further, Dictionary.com gives the following definition of science:

Knowledge, especially that gained through experience.

So, the more we do, the more we know? The more we read, the more we experience.

And Why Do I Need a Blog?
Topic: Blog?
I really have no use for a blog, but everyone seems to have them. I guess I can get on board. Of course, when you're sick it is not the time to strike out into new creations, but what the hey.

I must admit that I am more concerned about others than myself these days, that's probably why I got sick. Allergy-induced asthma is no fun, let me tell you.