Meg Sefton's Blog, page 26

Just saying hello

St Nicholas (serial) 1873 by Mary Mapes Dodge, Scribner & Co, Internet Archive Book Images , flickr

Inktober 2021

I found this list of awesome Inktober prompts on DeviantArt by Lineke-Lijn. I posted this initially a couple of weeks ago and wanted to post it again as a reminder and an invitation in case anyone wants to do some October writing.

These are prompts for visual artists but I think this particular list is also stellar for writers and here’s why: the nouns are specific and concrete; the verbs are action verbs; the verbal adjectives are equally expressive and action-oriented; the nominal adjectives are precise, concrete. One-word prompts that are abstractions and nonspecific are non-starters.

The kind of prompts listed above translate into powerful sketches and drawings. And I think these give writers that mental picture we need to begin translating an interior vision into the written word. You may think you’re not a screenwriter, but if you want to write powerful fiction, you will think in scenes and images.

If you are interested in an exploration, even if you’re an experienced writer, start jotting down small pieces in a notebook or document. It is highly likely first drafts will go over the fifty-word count that is set in flash fiction writing for Inktober. Over time, as pieces are refined to meet the word count, a wonderful miniature will emerge, conveying the heart of something distinct. The word prompt may be included as a word in the piece or it can simply serve as the inspiration.

Even if you don’t want to write fiction or publish, exercises like this sharpens verbal ability; broadens thinking; enhances problem-solving; and develops voice and self-knowledge. Yours —Margaret __ATA.cmd.push(function() { __ATA.initDynamicSlot({ id: 'atatags-26942-615bdb927cd71', location: 120, formFactor: '001', label: { text: 'Advertisements', }, creative: { reportAd: { text: 'Report this ad', }, privacySettings: { text: 'Privacy', } } }); });

Inktober: Flowing

Asylum Window by Frederico Limonta, flickr

Nightmares of the liquid asylum flowing and engulfing, stealing memory with high voltage and the habit of the pill cup is overtaken by mental anguish, an inner voice which pleads: “We who love you call you back to your bedlam, your soul’s dark night.”

Monday folk n’blues

A revisit. May your Monday be what you need it to be. —Margaret

Inktober: Precious

Photo by Kent Pilcher on Unsplash

We didn’t realize we had precious moments. Instead, we argued over who was right, whom we should save, what monies should go where. When the end came and monies and righteousness became meaningless, we had only the sun, the fields, the water. We made our way as beasts.

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Etta James

This song has been with me this morning. This was Etta James’s last album.

Genius

typo…Jim Orsini, flickr

If you love literature and you love to watch movies, I would recommend the movie Genius with Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nichole Kidman, and Laura Linney. Firth plays Maxwell Perkins, a book editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons who edited the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald. Law plays Thomas Wolfe, the famous writer of Look Homeward, Angel which was also edited by Perkins.

If you watch this movie, be prepared to feel something. Well, I guess I should only speak for myself. I’ve watched it before but I find in revisiting movies during the pandemic, certain movies almost feel new to me. I don’t remember getting as emotional. Our world has changed so much.

Your friend on this Saturday evening. —Margaret

Why are writers so weird?

Image from page 238 of “Bizarre,” (1914), Lebanon Valley College, flickr

Often the time of the first impulse to write something is the best time to take it down. For me, impulses don’t age well. It is like knowing you love someone but delaying a response to their own love declaration for you—whether your response is a few seconds late or minutes overdue or you are tardy a few days or longer, heaven forbid.

An idea touches down on my noggin and it’s as if it is saying: “Here I am, waiting to bless you.” But then sometimes I think I must say: “I’ve told myself I absolutely must be serious about such and such (insert adult task) and if you would be so obliging as to interrupt me at a more convenient time.” A few hours or days later, I’m ready to rock and roll with my lovely and I’ve lost a sense of the tone, the pitch, the rhythm. It had a real tangible feel and now it’s just a bit of yellowed nostalgia like aged, delicate paper. I can’t connect words to an old feeling. I can’t recapture the mouth feel (Yeah, that’s a food metaphor).

Why is it hard to write and be a normal person? Because it is. I think early clues of my own “abnormality” would be others’ teasing me for often spacing out or being slow to join classmates in learning activities. Surely that was an early form of the waking dreams I was subject to and later pursued as an adult, attempting to capture them in writing. And yet, to write what I hope to write and that is, the things that are most important to my heart, the stories and words that feel most urgent, means I can’t allow myself to get “too old”—allow myself to get stodgy, curmudgeonly, closed. I have to walk around open constantly and willing to take down words on command. I guess the only hindrance would be lack of writing instruments or going under sedation for a procedure. Or of course, driving.

A couple of days ago, I thought of my response to the Inktober prompt “star” (see my earlier posting of Inktober prompts). I had a sense of the sound, the feel of how I wanted to approach it though I said to myself, you know, I want to learn more about meteor showers and where to watch them. This little research made me even more excited about the prompt. But instead of marrying my feeling and early sense of sound together with my research, I left my love alone to pursue some chores.

What I have now is alright, but it wasn’t what I intended. But this often happens. We live in the world. The world won’t stop for us to write and then carry on once we decide to engage in the world again. Then again, our beloved conception of an idea won’t always be present for us in the same way it was initially, though she is often present for a competent dance or two. This has been my experience. It is both thrilling and frustrating, just like love.

Inktober: Star (Happy Birthday Don McLean “Starry, Starry Night”)

Photo by Guillaume Issaly on Unsplash

I sought your falling star in October, your birthday month, in the Draconids over Cocoa Beach.

Although I lost your bear paw ring and the dry cleaner burned your silk shirt, I remember your eyes—piercing and blue as Bahamian waters.

You fell silver for me, dear brother. May you rest.

Playing Musical Vases – Sobek’s Tears — The Alchemist’s Studio

A note from yours truly: One thing I love about WordPress is witnessing beautiful art and writing by people I follow. The memory of this work and the story that accompanies it has stayed with me this past couple of weeks and I thought I would share it. I hope you will check out this blog.—Margaret

Gotta song that you thinkgoes with one of our vases?We invite you to add yoursin the comments!

Playing Musical Vases – Sobek’s Tears — The Alchemist’s Studio