Hello, Word Artists and Admirers! It is my honor to host the last Weekly Scribblings before moving to the new once a week format. For this week's prompt, I'd like you to write about something you really enjoyed in childhood – a toy, a book, a place, a movie – anything that held a place in your heart back then.
I’m accepting poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction. Please be sure to keep prose to 369 words or fewer and one entry per person please.
Greetings, dear poets and storytellers. I hope you had a
good week and a better weekend. Around my bit of the world, things are
getting cooler—something my hot flashes and I have been celebrating. There are
so many things to like about this time of year. And not just when it comes to
temperatures, but also when it comes to writing. If you are one of those mythological
ink slingers with the discipline to complete a 50K word manuscript in 30 days, then November is your month. Anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year? I am not.
I don’t think I have what it takes to participate in
NaNoWriMo, not properly. I could write every day for a month. But as much as I love
discussing words and writing with other writers, chatting about what I have written
and posting my progress is beyond me. I tried it once, and got sick of it after
a few days. I will try to work every day on my current work in progress, but
that’s as far as I’ll go.
On a note a bit closer to home, this is our penultimate
Writers’ Pantry before we transition to one post per week (on Fridays).
Rosemary will host the last Writers’ Pantry on October 31st. Rommy
will be hosting the last Weekly Scribblings next week, and as our last Wednesday
prompt, she will ask us to “write about something we really enjoyed
in childhood – a toy, a book, a place, a movie – anything that held a place in
your heart back then.”
By the way, my darling writers, if you ever get the urge to post midweek and want a prompt, I suggest you try The Twiglets (Tuesdays), The Whirligig (Wednesday), or Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie (they offer prompts every day of the week).
But today is for the Pantry! So, let’s share prose or poetry.
Let your contributions be new or old, short or longish (if going for prose, the word count should be 369 words
or fewer). One link per participant. Visit other writers. Delight in their words. Tell them about said delight.
Hello, dear Wordsmiths! This is Rosemary, who rejoices to be your Coordinator as we move forward together.
Reminder:
In November we move into a new format. Instead of two posts a week, Weekly Scribblings on Wednesdays and Writers’ Pantry on Sundays, we’ll combine them into one a week – when you may respond to a prompt, or post on a topic of your own choosing.
We thought of 'Sunday Scribblings' but then realised – with some input from you, our community – that many people are busy with other prompts on Sundays. However Wednesday is a bit tricky for some of us on the team, so we're giving Friday a whirl. We'll begin doing so on the first Friday in November.
It dawned on us that, with only one post a week, we don't need a subtitle at all. No need to specify Friday Scribblings or Friday anything, when Friday is our only day!
How is this a forward move?
~ More time to write, read and comment. ~
~ More freedom in what to write. ~
1. We don’t like being the Poetry Police or Story Squelchers – unlinking posts that don’t conform to a prompt, in order to be fair to those who follow it scrupulously. We’d rather give you more choice and have it all be OK.
2. Our behind-the-scenes team of three has turned out to be remarkably harmonious. We think we're the dream team! Our various gifts and skills combine well; and when we do (rarely) have differing ideas, we work it out very quickly by consensus, with unabated goodwill. So we don't at present contemplate adding anyone else to this sublime mix, to share the work. Yet we all – like the rest of you – lead busy lives on and offline. Once-a-week posts will have things flow even more smoothly, for us and we trust for you too.
For now –
Sorry to disappoint, but you don’t get carte blanche just yet; this is advance notice.
We do ask you to adhere to a prompt today. Please write something on the theme of ‘Forward Movement’, in whatever way you choose to interpret that.
We’re accepting new pieces of poetry or prose (written in the last month – or, if older, extensively rewritten). If it’s prose, your upper limit is 369 words, excluding title.
Link us, below, to your specific blog post; link that post back to us if you will; read each other; leave comments here and there….
Have fun!
Photo by Arek Adeoye, freely available from Unsplash
Greetings, my dearest poets and storytellers. It’s Magaly here, feeling a bit loopy (after yet another medical procedure), but also feeling hopeful and rested (after having slept 13 glorious hours). Speaking of 13, since I have been fond of the number 13 for a very long time, I thought the 13th of October would be a perfect day to inform you of changes Rommy, Rosemary, and I have planned for the Poets and Storytellers United blog.
The Change: Starting on Sunday, October 31st Friday, November 5th,
P&SU’s Weekly Scribblings and Writers’ Pantry will merge into one and become
Sunday Scribblings a single event. This means that we will go from two posts a
week to one. Our new, weekly prompts will give participants the chance to
respond to a specific prompt or to share new or old poetry or prose of their
choosing.
So, there you have it. Everything else shall remain as it
has been. We’ll continue to share our words. We’ll just have a whole week to
delight in each other’s contributions before a new prompt is posted.
And now, for my last Weekly Scribblings, I invite
you to write poetry or prose inspired by a personal symbol, or a thing that
represents or stands for something else, especially a material object or an action
representing something abstract to you (i.e.,
luck, remembrance…). For example, Serena Williams
has a lucky pair of socks; Helen Mirren has a lucky pair of shoes; Benicio del
Toro wears a ring with a wooden core so he can always knock on wood whenever
needed; and I use 13 as often as possible, for luck and for centering.
This prompt will remain open for a week. We welcome fiction
and nonfiction, short and long(ish)
pieces—if
you go for prose, let the word count be 369 words or fewer. Please add the
direct link to your contribution. And after
you share your words, remember to visit other writers and let them know
what their words did for you. Significantly rewritten poetry and prose are also
welcomed.
(and the possible effect of cultural differences)
My recent Weekly Scribblings prompt, Keeping it Real, proved difficult for most to adhere to. Don't feel bad – this is partly down to the prompter. I didn’t spell it out that Realism in art and literature involves looking from the outside and portraying / describing that.
However, I did give plenty of examples, and my prompt didn’t ask people to write about realism (though I am thinking in hindsight I'd have done well to give you that option) but to write ‘realistically’ / ‘from a realistic perspective’.
So I found it fascinating – why did so many have so much trouble being able to do that?
The Subjective
First of all, it seems we have huge trouble not being subjective – myself included. It's as if some of us simply can't. (Which is rather scary, as objectivity is so often needed when navigating life!) It is possible to write Realism with oneself as subject, but it's more difficult. One needs to stand outside oneself mentally, as an onlooker.
I am thinking there is, perhaps, a cultural aspect. Individualism is highly valued in our culture and has long been so, to the extent that its value is taken for granted and we're probably all conditioned that way from an early age without even realising it. (In some other societies – the tribal, the Socialist, many other species – the group as a whole is considered more important.) A subjective point of view seems to follow naturally from our focus on the rights and importance of the individual.
The Imagined
Also, in what we think of as the Western world, poetry is the realm of the metaphorical. Stories, too, it is agreed, come at least partly from the imagination.
The best-known form of Japanese literature, the haiku, is rooted in nature, whether observed or recollected. Even when the writer’s feelings are included, they are those directly experienced, not imagined. Metaphor is eschewed in traditional haiku. Instead we may have a juxtaposition of two apparently unconnected images, which allows for a mental leap, an understanding beyond what is written on the page. That, however, is still in the realm of reality, not fiction.
Many Westerners have enormous difficulty understanding how to write haiku, instead producing three-line verses of 5, 7 and 5 syllables per line, which are not haiku. Many things make them ‘not haiku’; the use of metaphor, internal dialogue and imagination are some.
Realism and Naturalism
Realism in art became synonymous with the early days of Communism in Russia, as a departure from what was seen as Western decadence (one reason I included the photo of Lenin’s statue in my Scribblings post). It was fashionable to extol the workers by depicting them engaged in their work – in fact not always very truthfully, though purporting to be. Manual labour was officially regarded as a noble calling. This is not something given much attention in non-Communist countries – where realism tends to pertain only to landscapes and portraits (and not all of them).
This article on realism in 19th Century Russian literature tells us:
The general characteristics of 19th-century Russian realism include the urge to explore the human condition in a spirit of serious enquiry, although without excluding humor and satire; the tendency to set works of fiction in the Russia of the writer’s own day; the cultivation of a straightforward style, but one also involving factual detail; an emphasis on character and atmosphere rather than on plot and action; and an underlying tolerance of human weakness and wickedness. The leading realists began to be published in the late 1840s: the novelists Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Count Leo Tolstoy; the playwright Aleksandr Ostrovsky; the poet Nikolai Nekrasov; and the novelist and political thinker Aleksandr Herzen.
The author goes on to explain how this movement, portraying the condition of the people under Tsarist rule, actually led to the Communist revolution of 1917.
There are some parallels in the literature of non-Communist countries, e.g. (just to take one example) John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, about the terrible conditions for farm labourers and others during the Great Depression, published in 1939. In fact this book has been cited as an example of Naturalism, which takes Realism further. This site, which goes into detail about both, differentiates them thus:
Realism is a literary movement that began in the middle of the nineteenth century in France and spread across Europe. This movement can be defined as a reaction against Romanticism. Realistic literature depicts ordinary people in everyday situations. They depicted events that could happen to anyone in real life. Realism portrays life as it is, without idealizing, flattering or romanticizing.
Naturalism proceeded from realism [and] is often referred to as a logical outgrowth of literary Realism. It can be considered as an exaggerated form of realism since it used detailed realism to propose that social conditions, heredity, and environment were the three main forces in shaping human character.
Wikipedia tells us that The Grapes of Wrath ‘won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.’ However, we are also told that it was a controversial book at the time of its publication and in some quarters was denounced as socialist propaganda. Now known as a great classic, it was banned in many places.And, for our Writers' Pantry today, you may let your imaginations run as wild as you like, and share whatever you will – poetry or prose; new or old; any
subject, form or style. Only, if it’s prose, we ask that you restrict it
to 369 words.
Post it on your blog, add the link to your post to
Mister Linky below, enjoy reading each other and leaving what
encouraging comments you’re moved to. Also we’re always interested to
receive your comments here.
Enjoy!
Hello, Word Artists and Admirers! One of my childhood favorites is Anne of Green Gables. As soon as I flipped the page in my planner, I couldn’t help thinking of Anne’s declaration,
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!”
For this week’s prompt I would like you to take your inspiration from this quote, October, or autumn in general. All pieces submitted should be new-ish (less than 30 days old) or substantially reworked. I’m taking poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction. Please keep all prose to 369 words or fewer and one entry per person please.
Hello again, dear wordsmiths. Let me introduce you to my facebook friend, Manu Kant, who lives in India.
I first met Manu when he started submitting to a haiku group I used to administer. He also uses other Japanese short forms such as sedoka and tanka.
He is an exponent of Realism, and over the years, I have become very impressed with the way his verses chronicle the society around him.
Wikipedia tells us that Realism in art (including literature) is ‘the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality.’ It tends to focus on ‘the depiction of ordinary, everyday subjects’ and ‘attempts to represent familiar things as they are’.
Here are some examples of Realism in photography, taken from Unsplash:
Lenin by Lian Begette; bikes and man in street by Obi Onyeador.
As you see, the art is not only in the subject matter, but how it is presented. Anyone can depict something as it is – but that is not the same as creating art, which must also take account of such matters as composition and focus.
I think, if nothing else, Manu’s poems add up to an important social
document. However, the realist style could cause you to miss how
excellent they are. They are not only a social record but also a body of
poetry.
As a Realist, he focuses on observable details and adds no other commentary. It would therefore be very easy to dismiss his writings, or to consider them lacking in poetic qualities. In fact he tells me his work is not at all appreciated in India but only in the West. Perhaps that is because his Indian readers already know the environment he writes of, and therefore might possibly take it for granted?
Below is a selection of Manu Kant’s poetry (separate pieces, not a sequence) to give you the idea.
It would be easy enough for a Western reader to underestimate this writing too. But have a look at what details he selects to focus on. Further commentary is not needed because the mere mention of those details reveals so much. It’s a matter of knowing what to show, and how to show it. The apparent lack of artistry is actually extremely artful – and artistic. It’s the ‘art that conceals art’.
And then have a look at the unsaid: that which doesn’t actually get onto the page, but nevertheless is there to be inferred.
hot June afternoon
beggars crossing the road
hanging on their cart
a cute stuffed toy panda
late August morning
passing through a slum
two kids playing with mud
outside their shanty
hot April afternoon
busy road
a crow's caw caw
as a small cat hurriedly
scampers towards
the backside of the house
holding a pigeon
April evening
right on a roadside
a coconut vendor opens coconuts
with steady strokes of a chopper knife
and turn by turn
offers it to his customers
April afternoon
walking behind his beggar mother
in Sector 17
a kid sucks up the ice cream
from the pointed end
of the cone
Holi morning
a Bihari construction worker
smeared with garish orange
dancing in the middle of the road
sunny February morning
a newly wed street sweeper in bridal finery
sweeping the plaza
As you see, some of these record the slightly unusual, but others – the slum kids, the coconut vendor – detail the everyday.
Another chronicler of reality, in his own style, is second-generation Greek-Australian poet Pi O, one of whose books, Fitzroy: the biography, is about the Melbourne suburb where he was brought up and still lives. (Melbourne is reputed to have the biggest Greek population outside Greece.) He too is carefully recording his social environment, in the conviction that this is not only worth doing but vital. Here is a poem from the book:
You'll note that Pi O brings himself into this poem, in a way that doesn't disrupt the realism. Also he is recording patterns of speech which are part of the character of this suburb. He is still describing what is so – a very particular instance of what is so – and allowing us to draw our own inferences, just as Manu does in his way.
Today I invite you to write something – anything – from a realist perspective. I’m not demanding that you regale me with haiku or other Japanese forms – though you can if you wish. It can be any sort of poetry, or it may be in prose. If it’s prose, please restrict it to 369 words, max (excluding title). See if you can describe something realistically, in a way that indicates more than what is actually said.
When you’ve finished, please link your ONE, NEW entry in the `Mister Linky’ below. Newish pieces (written within the last month) which happen to fit the prompt are acceptable too. So are older ones which you have extensively rewritten for this purpose. (If you can show us the original too, even better.)
The prompt will stay open all week, because we don’t want to rush you. But if you link late, you might not get many readers because they won’t know you’re there. In that case, feel free to link to the same piece again on a Sunday, when we accept whatever you wish to share.
Have fun!
Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. (Older material may be out of copyright).
Hello, Word Artists and Admirers! I hope you are all doing well this morning. In an attempt to get in as much outside fun as I can before the weather gets too bitter, I went on a ghost walk held in my town! I expected a couple of American Revolution stories (lots of battles happened all around the area where I live), but there were plenty of stories from other eras of history, some of them quite chilling! Have you ever been on a ghost walk?
For this upcoming Weekly Scribblings, Rosemary will ask us to try Realism – which ‘attempts to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality.’ It tends to focus on ‘the depiction of ordinary, everyday subjects’ and ‘attempts to represent familiar things as they are’. She invites us to see if we can describe something realistically, in a way that indicates more than what is actually said.
On to the pantry! I’m taking both poetry and prose, fiction
and non-fiction, old and new pieces. Just be sure to keep all prose to 369
words or fewer and one entry per person please.
Greetings, dear poets
and storytellers. I hope the Autumnal
Equinox (or Vernal, if you are in the Southern Hemisphere) found
you well. Autumn and spring—the first with its cooler weather and the second
with the promise of rebirth—always put me in a good mood. I don’t know about
you, but I’ve had all the summer (and
rotten moods) I can handle for a year.
Today, I’ve selected three of my stitched blackout poem bits
to offer as inspiration. I invite you to write poetry or prose which includes at
least 1 of the following three. Of course, you are more than welcomed to choose
2 or all 3:
Happy and strange words are my home.
I see you.
Reason is music to a jaded heart.
As always, this prompt shall remain open for a week. We welcome fiction and nonfiction, short and long(ish) pieces—if you go for prose, let the word count be 369 words or fewer. Please, add the direct link to your contribution. And after your share your words, do take a moment to visit other poets and storytellers... and share your thought-filled comments on their words. Significantly rewritten pieces are also welcomed.
Hello, Word Artists and Admirers! Around this time of year, many places in the U.S. have fairs or carnivals popping up, which include things like iconic festival food, games and rides. For today’s prompt I want you to write about one (or more) things you might find at a fair and write about that. Possibilities include (but are not limited to) cotton candy, Ferris wheels, ring toss, merry-go-rounds, corn dogs, and roller coasters.
I'll take poetry or prose, fiction or non-fiction, but the piece must be either new, new-ish (less than 30 days old), or significantly reworked older pieces. Please keep your prose to 369 words or fewer and one entry per person, please and thank you!
Greetings, dear wordsmiths. How are you surviving the pandemic so far? In Australia, many of us are currently in lockdown. In some places, everyone’s losing count by now of how many times. People have been saying it feels like groundhog day – and we don’t even have groundhogs in Australia!
Thus restricted, where does one turn for inspiration? Already there’s plenty of poetry about the whole COVID-19 situation – and room for plenty more – but what if you want to write about something else?
I have been thinking I could start mining my journals for material. I'm not actually keeping a journal at present, but I still have quite a collection from past forays into the practice.
Back yard journalling with my cat Selene, August 2016.
Photo © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2016
Then I remembered that I have done this a few times before, leafing through old journals at random until something appealed to me. It’s a bit like found poetry, except one is finding the unintended poems in one’s own writings rather than some other text.
Or one can turn a chronicled event into a story – either memoir or, with judicious changes, fiction.
The following post comes from my old poetry blog (now an archive) The Passionate Crone.
To Describe This Garden
I've been going through old journals. Among other things I am finding poetry I didn't know I was writing — such as this, which I'd now call a prose poem. I haven't altered a word.
To describe this garden — the constant ruffling of sunny trees, light moving on water in the pool, the gloss of green, wide sky, sometimes birds …. Swallows that skim the pool even when I’m in it, playing in air and water. Big starlings trotting and squabbling under the bushes. Slow grey doves. A quick wattle-bird with trailing tail.
I like the way the sky takes up a lot of room, even in the squared-off picture framed by my doorway. When it’s dark, and the trees are merged black walls and towers, the sky still soars in all directions. The traffic is almost silent, dogs bark now and then several blocks away, the stillness could be far from suburb and city.
When I swim, I look up at clouds and trees, or stars, and it might be Mataranka Springs, it might be Bali …
— Beaumaris, 15 January 1987
© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 1987
The 1987 date is from my journal. The blog post was made on November 10, 2014.
It’s good to use really old journals if you have them, so you don’t remember what you wrote (though you may well remember the events you wrote about) and see the words afresh. However, even recent entries can surprise you, because they weren’t written with the intention of becoming poems or stories. When you’re looking for poetic or narrative possibilities, you re-read them in a different way.
Old or new, it’s rare (I think) that an entry can be reproduced verbatim. That’s OK. It’s a source of inspiration. Where you then take the inspiration is up to you.
So – today I invite you to mine a journal entry (or several) for material and give us a poem or a story drawn from that source.
What if you have never kept a journal? (Really – a writer who never has?) In that case, try your old emails. If all else fails, write about keeping or not keeping a journal.
You know the drill: Using Mister Linky below, link to the specific post on your blog; one link per person. You may share poetry or prose, prose pieces to be 369 words max. New writings please – preferably written new for the prompt, but we'll also accept anything written within the last 30 days which happens to fit, or an older piece if extensively (and newly) rewritten. As always, we'd love you to leave a comment below; also to read each other and leave some appreciative words.
The prompt stays open a week. If your inspiration comes a bit late, do feel free to post (or repost) in Sunday's Writers' Pantry.
Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. This time the copyright's all mine, for everything.
Greetings, dear poets and storytellers. I’ve spent the last few weeks discussing nutrition and fitness with my Crohn’s disease group. So, a prompt that focuses on flesh and bones and such felt just right. With that in mind, I invite you to write poetry or prose inspired by the following Jim Rohn’s quote: “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” Feel free to use the phrase literally or figuratively.
As always, this prompt shall remain open for a week. We
welcome fiction and nonfiction, short and long(ish)
pieces—if
you go for prose, let the word count be 369 words or fewer. Please add the
direct link to your contribution. After
you share your words, please take a moment to visit other poets and storytellers, and share your thought-filled
comments on their words. Significantly rewritten poetry and prose are also
welcomed.
Let us delight in this week’s body of words.
Hello, Word Artists and Admirers! For this week’s prompt, I’d like you to play around with the phrase, “the last time.” You are free to interpret the phrase in any way you’d like, but you must use the words somewhere in your piece.
I am open to poetry or prose, fiction or non-fiction. New-ish
(30 days old or younger) or substantially reworked pieces are welcome (and if
possible, share the evolution of re-worked pieces by providing a link to it in
your post). If you decide to dance with prose, please keep your entries to 369
words or fewer. Thanks!
