#day 7 of using a random word generator as a prompt for my poetry

[sometimesiwritepoems]

Peel

What does it take to find  The truest version of ourselves To peel back all our layers Until we get to the core Of who we are?

What is left of a person When everything they know Everything they feel Everything they believe themself to be Is peeled away?

I wonder What I look like At my most authentic self When the truth of who I am Is revealed

I hope I’ll still be able to recognize The person staring back at me

[kithtaehyung]

How did you get started with writing? I've always wanted to try but it's a bit intimidating. Do you have any advice for beginners?

Hi, love! Oh my gosh, I have been there. Frankly, it’s still intimidating😅 But! I’ll try my best to offer some advice that has worked for me💛

Note: if these don’t work for you, pls don’t stress🤍 As with any artistic medium, there’s no one-way ticket to success. Find your own style/what works for you, but use anything here as a guide/starting point.

1) The hardest part is starting. This is just a pretty general statement, but it’s true. You can think about writing all day, but in order to actually get into it, you gotta transfer those words and ideas from your brain onto paper—journals, Notes app on your phone, Google docs, anything. Once you start putting those ideas down, it gets easier and easier to keep going! My first story started as bullet points on my Notes app that I then transformed in Google Docs.

2) For now, don’t worry about making things perfect. Drafts are exactly that: drafts of works. Unedited, pure, raw forms of what you have in your head. So just write at your leisure and don’t stress about editing them until you’re close to posting. And even then: it’s okay if there are some errors! Fanfiction (if that’s what you’re wanting to write) is free so if you don’t care about your work being perfect, it doesn’t have to be!

3) Write because it’s fun / Write what makes you happy. The thing that kept me from writing the longest (after a years long hiatus) was the pressure of wondering if people would like what I wrote. Don’t be like me. Learn from me. If you just write what you want/what makes you happy first, I promise it releases so much pressure from your mental and allows you more creative space and freedom. And if you wanna write for fandoms, being yourself is even better. You will find similar creatives and foster your corner of the internet once you start getting your stuff out there in the world.

4) Read, read, read. I learned so much about writing from reading. Whether it’s poetry, fanfiction, fiction, or non-fiction, you’ll start to find styles that resonate with you and observe how people tinker with the language you want to write in!

5) Practice, practice, practice! One, this gets your juices flowing, and two, a whole story can sprout from a single sentence out of a writing exercise. Some things to look for here would be writing prompt lists (there’s a bunch if you search on tumblr/online!), random idea generators, or even writing challenges.

6) Not everything you write has to be posted / It’s okay to accept the fact that some ideas will just stay ideas. Once you start writing, I assure you that you will come up with ideas more than once per day (especially in the shower???) Write them down and follow the inspiration, of course, but don’t feel down if you lose spark for them down the road. I can tell you right now (because I recently checked) that I’ve posted 158,225 words, but have 261,880 words written in total with works still in progress/ideas that may never even make it out of draft format (and I’m a slow writer!!) It’s totally okay. You can always come back to them. And that brings me to my last piece of advice…

7) Write things down. Oh my gosh, I cannot stress this enough: if you have an idea, write it down!! A line of dialogue you wanna work around? Notate it. A whole scene or even a title? Please, put it down somewhere. Even if you have to write it on a napkin, do it and take the dang thing with you! Trust me, I tried the whole “I’ll remember it later” lie, and what happened? I regretted it because, of course, I did not remember it later lol. Better safe than sorry.

That’s what I have for you for now, but if any other writers out there wanna chime in, please do! Have fun starting your adventure and I’m always here to help if you need any other tidbits of advice💛 -Ryen

[brufonseweek]

okay now that i’m settled in on my new laptop i can finally make the post about this again! i’m. just gonna copy and paste from the other post and swap in the dates. now it’s october 19th to the 23rd

this year’s prompts are a little different. we still have the two paired words from last year (and again they’re meant to go with each other, loosely) but we ALSO… have aus for each day. minus the free day where there’s no prompts whatsoever. while the paired words are meant to be loose opposites (the only real exception is blue and purple but you can probably guess why those two are together) the aus were just kind of randomly assigned to each day, and i got the aus in the first place through a random generator

anyway, if for whatever reason you can’t read the prompts on the graphic, the prompts this year are as follows

october 19th - history / future | modern au october 20th - gate / solitude | pirate au october 21st - dream / nightmare | celebrity au october 22nd - blue / purple | coffeeshop au october 23rd - free day (no prompts)

potential questions and answers about this event under the cut (some i’ve been asked about former events, some i just already felt like might be asked)

q: do i need to sign up to participate?

a: nope! you just kind of. do it. and then you post it during brufonse week. no sign ups necessary

q: can i work on this ahead of time?

a: absolutely, that’s why i announce it so far ahead of time too, so people have the time to work on it… but also like even if i said no, i couldn’t really stop you since how would i know, lol

q: only five days?

a: that’s more manageable for most people than a full 7! i’ve seen ship weeks done both ways in the past so it’s not too weird or unusual

q: do i need to stick to the prompts?

a: it’d be nice, but i’m not gonna insist upon it or anything

q: what’s the purpose of the aus, why are they separate from the other prompts?

a: okay so i was envisioning it like you’d take one of the words and Maybe Also the au to come up with your piece. but like i said i’m not going to insist people stick to the prompt list, you can kind of do whatever. do the aus if you want or don’t, do them in addition to or instead of the paired word prompts if you want. i’m not gonna complain any way

q: do i have to do the full week?

a: nah, do what you want to do or can do, i’ll just be glad you participated

q: what kinds of things are we allowed to make for this?

a: whatever you want! art, fics, poetry, sprite edits, aesthetic moodboards, playlists, amvs… sky’s the limit. tho i will say if you DO make a moodboard, either take stuff you don’t have to source (like stuff from pixabay or w/e) or source it in your post

q: should we tag you in the posts?

a: yeah. like last year i’m gonna try to reblog everything to here. there’s also a twitter account, username is brufonseweek. i’d link it here but then this post won’t show up in the tags

q: is nsfw content allowed?

a: i’m not gonna stop anyone who wants to make nsfw content for brufonse week. however… i’m also not going to reblog any of that to here, sorry

q: this q and a part is basically the same as last year’s post

a: yeah i was using that as a base

[ren-c-leyn]

QnA tag game

I was tagged by @hyba​ to play this. Thank you very much.

rules: post your answers, and tag some pals.

1. When did you first learn you enjoyed writing?

Honestly, I used to hate writing. It wasn’t fun, it was boring school essays and annoying prompts on exams. That being said, I had always enjoyed storytelling, and had been telling stories since before I could remember.

How I reconciled that gap between the written and the spoken was I went through a really shitty period of time in my life and I took up poetry to help vent. And it was so freeing and fun that I kept with it.

I had been doing that for a while when I decided to try writing some fantasy story that popped into my head, though I can’t quite recall why I bothered to try. It wasn’t a very good story, but I filled up like an entire notebook with it and started writing it on another, and I discovered ‘hey, writing can be fun... if it isn’t about something boring.’

And over the years, fantasy has over taken poetry. I still write poems from time to time, but not like I used to.

2. Tell us about the first project you ever wrote.

It was one that tried cramming way too much into one story, but there’s elements of it that I still use a lot of. I can’t remember the exact plot I had in mind for it, because it was all over the place, but I remember there being some sci-fi, a lot of fantasy weirdness, and a chosen one who was both angry and horrified that her world ended when she had the power to save it, because no one knew what she was or that their world was in danger. It never got finished, but I had fun with it while I was working on it.

3. How does your favorite media shape who you are as a writer?

In ways I don’t even realize it did, I’m sure. Particularly since I binge read without really analyzing the writing techniques of people. My writer brain turns off and reader brain takes over. Which many people say is bad, but it works for me. That being said, I can draw some obvious parallels between things I’ve read and my own works.

I know that Tolkien was a big influence for my ‘this string pulls on this person’s string, which does that, which leads to a poor hobbit having to lose his finger to throw a cursed ring into a volcano and save the world’ kinda plots. I also enjoyed his world building, but, and this is just my opinion, it slowed the Lord of the Rings triology down a lot and made it a little clunky to read. So it taught me both what I kinda wanted to see in my world building, but also how I didn’t want it to come out in the story. Plus, The Hobbit is the book for me. It is one of the first ones I got when I finally learned ‘oh, reading can be fun’ (because child me hated reading like she also hated writing boring essays), and it’s the one that got me stuck on fantasy.

Douglas Adams, there are many who will probably consider it a crime I have not read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and yet still list his name in this, but my favorite book of all time is probably The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, and it was the way the characters existed and the hidden easter eggs that I’m still finding like 7 read throughs later and the pacing and red herrings. I learned from and loved a lot about that book alone.

There was also J.A. Jance, the author of many of the murder mysteries my grandmother loaned me, and it was from her and other mystery authors that I finally, finally figured out how to set up suspense and tension. They were also really good studies in character motivations and how a character’s mindset can change the way they perceive the world and the things they notice and miss.

Video games is another thing I know has influenced me. I like story and lore rich games. Dungeons and Dragons is another thing I play a lot of and has followed me through my writings. The stories that get told can be every bit as awesome as a book, and the mechanics are also part of what helped me learn to structure my magic systems. Because if the wizards didn’t have rules, who would play a fighter who does? The same idea got translated into my writing very early on, ‘if I don’t give my wizards rules, why would warriors exist?’

And I can keep rambling, but I think I’ll leave it at this for now ^^

4. What’s something you’ve wanted to write, but aren’t sure you could? (A tv show, a genre, a style, a time period, a video game, etc)

I had an idea for a fantasy world inspired by various Asian myths, and even had a basic map drawn out in my head and some ideas for a magic system, but I’ve been too terrified to actually do anything with it, and it’s been so long since then that I don’t remember anything about it. Plus, I had no plot to use for it at the time.

I also wanted to write a mystery, but when I tried I found that while I has suspects and everything, I couldn’t think of the crime or how the heck anyone would just kinda figure it out from a bunch of random things normal people could just play off or not notice XD

5. What is the thing that keeps you from writing the most?

Procrastination is sometimes a problem, and I do occasionally need to kick myself in the shin. But there’s also life and plot snags and just days when a story isn’t working for me.

6. How do you deal with an inner editor?

That depends. Sometimes the inner editor saves me a lot of headaches later, and sometimes a tiny mistake can break the flow of writing. I normally don’t have an issue with fixing things on the spot, but on nights I need to focus on writing I just keep myself from reading back.

7. How long have you been writing?

I mean, they make kids write really young for school, so begrudgingly that long. Creatively and for fun? I’m not sure. I can’t quite recall how old I was when I started with the poetry. But considering the notebook I have the earliest pieces in is falling apart, I think it’s been a long time. lol

8. What is your general writing process? Do you write chronologically? Do you do a lot of planning?

I normally get this idea that shows up out of the blue as a daydream or a random thought. Then, there’s at least a month. If it’s still there, it gets considered. If it’s grown and expanded into something resembling either a world or a plot by then, it’s probably getting written.

After the idea finally bugs me enough, I’ll start world building and building a bare-bones plot, complete with bare-boned characters. I never flesh anything out completely, since I do most of that while I write and having strict outlines suffocates my story.

If the world building, characters, and whatever I have of a plot are interesting, I’ll start chronologically and keep moving from there.

9. Assign a scent to your writing style.

A scent for my style? Um... that’s kind of a weird question and I have no idea how I would even begin to think of an answer for that. Like, how do you translate comma usage and word choice into a smell? I mean, I use roses a lot in my stories, so maybe that would work?

10. One book you hope everyone reads?

I have to agree with hyba that I hope everyone just finds their version of the book. The one that gets them through a hard time, the one they really need, and that that book won’t be the same for everyone.

11. What is it about your least favorite genre that makes it your least favorite–and how might you change that to better appeal to you?

Oh that’s simple, it’s because horror does it’s job. That’s it. It’s nothing particularly about the style or anything besides that the genre is what it is.

12. Design a “collector’s edition” for your first novel. Include items that might be of interest to your audience.

Never thought about it, but I guess I could throw in the world map I drew for The Plight of a Sparrow into it.

13. If one thing was real from your project, what would you want it to be?

Nothing in particular? I can’t think of anything that would make sense to transfer from my projects to the real world, because I don’t want magic to be real, because my magic systems tend to be brutal, but also, we have stuff like or better than a lot of what doesn’t run off magic. Maybe some of the creatures would be cool, but I don’t know how that would affect ecosystems.... probably not for the better.

14. What’s something you always include in your work? Do you have any other Easter eggs?

As far as easter eggs, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. If I do, it probably wasn’t intentional.

15. What is your favorite passage from your own work?

I still am not really comfortable with sharing things out of my WIPs on here. As far as things I’ve written for the blog itself go, there are quite a few pieces and passages that turned out really good. I think one of my favorites is from a really old piece I did back before I was doing fusion stories. It’s from this one specifically, if anyone would like to read the full tale, it is a grim one, though.

The very edge of the forest was about as welcoming as a gallows. Crows watched us hungrily, like we were dead men about to sway. None of them made so much as a peep as their dead eyes followed our trek through the knotted mess of brambles, ivy, knotted shrubs, and gnarled trees. We hacked at the plants, and they hacked right back at us. We traded blows like it was a war. hatchet and sword blows countered with sharp thorns and parried with thick branches.

I’m going to leave this an open tag, jump in if you’d like to. =D

[gingerly-writing]

Questions Tag Games

explanation: I’m super late to these, I suspect not many people will want their dashes spammed with my random answers, and I’m not tagging people, so I’ve amalgamated all of these into one post. 

tagged by @concealeddarkness13! haven’t spoken to you in a while, hope you’re doing great

1. Would you rather write a more classical hero or an anti-hero as a protagonist? I’d rather write a hero for the protagonist, but an anti-hero as a general character

2. Who is your favorite character you have written and why? Ever? That’s cruel. Out of people that y’all would know, Urial does seem to generate the most emotional reactions

3. How many WIPs do you have? 3 proper ones, currently: Iron Flower, Space Royalty and Piracy Pays

4. Who is your least favorite character you have written and why? To write? Klarion from Young Jutsice fanfic. Motherfucker would not follow the assigned plot. Hate-wise? Possibly Coincidence or Accord, neother of whom you guys have met yet. Those two are a pair of nasty criminals/villains, and they are a little too good at punishing anyone who gets in their way

5. What is your favorite aspect of writing? Finishing!

6. If you had only one sentence (per WIP) to get someone to read your books, what would the sentences be? They wouldn’t because I suck at loglinesss...humourously though?

IF: an entire continent is saved from the ravages of war by the ancient art of sexting via treaty negotiations Space Royalty: ‘she stabbed me? god-fucking-dammit I am so in love with her’ Piracy Pay: you get to chug your drink every time I kill a character

7. If your protagonists fought to the death, which one would win? Protags? Depends if morals were removed, and whether it was on-on-one. Koronis, if not -he’s an emperor with black magic and an entire galaxy-wide army.  If it was on-on-one with minimised morals, Ace would stand a damn good chance. Boy is smarter than he gives himself credit for, and very adaptable. Galaxy is also pretty viable. Girl can swing a superpowered punch like she means it, and she hasn’t survived this long on luck alone.

8. Which protagonist(s) would survive the zombie apocalypse? Koronis would. Ace would die trying to save someone else. Solaris would...provided Monarch was dragging him around, and even then they might go down together in a dramatic last stand. Galaxy would be in charge of a small, benevolent queendom. Cleo would, those plant skills would make her handy to any new civilisation. Fact would go down staving off the hoardes so everyone else could run. Rosalie would think she was the weak link of her group, but they would probably keep her alive; L’aura would kick zombie ass.

9. Which is your favorite story you have written or are working on? Space Royalty is damn fun to write -the benefits of extravagant, overdramatic space operas I suppose. Piracy Pays has had a good reception, so I’m pretty proud of that. Hopefully I can keep the momentum going until the end! It is a huge pain o write though

10. Which of your characters is your favorite villain and why? Raph is my evil supervillin crimelord Big Bad and I adore him utterly

11. When do you find is the best time of day for writing? Evening! 8pm-1am

*******************************************************************************************

tagged by the lovely @a-sundeen​! this is so old I bet you don’t even remember tagging me, oopsie

1. When you’re describing a new character, what feature do you usually note first? Build, usually, as in their height/weight ratio, muscles/skinniness or lack of, how they carry themself etc. The reason for this is that I often start with the macro ‘impression’ of the character before zooming in on a few specifics. I try to use an interesting description or comparison here as well.

2. Do any of your characters play an instrument or really enjoy music in general? If so, what instrument (or what genre, if it’s the latter)? I am the least musical person on planet earth, so making my characters musical often doesn’t occur to me. Koronis can sing and play the space-piano (forced childhood lessons), and Jade can play the violin, but neither of them are passionate about it. Kolya/Cynosure (the popstar/supervillain) is very very musical, but I skip around a lot of the specifics because I’m a big cheater. He mostly makes anti-establishment and anti-hero music, but he’s one of those artists who strays all over different genres.

3. Which musical artist usually gets you the most pumped to write? Les Friction does good dramatic music and they’re not so well known, so I like to tell people about them when I can

4. Do you prefer writing fight scenes over other types? (This is a weirdly worded question I’m sorry, rip) It’s worded fine, sunshine! And no, I don’t like writing fight scenes because I don’t like the logistics of them. There are too many limbs to keep track of, and then I feel like I’m neglecting their surroundings and potentially useful items in favour of mentally tracking who’s where and what their arms and legs are doing. I cover up for my fight scene weaknesses with too much dialogue, and I’m fully aware of that fact.

5. Is there a city or country you’d really like to write in or about? Write in is probably just where I’d like to travel, so Russia, India and South America (I know that’s general but it’s the only continent except Antarctica that I haven’t been to) are my top choices. Write about…I’d like to sink myself deep into east coast USA to really nail the feeling of Galaxy’s city and her character, and then be able to confidently write about it. I do have a study year abroad coming up in 2020, so here’s hoping…

6. Do you prefer to be warm or cold while you write? Warm! I love blankets and my big fluffy dressing gown, and on top of that all my friends always complain about how hot my house is

7. Do any of your characters have hobbies you’d like to try out someday? Fiction wise, glo-ball from Space Royalty sounds like a very entertaining game, especially when I’m kept safe behind a pod. sodding netball injuries Jade paints and draws, and I’d love to get better at art. Likewise, Rosalie sews, making and decorating her own clothes, and I’d love to be able to do that. Idk, does being a supervillain count as a hobby? I’d love to rob a bank…not even necessarily for the money, just the #aesthetic

8. What is your favorite type of character to write? Villains! And morally grey people. And characters where the POV character has no idea what they’re really thinking, who they really are, what they actually want etc. And, on the flip side, balls of positive sunshine, because they make me feel better about the world

9. Halloween is here! Which character has a costume made for them by their mom? Ahahahahaha can you tell how late I am to this.

10. Halloween is here (again)! Which character thinks the holiday is childish but dresses up anyway? I AM SO LATE. Rosalie thinks the holiday is childish but dresses up in the most elaborate homemade princess outfit ever and entertains all the kids she can find. What, it is a children’s holiday, surely she should be making them happy on their special day…

******************************************************************************************* tagged by @blackfeatherantics who is now @mbovettwrites I think? I hope?

1.      How long have you been working on your WIP(s) for? Iron Flower is the oldest current one, and I started it on Christmas Day 2016

2.      What song would you assign as your protagonist’s theme tune? I’ll just pick one, and Koronis’ is Young and Menace by FOB. No real lyrical reason, it just reminds me of him

3.      Do you have any favourite spots (gardens, parks, cafes, etc.) where you like to write? The sofa in my living room next to my family

4.      Poetry or Prose? Prose!

5.      Where do you draw inspiration for your writing from? Everywhere! Other people’s writing and prompts and published novels and TV and movies and random stray thoughts and daydreaming and chatting to other writers and-

6.      Is there any popular book that you wish you had written and why? The Lies of Locke Lamora because I’d take out the first 100-ish page of solid worldbuilding and backstory that seemed almost completely irrelevant to the rest of the plot?And the domino-effect of all the plot elements knocking each other into action at the end was so clever, it annoyws me that the beginning means I don’t like reccing it to people

7.      What’s your planning process when you start working on a new WIP? I daydream about it for at least a few weeks to make sure the idea has staying power. Then I come up with character names, quirks, descriptions etc. finally, I lay out the plot chapter-by-chapter from the beginning to the end so I have a guiding rope throughout the whole process and I’m less likely to get stuck. Of course, that’s when I plan on letting a WIP bloom into being. Some, like Space Royalty and Piracy Pays, start off as short drabble ideas and then refuse to leave, which means I have no concrete plan for them...

8.      Do you work best in mornings, afternoons, or at night? Evening!

9.      Would you prefer to self-publish or work with an agent and publishing company and why? Agent and publishing company, because I value the help they can provide more than the ability to retain complete creative control over my book (since I’m crap at titles and designing book covers anyway)

10.  How do your emotions/moods affect your writing? Not a lot tbh. If I’m very very tired I can’t write anything good, but I’m not sure that counts as an emotion.

11.  What’s your favourite line of your WIP/one of your poems? I’ve written both of my current favourite lines for prompts, which were: ‘Time hollows all victories’ and ‘The hero doesn’t die in this one’. I’ve had other favourites in WIPs over time, but I can’t think of them right now

******************************************************************************************* tagged by the ever wonderful @time-to-write-and-suffer

1) How are you so awesome? Genetics.

2) What’s your favorite thing about your writing? The dialogue! Or the romances, which I mostly like because of the fun/cute dialogue.

3) Who’s your favorite character that you’ve written and why are they your fave? This is so mean. At the moment, Raph, because I can’t stop thinking about him and he’s so incredibly dangerous, yet on the low down (like the Mariana Trench level of low down) he has all these cute little quirks that only one or two people know about

4) One of your characters has been placed in the world/plot of a book you love. What happens? Rosalie becomes a Grisha in Leigh Bardugo’s world. She finds a sense of self-worth and gets to enjoy the little luxuries that come with the position.

5) One of your characters has been placed in the world/plot of a book you hate. What happens? X takes the place of Celeana Sardothien. He murders everyone in his path, tells the crown of Terrasen to get fucked because there’s no way he can run a whole government with any level of competance, probably murders Rowan with extreme prejudice, opens the Wyrd gates just to search the universe for Raph and bring him through so he can construct a decent government for Terrasen, would probably sleep with Dorian, would make it his new life goal to highfive Manon.

6) Your characters must fight each other to the death until only one stands victorious. Who wins? Raph. Koronis could conceivably stand a chance against him, but Raph would decimate pretty much anyone else. I think Raph would be able to stay above the fighting for longer, whereas Koronis would jump in just a touch earlier, which would be his downfall.

7) If you could steal a cover and a title from other books to use for your own WIP/s, which ones would you steal? Cover-wise I’d steal the minimalist Red Queen aesthetic, because that sleek shit is the bomb.  Title-wise? That’s harder. The Lies of Locke Lamora has some sick alliteration, but I think I’d rather steal the style of it rather than the exact title

8) If you switched places with one of your characters, what would happen to you and to them? I would die, pretty much everywhere. If Rosalie swapped with me, she would slowly come out of her shell and become a fashion designer -not an A-lister, she wouldn’t like how vicious and ruthlessly businesslike you have to be, but maybe making her own high-end clothes in a small shop in London

9) What makes your style unique compared to other writers? Thanks for the existential crisis, Eff.

10) Describe your antagonist’s song number if they were a Disney villain. No Good Deed from Wicked, for Darklight

******************************************************************************************* tagged by the lovely @itstheenglishkid

1. Have you ever realized how similar an oc is to you and felt the need to change them so they aren’t so similar? I mean, Jade from Iron Flower almost shares a name with me, and she’s ginger, which did concern me for a while, but hopefully she’s nothing like me personality wise (or else I’d have to do some serious self-reflection)

2. Do any of your ocs like candles? I bet Rosalie loves pretty candles, especially patterned or strongly scented ones! Anything luxurious that she can’t afford, really

3. Do you normally write settings that are (or are based on) places you know intimately (ie your home town)? Oh god no. I like sweeping Chinese-inspired castles or creaking pirate ships or far flung space universities and man-made planets. I’m really not a contemporary writer though, so I guess this isn’t much of a surprise?

4. What is a book that feels similar to your own wip? Ahahaha, which WIP? Piracy Pays has similar vibes to @boothewriter‘s pirates and probably also @noodlewrites’ pirates (I’m guessing? I haven’t read any excerpts from you I’m sorry). Space Royalty is just weird. Iron Flower is probably similar to a lot of generic fantasy YA, like Red Queen and whatnot.

5. Do you have a dream cast for your ocs? I don’t really faceclaim? Or know much about a wide array of actors, so no, not really.

6. Are you good at story titles? Do they come easily to you? I am abysmal at story titles, holy shit. I mean, you can see the evidence scattered around this post. Piracy Pays and Space Royalty are just placeholder names, but I’m not convinced I’ll come up with anything good to replace them. Iron Flower is alright in that its relevant to the story and fits into the series title (The Flowers of War) but…idk, its not setting the stars alight or anything.

7. Do you ever change oc names once you’ve started a wip? Not often, though I am considering changing Ace’s name because I don’t think ‘Seb’ suits him. Only question, what to??

8. Which people have you let read your work? I mean, all of y’all have the opportunity to read Piracy Pays. No one has read Iron Flower, and I’m stretching myself by letting @rrrawrf-writes @lux-deorum@haphazardlyparked read Space Royalty in its raw first draft stage.

9. What usually catches your attention about a book first? Style? Characters? Plot? I’m quite an easy reader to catch and hold tbh. What makes me love a book is a clever plot. For me, a very strong plot can carry weak-ish characters, but I can never read super deep characters with no plot.

10. Do you have a favourite author? Probs Rick Riordan, or Julia Golding.

******************************************************************************************* tagged by the wonderful @typeaadventures

1. How many works in progress do you have? Properly, three. Iron Flower, which is written (143k) but needs editing, Piracy Pays which y’all are reading, and Space Royalty which crossed 30k about a week ago

2. Do you/would you write fanfiction I used to! I stopped in Y12/13 because I didn’t have enough time to do fic and original writing, and I haven’t really had the time to pick it back up.

3. Do you prefer paper books or ebooks? Either, I’m not fussed. Though if it has a really pretty cover, I’ll be hankering after a paper copy

4. When did you start writing? 14-ish on Young justice fanfic

5. Do you have someone you trust that you share your work with? Not all of my work, but yeah, I have a lovely server and also some irl friends that get the junk landed on them

6. Where is your favourite place to write? At home chilling with my family while we all do stuff

7. Favourite book as a child? Dragonfly by Julia Golding

8. Writing for fun or publication? Hopefully publication, but I know I need to improve a lot first, honing my skills etc.

9. Have you taken writing classes? Not a lick

10. What inspired you to write? Gotta get those stories out of my head and onto the page, man. Gotta get that sweet sweet representation out there too.

thanks everyone!  xx

[writingsaboutwhatever]

Here's some tips for writing poetry: 1) You don't always  have to rhyme with the next word, instead you can use a word that fits into the ryhtym and compliments the last. Experiment with different styles of poetry and go out of your comfort zone on purpose, trust me it will help. 2) If you've been running out of ideas try these few tips to help you start writing again: try an image prompt, pick a theme and run with it, join tumblr writing competitions or writing competitions in general, pick a random sentence or a sentence of your choice in a book and write a poem about it. 3) Use stream of conciousness writing to write a poem (Stream of conciousness is a writing style where you let your writing flow without pausing to critisize or think about how the writing should sound you write without stopping if you can help it) Trust me doing this will generate so many ideas! I had someone tell me that one of my stream of consciousness poems could be made into many poems...so it's great for ideas. 4) Keep a notebook wherever you go, you never know when a idea good or bad will pop in your head. Keep every poem you write even if it's bad poetry one day you can look back on it to see how you've improve or you can possibly rewrite one of your old poems to showcase how you've improved. For me it was fun looking back to my early years of writing and to see how verbose I was . 5) Write about what's hard, whatever in your life that is hard if you write about it in poetry so much burden can be lifted off your shoulders. With poetry you have a voice loud and colourful. 6) What do you want to do with your poetry? Think about it for a second. Do you want to make a poetry book? Do you want to submit to a publication with your poetry? DO you want to spread a certain message? DO you write for fun? Do you want to help others with your poetry? Finding out what it is you want to achieve and will help you create a path to self-fulfillment. 7) Practice rhyming with the last word for as long as you can in a new poem. Never force out a rhyme it just won't sound good enough. 8)It can be hard to come up with ideas for writing poetry and it is easy to get stuck while writing a poem so here's what can help: if you  get stuck while writing a poem think of a word that rhymes with the last and see if you can make it fit your poem, then continue the narrative and if I can't find a word to rhyme with the previous verse I make a new verse and rhyme it with the line before that. Here's an example: When I look at the sky I see clouds floating by The sky bright blue I see your face was drawn I thought that we were through But now this cloud makes me remember you. 9) Not all poetry has to rhyme, in fact it's fine if it doesn't. What's more important is the rhythm in the piece of poetry and sticking to the overall feel or theme of the piece. 10) My final piece of advice when it comes to poetry is to share and build a fan base but save your special poems for yourself or if you're interested or incline to a publishing house. Prompts can really help when you're stuck in a writing block, message me if you want free prompts just tell me how many you need and I'll pm them back to you free of charge. Poetry tells a story even if it isn't a novel, so never forget that you have the tools to change, help and make a difference with your writing!

writingsaboutwhatever

[jade-cooper]

Cooper’s Writing Masterpost

Tools

► yWriter – I am starting with the writing software I am using for years now. It is simple, it lets you write chapter by chapter, organise scenes, reorganise everything again and again. It's available for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac. And: IT IS FREE! Check this video for more information: 

► WriteOrDie – A software, which urges you to write for your life with the devil right at your heel. It's not free but...

► WriteOrDie WebAPP – Try it... with Kamikaze Mode and set to „evil“... It will automatically delete your sentences word by word if you stop writing! ;)

► Scrivener – Also not free, but this is a small developers team and it's really worth it!

► Ulysses – A writing App for Mac, iPhone and iPad. Here is a video about it: https://vimeo.com/182869039

► iWriter – Another Writing App for Mac, iOS and Android.

Plotting tools

► Zim Desktop – It's a text editor to create a collection of wiki pages, comparable to Wikipedia, MediaWiki, TiddlyWiki, Twiki, but with one great difference: You do not upload any of your precious ideas to the net. Zim Desktop uses your private computer as database source. You can export it as html file and uplaod it to your other devices for offline usage when you're not at home. It's free.

► Zim Desktop Plugins – Also free ;)

► FreeMind –  For the start of your great novel ideas.

Dictionaries, Synonyms etc.

► Thesaurus.com – The title says it all.

► Woxikon – one of my favourites, because it's available in german, english, spanish, french, italian, portuguese, dutch, swedish and polish.

► WordNet – A lexical database for english.

► GermaNet – A lexical database for german.

► Heinzelnisse – A norwegian online dictionary in english.

► GEMET – General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus

► Openthesaurus – Thesaurus in german.

► Old High German Dictionary – in german ;) Here's the direct link to the dictionary

► Thesaurus Linguae Graecae – A digital library of greek literature

► Latin dictionary – A list of latin words, without search function

► Eurovoc – A european thesaurus provided in several european languages.

Names – for like e v e r y t h i n g !

► »Yet another Fanatasy Name Generator« – Yafnag for short – This random name generator provides lists of fantasy names. You can change the number of minimum or maximum letters and you can use the filter to names with your preferred prefix and suffix.

► The 7 Rules of Picking Names for fictional characters 

► Seventh Sanctum – A name generator for nearly EVERYTHING, e.g. characters, races, realms, traits, titles.... really... try it out!

► Arwen Undomiel – An elvish name generator

► Fantasy Name Generators – Also a name generator for everything, also for coat of arms, flags and armor.

► Fantasy Name Generator by Samural Stoddard  – Last update 2011, but still working and still useful.

► A list of Nahuatl names and Nahuatl Pronunciation and Spelling Guide (Aztec) 

► Serendipity   – Not only a random generator, but also a random description generator for your fantasy city.

► Random RPG Generator  – For names, cities, creatures, prompts

► Dictionary of Names

Prompts

► Write real people – click and drag 

► Seventh Sanctum  – Quick Story idea generator (Told you so... it's great for everything.)

► Try their Writing challenge generator 

► Adam Maxwell's Fiction Lounge – Writing prompt generator and much more

► Chaotic Shiny – good for everything:

Story Arc Generator 

Inspiration finder 

Writing exercise generator 

► The Writer – writing prompts 

► 1001 Story Ideas

► 20 prompts for when you're blocked 

► Prompts and prompt writing 

► 50 Quick writing prompts for Journals, Blogs, and Essays 

► 501 Writing Prompts – PDF file

► Hourly Writing prompts  – Mostly active during nanowrimo

► Writer's Digest  – Writing Prompt Boot Camp

► Creative Writing Solutions  – Creative Writing Prompts

► Awesome writing prompts 

► The Story Starters  – A story starter generator

Writing Tips:

► Stephen King's Top 20 Rules for writers 

► Andreas Eschbach – Mythen übers Schreiben  (german only. Sorry, but english is not the only language in the world ;) )

► Marcus Johanus' Top 10 Schreibtipps (also german only)

► PIXAR's 22 rules of storytelling

► Neil Gaiman's 8 rules of writing

► Getting yourself to write 

► 12 Editing and Proofreading tips

► The 5 words theory

► Words to use more often 

► Character Trait Cheat Sheet 

► Help! I have a Mary Sue!

► How to write a scene in 11 steps 

► Tips for creating a compelling plot

► Outlining your novel 

► I have a Beginning and End, but no Middle! 

► The Snowflake Method for designing a Novel  – Really important and useful to prevent writer's blocks. Available in German, Italian, Russian, French, Spanish and Japanese

► Planning your Novel 

► Fictional Location Reference

► 123 ideas for character flaws 

► A character building question meme 

► How to make a character's death sadder 

► Writing Tips: Writing Blood Loss 

► Underused personalities / traits 

► Character virtues and vices 

► Tip of my tongue  – Find the words you're searching for

► FamilyEcho  – Create a family tree of your characters

► 23 emotions people feel, but can't explain 

► Start your novel 

► Finish your novel 

► Guide to write Science Fiction

► 5 Ways to get out of your Comfort Zone 

► Do's and Don'ts 

References, history, good to know or creepy facts

► How to tape your hands before a fight 

► Animal tracks 

► Medieval Torture Devices 

► Cultural differences in communication 

► The Sand Floor Room 

► Medieval Herbs and their uses 

► Historical Fashion Masterpost

► Illustration of a flintlock mechanism's function 

► Different types of carriages

► A timeline of 18th century shoes 

► The 11 most sexually depraved things the roman emperors ever did 

► The Revolutionary power of fanfiction for queer youth 

► Lost places gallery  for your thriller and horror inspiration

► Meditations by Marcus Aurelius  Quotes

► Poetry Recources  Everything about poetry

► Google Scholar 

Mythology

► Symbolism: Birds 

► Fearsome critters 

► Skandinavian Folklore 

► In which Diversity isn't a Myth 

► Wikipedia: Mythology main article 

► Wikipedia: List of legendary creatures by type 

► Factmonster 

► Creatures and Monsters from Greek Mythology 

► The List of Mythical Creatures 

► Ancient Origins 

► Mythical Creatures from A-Z 

► Norse Mythology

Free goodies

► Project Gutenberg  – Free ebooks

► Projekt Gutenberg DE  – German Version

► LibriVox –   Free public domain audiobooks

► Bartleby.com  – Great books online

► Poemhunter –  All about poems

► Zeno.org – Classic German literature in Old High German. Want to read Grimm's Fairy Tales in its original language? Here you go! 

► Free historical children's books 

► The New York Public Library Digital Collections – Search and use public domain resources for free

Competitions and Communities

► Autorenwelt – A list of many competitions in and around Germany.

► National Novel Writing Month  – November is the month for all writers to go nuts! 50.000 words in 30 days! NaNoWriMo is actually not a competition but a call to kick your own ass to get yourself to write like a maniac. Check the Wikipedia article, still not convinced? Check the massive community or ask your followers how many participated in it in the past. ;)

► Writers' Cafe 

► Writer's Dock 

Raise your spirits! ;) Life is too short to be too serious!

► 26 of the greatest book dedications 

► How people think I write smut 

► The process of writing a fanfiction 

► Lesser known editing and proofreading marks 

  and...

► 18 ways to tie a necktie – Not useful for writing, but I thought you should know about it.

The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.

– Vladimir Nabokov

I will probably edit this list and add more links to it, e.g. music lists for special moods. Do you  have a suggestion? Hit my ask box with your ideas! :)

[ed-edward-blackbeard]

@rootingformephistopheles posted a looooooooooong list of fanfiction questions right here.

I answered every damn one of them before I realized it was probably meant to be an askbox thing.  SO, here you fuckers go.  (it’s five pages long, wtf.  so it’s under a readmore to save your dashboard)

Fanfiction Questions

Fandom Questions

 1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Xenaverse, including Hercules: the Legendary Journeys.  I did PBeM (play by email) role play, and then moved to fanfic, and then slash fanfic.

2. What is your latest fandom?

I have three, technically.  Doctor Who, Hannibal, and Gotham

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

Hannibal.  Fannibals are the best, by 100 miles.  I’m sure there’s bad parts of the fandom, I’ve just never yet run across them.  

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

As far as the people go? Highlander.  There was a lot of overlap, at the time, with The Sentinel, both shows I enjoyed.  I just feel like there were a lot of assholes in the Highlander fandom who disliked me and my writing because of the people I was friends with, not because I sucked (and believe me, I did.  I have the fic to prove it.)  

5. Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?

From my AO3 dashboard:

Smallville --  The Sentinel -- Hannibal (TV) -- Doctor Who (2005) -- Supernatural -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- Veronica Mars -- Stargate SG-1 -- Actor RPF -- Charlie Countryman/Spacedogs -- Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling -- Adam (2009)/Spacedogs – Brimstone -- Supernatural RPF  -- Stargate Atlantis -- Yami No Matsuei | Descendants of Darkness -- The Fast and the Furious (2001) -- Sherlock (TV) -- The Blair Witch Project (1999) -- Star Trek: The Original Series -- Sense and Sensibility (1995) --  Law & Order: SVU -- Lost Boys (Movies) -- Watchmen (2009) -- Lost (1) -- Smallville RPF -- Marvel Cinematic Universe (1) --  Gargoyles (TV) -- Dogma (1999)

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Oh my fucking God. Okay, here goes:

Xena/Ares and Xena/Autolycus, Xenaverse; Clark/Lex and Lionel/Chloe, Smallville; Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg, the Sentinel; Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham, Hannibal; Doctor/Rose, Nine/Rose/Jack, Doctor Who; Dean/Sam, Supernatural; Buffy/Spike, Giles/Ethan, Spike/Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars, John Winchester/Veronica Mars, Veronica Mars; Jack O’Neill/Daniel Jackson, Stargate SG-1; Ezekiel/Lucifer, Brimstone; John/Rodney, Stargate Atlantis; Muraki x Tsuzuki, Yami No Matsuei; Dom/Brian, the Fast and the Furious; John Watson/Sherlock Holmes, BBC Sherlock; Nigel Lupei/Adam Raki, Spacedogs; Kirk/Spock, Star Trek; Christopher Brandon/Eleanor Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility; Rafael Barba/Olivia Benson, Law & Order SVU; Elisa Maza/Goliath, Gargoyles.

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I don’t really have NoTPs in the fandoms I’ve written in.  I have a few NoTPs in general, though, although I’m not listing them here because wow, would I cause some hurt feelings.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

I saw the gifsets from The Wrath of the Lamb, and I saw the name Hannibal Lecter being bandied about, and I fell in love because I’ve loved Hannibal Lecter ever since Red Dragon.  I don’t know how I missed out on hearing about the show when it first came out, but holy hell, am I sorry.  I’ve been a Fannibal ever since.  It was the same story with Gotham.  I’d actively avoided Gotham because of the debacle of Smallville, but it was the Nygmobblepot gifs and Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin that finally drew me in.

 9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Fannibals are fucking awesome, yo.  They’re the best thing about the fandom; hell, they *are* the fandom.  I love them all, every one.  From well-thought out meta to cracked out gifsets to the supportive fanfic community.  It’s amazing.

10.  Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Because I write, I try not to read a lot, because I don’t want to accidentally crib from someone else’s story, or steal someone else’s idea, because I know what it’s like to pour your life into things.

 Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

 11. Who is your current OTP?

Hannibal/Will, Doctor/Rose, and Oswald/Edward

 12. Who is your current OT3?

Nine/Jack/Rose. That’s pretty much it.

 13. Any NoTPs?

None I’ll share.

 14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Jim Gordon/Harvey Bullock, and I’m sure there’s more that I can’t think of right now. 

 15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

I think I’m probably the only person who actually ships it, but John Winchester/Veronica Mars.

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Destiel.  I dislike Destiel with a passion.  Ditto Barisi.  That’s about it.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Ares/Strife.  They’re not my favorite by any means, but I still have a huge soft spot for them.  

 18. What ship have you written the most about?

uh, probably Clark/Lex or Jim/Blair, just due to the length of time I was in both fandoms.  

 19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Destiel and Barisi. They’re popular ships shipped by some people I really like, but I just can’t get behind them.  It’s a knee-jerk thing.  I can’t even really voice why I dislike them as much as I do, I just do.

 20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Nygmobblepot, actually. I didn’t think I was going to like anything in Gotham, much less the Penguin and the Riddler, but damned if I don’t love it so much I’m actually writing about it as we speak.  

Author Questions

 21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Detested Sport, it was from a Shakespeare quote, I think, and it was Ares/Strife. I think it’s lost to the world, thank fucking God.

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Writing?  No.  Sharing? Yes.  It’s called “My Soul’s Imaginary Sight,” and it’s the first time I used an OC, Meravin, who has gone through about a billion evolutions since, and has ended up as a Star Wars OC named Sheridan.  I wish I hadn’t shared it, because while it was a definitely needed step in my development as a writer, it’s such a blatant self-insert Mary Sue that I really regret sharing it.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Shoah.  It’s a Sentinel fic, written for one of the “Many Faces Of…” edition of My Mongoose e-zines.  I think it was MFO Jim.  But it’s an AU set during the Holocaust, in one of the concentration camps.  It’s not a particularly cheerful story, and the writing process was terrible.  I did so much research trying to make it honest to the experience that I spent whole evenings crying in chat windows with my friends Lisa and Patt, who basically hand-held me through the worst of it.  But I’m inordinately fond of it, because of the work that went into it, and of how it came out.  It’s not my best writing, by a long shot, but I think it’s probably my most emotional and evocative.

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

Pretty much everything prior to my Doctor Who fic.  I’m very critical of my earlier works.

 25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

A recent one, Consortio, an ABO Hannigram sort-of Medieval-ish handwavey AU.  

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

Quotations, song lyrics, poetry, Shakespeare, sometimes pulled out of my ass.

 27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

SUMMARIES, JESUS CHRIST, SAVE ME FROM SUMMARIES.

 28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

Dealer’s choice, really. I’d just be thrilled for anybody to pick SOMETHING.  

 29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

I do not, although I fear I need one for Gotham.  It’s more a personal choice than anything else.  I’ve got a particular style that doesn’t always mesh well with taking concrit, and while my grammar is very… erratic, at times (stuff it, I love my commas as you can tell), I feel like I should be the arbiter of what I create.

 30. What inspires you to write?

Practically anything. Songs, less often.  TV shows of the source material, obviously.  Movies, sometimes.  Random quotes, what ifs, conversations with friends, AU lists, prompt lists, sentence starters…

 31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

It’s from a writer named Mysenia on my fic Consortio:  “All the kudos! Just re-read this story, and I loved it every bit as much as I did the first time :D”  Because that’s honestly the first time anyone has mentioned re-reading something of mine in the comment, and it made me so happy for DAYS

 32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

Actually, it depends on what I’m writing.  If I’m working on writing sex, then I need dance music, which I usually abhor.  I find the Matrix soundtracks work really well, as do Rammstein albums.  If I’m doing emotional/angsty things, then Meat Loaf is my go-to.  Otherwise, it’s kind of a mish-mash.  My music folders are here, on my Google drive, if anyone is really interested in anything I listen to.

 33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

Mostly one-shots, although I’ve been known to do a chaptered fic/series once in a while.

 34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

7,706 on “The Masks We Wear.”  I’ve got a series of fics that is 35,498, over about fifteen different stories.  Consortio and Kastytis are both chaptered, so they don’t count.  Consortio is 23,088 and Kastytis is 24,706

 35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

Strictly 100 word pieces? Not any more.  I used to write for drabble challenges, but I can never stay within the word limit any more.  If you mean 200 words or less drabble-ishes, then yes, I do write those.  About a lot of things, really.  

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

I’m kind of fond of first-times, although that’s not a given.  I don’t tend to stick to any one given genre.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

Third, unless it’s some VERY special occasion.  First person drives me nuts.  I love the Hunger Games books, but seeing things as Katniss gives me hives from time to time.  

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I’ve done both, actually, although 99% of my OC writing stays private.  Which is sometimes a pity, because I think I’ve written some pretty good shit with some of my OCs.

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

I don’t know that I really have one.

 40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Staying in character, finishing what I start.

 Fanfiction Questions

 41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

I’m not reading anything right now.  Except Stephen King’s IT

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Just five?  @slashyrogue, @damnslippyplanet, @granpappy-winchester, @mummyholmesisupset, @moku-youbi

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

@bonearenaofmyskull, @crossroadscastiel, @bu0nanotte, @granpappy-winchester, @moku-youbi

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

All of them.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

Home and Dry by @moku-youbi

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Consortio, or Kastytis. They’re both Hannigram AUs, and I feel like they’re the best examples of my writing style.

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

AO3 and Wonderful World of Make Believe, where I am woefully behind.  But AO3, because I enjoy having everything in one place, easy to use dashboard and posting interface, and it’s pre-sorted for me.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

Mostly I do, because I know how valuable the reviews are to writers.  I try and speak to what I liked best about the story, or how it moved me.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

I don’t want to care, but I do.  I want the validation, dammit.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

I eased into it by way of RP.  Play by email was my thing, and I loved reading threads strung together, which was basically fanfiction.  Then a friend of mine introduced me to Ares/Joxer slash, and I’ve just gone from there.  I’ve always written it, as long as I can remember, even though I didn’t know that’s what it was called.  

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

The one thing I hate in the world of fanfiction is the kind of elitism that is absolutely bullshit. As a writer, if you don’t write the pairing du jour, or the kind of thing that the fandom at large is clamoring for (RPF, AU, ABO, ten thousand other different things) then you don’t get a bit of recognition no matter how good you are.  Hannibal fandom is the first time that I’ve not seen this.  This is the only fandom that I know of where an author can write what they want to write and still be recognized for it.  

[wrrosette]

7 Contemporary Philippine Literature Writers to Look Out For

Edited and abridged by Karmella Tapia

In the spirit of celebrating the power of language and our beloved nation’s cultural identity, our grade 12 students recently submitted BioNotes describing the Contemporary Philippine Literature writer of their choice (as part of their requirements for 21st Century Literature class). Here are but seven of the many talented authors highly recommended by some of Rosette’s contributors for your perusal. From experienced writers long in the business, to breakout ones fresh on the scene, our list explores a wide-range of Filipino men and women who brought their ideas and experiences to life.

1. Katrina Therese F. Olan

Submitted by Jean Denise Duran

Background of the Author

Born on May 28, 1996, Katrina Therese F. Olan is an award-winning Filipino filmmaker and contemporary writer.  She was very creative, open-minded, and strong-willed as a child. At the age of seven, she started writing chapter books. By the time she reached the age of twelve, she won a Cinemalaya award. One of her astounding traits is her ability to use her great imagination to create art. She has the gift of giving colour and light to the most monotonous things and being able to get others interested in it. Her love for storytelling prompted her desire to publish. Thus, she began her pursuit of creating a great story which took over a decade to create. She is now a full-time copywriter. Though she is full of wisdom and experience, she has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Olan has yet so much to learn about the world and herself. With all this passion, knowledge, and grit, she hopes to become a great writer that will touch the hearts of her countrymen.

Overview of Literary Works

Katrina Therese F. Olan has only published one book entitled Skies Above. The sci-fi fantasy novel touches on the themes of courage, truth, and humanity. She has yet to write more books. Olan said that she has done a lot of worldbuilding in fantasy. However, she has yet still to touch on local Filipino literature and themes. She has not completed a piece on the Philippines but is working on a Filipino sci-fi novel called Tablay that will hopefully be in materialization soon. 

2. Rica Bolipata-Santos

Submitted by Karmella Tapia

Background of the Writer

Raised in a large, arts-inclined, and sometimes financially-struggling family, Rica Bolipata-Santos discovered a love for books, words, and teaching as early as 4 years old. True to her passions, she ended up graduating from Ateneo de Manila, first with a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities, and later a Master’s degree in English Literature. After a brief stint teaching at St. Paul’s Pasig, she joined Ateneo’s English Department in 1994 and has been teaching Creative Writing and English Literature at her alma mater ever since. Though she is credited as Ateneo’s University Communication and Public Relations Director, Assistant Professor, Alumni Magazine Editor-in-Chief, and Library of Women’s Writings Director at present, Rica is most known for her detailed, reflective, and expressive essays drawn straight from her experiences as a wife, daughter, mother of three, and Filipina. With regards to her writing career, Rica became publicly recognized for her first collection of essays, Love, Desire, Children, Etc. released in 2005, which received the Madrigal-Gonzales First Book Award. She has since published more books of a similar nature, become a columnist in The Philippine Star and Female Network, and conducted creative writing workshops to hopefully inspire the next generation of Filipino writers.

Overview of Works

The writings of Rica all are short and auto-biographical in nature. To be specific, her published books include Love, Desire, Children, Etc. (2005), Lost and Found and Other Essays (2011), and Navel (2017). Looking at online works, some of her brief column pieces featured in The Philippine Star and Female Network are Beautiful habits (2012), Falling (2013), A valedictory address (2014), and more recent works like Beginnings and endings (2018) or Graduation thoughts (2018). All her essays use conversational, memoir-like prose to bring forward abstract and familiar themes like womanhood, the passage of time, love, childhood, family, and everyday human suffering through her own reflection on the topics. It should also be noted that it is characteristic of her works to pinpoint exact moments of time, viewed through the lenses of her different roles. As she wrote in one article for The Philippine Star, “I am aware of my vanity, clued in by the fact that I remember so much physical detail from a moment that occurred 35 years ago.”

3. Samantha Sotto-Yambao

Submitted by Alexia Dagondon

Background of the Author

Little is known about her early life but it was at age 16 that Samantha Sotto-Yambao first set foot in Europe due to her father’s expatriation by his company. That magic moment would later serve as the backdrop of her novels. When her family returned to the Philippines, Sam enrolled in Ateneo de Manila University as a Communications major and became the editor of The Guidon, the university’s student-run publication. After graduation, she followed in her father’s footsteps and worked in the marketing department of a multinational company. This job required her to travel often and after awhile, she quit in order to be a full-time mom. It was with this extra time that she used to begin writing. Before Ever After, her first novel was a product of watching Doctor Who and the backpacking trip she took to Europe in her early 20’s. She finished writing the book in one school year, an impressive feat for someone with no formal training in writing.

Overview of Literary Works

Sotto joins the modest line-up of internationally-published Filipino authors with her two novels, both published by a division of Random House New York. Before Ever After tells the story of a widow, Shelley Gallus, who after three years still mourns for the loss of her husband, Max. Love and Gravity is Sotto’s second and most recent published novel, detailing the tale of a young Isaac Newton defies the laws of physics in order to connect with his love, a music prodigy living in modern-day San Francisco. It is Sotto’s affinity with time as well as her rich knowledge of Europe that makes both of her published novels remarkable. One sees Sotto’s use of words is masterful, in the way she paints vivid scenes of Europe, the tastes, smells and colors melding together to create one symphony. Her characters are not just fiction but emotions so intricately layered that you take delight in seeing them slowly expose their inner self. Her style is distinctly Filipino, a different flavor from other romance novels, as noted by her foreign critics and reviewers.

4. Paul Arvisu Dumol

Submitted by Annika Ramento  

Background of the Author

Paul Arvisu Dumol is a man of many titles. He is considered a playwright, a historian, an educator and a writer. Today, he is a member of the Philippine Center for Civic Education and Democracy, as well as, a member of the board of trustees in the University of Asia and the Pacific. Before he became the renowned academician he is today, it should also be recognized that he graduated as Valedictorian and summa cum laude in the Ateneo de Manila. He continued his studies to attain his master’s degree at the University of Navarra, and, from the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, he attained his licentiate in Medieval Studies with specialization in Philosophy. Finally, he gained his doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. Due to his multiple writings, he has received many awards including the Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas in the field of drama from the Unyon ng Manunulat ng Pilipinas, Centennial Honors for the Arts in the field of drama from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (1999) and an award for best translation of The Handbook for Confessors of the Synod of Manila of 1582.  

Overview of Literary Works 

Dumol created the classic Ang Paglilitis ni Mang Serapio, considered by many to be the first Philippine modernist play and the most frequently performed one-act play in Filipino. This play centers on an underprivileged man named Mang Serapio who was unjustly accused of an irrational crime, with no means to defend himself. After writing this, he wrote many other plays entitled Kabesang Tales in 1974, Felipe de las Casas in 1983, Libretto of Ang Pagpapatay kay Luna in 2002 to name a few. He insists to use Filipino as the medium of language in all his plays. While he is more known for writing in this literary form, he also has written multiple books, such as A History of the Filipino People for High Schools, Beyond the "Trapo" Society: Saint Josemaría Escrivá's Concept of Citizenship and The Metaphysics of Reading Underlying Dante's Commedia: The Ingegno. It is clear that when Dumol writes, it is because he wants to shed light to a certain issue or topic in the Philippines. He also uses multiple historical figures when writing, such as Kabesang Tales from the Philippine classic, Noli me Tangere and Antonio Luna, an army general during the Philippine-American War.

5. Barbara Jane Reyes

Submitted by Maria Katrina Rocha

Background of the Author

Barbara Jane Reyes is a Filipino author born in 1971 in Manila, Philippines but was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She studied Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and received her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. As well as being a poet and author, Reyes was a professor at Mill’s College for a graduate poetry workshop, San Francisco State University for Filipino American Literature, and University of San Francisco’s Philippine Studies Program. She currently serves on the board of Philippine American Writers and Artists (PAWA) and is co-editor of Doveglion Press, an “independent publisher of political literature and orature”. Some of her works include Diwata (BOA Editions, 2010), Gravities of Center (Arkipelago Books, 2003), Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish Press, 2005), Easter Sunday (Ypolita Press, 2008), and Cherry (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2008). Reyes was the winner of the Global Filipino Literary Award for Poetry and James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets and was a finalist for the California Book Award.  

Overview of Literary Works

Barbara Jane Reyes’ writings try to reach towards young Filipina women because she feels that she needs to honor how Filipina-Americans do and do not fit in with the Asian-American communities and the Latino communities due to the complicated history with the Americans in the Philippines as well as being Asian with Spanish names and traditions. She has five full-length poetry collections, three chapbooks, and a few poems online. In an interview with Rebecca Sutton, Sutton talks about Reyes being able to incorporate “multiple languages, multiple cultures, and multiple meanings” into her work. Reyes responded that it was due to being surrounded by people who spoke different languages such as Tagalog, Ilocano, and English and who spoke what language. She states, “I've always thought about where these words come from, what do they sound like, who uses them and for what purpose, to speak to whom or to speak about whom”. This can be seen in one of her works entitled Diwata, which is a “hybrid of Filipina and Western storytelling” that includes the bilinguality of embroiling Tagalog and English.

6. Dean Francis Alfar

Submitted by Therese Ravalo

Background of the Author

Born on January 2, 1969, Dean Francis Alfar grew up surrounded by books. As a child, his mother introduced him to fairy tales, reading them to him as bedtime stories. In a 2017 interview, he said, These stories inspired my imagination. When I ran out of books, I promised myself that one day, I’d tell my own stories.  Indeed, Alfar went on to tell his own stories. In his early days, he established himself as a playwright, writing plays that garnered various accolades. A ten-time Palanca Awardee for Literature, he authored many short stories, some of which were compiled and published in one book. In addition, Alfar won in the 2006 Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, specifically the Grand Prize for Novel with his entry, Salamanca. Additionally, Alfar has edited anthologies of speculative fiction, which is also known as spec fic for short. Since 2005, he has been collating works of fellow speculative fiction writers in the Philippine Speculative Fiction (PSF) series. Recently, though, he chose to step down as editor, since he felt that it is vital to get other editorial perspectives.

Overview of Literary Works

Through the years, Alfar developed his illustrious writing career, primarily delving into speculative fiction. While he is known for his short stories such as How Rosang Taba Won a Race and Saturdays with Fray Villalobos, as well as the PSF anthologies he spearheaded, two of his more notable works are Salamanca and The Kite of Stars and Other Stories. His first novel, Salamanca, is a story of two lovers intertwined with elements of fantasy and it includes a myriad of characters as well. On the other hand, The Kite of Stars is originally a play that bagged the second prize in the One-act Play category. A tale about unrequited love and reaching for the stars, it has since been transformed into prose form and is part of a collection of short stories.

7. Lualhati Bautista

Submitted by Natalie Roque

Background of the Author

Lualhati Bautista was born on December 2, 1945, in Tondo, Manila. From early on she has already displayed a flair for writing, as her parents Esteban Bautista and Gloria Torres were into composing and poetry-writing. She studied Journalism in the Lyceum of the Philippines but at some point stopped to pursue writing. At the age of 16, she began writing and her first works were published in the magazine Liwayway. As her writing career began to flourish, she garnered positions in writing organization such as vice-president of the Screenwriters Guild of the Philippines and the chair of the Kapisanan ng mga Manunulat ng Nobelang Popular. In the course of her life, several of her works won awards. Her novels Dekada ‘70, ‘GAPÔ, and Bata, Bata, Pa’no Ka Ginawa? all won Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. It is certain that Bautista has truly carved a mark in the field of writing, as she has also gained recognition from the Philippine's Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and the Surian ng Wikang Pambansa in 1987.

Overview of Literary Works

Lualhati Bautista is well-known for her novels, but she has also penned several poems and short stories. Additionally, she is also a movie and television scriptwriter. In her works, one of Bautista’s trademark is her use of the Tagalog language, despite how critics of her time saw the use of native language as unacceptable to the elite. She is also known for her brutal honesty in tackling controversial issues. In fact, Bautista’s several compositions were banned and censored at the time of the Marcos Regime. Moreover, she is recognized for incorporating political themes in her works. According to Veritas (as cited by Peletz & Ong), “Where other writers simply hinted by using vague metaphors and parallel cases in other countries, Lualhati Bautista...named names, cited actual atrocities, and pointed an unerring where the blame lies.” (1998, p. 217). An example of this is her first screenplay named Sakada (1976), for the military confiscated copies of the script since it talks about the troubles faced by Philippine peasants. Another distinct feature of her writing is her exploration of female themes through the portrayal of female protagonists who undergo trials both at home and in the workplace.

[strivesy]

5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month

Eric Curts on episode 300 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Eric Curts gives us five ways to use Google apps, extensions and tools to celebrate Poetry Month. From blackout poetry to rhymefinding extensions, learn about some tools you can use all year long in your language arts classes.

Advancement Courses has more than 200 graduate level online PD courses for K-12 teachers. Go to advancementcourses.com/coolcat and use the code COOL20 at checkout for 20% off any course.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

5 Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e300 Date: April 27, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with my “Mr. Google” friend Eric Curts. He knows everything about Google, but also we’re talking about poetry because April is Poetry Month.

So today we’re going to do five ways to celebrate Poetry Month.

Eric, what is our first way?

Eric: Yes, absolutely.

First thing I’m going to mention is that everything I’m going to share here can be found in a blog post I did recently at http://www.controlaltachieve.com/poetry. So you guys can find everything right there.

The very first one is Drag and Drop Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings.

Drag and Drop Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

I think most of us are familiar with those magnetic poetry kits you can get. Well, this is a digital version of that. Basically, what I’ve done is I’ve used Google Drawings to put little text boxes on either side of the Google Drawing canvas.

On the left-hand side, there’s about a hundred Dolch words, just your normal words there.

Then on the right-hand side, I’ll put themed words. I’ve got one for Wintertime, one for Springtime. I’ve got one for Valentines Day.

I’ve got several of those in the blog post, and people can make copies of those, and the students can simply drag and drop those tiles over from the sides onto the canvas to make their poetry.

I’ve even had some folks make copies of these and then modify it with their own themed words — which is fantastic. I always encourage people to take the stuff and make changes to it.

Vicki: What age do you think these are perfect for?

Eric: You could definitely use these with your elementary students without a doubt. I don’t think there’s any upper limit to it.

The idea is that since the words that I chose are the Dolch words, the first about hundred or so are those words — those are definitely words that students are learning in K-1-2. You could definitely use this with your lower elementary students.

That way they can simply drag the words over and not have to worry about how to spell things. But if they want to go further, they sure can. They can double-click on any word and change it.

There are a few blank tiles so they can add their own words in as well. So it definitely scales up for upper elementary and for middle school kids as well.

Vicki: How fun! OK, what’s next?

Eric: The next one is Random Writing Prompt Generators with Google Sheets.

Random Writing Prompt Generators with Google Sheets

Sometimes that’s the hard thing, just getting started. What should I write a poem about?

So what I did was I used the “random” function inside of Google Sheets to create two different writing prompt generators.

The first one is text prompt generator. I took 2,000 adjectives and 1,000 nouns and put them in the Google Sheet. Every time you pull it up, it randomly puts the adjectives with the nouns and gives you 20 suggested writing prompts at a time. You can always refresh it and get 20 more.

If that doesn’t work for you, I did another one that is an Emoji Writing Prompt Generator. Again, I took hundreds and hundreds of emojis. It randomly puts them together — into either 2, 3, 4, or 5 emojis at a time, depending upon what you want.

Again, this can give that spark of creativity to the students to say, “Ahhh! I’m going to write a poem about something.” They can refresh this until they get three emojis that just hit them just right, and then they’ll use that for the foundation of their poem they’re going to write.

Vicki: Because as we know, sometimes if we just say, “Write something creative,” — OK, they really need help! (laughs)

Eric: That’s right!

Vicki: … spurring it forward… OK, what’s our third?

Eric: The next one is Blackout Poetry with Google Docs.

Blackout Poetry with Google Docs

Now a lot of people are familiar with Blackout Poetry in the analog version, where you take a page out of a magazine and a big black Sharpie marker and you cross out everything you don’t want. You leave behind just the words you want to make your poem.

Well, this is just a digital version of that using Google Docs.

Basically, it’s just a couple of quick tricks. You basically start by putting your text into the document that you’re going to share out with the students, or they can put their own text in there. Then you do three main things.

First of all, you turn the background of the Google Doc grey temporarily.

Then second, you use the highlighting tool to highlight the words you want in white, so they kind of pop out.

And then after you’ve highlighted the words you want to keep, you then change the background color a second time, but this time you change it to black. Everything else disappears except for the words you highlighted white.

Now you have Blackout Poetry done digitally.

Vicki: What fun! OK, what’s our fourth?

Eric: The fourth thing are poetry templates.

Poetry Templates

Again, sometimes it’s helpful to give a little structure.

Now this could be for students who are struggling with writing a poem and they need something to guide them through.

Or it could also be on the other end. If you’ve got a student who is very successful with their writing, but needs to be challenged to be creative and fit it within a certain structure.

So I’ve got a couple of these templates.

One is the standard Haiku template, which is going to be your 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. This is a Google Drawing template, where there are boxes for each of the syllables for them to put them in. But as a fun little twist, I also have an image in the background that the students can change to match whatever their poem is about.

The second template I have is what I call a Pi Poem template. Now this one’s in Google Sheets. That’s Pi as in P-I, the mathematical number pi. And the way it works is that you’re trying to write a poem where each word corresponds in length to each of the digits in Pi.

So the first word of the poem is three letters long. Then the next word is one letter long. Then the next one is four letters long. This is a template created in Google Sheets that will guide the students through that as they try to write a Pi Poem.

Vicki: Oh fun! And you’re pulling math together, aren’t you?

Eric: Absolutely.

Vicki: Fun! OK, what’s our last one?

Eric: The final one is an add-on that you can use in Google Docs called Rhyme Finder.

Google Docs Add-On called Rhyme Finder

With all of the activities we’ve been looking at here so far, what if a student gets into them and still is stuck and is still struggling to come up with, “What’s a good rhyme for this word?”

Well, there’s an add-on for Google Docs called Rhyme Finder. All you have to do is open up the add-on, highlight any word in your document, and Rhyme Finder will then find for you all of the rhyming words and list how many syllables they have, just to give you an inspiration if you’re getting stuck when you are trying to create that poem.

Vicki: You know, I’ve been writing poetry since I was very young. And yes, we’re using all these tools, but do we still want to share poetry and help capture just the beauty that poetry is?

Eric: Absolutely. And when you talk about sharing, don’t forget that with everything we’ve been talking about here with creating these, the final products can be shared.

If it’s Google Drawings, they can download it as an image, and that image can be put on your class blog or emailed out. Or if it’s using the Google Docs Blackout Poetry, that final document can be shared with the regular share button, or again, it can be published to the web.

And that’s the thing. Once these are being created, and they’re being done in a digital format, I would absolutely encourage people to share what the students have created, and let it go beyond the classroom to a broader, more authentic audience.

Vicki: Yes! Because you know… poetry can be so much about the power of the perfect word. It’s such an activity that helps kids understand just the meaning, and even selecting the perfect word, you know?

Eric: Absolutely. Those who appreciate poetry, when you do take a look at the blog post, I actually wrote a poem for the blog post. I’ll leave that up to people to go check that out.

Again, it’s at http://www.controlaltachieve.com/poetry where you’ll find all five of these activities and tools, linked in with the descriptions on how to use each one of them and links to get copies of all the templates I mentioned.

For the introduction for this, I figured, “Hey, I can’t write a post about poetry if I don’t write a poem.”

So I know just what you mean. I struggled and labored over that poem (laughs) to get it just right. But it introduces the blog post and kicks that off in a fun way.

Vicki: So, remarkable educators, Eric Curts is such a valuable resource. I know he is for me in my classroom.

I know that you’ll get in there and enjoy and celebrate Poetry Month and publish it when you’re done!

Thanks, Eric!

Eric: Absolutely. Thank you so much!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Eric has been in education for 25 years, and is currently serving as a Technology Integration Specialist for the Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium in Canton, Ohio where he oversees Google Apps for Education implementation, training, and support, as well as online learning and other technology integration initiatives.

Eric is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator and provides Google Apps training to schools, organizations, and conferences throughout Ohio and across the country.

He is a co-leader of the Ohio Google Educator Group (GEG) at tiny.cc/geg-ohio and runs the award-winning blog www.ControlAltAchieve.com where all of his Google Apps and edtech resources can be found. Eric is married with four children.

Blog: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/

Twitter: @ericcurts

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post 5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month published first on https://medium.com/@seminarsacademy

[succeedly]

5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month

Eric Curts on episode 300 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Eric Curts gives us five ways to use Google apps, extensions and tools to celebrate Poetry Month. From blackout poetry to rhymefinding extensions, learn about some tools you can use all year long in your language arts classes.

Advancement Courses has more than 200 graduate level online PD courses for K-12 teachers. Go to advancementcourses.com/coolcat and use the code COOL20 at checkout for 20% off any course.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

5 Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e300 Date: April 27, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with my “Mr. Google” friend Eric Curts. He knows everything about Google, but also we’re talking about poetry because April is Poetry Month.

So today we’re going to do five ways to celebrate Poetry Month.

Eric, what is our first way?

Eric: Yes, absolutely.

First thing I’m going to mention is that everything I’m going to share here can be found in a blog post I did recently at http://www.controlaltachieve.com/poetry. So you guys can find everything right there.

The very first one is Drag and Drop Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings.

Drag and Drop Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

I think most of us are familiar with those magnetic poetry kits you can get. Well, this is a digital version of that. Basically, what I’ve done is I’ve used Google Drawings to put little text boxes on either side of the Google Drawing canvas.

On the left-hand side, there’s about a hundred Dolch words, just your normal words there.

Then on the right-hand side, I’ll put themed words. I’ve got one for Wintertime, one for Springtime. I’ve got one for Valentines Day.

I’ve got several of those in the blog post, and people can make copies of those, and the students can simply drag and drop those tiles over from the sides onto the canvas to make their poetry.

I’ve even had some folks make copies of these and then modify it with their own themed words — which is fantastic. I always encourage people to take the stuff and make changes to it.

Vicki: What age do you think these are perfect for?

Eric: You could definitely use these with your elementary students without a doubt. I don’t think there’s any upper limit to it.

The idea is that since the words that I chose are the Dolch words, the first about hundred or so are those words — those are definitely words that students are learning in K-1-2. You could definitely use this with your lower elementary students.

That way they can simply drag the words over and not have to worry about how to spell things. But if they want to go further, they sure can. They can double-click on any word and change it.

There are a few blank tiles so they can add their own words in as well. So it definitely scales up for upper elementary and for middle school kids as well.

Vicki: How fun! OK, what’s next?

Eric: The next one is Random Writing Prompt Generators with Google Sheets.

Random Writing Prompt Generators with Google Sheets

Sometimes that’s the hard thing, just getting started. What should I write a poem about?

So what I did was I used the “random” function inside of Google Sheets to create two different writing prompt generators.

The first one is text prompt generator. I took 2,000 adjectives and 1,000 nouns and put them in the Google Sheet. Every time you pull it up, it randomly puts the adjectives with the nouns and gives you 20 suggested writing prompts at a time. You can always refresh it and get 20 more.

If that doesn’t work for you, I did another one that is an Emoji Writing Prompt Generator. Again, I took hundreds and hundreds of emojis. It randomly puts them together — into either 2, 3, 4, or 5 emojis at a time, depending upon what you want.

Again, this can give that spark of creativity to the students to say, “Ahhh! I’m going to write a poem about something.” They can refresh this until they get three emojis that just hit them just right, and then they’ll use that for the foundation of their poem they’re going to write.

Vicki: Because as we know, sometimes if we just say, “Write something creative,” — OK, they really need help! (laughs)

Eric: That’s right!

Vicki: … spurring it forward… OK, what’s our third?

Eric: The next one is Blackout Poetry with Google Docs.

Blackout Poetry with Google Docs

Now a lot of people are familiar with Blackout Poetry in the analog version, where you take a page out of a magazine and a big black Sharpie marker and you cross out everything you don’t want. You leave behind just the words you want to make your poem.

Well, this is just a digital version of that using Google Docs.

Basically, it’s just a couple of quick tricks. You basically start by putting your text into the document that you’re going to share out with the students, or they can put their own text in there. Then you do three main things.

First of all, you turn the background of the Google Doc grey temporarily.

Then second, you use the highlighting tool to highlight the words you want in white, so they kind of pop out.

And then after you’ve highlighted the words you want to keep, you then change the background color a second time, but this time you change it to black. Everything else disappears except for the words you highlighted white.

Now you have Blackout Poetry done digitally.

Vicki: What fun! OK, what’s our fourth?

Eric: The fourth thing are poetry templates.

Poetry Templates

Again, sometimes it’s helpful to give a little structure.

Now this could be for students who are struggling with writing a poem and they need something to guide them through.

Or it could also be on the other end. If you’ve got a student who is very successful with their writing, but needs to be challenged to be creative and fit it within a certain structure.

So I’ve got a couple of these templates.

One is the standard Haiku template, which is going to be your 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. This is a Google Drawing template, where there are boxes for each of the syllables for them to put them in. But as a fun little twist, I also have an image in the background that the students can change to match whatever their poem is about.

The second template I have is what I call a Pi Poem template. Now this one’s in Google Sheets. That’s Pi as in P-I, the mathematical number pi. And the way it works is that you’re trying to write a poem where each word corresponds in length to each of the digits in Pi.

So the first word of the poem is three letters long. Then the next word is one letter long. Then the next one is four letters long. This is a template created in Google Sheets that will guide the students through that as they try to write a Pi Poem.

Vicki: Oh fun! And you’re pulling math together, aren’t you?

Eric: Absolutely.

Vicki: Fun! OK, what’s our last one?

Eric: The final one is an add-on that you can use in Google Docs called Rhyme Finder.

Google Docs Add-On called Rhyme Finder

With all of the activities we’ve been looking at here so far, what if a student gets into them and still is stuck and is still struggling to come up with, “What’s a good rhyme for this word?”

Well, there’s an add-on for Google Docs called Rhyme Finder. All you have to do is open up the add-on, highlight any word in your document, and Rhyme Finder will then find for you all of the rhyming words and list how many syllables they have, just to give you an inspiration if you’re getting stuck when you are trying to create that poem.

Vicki: You know, I’ve been writing poetry since I was very young. And yes, we’re using all these tools, but do we still want to share poetry and help capture just the beauty that poetry is?

Eric: Absolutely. And when you talk about sharing, don’t forget that with everything we’ve been talking about here with creating these, the final products can be shared.

If it’s Google Drawings, they can download it as an image, and that image can be put on your class blog or emailed out. Or if it’s using the Google Docs Blackout Poetry, that final document can be shared with the regular share button, or again, it can be published to the web.

And that’s the thing. Once these are being created, and they’re being done in a digital format, I would absolutely encourage people to share what the students have created, and let it go beyond the classroom to a broader, more authentic audience.

Vicki: Yes! Because you know… poetry can be so much about the power of the perfect word. It’s such an activity that helps kids understand just the meaning, and even selecting the perfect word, you know?

Eric: Absolutely. Those who appreciate poetry, when you do take a look at the blog post, I actually wrote a poem for the blog post. I’ll leave that up to people to go check that out.

Again, it’s at http://www.controlaltachieve.com/poetry where you’ll find all five of these activities and tools, linked in with the descriptions on how to use each one of them and links to get copies of all the templates I mentioned.

For the introduction for this, I figured, “Hey, I can’t write a post about poetry if I don’t write a poem.”

So I know just what you mean. I struggled and labored over that poem (laughs) to get it just right. But it introduces the blog post and kicks that off in a fun way.

Vicki: So, remarkable educators, Eric Curts is such a valuable resource. I know he is for me in my classroom.

I know that you’ll get in there and enjoy and celebrate Poetry Month and publish it when you’re done!

Thanks, Eric!

Eric: Absolutely. Thank you so much!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Eric has been in education for 25 years, and is currently serving as a Technology Integration Specialist for the Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium in Canton, Ohio where he oversees Google Apps for Education implementation, training, and support, as well as online learning and other technology integration initiatives.

Eric is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator and provides Google Apps training to schools, organizations, and conferences throughout Ohio and across the country.

He is a co-leader of the Ohio Google Educator Group (GEG) at tiny.cc/geg-ohio and runs the award-winning blog www.ControlAltAchieve.com where all of his Google Apps and edtech resources can be found. Eric is married with four children.

Blog: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/

Twitter: @ericcurts

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post 5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month published first on https://getnewcourse.tumblr.com/

[ralph31ortiz]

5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month

Eric Curts on episode 300 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Eric Curts gives us five ways to use Google apps, extensions and tools to celebrate Poetry Month. From blackout poetry to rhymefinding extensions, learn about some tools you can use all year long in your language arts classes.

Advancement Courses has more than 200 graduate level online PD courses for K-12 teachers. Go to advancementcourses.com/coolcat and use the code COOL20 at checkout for 20% off any course.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

5 Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e300 Date: April 27, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with my “Mr. Google” friend Eric Curts. He knows everything about Google, but also we’re talking about poetry because April is Poetry Month.

So today we’re going to do five ways to celebrate Poetry Month.

Eric, what is our first way?

Eric: Yes, absolutely.

First thing I’m going to mention is that everything I’m going to share here can be found in a blog post I did recently at http://www.controlaltachieve.com/poetry. So you guys can find everything right there.

The very first one is Drag and Drop Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings.

Drag and Drop Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

I think most of us are familiar with those magnetic poetry kits you can get. Well, this is a digital version of that. Basically, what I’ve done is I’ve used Google Drawings to put little text boxes on either side of the Google Drawing canvas.

On the left-hand side, there’s about a hundred Dolch words, just your normal words there.

Then on the right-hand side, I’ll put themed words. I’ve got one for Wintertime, one for Springtime. I’ve got one for Valentines Day.

I’ve got several of those in the blog post, and people can make copies of those, and the students can simply drag and drop those tiles over from the sides onto the canvas to make their poetry.

I’ve even had some folks make copies of these and then modify it with their own themed words — which is fantastic. I always encourage people to take the stuff and make changes to it.

Vicki: What age do you think these are perfect for?

Eric: You could definitely use these with your elementary students without a doubt. I don’t think there’s any upper limit to it.

The idea is that since the words that I chose are the Dolch words, the first about hundred or so are those words — those are definitely words that students are learning in K-1-2. You could definitely use this with your lower elementary students.

That way they can simply drag the words over and not have to worry about how to spell things. But if they want to go further, they sure can. They can double-click on any word and change it.

There are a few blank tiles so they can add their own words in as well. So it definitely scales up for upper elementary and for middle school kids as well.

Vicki: How fun! OK, what’s next?

Eric: The next one is Random Writing Prompt Generators with Google Sheets.

Random Writing Prompt Generators with Google Sheets

Sometimes that’s the hard thing, just getting started. What should I write a poem about?

So what I did was I used the “random” function inside of Google Sheets to create two different writing prompt generators.

The first one is text prompt generator. I took 2,000 adjectives and 1,000 nouns and put them in the Google Sheet. Every time you pull it up, it randomly puts the adjectives with the nouns and gives you 20 suggested writing prompts at a time. You can always refresh it and get 20 more.

If that doesn’t work for you, I did another one that is an Emoji Writing Prompt Generator. Again, I took hundreds and hundreds of emojis. It randomly puts them together — into either 2, 3, 4, or 5 emojis at a time, depending upon what you want.

Again, this can give that spark of creativity to the students to say, “Ahhh! I’m going to write a poem about something.” They can refresh this until they get three emojis that just hit them just right, and then they’ll use that for the foundation of their poem they’re going to write.

Vicki: Because as we know, sometimes if we just say, “Write something creative,” — OK, they really need help! (laughs)

Eric: That’s right!

Vicki: … spurring it forward… OK, what’s our third?

Eric: The next one is Blackout Poetry with Google Docs.

Blackout Poetry with Google Docs

Now a lot of people are familiar with Blackout Poetry in the analog version, where you take a page out of a magazine and a big black Sharpie marker and you cross out everything you don’t want. You leave behind just the words you want to make your poem.

Well, this is just a digital version of that using Google Docs.

Basically, it’s just a couple of quick tricks. You basically start by putting your text into the document that you’re going to share out with the students, or they can put their own text in there. Then you do three main things.

First of all, you turn the background of the Google Doc grey temporarily.

Then second, you use the highlighting tool to highlight the words you want in white, so they kind of pop out.

And then after you’ve highlighted the words you want to keep, you then change the background color a second time, but this time you change it to black. Everything else disappears except for the words you highlighted white.

Now you have Blackout Poetry done digitally.

Vicki: What fun! OK, what’s our fourth?

Eric: The fourth thing are poetry templates.

Poetry Templates

Again, sometimes it’s helpful to give a little structure.

Now this could be for students who are struggling with writing a poem and they need something to guide them through.

Or it could also be on the other end. If you’ve got a student who is very successful with their writing, but needs to be challenged to be creative and fit it within a certain structure.

So I’ve got a couple of these templates.

One is the standard Haiku template, which is going to be your 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. This is a Google Drawing template, where there are boxes for each of the syllables for them to put them in. But as a fun little twist, I also have an image in the background that the students can change to match whatever their poem is about.

The second template I have is what I call a Pi Poem template. Now this one’s in Google Sheets. That’s Pi as in P-I, the mathematical number pi. And the way it works is that you’re trying to write a poem where each word corresponds in length to each of the digits in Pi.

So the first word of the poem is three letters long. Then the next word is one letter long. Then the next one is four letters long. This is a template created in Google Sheets that will guide the students through that as they try to write a Pi Poem.

Vicki: Oh fun! And you’re pulling math together, aren’t you?

Eric: Absolutely.

Vicki: Fun! OK, what’s our last one?

Eric: The final one is an add-on that you can use in Google Docs called Rhyme Finder.

Google Docs Add-On called Rhyme Finder

With all of the activities we’ve been looking at here so far, what if a student gets into them and still is stuck and is still struggling to come up with, “What’s a good rhyme for this word?”

Well, there’s an add-on for Google Docs called Rhyme Finder. All you have to do is open up the add-on, highlight any word in your document, and Rhyme Finder will then find for you all of the rhyming words and list how many syllables they have, just to give you an inspiration if you’re getting stuck when you are trying to create that poem.

Vicki: You know, I’ve been writing poetry since I was very young. And yes, we’re using all these tools, but do we still want to share poetry and help capture just the beauty that poetry is?

Eric: Absolutely. And when you talk about sharing, don’t forget that with everything we’ve been talking about here with creating these, the final products can be shared.

If it’s Google Drawings, they can download it as an image, and that image can be put on your class blog or emailed out. Or if it’s using the Google Docs Blackout Poetry, that final document can be shared with the regular share button, or again, it can be published to the web.

And that’s the thing. Once these are being created, and they’re being done in a digital format, I would absolutely encourage people to share what the students have created, and let it go beyond the classroom to a broader, more authentic audience.

Vicki: Yes! Because you know… poetry can be so much about the power of the perfect word. It’s such an activity that helps kids understand just the meaning, and even selecting the perfect word, you know?

Eric: Absolutely. Those who appreciate poetry, when you do take a look at the blog post, I actually wrote a poem for the blog post. I’ll leave that up to people to go check that out.

Again, it’s at http://www.controlaltachieve.com/poetry where you’ll find all five of these activities and tools, linked in with the descriptions on how to use each one of them and links to get copies of all the templates I mentioned.

For the introduction for this, I figured, “Hey, I can’t write a post about poetry if I don’t write a poem.”

So I know just what you mean. I struggled and labored over that poem (laughs) to get it just right. But it introduces the blog post and kicks that off in a fun way.

Vicki: So, remarkable educators, Eric Curts is such a valuable resource. I know he is for me in my classroom.

I know that you’ll get in there and enjoy and celebrate Poetry Month and publish it when you’re done!

Thanks, Eric!

Eric: Absolutely. Thank you so much!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Eric has been in education for 25 years, and is currently serving as a Technology Integration Specialist for the Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium in Canton, Ohio where he oversees Google Apps for Education implementation, training, and support, as well as online learning and other technology integration initiatives.

Eric is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator and provides Google Apps training to schools, organizations, and conferences throughout Ohio and across the country.

He is a co-leader of the Ohio Google Educator Group (GEG) at tiny.cc/geg-ohio and runs the award-winning blog www.ControlAltAchieve.com where all of his Google Apps and edtech resources can be found. Eric is married with four children.

Blog: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/

Twitter: @ericcurts

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post 5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e300/

[aira26soonas]

5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month

Eric Curts on episode 300 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Eric Curts gives us five ways to use Google apps, extensions and tools to celebrate Poetry Month. From blackout poetry to rhymefinding extensions, learn about some tools you can use all year long in your language arts classes.

Advancement Courses has more than 200 graduate level online PD courses for K-12 teachers. Go to advancementcourses.com/coolcat and use the code COOL20 at checkout for 20% off any course.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

5 Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e300 Date: April 27, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with my “Mr. Google” friend Eric Curts. He knows everything about Google, but also we’re talking about poetry because April is Poetry Month.

So today we’re going to do five ways to celebrate Poetry Month.

Eric, what is our first way?

Eric: Yes, absolutely.

First thing I’m going to mention is that everything I’m going to share here can be found in a blog post I did recently at http://www.controlaltachieve.com/poetry. So you guys can find everything right there.

The very first one is Drag and Drop Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings.

Drag and Drop Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings

I think most of us are familiar with those magnetic poetry kits you can get. Well, this is a digital version of that. Basically, what I’ve done is I’ve used Google Drawings to put little text boxes on either side of the Google Drawing canvas.

On the left-hand side, there’s about a hundred Dolch words, just your normal words there.

Then on the right-hand side, I’ll put themed words. I’ve got one for Wintertime, one for Springtime. I’ve got one for Valentines Day.

I’ve got several of those in the blog post, and people can make copies of those, and the students can simply drag and drop those tiles over from the sides onto the canvas to make their poetry.

I’ve even had some folks make copies of these and then modify it with their own themed words — which is fantastic. I always encourage people to take the stuff and make changes to it.

Vicki: What age do you think these are perfect for?

Eric: You could definitely use these with your elementary students without a doubt. I don’t think there’s any upper limit to it.

The idea is that since the words that I chose are the Dolch words, the first about hundred or so are those words — those are definitely words that students are learning in K-1-2. You could definitely use this with your lower elementary students.

That way they can simply drag the words over and not have to worry about how to spell things. But if they want to go further, they sure can. They can double-click on any word and change it.

There are a few blank tiles so they can add their own words in as well. So it definitely scales up for upper elementary and for middle school kids as well.

Vicki: How fun! OK, what’s next?

Eric: The next one is Random Writing Prompt Generators with Google Sheets.

Random Writing Prompt Generators with Google Sheets

Sometimes that’s the hard thing, just getting started. What should I write a poem about?

So what I did was I used the “random” function inside of Google Sheets to create two different writing prompt generators.

The first one is text prompt generator. I took 2,000 adjectives and 1,000 nouns and put them in the Google Sheet. Every time you pull it up, it randomly puts the adjectives with the nouns and gives you 20 suggested writing prompts at a time. You can always refresh it and get 20 more.

If that doesn’t work for you, I did another one that is an Emoji Writing Prompt Generator. Again, I took hundreds and hundreds of emojis. It randomly puts them together — into either 2, 3, 4, or 5 emojis at a time, depending upon what you want.

Again, this can give that spark of creativity to the students to say, “Ahhh! I’m going to write a poem about something.” They can refresh this until they get three emojis that just hit them just right, and then they’ll use that for the foundation of their poem they’re going to write.

Vicki: Because as we know, sometimes if we just say, “Write something creative,” — OK, they really need help! (laughs)

Eric: That’s right!

Vicki: … spurring it forward… OK, what’s our third?

Eric: The next one is Blackout Poetry with Google Docs.

Blackout Poetry with Google Docs

Now a lot of people are familiar with Blackout Poetry in the analog version, where you take a page out of a magazine and a big black Sharpie marker and you cross out everything you don’t want. You leave behind just the words you want to make your poem.

Well, this is just a digital version of that using Google Docs.

Basically, it’s just a couple of quick tricks. You basically start by putting your text into the document that you’re going to share out with the students, or they can put their own text in there. Then you do three main things.

First of all, you turn the background of the Google Doc grey temporarily.

Then second, you use the highlighting tool to highlight the words you want in white, so they kind of pop out.

And then after you’ve highlighted the words you want to keep, you then change the background color a second time, but this time you change it to black. Everything else disappears except for the words you highlighted white.

Now you have Blackout Poetry done digitally.

Vicki: What fun! OK, what’s our fourth?

Eric: The fourth thing are poetry templates.

Poetry Templates

Again, sometimes it’s helpful to give a little structure.

Now this could be for students who are struggling with writing a poem and they need something to guide them through.

Or it could also be on the other end. If you’ve got a student who is very successful with their writing, but needs to be challenged to be creative and fit it within a certain structure.

So I’ve got a couple of these templates.

One is the standard Haiku template, which is going to be your 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. This is a Google Drawing template, where there are boxes for each of the syllables for them to put them in. But as a fun little twist, I also have an image in the background that the students can change to match whatever their poem is about.

The second template I have is what I call a Pi Poem template. Now this one’s in Google Sheets. That’s Pi as in P-I, the mathematical number pi. And the way it works is that you’re trying to write a poem where each word corresponds in length to each of the digits in Pi.

So the first word of the poem is three letters long. Then the next word is one letter long. Then the next one is four letters long. This is a template created in Google Sheets that will guide the students through that as they try to write a Pi Poem.

Vicki: Oh fun! And you’re pulling math together, aren’t you?

Eric: Absolutely.

Vicki: Fun! OK, what’s our last one?

Eric: The final one is an add-on that you can use in Google Docs called Rhyme Finder.

Google Docs Add-On called Rhyme Finder

With all of the activities we’ve been looking at here so far, what if a student gets into them and still is stuck and is still struggling to come up with, “What’s a good rhyme for this word?”

Well, there’s an add-on for Google Docs called Rhyme Finder. All you have to do is open up the add-on, highlight any word in your document, and Rhyme Finder will then find for you all of the rhyming words and list how many syllables they have, just to give you an inspiration if you’re getting stuck when you are trying to create that poem.

Vicki: You know, I’ve been writing poetry since I was very young. And yes, we’re using all these tools, but do we still want to share poetry and help capture just the beauty that poetry is?

Eric: Absolutely. And when you talk about sharing, don’t forget that with everything we’ve been talking about here with creating these, the final products can be shared.

If it’s Google Drawings, they can download it as an image, and that image can be put on your class blog or emailed out. Or if it’s using the Google Docs Blackout Poetry, that final document can be shared with the regular share button, or again, it can be published to the web.

And that’s the thing. Once these are being created, and they’re being done in a digital format, I would absolutely encourage people to share what the students have created, and let it go beyond the classroom to a broader, more authentic audience.

Vicki: Yes! Because you know… poetry can be so much about the power of the perfect word. It’s such an activity that helps kids understand just the meaning, and even selecting the perfect word, you know?

Eric: Absolutely. Those who appreciate poetry, when you do take a look at the blog post, I actually wrote a poem for the blog post. I’ll leave that up to people to go check that out.

Again, it’s at http://www.controlaltachieve.com/poetry where you’ll find all five of these activities and tools, linked in with the descriptions on how to use each one of them and links to get copies of all the templates I mentioned.

For the introduction for this, I figured, “Hey, I can’t write a post about poetry if I don’t write a poem.”

So I know just what you mean. I struggled and labored over that poem (laughs) to get it just right. But it introduces the blog post and kicks that off in a fun way.

Vicki: So, remarkable educators, Eric Curts is such a valuable resource. I know he is for me in my classroom.

I know that you’ll get in there and enjoy and celebrate Poetry Month and publish it when you’re done!

Thanks, Eric!

Eric: Absolutely. Thank you so much!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Eric has been in education for 25 years, and is currently serving as a Technology Integration Specialist for the Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium in Canton, Ohio where he oversees Google Apps for Education implementation, training, and support, as well as online learning and other technology integration initiatives.

Eric is an authorized Google Education Trainer and a Google Certified Innovator and provides Google Apps training to schools, organizations, and conferences throughout Ohio and across the country.

He is a co-leader of the Ohio Google Educator Group (GEG) at tiny.cc/geg-ohio and runs the award-winning blog www.ControlAltAchieve.com where all of his Google Apps and edtech resources can be found. Eric is married with four children.

Blog: http://www.controlaltachieve.com/

Twitter: @ericcurts

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post 5 Googley Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e300/

[authormarialberg]

This is another sticker and ribbon ornament I made like the dragon ball on Day 4. It fits well with a theme of Mixed Messages. From a distance, it is a nice star-shaped ornament with a splash of non-traditional colors. Upon closer inspection, the images this ornament is made out of are a depiction of The Battle Of Hamza.

#vss very short story

Carmen stared at her quaking and shaking tree. When the elves emerged brandishing Shotels and sickle blades, she feared they focused on the Herod part of the Christmas story.

Today’s Poetry Prompt and Poem

Today, I received a photo prompt:

photo by Modesto artist Joseph Anthony

  The Golden Food Mart In The Night

The blinding lights reveal temptation A golden oasis in the night A beckoning promise of satiation Bars on the windows and locked up tight

The light polluter sends mixed messages Offering warmth and welcome from afar When the real message is “someone will see you” Everyone is a thief in the dark

Editing Focus

Though we are in a rush to dive in to those details, let’s stick with the big picture for a while.

Genre and obligatory scenes

In The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know by Shawn Coyne, he says:

A Genre is a label that tells the reader/audience what to expect. Genres simply manage audience expectations.

There are five primary expectations of the audience

to know how long the story will last

to know how far to suspend disbelief

to know the style, the particular experience of the story

to know how the story will be structured

to know what the general content of the story will be

Mr. Coyne contends that your story’s genre is made up of five parts that form to these five expectations: Time, Reality, Style, Structure and Content

The first three are easy: 1. What is the physical length of your story? Did you write Flash (under 1,000 words), a short story, a novella or a novel? Is it short, medium or long? 2. Is your story based on real events (biography/factualism), complete fiction but could happen in the real world (realism), so far fetched it could not happen in the real world (Absurdism) or Fantasy? 3. In what form are you presenting your story? Is it a cartoon, dance, musical, documentary, drama, comedy, or is it literary?

Coyne breaks Structure into Arch-Plot, Mini-plot (passive protagonist contending with internal struggle) and Anti-plot (inspired randomness; Waiting for Godot) where Arch-Plot is the most common structure that most closely follows The Hero’s Journey.

He breaks Content into External Content Genres (action, horror, crime, thriller, love, performance, society, war and western) and Internal Content Genres (worldview, morality and status).

Today’s challenge: Define your genre for the five expectations.

My novel is: A long, realistic drama following the Arch-Plot structure and should follow the conventions of a Thriller which is an External Content genre.

The Obligatory Scenes for a Thriller

Now that I’ve identified and specified my genre, what does that mean to me? Coyne kept talking about the obligatory scenes of your genre and I’m glad he started with Thriller since that is what I’m writing. Let’s see if I have covered the “obligatory scenes.”

Coyne says the Thriller genre comes from a mash-up of Action, Horror and Crime and share many obligatory scenes and conventions. Here are the obligatory scenes for the thriller:

An Inciting crime

A MacGuffin- In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. -Wikipedia

Red herrings

A Speech in praise of the villain

The stakes must become personal for the hero. If he fails to stop the villain, he will suffer severe consequences. The hero must become the victim.

There must be a hero at the mercy of the villain scene

False ending. There must be two endings.

Also, the often used convention of the ticking clock.

So, looking at this, I need to think about 4 and 7. Since we wrote new endings yesterday, I guess I was a bit prescient, or we’re on the right track. Let’s go with the latter.

I was disappointed to see that there weren’t more lists like that in the book, but there are on the website StoryGrid.com.

You’ll need to search around and piece the lists together, but you can also do that from reading and watching films in your genre. Coyle recommends that everyone master the elements of The Love Story because it makes an appearance in many other genres. Here are the obligatory scenes and conventions he outlines for The Love Story.

The Love Story -obligatory scenes

The lovers meet

Confession of love (a bit premature by one character) causes conflict

First kiss scene (moment of intimacy not necessarily physical)

The lovers break-up

Proof of love scene

Lovers reunite

#FlashFicHive

graphic by Anjela Curtis

Two brothers break into parishioners’ cars during Christmas Eve Service and steal everyone’s presents. The Christmas Spirit,  arrives to avenge as they examine their loot.

Don’t Forget To Read!

Now that you’ve defined your genre along the five expectations outlined by Shawn Coyne in The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know take another look at the six books you chose on day one. Are they still good examples of books in your genre? If not, try to find some better examples. As The Hiding Place by David Bell is not turning out to be a good genre comparison, I think I’ll pick up A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

Happy Reading and Writing!

#FD2017 Final Days Of 2017 Day 11: Mixed Messages This is another sticker and ribbon ornament I made like the dragon ball on Day 4…