On this
summer day,
lost in you,
I see no end.
.
.
.
This poem is my 1500th post! 🙂
There are a few ways to read this one, each painting a slightly different picture.
poem- changes July 9, 2014
The day after she turned fifty,
She found four spider veins
She was sure weren’t there
when she was forty-nine.
poem- hot July 8, 2014
In dead of winter
when I am bundled in sweaters,
nursing hot chocolate
and shivering,
I will remember
sliding open the back door today
and how I was hit with a wall of air
so hot my finger tips feel
they’re glowing like ET’s.
In the meantime,
I’m grateful for a/c
and find typing with
molten finger tips
very interesting.
.
.
.
poem-glad July 7, 2014
She searches
for
words,
music,
assurances.
His tongue
writes
her poetry
and she sighs
on the harmony
of their song.
poem- perfection
The poem is entitled Tiger Lily
but the accompanying photo
shows a Stargazer Lily.
I am trying not to mind.
poem- time travelling July 6, 2014
For my eighteenth birthday
He wrote me a song.
Flutes and strings danced
in my honour,
a musical farewell,
recorded on cassette.
I filled the rest of the tape
with a treasury of captured moments:
His playing, my laughter,
melancholy dreams.
All synthesized on
The Lost Tape.
.
Years of wondering where it went.
.
Today. My birthday
I picked up an empty cassette case,
and it was not empty.
The case showed my face,
listed harp tunes by me, but inside
not me:
Ancient history.
A birthday present
from eighteen year old me
to middle-aged me,
magnetic taped
memories,
for time-travelling.
..
.
I feel inclined to add a photo, which I probably will remove later, so enjoy it while it’s here. The composer of the song, compiler of the cassette, my grad escort. Me at 18. (I had just been swimming, excuse the hair). 😉
poem- wishes
She likes a bad boy.
She likes the attitude,
the tats,
the danger,
the rebellion,
the dissatisfaction.
She likes that he’ll cheat
on his wife with her,
plan their future,
dream with her.
That woman doesn’t
deserve him, she says,
while she wishes.
That woman doesn’t
understand him, she says,
while she wishes.
He embraces her,
briefly.
When he leaves her
pregnant,
crushed,
jaded,
she’s surprised,
by all he’d revealed
to her before,
and she thinks it’s
his fault,
she’d wished.
.
.
.
.
Another sad example of, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.”
poem-circles
one quarter century
one half century
one century
blood linked
chain,
a circle
of life.
.
.
.
Happy birthday to me, in a rather auspicious year in our family.
poem- modern inconvenience July 5, 2014
The panorama of lake and hills
lies peacefully before me.
The susurration of wind
the patter of rain on
leaves and pine needles
is mountain music.
Heaven on earth
marred by
that incessant RV A/C.*
.
.
.
*Recreational Vehicle Air Conditioning
OMG it just turned off! (and the very next minute the music started. Sigh).
Shawn L. Bird 
Writing Process Blog Tour
The Writing Process Blog Tour has stopped in my neighbourhood.
In the past 9 days I’ve been invited three times to participate in The Writing Process Blog Tour.
Thanks to
http://fozzyfitness.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/writing-process-blog-tour/
http://syl65.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/writing-process-blog-tour-with-sylvester-l-anderson/
http://theboipoet.wordpress.com/2014/07/01/the-writing-process-a-blog-tour/
.
The questions are:
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What are you currently working on?
.
How does your work differ from others of its genre?
My current poetry tends to be conversational in style. I make observations that are often snap shots of something seen. Other times they’re commentaries, but always they are short, frequently just 3 or 4 lines, sometimes a page, but rarely longer.
My novels focus on teens who are like my students: full of contradictions, dreams, and barriers. I feature small town Canada (or big city Canada in the case of Grace Awakening Dreams), sometimes mixed with supernatural elements.
.
Why do you write what you do?
I started writing a daily poem on my blog in response to the feedback I received from readers. It’s been very good discipline, and I believe my skill has improved since I’ve been doing it over the last 14 months or so.
I write YA because I’m a high school teacher and I feel like I can reflect messages and stories that my students relate to.
.
How does your writing process work?
It varies.
For poetry,
I might notice something on the way to work, and ponder it a bit, spinning various phrases until a poem emerges. I might record it before I get started at work or during my break, or perhaps it will foment all day, or for a couple of days. Other times, I need to post a poem, and without any plan I open the “new post” form. In the title box I type: ‘poem-‘ and then the next word or phrase that comes to mind. I’ll type whatever comes in response to the title, and if it feels right, I’ll post it right away, or I’ll let it simmer a bit, then come back to tweak it a bit in an hour. (I always feel free to tweak, even poems that have been up for years).
For novels,
During the school year I don’t settle down to write until 9:00 p.m., or so. I’ll work until midnight during school days, later on the weekends.
In the summer, it’s really hot here during the days, and it remains light until after 9:00, so I don’t tend to start writing until closer to midnight. I write through the night until 3 or 4:00 a.m.
With Grace Awakening Dreams and Power, I ‘quilted’ writing scenes from all over the novel and once I had about 120,000 words, laid it out and figured where everything went, and wrote the filler.
With the next two books in the series, told from Ben’s point of view, since I had the framework already, I just had to expand on what was happening in the mythical Other Realm.
I was introduced to Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat last year. He lays out of a format for plotting a screen play. With my latest project, I prepped all the key events following that model. Now I can just flip through the chapter headings (‘crisis with best friend,’ ‘discover betrayal,’ etc), pick one that appeals, and write it. I’m still writing all over the place, but the structure helps me be efficient with my writing time. I confess, I sometimes miss the adventure of not knowing where I’m going, even though I don’t plan any of the specifics in the pre-plotting.
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I invite the following writers to join the tour!
planetdreamdiaries.wordpress.com
.
dancingpalmtrees.wordpress.com
.
words4jp.wordpress.com
writingwingsforyou.com
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