- I’m a bitch and your point is……?
- I did it because I can. I can because I want to. I wanted to because you said I couldn’t.
- If ignorance is bliss you must be the happiest person alive!
- Go find a cow because I’m sick of your bull!
- Please don’t interrupt me while I am ignoring you!
- If you are going to ride my ass at least pull my hair.
- Don’t hate me because you ain’t me.
- If only closed minds came with closed mouths.
- You laugh because I am different – I laugh because your all the same.
- I am multi-talented – I can talk and piss you off at the same time.
- Let me write that down in my “Things I Don’t Give A Fuck About” notebook.
To You From Me
Posted by ngriffin on May 8, 2007
Dear You:
I am sorry for the turmoil that I began for you within. Whatever the future has in store or what path in life we travel, you will always have your own special place in my heart that I will treasure till the end. I wish that I met you first along time ago but then for everything there is a reason that only time will tell. I am sorry that I seem distant and unfeeling but to have to walk away from you is nothing but pure hell. I only wish my heart was as cold as I know it seems to be but it is only an act that I have learned to perfect. Self – protecting me from me. If ever you need a friend, you know where I will be and there is nothing that I still would not do for you and all that could have been.
Sincerely,
Me
Posted in Creative Writing, Daily Journal, Letters, Life, Thoughts, love, personal | 1 Comment »
All We Dare Not Say
Posted by ngriffin on April 30, 2007
Holding back tears
as you walked away,
scared of something you feel
but dare not to say.
My tears flow like the cold winter rain.
Thinking of you, sleep finally came.
As the sun rose, I awoke to the new day.
Still, I think of you
and all we dare not say…………………
Posted in Creative Writing, Life, Light Verse, Poetry, Thoughts, love | 3 Comments »
Holding the Key to Your Happiness
Posted by ngriffin on April 30, 2007
Searching for something you can not find.
In the wrong one and all this time,
happiness stood before you.
and smiled her lovely smile.
Turning your head,
you closed your eyes.
Determined not to see
what you’ve sought for so long;
too stubborn to admit that just, maybe,
you’ve been so wrong.
Like the gentle summers breeze,
Happiness softly kissed your cheek.
Like the clouds, she floated away.
Into her future, without a word to say.
As years they pass, she had no regrets.
Though there were times, she looked back
and still, there you sit.
You gave up your search along time ago.
Your soul became consumed with foolish regret.
As for happiness, her future continues to shine.
Though, your memory remains locked within her heart.
Despite the past and the sadness you brought,
she will continue to love you till the end of her time.
…………………I Love You!! – Nicole Eakin
Posted in Creative Writing, Life, Light Verse, Poetry, Thoughts, love | Leave a Comment »
What Does A Reader Want?
Posted by ngriffin on April 19, 2007
Do you just sit down at the typewriter and say, “Page One?” If you can do that, go for it! I suggest developing a plan, by the time you sit down to write that first page, you will feel right at home. Let us first get a view of the issue at hand, what does the reader want from me?
A story. Everyone is looking for a new adventure. Or, “Give me a new, sexy life. Make me rich.” My point is that your reader is going to identify with someone in your book.
Whatever you choose to write about, you have to assure the reader in the first sentence that you are going to introduce him to his new identity. A new world. In the opening line of The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham: “I confess that when first I made acquaintance with Charles Strickland I never for a moment discerned that there was in him anything out of the ordinary.”
HHmmm, I am about to delve into someone else’s life, through the narrator, and I am going to witness something strange. Curiosity turns pages. Your opening line should arouse the readers curiosity.
O.K., so thats the opening line….what about the rest of the story? It is the thought of tackling a whole novel that is terrifying.
It shouldn’t be.
It’s a story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s all there is and we can handle that, right? Right.
The simple truth is that if you do not write it, you can’t get it published. Want to change the world? Build your own little world – on paper.
Posted in Creative Writing, Literature, Novels, Story, Storytelling, Writing | 3 Comments »
Visual Thesaurus: A Writing Tool
Posted by ngriffin on April 19, 2007
I came across Visual Thesaurus completely by accident. I was looking for software that would help me organize the chaos in my mind. I know, not an easy task but a lot of my good ideas get lost in all the muck my mind produces. I didn’t find anything that would work for me, mostly because after I found this thesaurus software I got caught up in exploring what it does different than my processors software. I found a thesaurus indispensable when actively pursuing the writing craft. We all have a tendency to use the same words over and over. By varying words that mean the same thing it can help creative writing come alive and a thesaurus can spark the mind into developing great metaphors.
What’s interesting about this software is how it displays the associated words. A long time ago I found a book by Gabriele Lusser Rico, Writing the Natural Way. The Tag line reads: Using Right-Brain Techniques to Release Your Expressive Powers: Clustering, Recurrence, Re-Vision, Image and Metaphor, Creative Tension, The Trial Web, Language Rhythm. It is a good book on unleashing stifled creativity through specific applied techniques. The only reason I’m mentioning this book is that the Visual Thesaurus software is using the clustering technique to display associated words.
The image is from Visual Thesaurus and they are clearly using the clustering technique, a visual display of like-meaning words, though not in quite the same way as in Rico’s book. Clustering, according to Rico, is a magical key to unlocking the secret reserves of imaginative power. It’s the first step to bypassing the logical, orderly Sign-minded consciousness to touch the mental life of daydreams, random thoughts, remembered incidents, images, or sensations.
Clustering is a nonlinear brainstorming process akin to free-association. It makes an invisible Design-mind process visible through nonlinear spilling out of lightning associations that allows patterns to emerge. Clustering is a writing exercise that accepts wondering, not-knowing, seeming chaos, gradually mapping an interior land-scape as ideas begin to emerge.
The image was taken from Rico’s book (click on the image for a larger view) and while clustering isn’t about finding a different or better word to use when crafting a story, the concept can be applied to what the Visual Thesaurus does provide. It may excite your senses enough to spawn new ideas for a story or merely offer other word choices. The software includes a definition for the main word and the little red dots also provide definitions of the words connected to them. They have a free demo. I’ve placed the free lookup search above my posts because it’s a cool tool and I liked the idea that my readers can search from my blog. It will take a few seconds for the word search to open but it’s worth the wait.
The software can be purchased and used on your desktop or you can purchase the online feature. I can’t decide which one to get. The desktop version is a one-time fee of $39.95 but you’d have to pay for any future updates. The online version is a smaller fee, $19.95 but it’s only good for one year, though all updates are included. There’s also a one month version for $2.95. I don’t think the online version would be good for those on a dial-up connection but if you have highspeed it could be the perfect choice. I may try the one month version and see if keeping everything I might use it for online is good choice or if it’s something I’d rather have on my desktop. Decisions .. decisions .. but whatever I choose will make my muse happy. She is jumping with glee because now I’m feeling an impulse to re-read Rico’s book and pen a creative thought or two.
I just had a thought … someone should create software for clustering. Not a search for a new word kind of thing but empty form fields encircling a word that can be filled in and with the ability to add more form fields attached to a word or group of words, similar to the image from Rico’s book. Now — if only I were a software developer — I could make a fortune! Hummm, maybe it’s been done already? I’ll have to do a search and see what’s out there in cyberdom. If anyone happens by and knows of software like this, please leave a comment. Or, if anyone tries the Visual Thesaurus, let me know what you think of it.
Posted in Writers Web, Writing Resources | Leave a Comment »
BrainSpace: Word Of The Day
Posted by ngriffin on April 19, 2007
Todays word of the day from dictionary.com is:
trice \TRYS\, noun:
A very short time; an instant; a moment; — used chiefly in the phrase “in a trice.”
thesaurus.com: flash, instant, moment
rhyming words: lice, price, give me some ice, high price, suffice, vice, splice, beau bice, concise, to the toss of the dice, three blind mice, i’m not naughty i am nice, red beans and rice, entice, asking price, device, chicken fried rice, word of advice, explosive device
Posted in BrainSpace, Word Of The Day | Leave a Comment »
Daily Journal: Writing Prompts
Posted by ngriffin on April 19, 2007
I have been slacking on my daily journal after coming back from vacation. Following, you will find some writing prompts that will help us all keep journaling…….
Try this: Think up a small business for yourself, silly or serious. Come up with a list of names for your business. Are any of them available as web domains?
Try this: Your face is on a Wanted poster! What notorious deeds could you have done to be ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’?
Try this: Write about a world without mathematics. How would everyday life be different? What would never have been invented? What inventions might replace things we take for granted now?
Try this: You accidentally step into someone else’s shoes and by some weird twist of fate, you become them and carry on their life. What do you miss most about the person you were before?
Try this: Pick an established story theme like Cinderella, cops and robbers, etc. Now add the unexpected. How would Cinderella’s story change if she were a blog fanatic? How would cops and robbers cope with a fire-breathing dragon named George?
Try this: Create a character and give them a family tree. Go all out, give them eccentric ancestors: world travelers, horse traders, mad scientists, whatever your creative bent comes up with. Don’t forget the dates for birth, marriages and deaths – drag out all the skeletons in the closet.
Try this: Choose something with a lot of pictures (magazine, newspaper, colouring book, etc.) then draw cartoon balloon dialogue for each person or character. Poke fun at them, use satire or sarcasm, whichever comes to you as you look at the pictures. Each picture is just one scene, not a whole conversation, how much can you get out of one balloon?
Try this: Write about the things in your junk drawer. Everyone has some place they stick the little things they could use someday: elastic bands, paperclips, scribbled notes, receipts, buttons, broken this and that. What’s the story in your junk drawer?
Try this: Write about someone you know, up close and personal – yourself. Describe yourself: physically, mentally, emotionally, your style, your flaws and eccentricities, what’s special about you, what are your motives and goals. Practice writing about others by writing about yourself.
Try this: Write one good thing about a very bad character and write one bad thing about a very good character. No one is black and white or made of cardboard. Give your characters life by having some shades of grey.
Try this: It’s an ordinary, routine morning. You step out the front door and… What happens?
Try this: Browse the racks of greeting cards in a store. Pick out one of the cards then write about the person who would send that card and the reason for sending it.
Try this: Describe a person (or a character you are writing) in ten words or less, bring them to life in one short sentence.
Try this: Look over your writing and pick out three words which you use frequently (maybe overuse?). Now, write without them. Look up substitute word in the thesaurus if you have to. See if you can get by without your old standbys.
Try this: Write yourself a letter to be opened one year from now. What goals do you have now? What do you hope to accomplish in the coming year? How are you feeling about yourself as a writer? Tell your future self something you want to remember a year from now.
Try this: Compose up to 50 words (not one over that limit) about the experience traveling of through a severe storm. Writing about anything with a limit of 50 words is challenging. So here’s a good test for your wordage. Have fun.
Try this: Take one intense emotion you’ve experienced (pain, fear, lust, anger) and give it to a fictional character. Make sure the character is not you. Create a scenario and involve another character as an antagonist or co-protagonist.
Try this: Describe an historical event that intrigues you. Use the perspective of someone who was really there but on the sidelines. How do they take part in some small way?
Try this: Write about the path not taken. Start with something you did today but imagine your day if you had made a different choice. Just something as simple as missing your bus, taking the other route, wearing a different shirt, etc.
Try this: Blogs are popular online now (online journals and scrapbooks) try writing your own ‘about me’ page for your blog. How much or how little would you say about yourself? Keep in mind the flavour of a blog: informal, opinionated and creative.
Try this: In honour of Valentines Day, write a really steamy love letter to someone real or imagined. Be shameless and daring, make it lusty and full of passion. Have fun with it.
Try this: Write about your perfect vacation. Where would you go, who with (or alone), what would you most like to do and how long would you stay away, if you could?
Try this: Try writing a short story without using the letter ‘e’. It’s much harder than it sounds. ‘E’ is the most often used letter. If that’s too frustrating, just pick a different letter to avoid. Work your way up to ‘e’.
Try this: Design a game. If you can draw add those too. But, game design starts with an idea and a story or plot to focus all the characters and play on. What kind of game would yours be: strategy, racing, role playing…?
Try this: Think of something you were really angry about and write a letter to whoever was responsible. Be as bitchy as you can. Don’t send it, just write it.
Try this: Write about your Christmas traditions. What are you favourite things, things you miss and things you can’t wait for?
Try this: How would your day go if it was a disaster? -Note: This exercise comes from: Fresh Ink
Try this: Imagine you’ve just moved. Consider the people or person who lived in the house before you. Write about their life and the home they made there.
Try this: Take your journal/ diary on a road trip. Write at least 3 pages in some location you have never written before. If you don’t keep a journal just bring along some paper and write!
Try this: Write about silence. Whether it’s a brief pin-prick of time or a long, drawn out moment, write about absolute silence.
Try this: Try to make a list of the best things you like about yourself. List at least 10 things. Don’t cop out either, you’ll know if it’s an honest list or fluff. Don’t cheat yourself or sell yourself short.
Try this: Write a weblog or online journal. Write one entry knowing masses of unknown people will be reading it. Write another as if your daughter or Mother were reading it. Lastly, write an entry no one will ever read but yourself. How much do you feel comfortable writing about yourself, who you are and what you really think?
Try this: Write a haiku about writing. Remember, a haiku is a short poem with 3 lines which have 5, 7, and 5 syllables. A haiku captures a specific moment.
Try this: Something really extraordinary has happened (a dragon gave you a treasure hoard, you won the biggest lottery jackpot ever, aliens from space came down to ask you for directions, etc) now… how do you get anyone to believe you? Physical evidence is not enough, you might be crazy enough to make that up yourself.
Try this: 1001 (or at least a hundred) uses for – last year’s calendar, a worn out toothbrush, roadkill, stale bread, flat pop, dirty laundry, AOL CDs – pick one or come up with your own.
Try this: Write about something you lost. Give it an adventure, what happened to it after you lost it?
Try this: Randomly pick two ads from the personals in your local newspaper. Give them a story, does it all work out or is it a complete disaster right from the start?
Try this: Consider your website (or your computer if you don’t have a site) and put together a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page all about your site. Don’t forget a guide to how to use the site as well as the purpose for it being there. Study a few other FAQs to get ideas.
Try this: Write a simple poem then change it to show happiness, fear, anger, love, and sadness. What words will you use differently? How will you change the rhythm of the words?
Try this: Write an advertising slogan or jingle for your favourite junk food.
Try this: Write a grocery list for a character in your story.
Try this: Write something for the holidays, a family newsletter, a scary story or a mushy love letter.
Try this: Pick an inanimate object, something ordinary like a light bulb, a coffee mug, or a carpet, and give it life. What does it think, feel? Answer as many who, what, where, when, why and how questions as you can. Then the real challenge, can you edit it down to just a few sentences?
Try this: Write a poem that could be placed on a spacecraft like the voyager, a poem that would explain to someone unfamiliar with the whole human race who we are, where we’ve been, why we act the way we do, and so on.
Try this: Use something you have written recently. Run a spellchecker over it. If any typos or spelling mistakes come up make note of them. Now, if your software has a grammar or style checker run that too. What kind of mistakes does it pick up? Write those down and find out how to fix them. Now, rewrite your original article or story. Run the same checks again and see if anything new comes up. Keep track of your most common errors and learn from them. You don’t have to be a grammar, punctuation or spelling queen but you should know your weak points and focus on them in your work. That way you will be the one in control and your quality of writing and communicating will improve.
Try this: Pretend you’re someone else. Choose someone you admire or someone you think interesting. Now write as if you were that person. What would their writing style be? What would they choose to write about?
Try this: Set an alarm clock to go off in 5 minutes. Sit with paper and pen (or computer keyboard) in front of you and don’t write anything at all until after the alarm goes off. Once the alarm sounds write as many ideas down as you can.
Try this: Write backwards. Begin your story from the ending and work your way back to the beginning. This way you’ve already finished writing your story, you just need to add in the details and in betweens.
Try this: Try writing like a theatre script. Show each action you want your characters to make and give stage directions. Now, take all that out and just leave dialogue. How much stage direction do your characters really need and how much is just extra stuff? Could your dialogue be getting lost in your stage directions?
Try this: Write a letter to someone you are angry or upset with. Spew at them, full force. Write all the things left unsaid, or the things you wish you had said at the time. But, don’t send the letter. Keep it as a journal entry, for your eyes only.
Try this: Suddenly you have dropped back in time, no explanations or warning. Do you see dinosaurs, druids, castles or pirates? Write about your first impressions. Don’t forget the who, where, smells, sounds, etc.
Try this: Write a fictional biography for yourself. Have grand adventures, scandalous love affairs, skeletons in your closets, secret criminal activities, and so on. Once you have it done re-work it to 300 words. Not more or less than 300.
Try this: Write an essay for a time capsule to be opened in 30 years. What would you tell yourself or whoever opens your time capsule then? What would you write about, yourself, life in the year 2002 or something else entirely?
Try this: Pretend you are a gossip columnist. Write about a recent personal encounter. Don’t use any names of people, places or things. How does that change your writing? Make you more aware of who, what, why, when and where?
Try this: Think of a place you feel passionate about, somewhere you have been often, whether its your favourite bookstore, garden or town. Now, write a journal about the trip. Include all the details like how it sounds, smells, your favourite spot or thing, where you found free parking, where’s the best view? Tell someone else all about your place, as if they were going there themselves.
Try this: Create a character with a secret to confess. Write their journal entries over the days, weeks, months they keep the secret. Show how it affects the people in their lives. Why do they continue to keep the secret? How does it affect them?
Try this: Practise paraphrasing. Take a large block of quoted text and pare it down to the bare essentials. This is a great skill to have for interviews or your own writing (if you tend to be wordy).
Try this: Find a newspaper article you feel passionate about and write a letter to the editor. Write as if you are going to send it in to be published, think carefully of each of your points, make sure the style is professional and then actually send it in.
Try this: Write a letter to one of your ancestors, someone you have never met but have heard something about. Or make up an ancestor. Tell them all about yourself, who you are, what makes you the person you are.
Try this: Write a letter to someone from another planet. Tell them about life on Earth. Describe everything to someone who may not know what air is, who has never heard of the fast food concept, etc.
Try this: Write out your favourite joke (or fairy tale or poem). Then rewrite that narrative as a tragedy, as a limerick, as a haiku, as a serious academic treatise, as a breaking news story, or as the script for a music video.
Try this: Eavesdrop on a conversation, capture a snippet of it in your mind. Write a story or scene using dialogue only. Since every scene in every story should contain conflict, you’ll want to keep this key concept in mind.
Try this: Watch something happen in public and remember what it was. Try and remember everything and write about it in detail.
Try this: Do a full character analysis. Create a real person: how they walk, the colours they like, who they most admire, where their family came from, their Mother’s maiden name, do they have a zit today and so on.
Try this: Your character is suddenly blinded and danger still abounds. Focus on those senses you might normally neglect when writing.
Try this: Design three tools, inventions, or customs for your science fiction or fantasy world.
Try this: In five hundred words or less, choose a superstition or old wives’ tale and describe how a character of your design came to learn it and/or who the character first remembers teaching it to him/her.
Try this: Choose a favourite fable, fairy tale or literary story. Pick a character (not the main characters) and tell the story through his or her eyes in five hundred words or less.
Try this: Write a poem describing the colour red to someone who has been blind from birth. Keep in mind, this person has never seen the typical things like fire, the sun, etc which you could use as a comparison. If poetry isn’t your thing, write in prose but try to be lyrical.
Try this: Pick out your favourite tape or CD and put it on. Sing a long, dance, pretend you are one of the backup singers or the singer herself. Put energy into it and go wild. Dress up like a rock star, grab a make-shift microphone and sing out loud. When you feel charged up write something.
Try this: Write about a dream, real or imagined. Be vivid. Dreams tend to jump around since they don’t have to make sense or be guided by rules of time and space.
Try this: Get away from your usual writing place. Go outside, get a coffee at the local diner, sit in your car and write. You may find it hard to adapt to the change but it could bring you all new perspectives.
Try this: Verbs make the world go round. With that in mind write a story where the characters are running out of time or involved in an extreme sport. Keep the action sharp and crisp with verbs.
Try this: Try a short word challenge. Write a short story using only words that have six letters or less. Really great practice at keeping it simple for anyone who tends to use ten dollar words when a 10 cent word would work just as well.
Posted in Creative Writing, Daily Journal, Ideas, Inspirational, Thoughts, Writing, personal | 3 Comments »
BrainSpace: Quote Of The Day
Posted by ngriffin on April 19, 2007
Today’s quote comes from quotatio.com:
“Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.” – Rod Serling
Posted in BrainSpace, Famous Quotes, Inspirational, Quotations | Leave a Comment »
