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Tried and failed ... and trying again ...

8/31/2017

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Resilience is a natural outcome of sequential failures while striving towards an ultimate goal.  Or, as Nikola Tesla famously said it, "I have not failed.  I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

And, so have I, upon occasion.  Fortunately, using digital media to type out my poems and blog posts saves me from having to frequently empty a garbage pail overflowing with waded up paper.

I’ve sometimes wondered just how high the heap would be in I had only availed myself of composing on disposable material instead, or how many bottles of correction fluid I might have emptied.

Recognizing failures and analyzing why they fail is key to growth.  Losses can lead to success, eventually, providing one continues unabated at some point.  Ah, but therein lies the precious key.

Growth requires patience and not a heavy, diligent hand.  Whenever I encounter an impasse in my writing, especially one that really wracks my brain, I save it, close the program and walk away.   

I have sometimes spent years on a poem, approaching it from a different angle, failing to resolve it, filing it away, and even rewriting it all over again.  It feels like failure each time, but I keep at it.

Perhaps a piece requires room to germinate.  Or could it be that I need to wait while my skills mature a bit more.  Occasionally, I’ll read some excellent poetry to stimulate a broader scope of things.

Over these many years of writing rhyming, metered verse, I’ve learned to recognize when it’s simply time to stop.  I do this out of respect for the piece rather than rushing it into a finished form.

Failing is generally part and parcel of achieving just about anything we hope to accomplish well.  So excuse me while I pick myself up, dust myself off, and have another go at another poem.


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Image: huffingtonpost.co.uk 
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Time to look myself in the I ... again.

8/24/2017

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Decades ago, I had a brief brush with esotericisism.  One proponent of that philosophical doctrine was P.D. Ouspensky, who postulated that we are each a collection of situationally dependent "I's."

For instance if you ask me today to help you move on Saturday, I would probably, and  magnanimously, say, "Sure.  I'll help you."  But on Saturday, I might chide myself with, "What was I thinking?"

An interesting premise.

So, what would happen, I wonder, it I arrived at my friends location on the appointed day and declared that the wrong Janice had agreed to help out ... not the Janice who showed up, and wants to leave?

This doesn't quite work in real-world situations.  Instead, if we find ourselves disinclined to help after all, we might offer tedious excuses, or simply not show up at all.  Each of these options is disingenuous.

The same can be said of maintaining of blog, i.e., when the "I" which loves writing these posts is not in sync with the "I" which must be goaded up to the keyboard because my ideas are lurking elsewhere. 

So, having boxed myself into a weekly blog schedule, the words, "What was I thinking?" frequently come to mind.  However, knowing that my muse will eventually show up, this "I" will bide awhile.

And sure enough, voila!  Another blog post emerges.  For me, my multiple "I's" (if you accept this concept) tend to cycle around a bit, and I need only wait for the correct "I" to take its turn.  No problem.     
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Image: momtastic.com
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Free!!!  My Echoes eBook is FREE!!!

8/16/2017

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As I mentioned in my most recent blog post, the eBook of my first book of poetry,
 Echoes, Neo-Victorian Poetry, is FREE for download today and tomorrow ....... August 18th and 19th! .......

This book was 50 years in the making, so to speak, and it is my honor to offer you this free two-day giveaway.  Simply click here for your FREE copy. 

In this collection of my rhyming, metered verse you may decide to linger a while in Johnny's tavern, or experience a terrible shipwreck in 1739.

Replete with imagery, romance, and adventure, these poems are stories, intended to be experienced in your own time, in your own way.

Why not head on over to Amazon.com today or tomorrow and download your FREE e-Book of Echoes, Neo-Victorian Poetry by clicking here. Enjoy!


Image: Janice T
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A short dissertation on "Show don't tell."

8/10/2017

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​Show, don't tell, is a technique of writing which lets the reader experience a story through action, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through exposition, summarization, and description.

During my adolescent years, one of my favorite authors was William Sydney Porter, who went by the pen name O'Henry.  I loved his almost rather expert show, don't tell style of writing.

For example, my all-time favorite O'Henry sentence occurs when his main protagonist, Jeff Peters, introduces his friend, Andy Tucker, by way of the man's singular character trait: 


"Whenever he saw a dollar in another man's hand he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn't get it any other way."  The Octopus Marooned.

In another example of Show, don't tell, Anton Chekhov writes, "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

And, in The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler illustrates the utter boredom of Philip Marlowe thusly: ​"Mostly I was killing time," he said, "and it died hard."

This technique is elemental to much of my poetry, especially when my aim is to envelop the reader in the ambiance of a piece, and serves as a handy short cut approach to the reader's  imagination.  
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There it is: show, don't tell.

On a side note ... FREE DAY ... FREE DAY ... on August 18th and 19th my eBook, Echoes, Neo-Victorian Poetry, will be free for download on Amazon.com.   Enjoy!!!






Image: http://www.chartvalley.com​
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    About the author:

    I've written many poems over the years.  This blog is a preview of my books: Echoes, Neo-Victorian Poetry (April 2013), Echoes ll, More Neo-Victorian Poetry (May 2014), Echoes lll, Even More Neo-Victorian Poetry, (August 2016), A Compilation of Echoes. (September 2016), and When None Command (April 13, 2019)

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