Creativity and Inspiration

Winners! Summer 21 Poetry Contest.

Winners! Summer 21 Poetry Contest.

Thanks to all the poets from all over Canada who entered our Summer 21 Poetry Contest. Today, the 21st we take great pleasure in announcing and congratulating the top three winners:

Drum roll please……

  • 1st Place: Marg Kropf – Coming of Age
  • 2nd Place: Les Robling – XXI
  • 3rd Place: Reva Nelson – Twenty-one and Done

Before you read the winning poems and why we chose them, here is what the contest asked for:

Compose a 21-line poem in any form, where the subject matter evokes some aspect of the number 21. Your poem does not have to actually contain the words “twenty-one”, although you are welcome to do so. The title is not considered one of the 21 lines.

Winner: Marg Kropf – “Coming of Age”

COMING OF AGE
 
 They reproach, these stops and starts
 Of children’s feet
 My measured tread
 Along a dusty street,
 Along the hopscotch lines
 So crazily bent
 Around the jagged cracks
 In the cement.
 Children dash against the sun
 And I can see
 That they are at some game
 And unaware of me.
 Their looks cry out,
 “Too late. It is too late!
 You are the traveller
 Who can pass this gate
 But once, then vanish
 In an angry sun.”
 I feel old, old,
 Immeasurably old.
 Tomorrow I will be twenty-one.


Judges’ Comments on “Coming of Age”

On the cusp of full adulthood, our narrator is acutely aware that a return to childhood is not an option. The imagined admonishments of the children symbolize the vanished years, and their imagined taunts sting. The children can brave dusty streets and jagged cracks in the cement; indeed, they can dash against the sun. Fearless. And, of course, there’s an underlying reminder to any reader beyond the age of 21, that this too is no longer attainable. We’re reminded how, at our own age of twenty-one, we felt about aging; how each year passes and leaves us feeling old, old, immeasurably old.

On first reading, the ending comes as a surprise, despite the title, because the poet so accurately captures the heavy feeling of being old that we can imagine a much older narrator. In the first lines, are images and connotations of heaviness and age, of a life measured: feet and treads, numbers and prescribed routes in hopscotch, lines and roads that point to journeys made and the nod to the children’s rhyme “Step on a crack/ Break your mother’s back,” as well as the sensory details that feed the emotion: dusty, crazily bent, jagged cracks.

At the first turn, the mood lightens as we witness the children and their imagination game. Here the movement is fast and sunny and loud. And then the final turn back to the narrator, I feel old… setting us up for the kicker last line.

The poem is further supported by an intriguing rhyme scheme and rhythm that hearkens to the unbalanced feeling of the narrator, especially with the extra penultimate line that throws the scheme off just before the final statement.

2nd Place: Les Robling – XXI

XXI 

Just one topic comes to mind,
 Bill Twenty One, cruel unkind.
 A misaligned, nasty law,
 No matter how it's written down
 Causing many a facial frown,
 An act around a social flaw.
 
 Banning ethnic dress and symbol
 Crosses, hijabs, turbans and all,
 Casts a pall on a nation
 Denied the right to free choice;
 Discrimination all should voice
 Not rejoice this indignation.
 
 What a year, what a frightful age,
 Covid pandemic, nature's rage,
 A rampage across the land -
 Fever, dry cough, tiredness,
 Painful death from this virus
 Undesirous deadly hand.
 
 Yet, covid will be slayed, soon now;
 But this Bill lives on, somehow,
 Twenty one, merde, disallow

Judges’ Comments on “XXI”

Roman numerals in the title create curiosity about the poem to come. Rhyming couplets and metrical structure are tough to pull off in a poem without it reading like a greeting card. This poet wisely avoids a simple AABB scheme and opts to vary the rhythm and tone with an AABCCB for three full stanzas and then ties it nicely with a triplet stanza at the end.

A clever use of internal rhyme again keeps the greeting card element at bay: down, frown, around; choice, voice, rejoice; tiredness, virus, undesirous. And enjambment of some lines further helped to keep the rhyme from calling attention to itself because the content spans the lines and carries the reader with it: Banning ethnic dress and symbol / Crosses, hijabs, turbans and all, / Casts a pall on a nation

This poet is to be applauded for risking a topical and controversial subject, as good poets have done through the ages. In many ways this poet pulled it off. Reserving personal opinion, however, and merely presenting facts and images and possibilities so that the reader comes to that opinion on their own, would make this even stronger.

3rd Place – Reva Nelson – Twenty-one and Done

TWENTY-ONE AND DONE 

When my son was eleven 
I was imparting some motherly wisdom 
On choices and values 
He questioned why 
I was telling him this 
Since his values were in place 

“I’m done, Mom, you’ve told me 
You don’t need to tell me again.”
 
“What do you mean you’re done 
Are you a Christmas turkey?" I asked 

By eighteen I thought now he’s done 
Off to university and safe 
But many new challenges emerged 
And I wasn’t done either 

At twenty-one I thought now he’s done 
And I am finished parenting 
Not so, not done 

Now, years later, my grandson is turning one 
I see that no one is done 
Not even me

And parenting is infinite
roast turkey


Judges’ Comments on “Twenty-One and Done”

There is a solid progression here with touchstones of ages 11, 18, 21 and beyond and back to 1. The last full stanza brings us full circle to the wisdom our narrator gains. As much as she wanted to impart wisdom to her young son, she (and we readers) are reminded that gaining wisdom is not something that can be measured in years. Indeed, our grandmother narrator is still gaining wisdom.

Use of actual dialogue in this poem gives the reader insights into character without having to describe or filter the view. A touch of humour lightens what could have been a dry delivery, given the prosaic style. While this narrative structure offers a useful parable, and a recognizable theme to engage readers, a stronger sensory engagement through use of poetic devices or form or use of the senses would bring the reader closer to the poem on an emotional level.

Last Word

So there you have it. Congratulations to the winners and indeed, congratulations to everyone who entered. As all writers know, submitting is the hardest part.

A True Story

A True Story

Ruth E. Walker

Mark Twain said it well: Truth is stranger than fiction. Write on, Mr. Twain. The best fiction feels real, often because it is imparting some kind of truth on human behaviour. But writers have to watch that their desire to “tell the truth” doesn’t push their stories into a place readers can’t accept.

Many a writer has met with this kind of criticism, “That’s not believable. That would never happen in real life.” But, again and again, we writers cry out, “Real life is unbelievable.”

Well sure. Sometimes so unbelievable to some as to put them in harm’s way.

Many didn’t believe certain politicians could ever rise up to achieve power – Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump come to mind here. And many people still don’t believe that COVID-19 is anything more than a flu bug.

Readers are the arbiters of what is an acceptable “unbelievable” and writers must remember that. If you receive that “unbelievable” feedback from editors or beta readers, take a closer look at how you set up what readers can’t seem to swallow.

Consider Germany in the 1920s and ’30s. Many factors were in place to allow Hitler’s hateful spewing to strike a resonant chord with much of the population. Now, consider what is unrealistic in your work. Did you offer any subtle threads early on to support it? Are there scenes where some character or characters doubt the “unbelievable” and give an opportunity for another character to explain? Did you make the illogical logical – making it fit the situation?

Dealing in “the truth” is tricky business for writers. As Mark Twain suggests, it is stranger than fiction.

Fiction becomes truth

My childhood was full of science fiction imaginings: space travel, aliens, robots, other dimensions, time travel. But it was all fiction. Until, that is, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and space travel became believable.

But aliens? Other dimensions? Time travel? Impossible. Imagine the US military ever taking UFO sightings as real…oh wait.

They have? Cool!

Now coined UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon), the strange documented sightings are the subject of a 2021 Pentagon report and investigative interest. The jet pilots and sonar operators were not all nuts after all. The possibilities boggle the mind. Are these elusive sightings alien technology or have foreign governments got some super secret experiments going on? Or are we being visited by our own future via time travelling tourists? “Look Mira. That’s what they called ‘cars’ back then.”

Do you see where I’m going with this? Were your writing wheels turning?

Truth becomes fiction

Strange and unbelievable truths have been an interest of mine for as long as I can remember. Odd, out-of-the-way museums and tourist traps have always offered up great stuff. In St. Petersburg, Florida, a taxidermy display of a two-headed calf was eerily intriguing. In that same over-filled museum – a true labour of love with faded typewriter labels and signage announcing each item – I puzzled over the series of plaster death masks of Beethoven and other famous folk.

All of this clutter cheek to jowl with the “world’s largest collection of seashells in North America.” How could anyone deny it. It was there in black and yellowing white, typed with the energy of righteous truth, right down to the errant “e” that always arrived a pica or two above the other letters.

One day, I’m writing a story about Elmira Everley who sits in a cramped back room, hunched over her old Underwood typewriter, unsticking the “e” key every time she has to use it. And she uses it a lot. Elmira loves Sebastian Kohl who owns this museum and he happily accepts any and all donated items, no matter their supposed provenance or condition…including the Underwood that Hemingway wrote on. Hmmm.

I’m not the only one inspired by real life. There’s been many unbelievable real situations that have found their way into books and movies.

Unbelievable facts

True crime writer Ann Rule wrote “The Stranger Beside Me” after discovering that the serial killer she was tracking turned out to be her friend, Ted Bundy. Imagine her shock to learn the sadistic murderer of at least 30 young women was the “kind” psychology student she worked with at a crisis hotline in 1971.

Life is full of intriguing situations and people. In 1928, Christine Collins reported that her 9-year-old son Walter was missing. Five months later, the Los Angeles police arrived with Walter who they found in Illinois. But Collins said it wasn’t her son. The boy said he was Walter and the police were convinced that he was. The poor mother was considered “hysterical” and ended up in a psychiatric ward for questioning. Eventually evidence connected Walter’s disappearance to a serial killer. This story – or a version of it – became the Clint Eastwood film “The Changeling.”

So many other true-life situations have been recreated in books. Emma Donohue’s novel “Room” finds its real-life roots in the story of Josef Fritzl who chained his own teenaged daughter in his basement for 18 years.

The life of five-year-old Sheru Khan who fell asleep on a train and ended up 1,500 kilometers away. Adopted by an Australian family, the now-adult Saroo Brierley used Google Earth to pinpoint his original home and family from bits of landmark memories he still held. The book “A Long Way Home” became the inspiration for the film, “Lion.”

Some real-life inspiration for you

Imagine attending a funeral for a woman, mourned by her husband and her seven children. She was brutally murdered and her husband is devastated.

But wait.

Who is standing on the sidewalk outside the funeral home? His beloved wife? Unbelievable!

You can bet her husband was truly shocked, especially after she proved not to be a ghost. But his shock wasn’t related to her being alive as much as what happened to the money he’d paid a gang to murder her. They told him they disposed of her body. Yet here she was. Who was in that coffin? What kind of hitmen choose to not murder the wife? What would happen next?

This February 2016 article in The Washington Post caught my eye. You can read all the details if you want.

OR

You can first wake up your muse and head to your creative space and see where this set up of a story takes you. What kind of hit men would take money to murder someone but then not do it? Did she persuade them to stop? Imagine what kinds of “moral codes” were motivating them. And why didn’t she just head straight to the police instead of letting the charade continue? And once again, who the heck was in that coffin?

There are so many threads to pick up without knowing the rest of story. Let’s see what you come up with. Then read the rest of the story. It’s unbelievable.

10 Ways To Use Personal Papers

10 Ways To Use Personal Papers

Paper is the writer’s friend, especially when you have a great idea in a restaurant and want to scribble down the main points but your cell phone is dead and your laptop is back at home and the idea is losing its thread and you’re desperate…ah-ha! The crumpled napkin from your lunch sits next to your pen and…you create a masterpiece outline. Too bad it fell out of your pocket as you left the restaurant. See #10 on what might become of your great idea.

There are all kinds of personal papers just waiting for writers to mine the gold found within. For July’s 10 on the 10th, here’s 10 takes on what you might discover.

1.   Excerpts from diaries and journals can fill in details in a story without being an “As You Know, Bob” moment. Be careful though — avoid info dumps or long boring passages — create excerpts that seem real while providing only the details the character (and readers) need to know.

Use this technique if it’s a logical addition and not “oh yeah, the reader needs to know there’s a secret rendezvous place so let’s have the character who can barely read suddenly have a journal with all the details conveniently hidden under her bed…”

2.   Actual diaries and journals can be a tremendous research rabbit hole for writers to fall into. Tantalizing pieces of history are on offer that often set up more questions than answers:

Today, we stopped at Aunt Mable’s farm. Cousin Dedalaus refused to come out and say hello. After we left, Papa said we weren’t to ever go back there. Mama just smiled and said We’ll see.

3.   Shopping lists can give insights to character personalities such as someone who claims to be on a diet yet has ice cream, sugary drinks, cookies and candies on their list.

Or how about a character who writes their shopping list in alphabetical order: apples, auger, bananas, bread, garden hoe, jam, measuring cup, milk, onions, plywood, yams, yellow spray paint.

Or a character who creates a shopping list by cutting out the pictures from grocery store flyers and pastes them onto a sheet of paper?

Why not just take the flyer along and circle the items to buy? Well, maybe she needs items that are not all shown on one store’s flyer. Or maybe he has a thing for certain coloured foods. See how you can play with it, writer?

4.   Shopping lists (or lists in general) can create questions when there’s something strange in the mix such as:

  • take the dog to the vets
  • pick up order from hardware store
  • call Calli’s dance teacher to rebook
  • rotate the body in the freezer

5.   Letters can deliver surprises – Twists and turns in your plot can arrive in the mail — and of course, that can be via email. But there’s something offered in an envelope that email can’t capture. Before pressing SEND, consider ideas around handwriting versus typed addresses, and scented paper, or fancy seals on the flap.

Email will deliver the news but anyone who mails a letter or card these days is offering a bit of insight into who they are and perhaps even their motivation:

  • Hello. You don’t know me but your father and my father were the same person. Call me if you want to know more. (what reader isn’t going to want the character to make that call?)
  • Dear Homeowner, did you know your house is built over the remains of a sacred Druid site? (again, the reader’s interest is piqued)

6.   Letters can add layers to relationships — Again, there are differences offered in snail mail vs email. But no matter which you opt for, the opportunity to enrich your story is there for the taking:

Dear Algernon, I haven’t been able to sleep more than an hour or two each night without knowing if you have any feelings for me. Last weekend at the dance, you spent almost the whole time with other women. But when you took me in your arms for the last dance, the warmth of your hand on the small of my back and the intensity of how you looked at me almost the whole time — Algernon, please tell me I’m not imagining things. In breathless hope, Hortense

7.   Letters can reveal character — So, about that layering of the relationship. What Hortense perceives can be made clear to the reader if her correspondence gets this kind of reply :

Dear Hortense. Thank you for your charming letter. I confess to being confused, however. As an instructor, I’m required to dance with all the women in class. As you must know, it would be difficult for us to waltz without placing my hand on the small of your back. As to intensity of expression, that might have been my effort to avoid your rather sharp heel landing on my feet. Again. And it might also explain my waiting until the last dance before escorting you to the dance floor. I wish you only the best in any future dance classes. Regrettably, my classes are all full for the foreseeable future. Sincerely, Algernon

8.   Classified ads can be a treasure trove of inspiration and ideas. Who hasn’t been moved by this famous six-word story, attributed to Ernest Hemingway and framed like a Buy & Sell advert: For sale, baby shoes, never worn.

But actual classified, “For Sale: Gently used prosthetic arm”, and especially the personals, can inspire or confuse – or both. Like this gem culled from New York magazine early-1990 archives:

Lovely, Lively, Literate — Lean, Lollobrigida-like NY lady — longs for love, laughter, languid lunches, lunar libations, with legally-free, long, lean, literate, loquacious non-lunatic, 40s–50s. recent photo, personal note.

Was she a writer with a penchant for alliteration? The possibilities loom large.

9.   Glossy ads and feature articles are full of interesting characters and scenarios that can inspire ideas, such as beautiful happy people driving shiny sports cars with the top down on treacherous mountain roads. What’s waiting beyond the next bend?

Some ads are deliberately provocative, such as Australia Ad Standards: If You Are A Woman Don’t Bother Reading This Ad, meant to highlight unacceptable issues in advertising like sexism, racism, and other social issues.

And some ads are simply head-scratchingly inspirational for backstory, as in who thought a sarcastic ad about zits and a teen’s lovelife was a good idea?

10.   Discarded scraps with phone numbers, cryptic notes, and even doodles can trigger ideas, questions and creative thinking. The Litter I See Project features poetry and prose based on found litter.

Since June 2015, Carin Makuz, has been sharing intriguing images of her trash-on-the-ground discoveries on her website and Facebook page, and more than 100 writers have answered her call. Visitors to the website can donate directly to Frontier College, a well-respected national literacy program for adults, youth and children.

Now that’s taking lost, forgotten or unloved items to a very good place. And the poems and stories are terrific examples of what you can do with scraps and scrawls.

Bedtime Stories

Bedtime Stories

Ruth E. Walker

Lately, I’ve been trying to change my sleeping habits to make room for reading at bedtime. Truth be told, it hasn’t gone as well as I hoped. I used to read before bed almost every night. But now? It’s a struggle.

Much of my working day involves reading as an editor. It’s a demanding task I enjoy and I’m pretty good at it. But it means that by the time I’m ready to hit the hay, my eyes are tired and my brain is fuddled.

Reading for pleasure at bedtime – reading to escape – I keep putting that off, reasoning “tomorrow night for sure.” I tried taking the task down to short fiction. I’ve tried reading on my Kobo. I’ve tried going to bed earlier. Sometimes, it works. But not consistently. And less and less often.

Why does my reading matter?

Reading was what brought me to language in the first place. And I feel a desperate need to find that excitement again. I can still clearly recall my mother’s finger tracking under the dark marks on the page. It was a flash of recognition, of connecting the sounds and words from her voice to those marks. “Look, Mommy. That’s the same one. A. And there’s another one. A. And that says and, right Mommy?” I was three years old.

In that instant, I recognized the power of the secret I uncovered. And soon after, I understood the power those words had to carry me away, open up new worlds and be something that belonged to me. Only to me.

As an adult, reading continued to feed my soul and when I read at bedtime, it seeded my brain with ideas and wild imaginings: the creative side of me.

Beyond the intrinsic value of me reading for my soul, my work as an editor benefits from reading polished, published work. But I must also read widely to be current on genre and discover new ways of putting sentences on the page. And it helps to keep my own voice separate when I edit other writers’ manuscripts. So, of course I read during the day.

Why does your reading matter?

Only you know your relationship with words and those first fledgling steps you took to books and reading. But I can be sure of one thing and if you can think back to those first books, so can you.

The more that you read and understood, the more your brain sparked with curiosity. Our developing brains needed that stimulation. Our imaginations needed to realize they were limitless. Our empathy and compassion needed books and stories to expand our humanity.

All of my 10 grandchildren have great relationships with books. From babies to toddlers to youngsters, books have formed a solid foundation. They pick the books. They enjoy the public libraries. And their parents read to them.

Books, storytelling and nightly bedtime stories are key to a child’s development. But it’s all part of the larger whole. The children’s publisher, Scholastic, shows how physical activities can support reading skills: patterns of clapping, foot stomping and movement help children recognize the rhythms and patterns in stories, for example.

But all that growth and development doesn’t stop with maturity. And I suspect my lack of bedtime reading has something to do with my so-so creativity. I can blame the editing workload, the garden makeover and the distraction of the pandemic all I want, but it’s time to get on with it. Time to get excited by the power of words — my words.

Time for a reading re-set

Last night, I took down from the shelf Frances Itani’s Tell. That novel has been on my shelf for three years, ever since I finished the last pages of her gorgeous novel Deafening. I kept the reading light on and read through the first couple of chapters — engaged and excited to rediscover the people of Deseronto post-WWI. And I put down the book, ready to sleep.

Tonight, I’m picking Tell up again at bedtime. I’m committed to gift myself with the time to read before going to sleep. May it be the first of many great books that will nudge my dreams and wild imaginings.

I’m making time to feed my slumbering soul.

Re-emerging: Pen in Hand

Re-emerging: Pen in Hand

Ruth E. Walker

I don’t know about you, but I suspect most people want to see the back end of COVID as desperately as I do.

My writing has suffered these past few months and I’ve been grateful to this blog for forcing me to engage BIC (bum in chair) and regularly pen some creative words.

But now it seems there is light on the horizon. Cases are way down. Second vaccinations are happening with greater frequency. Restaurants, retail and rec centres are easing back to life. And yeah, the warmth of early summer and longer spans of daylight are tickling our imaginations. My creative self is getting excited – and not just about COVID taking a walk into the sunset.

Just the other day Gwynn and I confirmed that Writescape’s long-delayed 2020 spring retreat was going ahead. Of course, we can’t keep calling our annual retreat Spring Thaw because it’s happening in October. So, we’ve just stuck with Writescape’s Fall Retreat: Re-emerging.

We’re thrilled that almost all the retreat participants who signed up as far back as December 2019 are able to join us this fall.

Reasons to get excited

Fully equipped cottage kitchen at Elmhirts’s Resort

Elmhirst’s Resort confirmed our cottages will be ready, and that all cleaning and safety protocols are constantly updated to meet the local health unit standards and provincial regulations. Elmhirst’s has always gone above and beyond to make our retreats an amazing experience and we’re confident that tradition will continue. Frankly, we expect that by October 15, our annual retreat won’t look too different than our retreats have for more than 10 years previous.

Writing on the deck

We will both still read and review 10 ms pages submitted to us in advance. And we’ll sit down for a one-on-one feedback session with those writers. And we’ll be available for individual consults that can be deep discussions or just bouncing ideas around. We’ll ensure each cottage is stocked with breakfast items so writing in pajamas remains an option. Gwynn and I will deliver group creativity sessions and there’ll be plenty of time for private writing. And lunch and dinner are always prepared so no need to stop to cook when you’re on a roll.

Of course, how some of this happens may be a bit different to ensure a safe space but the vibe we create: escape to focus on your own writing – that won’t change.

Heather M. O’Connor with Betting Game through Orca Books

Our philosophy has always been to curate a space in which writers can escape daily life and immerse in their projects. Over the years, we’ve watched stories, novels, memoirs and non-fiction books take shape and several secured a publishing home.

Barbara Wackerle Baker’s YA novel

Writers on retreat find space in which to imagine, start, revise and/or finish their stories. Connections with other writers are made. Characters and plots discovered. Ideas for marketing and publishing tips are shared.

Maighread MacKay’s mystery series

All of that is what excites Gwynn and me. To see it unfold and know that we’ve had an important part in a writer’s journey.

Are you ready to retreat?

We still have room for a few more writers to join us. A $250 deposit guarantees your space. Our brochure outlines our agenda and registration details are on our website.

Aerial view of Elmhirst’s Resort on Rice Lake

Nestled on the shores of Rice Lake, Elmhirst’s Resort’s amenities offer guests many ways to reflect and rejuvenate. Given the past year, I can’t think of a better way to recharge my writing.

We’ve blogged in the past about the joys of writing retreats. One way or another, find a way to treat yourself and escape to write.

10 Signs You Need a Writing Retreat in case you didn’t know you actually needed a retreat. 😊

How to Pack for a Writing Retreat covers some of the things you might not think about bringing along. It’s more than stuff in your suitcase.

10 Peeks into a Writing Retreat shares prompts and tips gleaned from our decade-plus of companion workbooks provided at our retreats.

Of course, once you have gone on retreat Coming Home from Retreat: Reality offers practical and self-care tips when the heady joys of writing on retreat land back to face the daily grind of life.

And finally, Your Anytime Writing Retreat offers ideas and solutions for writers who can’t join us this fall for our Re-emerging retreat. There are ways to curate your own escape.

Last Word

Just a quick reminder that our Summer 21 Poetry Contest deadline draws nigh. Enter your 21-line poem — any form or style — for a chance to win full bragging rights and honours, publication on our blog and a copy of Gwynn’s newest chapbook, Ten of Diamonds.

Rules, regulations and details on our website.

Poetic Synchronicity

Poetic Synchronicity

Gwynn Scheltema

I never cease to be amazed at synchronicity in life.

In my county this week, The Art Gallery of Northumberland launched a collaborative project with three area libraries. They riffed off the idea of “little libraries” that has been around for some time—and which we covered in a previous post—only this time they are offering visual art rather than books on a take-one-leave-one basis. What fun!

And then what should I find, but a poem about this very same idea only with poetry. How’s that for synchronicity in action! It’s called “Poetry Caching in Spring” by Linda Varsell Smith and was posted on poetscollective.org

Poetry Caching in Spring

A realtor box
 with free poems staked in yard
 awaits visitors

Some walkers pick up
 poems, thinking house for sale
 crumble, toss poems

Rain seeps in the box
 dribbles down smudging pages
 Sun will curdle them

Walkers sit on wall
 resting, reading poems, put
 in backpacks or hands

Yanked up by the stake
 to mow lawn, rests on trash cans
 near camellias

Hail pelts plastic
 casing, white as snow, soft ping
 droned out by traffic

Stick-on, raised letters
 offer poetry to all
 who come to pass by

And, here’s where synchronicity really goes into overdrive: “Poetry Caching in Spring” it is a 21-line poem written in a 21-line poetry form called an Ethnographic Haiku—a perfect form for our Summer 21 Poetry Contest.

Ethnographic Haiku

An ethnographic haiku poem is made up of 7 haiku, in the usual 5-7-5 syllable line format, but the subject of the whole poem (in the case of “Poetry Caching in the Spring”, it is the box of poetry) should have a relationship with the environment.

Additionally, the poet is required to evoke at least three of the five senses and each haiku should represent one day in a full week in the life of the subject. The form is titled and punctuation is optional. That’s quite a tall order, but Linda Varsell Smith certainly pulls it off beautifully in her poem.

I cannot verify who came up with this form, but the details for writing one appear in Syllables of Velvet, a book of poetic forms collected by Linda Varsell Smith who writes in her intro:

“I found these forms in handbooks and on the Internet. I have worked on playing with forms in four previous books dealing with forms. Cinqueries: is a book filled with cinquos and lanternes. Fibs and Other Truths showed the many variations of fibs. Poems That Count is a collection of many syllabic, metric and word counting forms and examples. Poems That Count Too is a further collection of counting forms with examples. Syllables of Velvet incorporates all the forms in the previous books plus many discoveries beyond. I wrote at least one example for over 300 of them and directions how to do many other forms.”

Distorted Diablo

I was further surprised to find another 21-line poetic form, created by Pat Simpson, called a Distorted Diablo.

This form plays, as its name suggests, with the number 666, commonly known as the biblical devil’s number. The distortion comes from flipping the central 6 upside down into a 9 to get the new number 696. These numbers now become the line form of the poem: a stanza of 6 lines, followed by a stanza of 9 lines and finishing with a second 6-line stanza for a total of 21 lines.

In addition, the sixain segments are both written with 6 syllables per line and the middle 9-line stanza has 9 syllables in each line. Rhyming is optional. My instinct if I were writing a Distorted Diablo would be to make my content devilish or distorted, but apparently subject matter is not prescribed.

Here is an example of a Distorted Diablo called “Ode to Volunteers.”

Summer 21 Poetry Contest

So that brings me to a reminder about our Writescape Summer 21 Poetry Contest.  The two forms above may tickle your muse, but poems can be any form you like. Just remember that the poem must be 21 lines long and evoke some aspect of the number 21 such as age of majority, or blackjack or 21 ways to… etc. We gave you lots of examples in the contest announcement blog. The contest is free to enter. Deadline is June 30 and the winner will be announced on July 21.

Full submission details here. We look forward to seeing your poem.

Summer 21 Poetry Contest
A Writer’s Power Tool

A Writer’s Power Tool

Ruth E. Walker

A recent newscast featured a Saskatchewan couple who’ve been waiting for months to celebrate Christmas with their grandchildren. As the pandemic lockdown has eased in their region, and gatherings are now possible, they could celebrate together at last.

But they didn’t have to pull out the holiday trimmings. The holiday tree, adorned in lights and ornaments, and the carefully wrapped presents under that artificial tree have been waiting since December for restrictions to loosen and for family to gather.

What on earth could inspire a family to be ready for Christmas all this time? Day after pandemic day, looking at the reminder of what didn’t happen. The grandkids’ gifts unopened. The goofy animated décor gathering dust, still and silent. What kept them optimistic?

Hope

It is the saving grace of the human race. The thing that keeps many of us going when everything seems impossible, frightening or deadly. Hope.

John William Waterhouse

In Greek mythology, Pandora (meaning All Gifts) was created by Zeus’s order to punish mortals for receiving the gift of fire from Prometheus. Zeus designed Pandora to have insatiable curiosity and when he gives her a jar as a wedding gift, he tells her never to open it. Sure enough, she eventually can’t resist and the miseries and evils – greed, avarice, jealousy, hatred, cowardice, illnesses, pestilence – were all released.

Interestingly, ancient versions of this myth have all sorts of variations:

  • the jar was full of blessings, not evils
  • Zeus had two jars in Olympus, one with blessings and one with evils
  • Pandora’s husband, Epimetheus (meaning Afterthought), opened the jar, his name suggesting he learned from making mistakes like that one

Good with the bad

Not only did the ancients write various interpretations of the myth, over the centuries, translations and poetic license gave readers alterations to Pandora’s tale. In the version I learned as a child, the jar was a box like in Waterhouse’s painting and one thing remained inside: Hope. Hope begged to be released too and when released, gave all suffering mortals something to keep them going.

But is Hope a two-edged sword? Does it underpin all stories from the romantic to tragedies? Do readers hope for the lovers to finally find each other or hope that survivors will find the strength to carry on?

And what about our real lives? Hope surely underpins real lives, keeping us going when all is bleak. But sometimes Hope prolongs our agonies, offering something to sufferers that cannot be.

What drives your stories?

Just as we writers hope our work will find an audience, hope provides powerful motivation to characters in stories. And as we’ve suggested again and again, motivation drives your characters and keeps a forward momentum in your stories.

Your characters want to win the race, to learn the family secret, to escape from poverty, to slay the dragon and release the captives. And your readers are right there with them, cheering them on, hoping they achieve their goal. Unless, of course, you’ve not capitalized on the idea of motivation.

As you edit, look for motivation:

  • Make it clear in beginning chapters – what does your character want?
  • Keep it the driver of your main character – tie in reactions, choices, behaviour
  • Avoid motivation that makes no sense – unless it is key to creating a conflicted character

As your character grows emotionally (character arc) that motivation (want) can change and often does.

Winning the race becomes less important when she realizes the prize at the end is not worth leaving friends and family behind. Releasing the prisoners won’t succeed even if he slays the dragon unless he finds and defeats the dragon master.

Hope holds lots of power to motivate your characters. But you can motivate your characters through other powerful emotions: fear, longing, grief and so on. No matter the choice, don’t lose sight of it as you write and look for its presence as you edit.

Speaking of Hope:

Gwynn and I hope you don’t miss our summer contest, closing June 30th. It’s a fun way to imagine Summer ’21, the most hopeful summer in a long time.


Celebrate with us the Summer of ’21 and create a poem in any form as long as it has 21 lines. There will be prizes, bragging rights and the top 3 entries will be published right here over the summer.

Visit the post to get all the details and a boatload of inspiration and ideas — 21 of them, in fact. Entries are already coming in and we hope to read yours soon.

Summer 21 Poetry Contest

Summer 21 Poetry Contest

Summer 2021 is just around the corner and following the success of Summer 2020’s Writescape Postcard Story Contest, we’ve decided to run another contest this summer:  Summer 21 Poetry Contest.

Where I grew up, 21 was the age of majority, the day on which you were considered a fully-functioning adult. When I turned 21, I had the traditional big party bash and with appropriate speechifying and good wishes, I was presented with a large brass key – the key to the rest of my life.

Numbers have fascinated and affected people for centuries—superstitions, numerology, feng shui, important dates, rituals and traditions. From nature to metaphysics, gambling to currency to games, the number 21 can be found in all aspects of our lives.

21 Fun facts involving the number 21

  • The total number of spots on a six-sided rolling die is 21.
  • The most commonly recognized gun salute as a military honour is 21-gun salute.
  • The English guinea, used as currency from 1663 to early 1800s, contained 21 shillings.
  • The total number of Bitcoin to be released is 21 million
  • Singer Adele released her album titled “21” in the year she turned 21.
  • “The World” is the 21st card in a Tarot deck, the final card of the Major Arcana.
  • In WW1 Japan sent a list of 21 demands to China over the control of Manchuria.
  • In the USA, the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, thereby ending prohibition.
  • 21 is the atomic number of the rare-earth element scandium.
  • 21 is a “triangular number” because it is the sum of the first six natural numbers (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 21) which when represented as dots on sequential lines forms a triangle of six dots each side.
  • In the famous Fibonacci sequence, 21 is the 8th number, lying between 13 and 34
  • Points required to win a game of badminton is 21.
  • According to physician Duncan MacDougal, who weighed patients just before and after death, the weight of the soul is 21 grams.
  • The USA Food and Drug Administration’s Code of Federal Regulations is known as CFR Title 21.
  • 21 is most often the date of the solstices and equinoxes. In 2021 the summer solstice or first day of summer is June 20.
  • The Kurdistan flag features a sun in its center with 21 golden rays radiating from it.
  • In the card game Blackjack, anything over 21 is a “bust.”
  • Many song titles include 21 such as Alanis Morissette’s “21 Things I Want in a Lover”.
  • Movies too: “21” (2008); “21 Grams” (2003) and “21 Jump Street” (2012)
  • In Israel, an exemption from military service is known as a Profile 21.
  • In numerology 21 is a number symbolizing inspiration and creative self-expression.

There are, of course, many other ways that 21 shows up in our lives: dates and times, sports shirts, temperature, and addresses ….. and this year 2021!

And what has that got to do with the contest…….?

Contest details

What: Compose a 21-line poem in any form, where the subject matter evokes some aspect of the number 21.

You can use the list above to spark your imagination, or come up with something entirely different.  Your poem does not have to actually contain the words “twenty-one”, although you are welcome to do so. The title is not considered one of the 21 lines.

Your poem must be in English and be your own original, unpublished work. By entering this contest you give us permission to publish your poem should it be one of the top three winners.

Deadline: Midnight, Wednesday, June 30, 2021 (12:00 midnight. EST)
Winner and runners up will be announced on July 21. 2021.

Prize: We’ll publish the winning poem and 2 runners-up here in Writescape’s The Top Drawer weekly blog, along with your bio and a friendly interview on what inspired your entry. Bragging rights!

Judges: Gwynn and Ruth. And we might invite one more judge to join us — someone to balance out the panel.

Who: Open to writers age 16 or up at any stage of the writing process: published, unpublished or in-between.

How to Submit: 

  • by email to info@writescape.ca with your entry attached as a Word document (.doc or .docx) in 12 pt. MS font. (e.g. calibri, Arial, TNR)
  • Email Subject Line: [Your last name] Summer 21 Poetry Contest
  • As this is poetry, DO NOT DOUBLE SPACE. If your poem uses a format that includes specific spacing within lines, please also attach a PDF, so we can see how you want your poem to sit on the page. 
What a Touching Story

What a Touching Story

Ruth E. Walker

I imagine you’ve heard this kind of phrase more than once:

I’m touched by your generosity.

I swear he’s been touched by an angel.

I can’t wait to get my hands on that ring.

As soon as this bloody plane touches down, I’m out of here.

And so on. It is interesting that the sense of “touch” should be used in such emotionally charged moments. I believe it speaks to the power this sense has to connect our hearts and minds.

In any kind of writing, the power that all five senses can bring to your material is enormous. In previous posts, we’ve written about smell, taste, hearing and sight. Then just to keep you thinking, we followed each post on the sense with a companion post focusing on poetry using that sense.

Today, we bring it all home with a focus on the sense of touch and ways in which it can power up the emotions in your writing and immerse your reader in the story.

A trio of touches

We touch through our skin. As our bodies are 99.9% wrapped in the stuff, this massive organ is constantly sending messages to our brains. Once there, our brains choose what signals to notice and what signals to put aside.

There are three types of touches.

  1. A light touch, also known as a “protective touch” includes tickling. A light touch engages our brain immediately so, if an insect starts crawling along your arm, your body responds right away. Depending on your history with bugs, you might swat or brush away the insect immediately or, if you’re less bug-averse, take a closer look to decide if it’s a threat or benign.
  2. A fine touch, also known as a “discriminative touch” is responsible to give your brain specific information about what is touching your body. So, the fine touch alerts the brain that the insect left a slimy trail on your arm as your fingers touch the yucky stuff. Ewww. Get. Slime. Off.
  3. Touch pressure and deep touch pressure is the last of the trio. Shoes that are too tight or that dear old auntie who gives everyone a hug are examples of touch pressure. Covered with a soft feather duvet or a double-layer woolen blanket, it’s your touch pressure sense that tells your brain how heavy each one is. If you’ve ever caught your fingers in a car door, you’ll know what deep touch pressure is like.

Be aware of the degree of touch in your writing. I’ll have more to say on that in a moment.

Touch in writing

It’s easy to use ordinary actions. He touched her face. She picked up the stone. They hugged each other. But it’s useful to consider the variety of ways in which humans give and receive a touch and apply those to your writing.

Touch is more than hands. All of our body is touching something all the time. Even naked, our skin is touching the air.

  • Do your characters touch only with their hands?
  • If the hands are the logical body part to use, can you get more specific? Fingertips, nails, palm, heel, knuckles – all can be used to “feel” something/someone
  • What degree of touching? He felt for a pulse versus he pressed two fingertips against her cold neck, seeking a pulse.
  • What other body parts can you use for touch? Our bodies bump into things all the time and we don’t notice – are there places where a hip brushing against a doorway or when a thorn lodging inside a thigh could give a bit more of setting for your reader? Lean back in your chair and what parts of you are connecting with it? Now write a paragraph or two with one of your characters sitting in a chair, describing the physical connection with that chair.

Go beyond the physical

And touch is not simply physically connecting with something. There are degrees of types of touch that relate to more than the object itself. Touch as an action either being delivered or received is affected by a person’s emotional state and by their own history (stove=hot!) and sensory input levels. Someone with acute sensitivity to physical touch will back away from a hug or even a handshake. And that same person may avoid wools, corduroy or nylon materials. A person with low levels of sensitivity may not notice the texture of rough wool and, in extreme cases, not have any sensory input for types of pain.

With the emotional in mind, remember that the act of touch includes many qualities, and as infants, we learned about our world through the senses. Touch taught us so much through physical explorations. If you want to bring your reader deep into the story, you’ll be wise to keep those qualities in mind:

  • Texture – every physical thing has an exterior that has a texture. Sharp, smooth, ridged, pocked, spongy, liquid, etc.
  • Size – from tiny seeds to cardboard boxes to solid walls, touch informs us of size
  • Shape – similar to texture and size, our 3D world holds all of geometry. Round, flat, oval, rectangular, bulgy, pyramidic, etc.
  • Temperature – cool to the touch, barely warm, flaming hot, ice cold. Our skin is our constant thermometer
  • Pressure – a squeeze of an arm or a chokehold on our throat, we feel the touch and can decide if it’s good or bad
  • Vibration – Place a hand on the washing machine in the spin cycle and the movement and noise reaches us but it’s our skin that is the “first responder” to that vibration
  • Pain – So many kinds of pain that come from our skin being touched by something or someone and yet, so many kinds of pain that can be relieved with a soothing or loving touch

This is just an overview of this last of the five senses. When you finish your first draft, remember to give at least one edit pass that focuses on your use of the senses. If they’re missing or just given a superficial treatment, then you are probably missing the opportunity to immerse your reader in the physical and emotional heart of your story.

10 Effects Mothers Bring to Stories

10 Effects Mothers Bring to Stories

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, where mothers are brought breakfast in bed, given floral bouquets of appreciation, and celebrated by everyone with Hallmark sentiments. Well, perhaps not “everyone.”

North American social norms tell us mothers are this mid-twentieth century wonder woman, taking care of her children, ensuring they are fed and nurtured in every sense of the word, juggling the needs of the family and always putting herself second.

Except mothers are people and therefore complicated human beings who can find a home in your stories far outside of the ideal. Here are 10 “kinds” of mothers you can consider in your writing. These mothers can offer conflict, safe spaces, scene-stealing, selfishness — they can hold the promise of the future or inject fear, confusion or coldness into your stories.

Villains or saints, mothers hold power in your fiction.

1.  Birth Mothers

This group of mothers offers readers reflections of beginnings, the vital importance of nurturing and often suggests a position of power/strength. Birth mothers hold the promise of the future through the next generation. They also hold the lineage and that echoes the stories and traditions of the past.

In Camilla Gibb’s acclaimed novel, Sweetness in the Belly, the story begins with a birth in a rain-damp alley behind an old hospital in London, England. The infant girl’s “mighty and unconscious wail” sets the tone for power even in grief that our main character, herself an orphan, must draw on.

2.  Grandmothers

Long held to be vessels of great wisdom from years of life experience, grandmothers are seen as elders and teachers rich in unconditional love. A fine example of a selfless grandmother is in Roald Dahl’s The Witches. In Dahl’s usual quirky style, this grandmother is a retired witch hunter, and teaches her grandson (an orphan) how to spot the evil witches in their disguise. Expect the unexpected in any Dahl story.

And who can forget Little Red Riding Hood’s dear sweet bedridden grandmother? But if we go “unexpected” in this classic tale, what if Granny conspired with the Big Bad Wolf to get rid of Little Red? Can you think of a reason for Granny to turn bad? There. We knew you could do it.

3.  Stepmothers

Long painted as the villain in fairy tales, stepmothers work well as an interloper/newcomer character. They can add the quality of the unnatural, of being outside the family “clan” and subject to suspicion and even hatred and perhaps a target to kill off. From Snow White’s cruel stepmother to the artificial stepmothers in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale where slave women are forced to bear children to be raised by ruling class women in a patriarchal dystopia.

But turn the “evil stepmother” upside down, and you have dear Mrs. Dashwood in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. The second wife to deceased Mr. Dashwood, she suffers at the hands of her stepson and his conniving wife. Kicked out of the family home with a small annuity, she must find husbands for her two daughters.

4.  Absent Mothers

These characters will serve any longing for/searching for scenarios in your stories. Because mothers are key figures in our lives, an absent mother calls our attention. Like stepmothers, absent mothers are not “natural” in terms of social expectations. A fine option for a mystery can be made with a missing mother. Or a simple set up could be a mother who is dead. But even there, fiction holds a lot of possibility and complexity.

In Yann Martel’s brilliant Life of Pi, we see his mother as a loving and caring parent. But with her death, as related by Pi to investigators about the ship sinking he survived, readers are never 100% certain about what happened. Except that she is gone during much of Pi’s story. And because she was a memorable character, we feel her absence.

5.  Adoptive Mothers

Like the grandmother figure, an adoptive mother can be a source of unconditional love. She symbolizes a form of motherhood but from a distance. Whether she adopts by choice or adopts by circumstances, the adoptive mother can be either wonderfully selfless or perhaps an opportunist.

In Heather Tucker’s haunting novel The Clay Girl the caring adoptive mother figure is found in Aunt Mary who offers Ari temporary sanctuary by the sea but constant unconditional love. But what if there’s an inheritance to be had or the need to put on a show and appear selfless? There’s room for a calculating adoptive mother to find life on a page somewhere. A page of yours, perhaps?

6.  Neglectful Mothers

Careful writer. This one is a minefield of missteps if you don’t bother to humanize even the most neglectful mother. We’d all like to believe that no mother could be intentionally neglectful. If you’ve read Tucker’s The Clay Girl, you already understand why Aunt Mary is so necessary to Ari’s tender soul as her birth mother consistently and completely misses all the marks for even basic motherly instinct.

Fiction is full of selfish, vain, flighty, inattentive mothers, or mothers who (Jane Austen once more) like Elizabeth’s mother Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice who manipulates and plans and frets to get her daughters married off. But she’s not a cardboard character once you recognize the fate of husbandless women. Mrs. Bennet is highly motivated but neglects the fact that like and love are essential ingredients in a happy marriage.

7.  Overprotective Mothers

Well, the average mother might question herself on whether she’s being too cautious in the raising of her children. So, it’s good to have your mother characters doubt themselves from time to time.

But in the hands of the psychological horror master, Stephen King, the overprotective mother can get notched up to an awful (in)human being. His blockbuster of a first novel Carrie gave us Margaret White, Carrie’s fanatically religious mother who swears to keep her daughter “safe” from her developing teenaged body. The results are, well, an inevitable explosion of repression let loose with horrific consequences.

8.  Animal Mothers

From Bambi’s ill-fated mother to Peter Rabbit’s cautioning mama, there are plenty of animal stories that feature loving mothers. Animal mothers are instinct-driven, protective and nurturing. The top animal that demonstrates all this and more is the female elephant. Pregnant for 22 (!) months, these massive beasts deliver calves that are blind and completely dependent. But that mother instinct kicks in for the entire matriarchal herd, and all the females (grandmothers, aunts, sisters, etc.) pitch in to nurture and protect the very young. Unless you want a full-on trampling, never be a threat to a baby elephant.

Some females in the animal kingdom offer the ultimate sacrifice after doing their “mother” thing. For example, salmon, octopus and squid devote all their energy to laying their eggs before dying.

And then there’s the not-so-perfect animal mommas that neglect their young or kill and even eat their newborn young. Pigs, rabbits, prairie dogs, and other species commit infanticide but fortunately, it’s a rare behaviour. Check out Wikipedia if you want to follow that “rabbit hole” of horrifying facts.

9.  Mother Earth/Mother Nature

Oh my, this Mother has been personified and worshipped for as long as sapiens walked the ground. In Greek mythology, she is Gaia. To the ancient Romans she is Terra. In Indic faiths, she is Prithvi (the Vast One) or Bhumi (the mother of gods) representing the earth. Throughout the world, various cultures and faiths cast our planet as an all-encompassing nurturer and revere her for her many gifts.

And yet, we do make a mess of Mama Earth, don’t we? And sometimes, Mother Nature gives us a good whipping: hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, droughts, landslides, avalanches and — dare we suggest it — pandemics serve to remind us that she, like most mothers, is a powerful force. And silly us, we’re not serving her very well. Let’s hope that with more interest in harnessing her renewable resources and reducing our carbon footprints, we might get her to settle back down.

10.  The Mother Of All…

So it seems only appropriate that this figure in all our lives — yes, until cloning becomes fully automatic, we all have to be born — that this figure should somehow represent the ultimate, where we can simply use any noun to notch up something to the biggest, the greatest, the most impressive. The mother of all construction projects. The mother of all vacations. The mother of all wedding receptions. But it is not always complimentary. For example, the mother of all headaches. The mother of all snowstorms. The mother of all… well, you get the drift.

So, as we’ve just got through the second pandemic-restricted Mother’s Day let’s not wait for the next second Sunday in May to celebrate a woman special to you. Mother, grandmother, stepmother, adoptive mother and so on, why not designate a random day in the future to make it The mother of all Mother’s Day.