Category — Writing stuff

It’s only the second day of the Poetry challenge, but I can feel my creative juices flowing as they haven’t done for a long time - at least poetry wise. Normally my poems are a bit of a by-product. I might have a word or even a line in my head and simply start writing. That’s how I have done it for the last 20 or more years. The last prompts for poetry I had back in high school – and at that time of course in German. But I seem to need this kind of challenge as I can feel more and more word rising up within me – all in English. That’s the poem I wrote last night – outside the challenge (and how adequate that todays challenge was “outsider”):

I am sorry
for some of the things
I said
for some
I am not

still
I don’t regret anything
that I said
that I did

I was
No, I am
true
to myself
and that’s
what counts
in the end.

Ok, I will take this challenge: One poem per day through the whole of April!
The ONLY problem is I will be away for a medieval/renaissance fair from the 25th of April. This means: hardly any chance to use a mobile phone (mainly for the lack of power to recharge it, but it looks weird, too) and no internet connection or even a computer.

After losing a night’s sleep I found a solution to this: a friend will text me the daily writing prompt so I can at least write the poem – where is my quill? And on the 30th I will drive to an internet café 6 miles away and upload these last missing poems – of course in my medieval clothes (see pic).

I promise to put a picture of this “event” in this blog!

After a few weeks of not writing at all (shame on me!) I found an inspiring new way of writing. I had read in quite a lot of books that one shouldn’t write in several files but one big one. I had made the same experience when I tried to keep track of all the little snippets gathered on my computer. So I tried to write on the one big file – and what happened? I stopped writing! Because every time I wanted to start I found myself re-reading the previous stuff, editing it or even worse: deleting it. So last night I thought, hey, why not write a snippet in a new file (now named “write it!”) and then cut and paste it into the big file. Voila! It worked wonders. In no time at all I had written several pages.

And to make life even easier I decided to put the “write it”-file online, so I have access to it from where ever I am. I love this modern technology!

And no, I don’t mean any obscure bed room scenes, tsk, tsk!

In January I was once again away in the countryside for a week full of role playing - this is a bit like we played as children or like theater without audience… As I was a bar maid I thought playing a gypsy would be fun. So I had everything: the red skirt, the red headscarf, the golden earrings and of course some obscure Italian-like accent. And besides it all being fun to play such a character (she said things I would never dare to say!) it also was a good exercise for writing. Why? Because I had to completely become the character! Of course the first hour or so was difficult, I often found myself thinking what I should do or say. But then I really got into it! I turned into that character and was able to see the world I was in with her eyes and answer in her language.

I don’t think I will use this character ever in a book, but the experience is really worth it. If you have chance to attend a Live Role Play, go for it!! Yes, it costs quite an effort to act silly, but it frees your mind and creativity!
Here at wikipedia you can read more about it!

Oh, and of course I played the harp there, not as a gypsy but as my usual harp player. Here are pics: http://www.dragon-harp.de/wp-content/gallery/2008-larp-die-akademie/08_akad_1.jpg and

http://www.dragon-harp.de/wp-content/gallery/2008-larp-die-akademie/08_akad_2.jpg

Yes, I did it, I started a blog. This is not my first one (and hopefully won’t be my last!), but I think it will be the most personal one. I am currently writing a novel and so this is my diary to go with it. Believe me, when I wrote the first draft (in German!) I had some very funny and some equally spooky moments, but that’s life when you are writing in the horror section. So let me share this with you!