I just came across a site called the Random Poem Idea Generator. Here are some of the suggestions it gave me:
Boldly advance wrong opinions about eagles saying everything twice but phrased differently
Throw a friendly arm around gophers in a cocktail dress (Are the gophers wearing the cocktail dress or are you?)
Indicate your preference for Michigan entirely in overheard dialogue (This just makes me think of Sufjan Stevens, so I would probably end up inadvertently plagiarizing him.)
Levy taxes on tigers in the form of an invoice (There's a Charlie Sheen joke in there somewhere.)
Plagiarize every line of a poem about the Midwest in the style of Dickinson (Look, I don't condone plagiarism, okay?)
Here is the result. I sort of combined all the suggestions:
Animals in America
How many gophers to fill out a cocktail dress?
They wear it to sneak up on eagles.
Eagles are cowards.
They should be more like tigers
Attn: Eagles, you owe tiger tax.
What do you think of the Midwest?
Michigan wins America.
And yet he wandered through the heartland alone . . .
(That last line was borrowed from Edward Hirsch's "In the Midwest.")
Showing posts with label on writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label on writing. Show all posts
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Sing-along blog
There is a tradition in my family to go to the Washington Chorus Christmas concert every year at the Kennedy Center. Parts of it are sing-along, so they give you a program with all the words to the songs. Then there are some songs that only the choir sings and you sit back and listen. During one of those, I was reading the words and realizing what great poetry some of these songs are on their own. My favorite was "The Dream Isaiah Saw." Here are the lyrics:
Lions and oxen will sleep in the hay,
leopards will join with the lambs as they play,
wolves will be pastured with cows in the glade,
blood will not darken the earth that God made.
Little child whose bed is straw,
take new lodgings in my heart.
Bring the dream Isaiah saw:
life redeemed from fang and claw.
Peace will pervade more than forest and field:
God will transfigure the Violence concealed
deep in the heart and in systems of gain,
ripe for the judgement the Lord will ordain.
Little child whose bed is straw,
take new lodgings in my heart.
Bring the dream Isaiah saw:
justice purifying law.
Nature reordered to match God's intent,
nations obeying the call to repent,
all of creation completely restored,
filled with the knowledge and love of the Lord.
I always wonder about songwriters and what their processes are. Is is melody first and then lyrics? Or do you start with a poem? Then I found some information about the history of this song:
Commissioned by the Bach Choir of Pittsburg in memory of those who perished on September 11, 2001, "The Dream Isaiah Saw" refers to the 8th Century BC prophet Isaiah's vision of God's creation restored to peace and harmony through the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:1-5). It is the panoramic view of the future Messianic Kingdom. Thomas H. Troeger, professor at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and director of its homiletics program, wrote the poem “Lion and Oxen Will Sleep in the Hay” in 1994. The composer Glenn L. Rudolph (composer, conductor, and tenor soloist with many choral organizations in Pittsburgh) began to set this poem to music toward the end of July, 2001. Nineteen days after September 11th, he completed this choral work. It captures the contrast of the chaotic world we live in with Isaiah's dream calling for us to "walk in the light of the Lord."
Lions and oxen will sleep in the hay,
leopards will join with the lambs as they play,
wolves will be pastured with cows in the glade,
blood will not darken the earth that God made.
Little child whose bed is straw,
take new lodgings in my heart.
Bring the dream Isaiah saw:
life redeemed from fang and claw.
Peace will pervade more than forest and field:
God will transfigure the Violence concealed
deep in the heart and in systems of gain,
ripe for the judgement the Lord will ordain.
Little child whose bed is straw,
take new lodgings in my heart.
Bring the dream Isaiah saw:
justice purifying law.
Nature reordered to match God's intent,
nations obeying the call to repent,
all of creation completely restored,
filled with the knowledge and love of the Lord.
I always wonder about songwriters and what their processes are. Is is melody first and then lyrics? Or do you start with a poem? Then I found some information about the history of this song:
Commissioned by the Bach Choir of Pittsburg in memory of those who perished on September 11, 2001, "The Dream Isaiah Saw" refers to the 8th Century BC prophet Isaiah's vision of God's creation restored to peace and harmony through the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:1-5). It is the panoramic view of the future Messianic Kingdom. Thomas H. Troeger, professor at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and director of its homiletics program, wrote the poem “Lion and Oxen Will Sleep in the Hay” in 1994. The composer Glenn L. Rudolph (composer, conductor, and tenor soloist with many choral organizations in Pittsburgh) began to set this poem to music toward the end of July, 2001. Nineteen days after September 11th, he completed this choral work. It captures the contrast of the chaotic world we live in with Isaiah's dream calling for us to "walk in the light of the Lord."
Monday, December 20, 2010
Behind the scenes: The making of a poem
I was given a commission to write a little rhyme for an invitation to an office secretary's retirement party. I thought it might be fun to post the info I was given and show a line-by-line process of constructing the poem. This is what I was told:
The woman's name is Peggy Abruzzi.
She's had 34 years of federal service.
She hates the winter commute to the office.
She doesn't want to make a big deal about her retirement, just wants her friends and colleagues around her.
So where to begin? Well, I thought the best place to start would be her name. What rhymes with Abruzzi? All I could think of was "cutesy." That gives an idea for the first line. Let's try this out:
For fear of writing something too cutesy,
you're invited to celebrate Peggy Abruzzi.
But that doesn't really make sense and it sounds a little Hallmark-y. How about this:
At the risk of writing something too cutesy,
let's take a moment to salute Peggy Abruzzi.
All right. Suddenly I stop and think I'm really kind of crap at this sort of thing. I think it's going to be a long road to the finish. I don't know the first thing about federal service- not even what rhymes with it. I can't very well say she's been nervous all these years. Hmm. A flash of inspiration. What if I flip the words around? Like this:
She's spent 34 years federally serving
That works. And then I can rhyme "serving" with "deserving." That sounds like appropriate retirement party talk.
She's spent 34 years federally serving,
and we can't think of anyone more deserving
Great! Now I'm encouraged. I have a direction to follow. What is she deserving of?
to be surrounded by colleagues and friends
on the day her _____ service ends.
I know that I want a word to describe what kind excellent work she's put in and also that she's appreciated. Something like "valued service," but that sounds like a sale at a supermarket. I go to the thesaurus and look at words that can substitute for "valued." How about "esteemed"? That conveys respect and high regard.
to be surrounded by colleagues and friends
on the day her esteemed service ends.
Now I just need to get some info in there about when this shindig will be held. That's basic party invitation phrasing (I don't know the exact date, so I'll leave that for the person who requested the poem to fill in):
So on December ____, stop by, wish her well.
This is a useful line for two reasons. First, it moves things along and gets the point across. Second, it ends with the word "well," which should be easy to rhyme. Some possibilities: swell, gel, tell. I don't want to lapse into '50s slang, and I'm not familiar with Peggy's hair gel rituals, so I latch onto "tell." This might require some fancy maneuvering of phrases. I know I have one last piece of information I want to deliver, which is that Peggy hates the winter commute. What I want to say in these last couple lines is that there's a silver lining to her retirement. She'll avoid the winter commute from now on. But how to put that in a sentence that rhymes with "well"?
So on December ____, stop by, wish her well.
We'll miss her, but there's one bright side to tell
Eh, it's a little clunky but let's see how it plays out. Two more lines and I just need a word that rhymes with "commute." Aha:
as we give her a final salute,
here's to her last winter commute!
Not ideal, since we've already used "salute" in the second line, but let's put the whole thing together and check the flow, yo.
At the risk of writing something too cutesy,
let's take a moment to salute Peggy Abruzzi.
She's spent 34 years federally serving,
and we can't think of anyone more deserving
to be surrounded by colleagues and friends
on the day her esteemed service ends.
So on December ____, stop by, wish her well.
We'll miss her, but there's one bright side to tell
as we give her a final salute,
here's to her last winter commute!
The woman's name is Peggy Abruzzi.
She's had 34 years of federal service.
She hates the winter commute to the office.
She doesn't want to make a big deal about her retirement, just wants her friends and colleagues around her.
So where to begin? Well, I thought the best place to start would be her name. What rhymes with Abruzzi? All I could think of was "cutesy." That gives an idea for the first line. Let's try this out:
For fear of writing something too cutesy,
you're invited to celebrate Peggy Abruzzi.
But that doesn't really make sense and it sounds a little Hallmark-y. How about this:
At the risk of writing something too cutesy,
let's take a moment to salute Peggy Abruzzi.
All right. Suddenly I stop and think I'm really kind of crap at this sort of thing. I think it's going to be a long road to the finish. I don't know the first thing about federal service- not even what rhymes with it. I can't very well say she's been nervous all these years. Hmm. A flash of inspiration. What if I flip the words around? Like this:
She's spent 34 years federally serving
That works. And then I can rhyme "serving" with "deserving." That sounds like appropriate retirement party talk.
She's spent 34 years federally serving,
and we can't think of anyone more deserving
Great! Now I'm encouraged. I have a direction to follow. What is she deserving of?
to be surrounded by colleagues and friends
on the day her _____ service ends.
I know that I want a word to describe what kind excellent work she's put in and also that she's appreciated. Something like "valued service," but that sounds like a sale at a supermarket. I go to the thesaurus and look at words that can substitute for "valued." How about "esteemed"? That conveys respect and high regard.
to be surrounded by colleagues and friends
on the day her esteemed service ends.
Now I just need to get some info in there about when this shindig will be held. That's basic party invitation phrasing (I don't know the exact date, so I'll leave that for the person who requested the poem to fill in):
So on December ____, stop by, wish her well.
This is a useful line for two reasons. First, it moves things along and gets the point across. Second, it ends with the word "well," which should be easy to rhyme. Some possibilities: swell, gel, tell. I don't want to lapse into '50s slang, and I'm not familiar with Peggy's hair gel rituals, so I latch onto "tell." This might require some fancy maneuvering of phrases. I know I have one last piece of information I want to deliver, which is that Peggy hates the winter commute. What I want to say in these last couple lines is that there's a silver lining to her retirement. She'll avoid the winter commute from now on. But how to put that in a sentence that rhymes with "well"?
So on December ____, stop by, wish her well.
We'll miss her, but there's one bright side to tell
Eh, it's a little clunky but let's see how it plays out. Two more lines and I just need a word that rhymes with "commute." Aha:
as we give her a final salute,
here's to her last winter commute!
Not ideal, since we've already used "salute" in the second line, but let's put the whole thing together and check the flow, yo.
At the risk of writing something too cutesy,
let's take a moment to salute Peggy Abruzzi.
She's spent 34 years federally serving,
and we can't think of anyone more deserving
to be surrounded by colleagues and friends
on the day her esteemed service ends.
So on December ____, stop by, wish her well.
We'll miss her, but there's one bright side to tell
as we give her a final salute,
here's to her last winter commute!
Hey, it's not terrible. All in all it took less than half an hour, and with a little polish it will serve its purpose of making Peggy Abruzzi feel special.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
I know this much is true.
Look, I'm just going to say it: Jurassic Park is the best movie ever. It was on TV this weekend, and I watched it. And when it was over, I watched it again. I ask you, is there a better opening scene than a guy getting eaten by an unseen creature in a crate? Is anything scarier than velociraptors in the kitchen? Is there a better line delivered in a British accent to said velociraptor than "Clever girl"? These are all rhetorical questions because clearly the answer is "no."
Watching Jurassic Park in the theater in the summer of 1993 was one of the defining moments of my life. It completely changed the way I saw movies. If there was a job that consisted of bringing dinosaurs to life, I wanted in. Think of the power! That's what fascinated me about movies. I knew that if I wrote scripts, I could see creatures in my imagination become real. It was an intoxicating and terrifying idea. Of course, it could be done badly. After Jurassic Park finished airing on the SyFy channel, they showed some made-for-TV movie called Triassic Attack about dinosaur skeletons attacking people. I realize they must have been working within a budget, but dinosaur skeletons? Weak.
Now I have a bad habit of writing action scripts and putting the characters in sticky situations just so I can introduce something like a sharkmeleon (that's a shark that's a chameleon) to create a diversion and help them escape. It blends in with the skyline and then *CHOMP* OMG IT ATE THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE AND EVERYONE ON IT.
Awesome.
To Help the Monkey Cross the River
by Thomas Lux
which he must
cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts,
to help him
I sit with my rifle on a platform
high in a tree, same side of the river
as the hungry monkey. How does this assist
him? When he swims for it
I look first upriver: predators move faster with
the current than against it.
If a crocodile is aimed from upriver to eat the monkey
and an anaconda from downriver burns
with the same ambition, I do
the math, algebra, angles, rate-of-monkey,
croc- and snake-speed, and if, if
it looks as though the anaconda or the croc
will reach the monkey
before he attains the river’s far bank,
I raise my rifle and fire
one, two, three, even four times into the river
just behind the monkey
to hurry him up a little.
Shoot the snake, the crocodile?
They’re just doing their jobs,
but the monkey, the monkey
has little hands like a child’s,
and the smart ones, in a cage, can be taught to smile.
Watching Jurassic Park in the theater in the summer of 1993 was one of the defining moments of my life. It completely changed the way I saw movies. If there was a job that consisted of bringing dinosaurs to life, I wanted in. Think of the power! That's what fascinated me about movies. I knew that if I wrote scripts, I could see creatures in my imagination become real. It was an intoxicating and terrifying idea. Of course, it could be done badly. After Jurassic Park finished airing on the SyFy channel, they showed some made-for-TV movie called Triassic Attack about dinosaur skeletons attacking people. I realize they must have been working within a budget, but dinosaur skeletons? Weak.
Now I have a bad habit of writing action scripts and putting the characters in sticky situations just so I can introduce something like a sharkmeleon (that's a shark that's a chameleon) to create a diversion and help them escape. It blends in with the skyline and then *CHOMP* OMG IT ATE THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE AND EVERYONE ON IT.
Awesome.
To Help the Monkey Cross the River
by Thomas Lux
which he must
cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts,
to help him
I sit with my rifle on a platform
high in a tree, same side of the river
as the hungry monkey. How does this assist
him? When he swims for it
I look first upriver: predators move faster with
the current than against it.
If a crocodile is aimed from upriver to eat the monkey
and an anaconda from downriver burns
with the same ambition, I do
the math, algebra, angles, rate-of-monkey,
croc- and snake-speed, and if, if
it looks as though the anaconda or the croc
will reach the monkey
before he attains the river’s far bank,
I raise my rifle and fire
one, two, three, even four times into the river
just behind the monkey
to hurry him up a little.
Shoot the snake, the crocodile?
They’re just doing their jobs,
but the monkey, the monkey
has little hands like a child’s,
and the smart ones, in a cage, can be taught to smile.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Blankety-blank-blank
I get so aggravated when I see an ad for a movie that has a generic title. If it's vague and tells me nothing specific about the plot, then I don't want to see it. Examples that immediately come to mind are The Core, The Happening, The Fighter, You Again, Everybody's Fine, Life as We Know It, and pretty much every Harrison Ford movie ever. Even Inception's title was enough to put me off seeing it until I heard the positive reviews and felt assured that it was worth my $14.
As a kid, I took issue with restaurants that were named after the owner or some cultural representative of the type of cuisine. I was incensed at the lack of imagination displayed by Mario's, Molly's or Don Jose's. Maybe this resentment of lazy movie titles is residual of that, but come on, people. You're writers! I know titles are tricky, but unless you're adapting a board game you have no excuse.
Now I'm going to step down off this soap box, and let you Analyze That. If I catch you doing That Thing You Do again, I'll have the G-Force on you in 88 Minutes. Trust me, It Could Happen to You.
so you want to be a writer?
-Charles Bukowski
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
As a kid, I took issue with restaurants that were named after the owner or some cultural representative of the type of cuisine. I was incensed at the lack of imagination displayed by Mario's, Molly's or Don Jose's. Maybe this resentment of lazy movie titles is residual of that, but come on, people. You're writers! I know titles are tricky, but unless you're adapting a board game you have no excuse.
Now I'm going to step down off this soap box, and let you Analyze That. If I catch you doing That Thing You Do again, I'll have the G-Force on you in 88 Minutes. Trust me, It Could Happen to You.
so you want to be a writer?
-Charles Bukowski
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The perfect murder
I have always been fascinated by murder mysteries, detective stories, law and order. There's a sense of excitement and anticipation in knowing that I'm about to be in for a roller coaster ride of twists and turns but that hopefully the storytelling hands are capable and will lead to a satisfying ending.
Sometimes I like my mysteries to have a supernatural twist because it opens up limitless possibilities in the world of my imagination. In fact, the first story I ever wrote was a supernatural murder mystery called "Queen Elizabeth's Revenge." I must have been in 4th or 5th grade when I wrote it, and all I can remember now is that it involved Queen Elizabeth I and an emerald ring that had special powers and made the finger that was wearing it fall off her dead corpse. I also remember scaring my sister quite heartily with it.
Anyway, I haven't ever been able to get past my fascination with the macabre, and this still plays into my creative process. As I've mentioned here in the last few weeks, I've been trying to piece together a perfect murder that would stump everyone involved. This is for a script I'm working on. At first I thought it would be a piece of cake because of my vast research into the subject (i.e. years of watching Colombo and Hitchcock films and reading Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen mysteries). However, I quickly got myself into trouble by trying to be far too clever for my own good. The catch-22 of good writing is that you want to write yourself into a corner because that way your audience will be on the edge of their seats wondering how you're going to get your characters out of this mess. The problem with that is you also have to figure out a plausible way to escape the corner yourself. While I think I've finally got a handle on the situation as far as my script goes, I thought it might be fun to put some things I've learned into poetical form.
The perfect murder
In cop shows, it's always
the person you least expect,
someone you meet
in the first 10 minutes,
quickly so
that you can forget.
The grieving widow,
the childhood best friend,
the special guest star,
all guilty,
all fueled
by love, greed or revenge.
It's clear they were
too full of passion
they could never get
away with it.
You can't hide
a thing like that.
The prerequisite
of a perfect murder
is
a void of emotion,
a cold calculation.
The perfect murderer craves
no credit for his crime.
He does it to feed a monster.
He doesn't care
for the world outside.
He needs only
the barest of tools:
a bit of rope,
a locked room,
the perfect alibi.
And when he's finished,
it hardly seems like
murder at all.
This model criminal
casts just enough doubt
as to make it seem possible
that something
supernatural,
some higher power,
came to collect
this "victim,"
this person
whose time was up.
And the dectectives
will scratch their beards
or mustaches
and bumble and
wonder if maybe
they shouldn't
be meddling
with such things.
Sometimes I like my mysteries to have a supernatural twist because it opens up limitless possibilities in the world of my imagination. In fact, the first story I ever wrote was a supernatural murder mystery called "Queen Elizabeth's Revenge." I must have been in 4th or 5th grade when I wrote it, and all I can remember now is that it involved Queen Elizabeth I and an emerald ring that had special powers and made the finger that was wearing it fall off her dead corpse. I also remember scaring my sister quite heartily with it.
Anyway, I haven't ever been able to get past my fascination with the macabre, and this still plays into my creative process. As I've mentioned here in the last few weeks, I've been trying to piece together a perfect murder that would stump everyone involved. This is for a script I'm working on. At first I thought it would be a piece of cake because of my vast research into the subject (i.e. years of watching Colombo and Hitchcock films and reading Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen mysteries). However, I quickly got myself into trouble by trying to be far too clever for my own good. The catch-22 of good writing is that you want to write yourself into a corner because that way your audience will be on the edge of their seats wondering how you're going to get your characters out of this mess. The problem with that is you also have to figure out a plausible way to escape the corner yourself. While I think I've finally got a handle on the situation as far as my script goes, I thought it might be fun to put some things I've learned into poetical form.
The perfect murder
In cop shows, it's always
the person you least expect,
someone you meet
in the first 10 minutes,
quickly so
that you can forget.
The grieving widow,
the childhood best friend,
the special guest star,
all guilty,
all fueled
by love, greed or revenge.
It's clear they were
too full of passion
they could never get
away with it.
You can't hide
a thing like that.
The prerequisite
of a perfect murder
is
a void of emotion,
a cold calculation.
The perfect murderer craves
no credit for his crime.
He does it to feed a monster.
He doesn't care
for the world outside.
He needs only
the barest of tools:
a bit of rope,
a locked room,
the perfect alibi.
And when he's finished,
it hardly seems like
murder at all.
This model criminal
casts just enough doubt
as to make it seem possible
that something
supernatural,
some higher power,
came to collect
this "victim,"
this person
whose time was up.
And the dectectives
will scratch their beards
or mustaches
and bumble and
wonder if maybe
they shouldn't
be meddling
with such things.
Monday, November 1, 2010
NaNoWriMo
Do you know what November is? Well, it is the threshold of Fall and Winter. It is a month that houses Thanksgiving and Black Friday. It is a time for politics and last-minute mudslinging. It is also National Novel Writing Month!
I first heard about it maybe five years ago from a coworker who had signed up on the official NaNoWriMo website and undertook the project of writing a 50,000 word novel (175 pages) by the end of the month. Maybe you have a great fiction idea that you jotted down years ago but never found the time to pursue. Or maybe you didn't know how to pursue it. Does the idea intimidate you? Do you feel someone else would do better writing it? Well, stop thinking that way! The point of this undertaking is not to write the Great American Novel. The point is to start writing something and finish it. Quantity, not quality. It's a kamikaze approach to writing, and it forces you to plow through because you don't have time to stop and edit yourself. You have to finish by November 30th. And don't worry if you don't have an idea already in storage. Just start writing and see where it takes you. Wouldn't it be great to be able to call yourself a novelist by the time December rolls around?
Technically this project began at midnight this morning, but it's not too late. Last year 30,000 people around the world started and completed their novels in the month of November. Check out the official website for more info.
As for me, I think I've finally got the perfect murder on lock-down. Back to it I go.
my answer
-Charles Bukowski
"why does he have to use words like that
in his writing?"
"words like what, mother?"
"well, like 'motherfucker.'"
"some people talk like that, mother."
"people he knows?"
"yes."
"but why does he associate with
people like that?"
because, mother-in-law, if I only associated with
people like you
there'd be nothing to write about that
the motherfuckers would care to
read.
I first heard about it maybe five years ago from a coworker who had signed up on the official NaNoWriMo website and undertook the project of writing a 50,000 word novel (175 pages) by the end of the month. Maybe you have a great fiction idea that you jotted down years ago but never found the time to pursue. Or maybe you didn't know how to pursue it. Does the idea intimidate you? Do you feel someone else would do better writing it? Well, stop thinking that way! The point of this undertaking is not to write the Great American Novel. The point is to start writing something and finish it. Quantity, not quality. It's a kamikaze approach to writing, and it forces you to plow through because you don't have time to stop and edit yourself. You have to finish by November 30th. And don't worry if you don't have an idea already in storage. Just start writing and see where it takes you. Wouldn't it be great to be able to call yourself a novelist by the time December rolls around?
Technically this project began at midnight this morning, but it's not too late. Last year 30,000 people around the world started and completed their novels in the month of November. Check out the official website for more info.
As for me, I think I've finally got the perfect murder on lock-down. Back to it I go.
my answer
-Charles Bukowski
"why does he have to use words like that
in his writing?"
"words like what, mother?"
"well, like 'motherfucker.'"
"some people talk like that, mother."
"people he knows?"
"yes."
"but why does he associate with
people like that?"
because, mother-in-law, if I only associated with
people like you
there'd be nothing to write about that
the motherfuckers would care to
read.
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