you are no stranger to me

Here are some visual, verbal, and audible pieces of inspiration for the untitled short-story I mentioned last week. I hope you'll enjoy browsing what amounts to my current "mind palace." I'm working on this story as often as I can and though it's a paltry showing yet, I'm finding my way all right yet. I jokingly teased that the writing sector of my brain is like a mother hamster, eating its young when it gets startled. So I'm going to not speak an awful lot of this story for fear of saying all I have to say on the blog rather than in the word document. So apologies for being vague. This is how I'm rolling this tine around.

"upon seeing you"

I thought it unlikely to meet
a stranger and know
him for my own.
Before words
or look
or laugh
or smile;
before you I recognized it:
yours was a soul my soul
knew well and
the sweet click of the
latch behind kept us
in the thoroughfare.
Should we go
together?
Do we part here?
Home - safe home -
is gone for now
you are no stranger to me.
And so I smile
and hope
you know the way
because I'm lost already.

"Sweet Serendipity" - Lee DeWyze

"Fall in Love" - Peter Hollens

"Destino" - Walt Disney & Salvador Dali

Inkpen Poetry Day: "Before a Storm"

Sometimes I try to make up new rhyme patterns to use in my poetry. I don't always fall in love with the particular pattern, but it's fun writing in a different style now and then. Here's the latest one! :)

"Before a Storm"
By Rachel Heffington

The thunderheads are mustering
In ranks across the fields
With iron-colored shields
And oft the wind is blustering.

A wild gust, like battle-cry
Without a voice, is tossed
And in the tempest lost.
Roars forth and shakes the low'ring sky.

The poplars bend in flutt'ring dread
Of dancing to the psalm
Writ in the fearful calm
By minstrel-clouds with pens of lead.

Then with a final howling blast
The gale-solider bends
And from his hand sends
Fleet rain-fledged arrows at last.

"As Unto The Bow"

I really must apologize for the lack of posting on this blog. I have been really busy with our life recently, and in the writing world, with the critique group, so those are my really weak excuses. But I promise I won't quit with this blog! Please keep reading, and leave comments with ideas to make it better! Tell me what you like, and what you think I should change! I'll need lots of advice! :) Now, I know awhile back, I wrote that I don't like un-rhyming poetry, there is at least one exception, and I really do love this poem:

"As Unto The Bow"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman:
Though she bends him, she obeys him;
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other.

What do you think? Like it? What improvements can I add to this blog? Would you like another contest? Let me know ASAP! Thanks a lot! :) ~Rachel

The Inkpen Authoress's Autumn Writing Contest

Thanks everybody for giving me your opinion of the things I should be writing about on this blog! :) The face-lift has encouraged me, so I'm feeling a bit better about the blog as a whole! There is nothing more irritating than a writer's blog that has writer's block! :D Autumn is coming! I can feel it so wonderfully already! :) I think it may be my favorite season of all! So I thought I'd hold a contest- Each person that enters must write something related to the fall. It can be a poem, a short story, an essay, or just a description, like you'd find in a book! Be creative! Then, you all can send you submissions to: inkpencontestsubmissions@gmail.com . I'd like to have alot of people enter, so please link this contest to your blog if you would! :) I don't know how to make a "button" like everyone else has, but I'll put my header picture on this post, and then you all can just save the picture to your computer, and link the contest submission email address beneath it or something! (I really need to spiff up on my technology! ;) So here are the rules:





The Inkpen Authoress's Autumn Writing Contest

Submission Guidelines:

• All work must be the author's own
• Content must be appropriate (i.e. no language, suggestive material, immodesty, no taking the Lord's name in vain, etc.)
• There is no limit to the number of pieces you may write for this contest
• All submissions must be received by October 31, 2010
• The Winner will be announced November 2, 2010
• There will be one winner, and their submission will be posted on this blog, their blog linked to this blog in the winning post, (provided it is an appropriate one of course! ;) and their submission will be printed in our family newspaper: The Girls' Gazette. Have fun, and I hope lots of people will enter! The fall is such a beautiful blessing, so let's see what everyone can come up with! :)

-Rachel (The Inkpen Authoress) Oh! I almost forgot! Here we go!

Enter the Inkpen Authoress's Autumn Writing Contest!
inkpencontestsubmissions@gmail.com

Help Me If You Can!

Alright everyone! I am very busy at this point in time, so I haven't written anything for a bit, but I decided I'd ask you two questions. Please EVERY PERSON THAT READS THIS, ANSWER THEM! :)
1. What are some tips for poetry writing you use?
2. What are your views on poetry styles? (rhyming, free-style, etc.)

Once ya'll tell me what you think, I'll answer them myself! :) -Rachel

Poetry-Writing Tips

I think I can write poetry pretty well. I don't say that to be boastful or anything like that, but to explain the reason why I feel I can give a list of tips to writing poetry. That being explained, here I go:

Tips for Writing Enjoyable Poetry:

1. Write the entire alphabet (minus vowels a,e,i,o,u) across the top of your page and use as a rhyming dictionary. Example: I want a word the rhyme with "page". So I go through the alphabet: "bage, cage, dage, fage, gauge, hage...etc." Some of the words are real, others of course, you wouldn't use! :) This really helps alot!

2. Pick a subject that would be interesting to read about, and not too abstract. (For instance, I don't really like writing about "feelings" because you end up with a cloudy, sometimes strange, abstract, and...boring poem!)

3. If you wish to write a rhyming poem...make sure that it really rhymes please! I do not consider the words "about" and "down" to rhyme in any way. They may have similiar vowel sounds, but really, don't do that please! :) (Perhaps it is an assonance, but who cares? It makes for a very awkward poem!)

4. Keep the meter (the beat of the poem) pretty steady. Don't skip around. If the first line has 8 syllables, keep it that way or at least, change it in some orderly fashion. If I wrote a couplet like this:
"I love flowers, Pink and blue
I love them too!"
That would be entirely awkward (and terrible poetry! ;) and you would be hard-pressed to find any reader who could read that without it sounding....very juvenile. Nursery rhymes have better rhythm than that! :)

5. Always read your poem aloud or at least read it over to yourself before showing it to anyone.

6. Always copy neatly down on a new sheet of paper the final poem.

There! These are things I always keep in mind when writing poetry! :) -Rachel