I was minding my own business, scattering my mind through clicks through the internet when I found a cento-writing contest. Based on the context of what I was looking at, I knew it would be a poem. Because I’m trying not to forget that once I wrote every single day, I decided to consider the challenge, thinking that a cento was some form poem like a cinquain or a sestina. Turns out that it is a poem that is composed entirely out of other lines of poetry. So I gave it a shot. Check out my poem here. Maybe you’ll write one too.
proper noun: sherlonya
mom, writer, cook, runner; in that order.
Category Archives: writing
Poetry Sunday
I am not about to sit here and say that each Sunday I’ll be posting one of my poems here, but I do plan to do this every once and a while. Writing group folks, you’ve seen this one, but I have made some edits.
Coiffure
I had what I thought
was Harlem Renaissance hair,
magnificent curls
born of night
and pink foam rollers. To,
“I like your hair,” I responded,
“I feel like I should be singing
in a smoky bar.” He answered
back, “Like Norah Jones.”
I had been thinking
Billie Holiday.
I write like…
This post is for the writing group. According to this, I write like a man…and Stephanie Meyer. As people who have read my work, you’ll have to be the ones to tell me if it’s true.
I write like
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
This is for “Yoga”, “The Rite”, and “Cupid.”
This is for “Soul King.”
This is for “Clapper.”
This is for “Hypercolor.” Funny, someone in the group said this story was like Henry Miller on acid.
This is for Traffic and for Taste.
Where fiction begins
As a fiction writer, I find myself in possession of collections of sentences that I want to use one day. At times, I feel like a phrase hoarder. Some of the sentences I love so much that I don’t even think I can bear to use them. It is like the good china. Some of them are probably more like that raggedy old hand-me-down t-shirt that you love and can’t part with even though the most vigorous washings can’t quite get the funk out. Wait…you don’t have one of those? Today I decided to share some of these sentences, hoping someone will get something out of them. And (not so) secretly hoping that letting them out will help me find the right story for them.
“You going to leave her here?” he said in the same tone one uses to say ‘you gonna finish that” as he hungrily eyes a half-eaten sandwich on a neighboring plate.
–
I want to feel like I’m in the middle of a Luther Vandross song; not a Snoop Dog song, not a Tori Amos song.
–
He called my pandowdy a fake pie!
–
The first time she heard the term one-eyed bandit, she had no idea they were talking about a slot machine.
–
Earthy like some supposedly transcendental tea: green, stanky and magical.
AAAWG Extra Session
I could probably write a story full of tension and woe about the steps that I took in order to get ready for the writing group extra session. As any diverse group of people who gather around an interest, there is a tech guy. So, tech guy, offered a session on working on your blog. I’ve been meaning to work on my website, generally, and since the blog is the major hunk of this, it seemed like the natural place to work on one of the goals.
So, I decided to upgrade the the newest version of WordPress. You know, housekeeping and all of that. And then I broke my blog. So then, after considering weeping, I went back to the version of WordPress that I had. And my blog was no longer broken.
But, I am not easily deterred, and I wanted to upgrade, you know, start what I started. But I ran into problems all day long. finally, I find myself looking at the new interface, but still, I think that something is wrong. This could involve a series of tests. And sighs.
Inspiration
It’s funny how a commitment to post to this blog every day suddenly makes me want to work on one of my novels. After all, if I am making progress on one of those things, I have something to post about here. However, a general wild exciting schedule has made it difficult for me to get into the novel. However, I always have time to make mental notes. Today’s observations are tomorrow’s poems or novels or plays.
On the way home, I almost ran over a cat so large and scary looking that I felt, momentarily, like I was in some messed up Stephen King novel, that the cat was going to get into my car and that somehow I would wind up on a road that I never knew existed before to have a very disturbing experience.
I heard a very strange story involving footwear that has to show up somewhere.
I saw a closeup of a a tiny but soft-looking midriff.
Who knows where these details will show up. The writing group will be the first to find out.
Day 3
I spent a lot of time in the car today. Thinking of my decision to focus on the creative, however, made me think about one of my novels as I drove to Flint. I now know something crucial about the relationship between Damian and Karma. Yes!
Now, to get to that writing…
not the first, not the last
This isn’t the first, and probably isn’t the last blog that I have started. Right now, the point is to make a space where I can organize my sundry projects and passions.
The dawn of NaNoWriMo seems as good a time as any to go for it.
I’m hoping that as time goes on, that this blog will develop an identity of its own.
Then again, I have had the same hopes for myself.