Eye Candy for the Writer-blocked

Hi interneters!

Last year I made my first attempt at writing a novel in a month, taking part in the well-known (depending on who you ask) NaNoWriMo. 

[If you're not familiar with it, here's a run-down: during the month of November, aspiring novelists who want to take on the challenge can make a free account that lets them track their progress on their novel. The goal is to finish 50,000 words in 30 days. Hit up nanowrimo.org if it sounds like your kind of thing.
The purpose is sheer creative output, absolutely subject to extensive revision later. It's a let-me-prove-to-myself-that-I-can-do-this-thing.]

Now, with November approaching, I'm frantically scrambling for novel ideas and feeling sort of writer-blocked before I even begin. Sort of like every little piece of the story has to be perfect before I'm allowed to begin, you know? Which is totally not true.
Some photos I came across really inspired my, and maybe they'll do the same for you. 

Visual inspiration is a lot of fun and often very effective, even if you're not doing NaNoWriMo this year (or ever). Keep reading. These photos don't discriminate.

Take a look, and hopefully these artfully arranged pixels will help you increase your output of words, novelist or not. :)

Do me a favor, though. Scroll s l o w l y.



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Artist:  Noell S. Oszvald



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Artist:  Noell S. Oszvald



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Artist: Laura Williams



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Artist:  Noell S. Oszvald



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Artist: Murad Osmann



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Artist: Katerina Plotnikova

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Artist: Katerina Plotnikova

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Artist: Brian Yen

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Artist: Brian Yen

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Artist: Martin Parr

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Artist: Uda Dennie

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Artist: Katerina Plotnikova


Let me know if you guys are into this kind of thing; if it helped even the smallest bit with your creative struggles, I can make more of this sort of post. It was really fun to do!

Enjoy loveliness

and
remember to
m
u
s
e

Thought Provoker #7: Truth (and the lack thereof)

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As we age, we're exposed to more things, and we learn a lot of things about the world that we failed to notice as young whippersnappers.
I'm really impressed that whippersnapper is not underlined in red.

Anyway, one of these things that I'm becoming more aware of lately is the fact that many of my less desirable personality traits come from my upbringing. Which seems natural (or entirely unnatural, I'm not sure which), but it's still strange to realize the deep affect that parental biases (about races, genders, certain activities, the like) can have on your own opinion.

At a certain age, you may start to realize that some things your parents taught you to accept as fact are not necessarily true. 


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And then I go into this whole spiral of what-is-truth, and the reality is that it's almost impossible to deliver a perfect truth. Everyone, every author of every book and every webpage, is a human, and will therefore be (cue the awful word) BIASED. People have genders. Ages. Ethnicity. Lack of gender. The like.

And no matter how hard we try, at some points it's hard to deliver truth to other people. Sure, certain things like "Google was founded in 1998" are sort of indisputable, but life isn't full of such things. The facts that matter are the ones that aren't facts, and there will never be a source of these that doesn't have a slant of some sort. No one can present to you a totally clear view of the things that matter most.

Keep this in mind as you continue to age and absorbs things. You get to decide what your truth will be.

Okay, so clearly this isn't a let's-write-a-poem-now sort of thought provoker. This is a let's-think-about-these-things-because-questioning-the-world-we're-in-is-one-of-the-most-important-parts-of-being-in-it sort of thought provoker.

Oh, and a PSA: Thought Provokers will be changing their name soon. We'll keep numbering as we've been doing, starting with 8 on the next post, but just stay tuned. :)

Enjoy loveliness and remember to muse.

Absorb those truths.

Absorb them.

Then squeeze out your own. 

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GIF Party #3: TBBT 2

GIFs are like Harry Potter pictures blah blah blah.

Oh btw we're doing a theme today just to be cute.
Here's to the seventh season. :)

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When you don't want to hang out with someone, but you have no excuse:



Trying to be funny around strangers:



Certain celebrity crushes:



"You should go outside"



Realizing you're still on the internet when there's something important you really should be doing right now



That's it for now you internet kiddos.
Enjoy loveliness and remember to muuuuse! :)

Poetry Parenting: Day 5

And here we find ourselves again.

Poetry Parenting
Helping your babies grow up
A blog series by Stephanie 


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If you've been following along our wacky, month-long "5-day" journey, you know now that this is the fifth and final post about how to help your poetry grow up.

And if you actually have read every one of these posts, thank you. Thank you for sticking with me in this journey that is as much self-discovery as it is instruction. And thank you for not barfing when I act all dramatic about 5 posts that just happened to fit together as if I actually just wrote a novel or something.

In the last five posts, we've talked about learning from others, telling a story, finding inspiration, and trusting your words. Today we're sort of scattering that to the wind. Sort of. Like a kid who's about to flush a bug down the toilet but hesitates because he's still emotionally attached to it.

Tip #5: Do what you want.

Because you're all grown up now. 

Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement: end of journey. Your poetry no longer poops in its own diapers or requires bottle feeding, and even if you're still taking baby steps, you're hopefully still better off than where you started.

The truth is, there is no easy formula for good poetry. If there was one, it would probably be something along the lines of " there is no easy formula for good poetry". Creativity demands novelty, and that is where you, my dear reader, come in. 

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There are so many ways to seed your thoughts and nurture faster, better growths of ideas, but those ideas are ultimately going to come from your own cerebral soil. Don't let yourself be limited by what you think 

should be right.

Write without capitalizing. Space your lines oddly. Use a disgusting font. Change tenses. 

The first four days were designed to enhance what you already have. They're suggestions. Now, use what you know, cultivate your verbal brain fields, and don't stop anything from growing. 

And always, always do the thing that makes you uncomfortable. 

With that, I leave you with my final Poetry Parenting tool. 

http://www.pw.org/literary_magazines?&perpage=*

Notice how I didn't even bother changing the link into a permalink. It's too beautiful in its original form.

This, my friends, is the largest bank of online publications that accept (and pay for) literary submission that I know of to date. Use wisely and often.

Go forth, dear interneters, and let your children roam free. 

Enjoy loveliness

and remember to muse.

:)