Writing Prompts

Haven't made a post in a while and I'm sorry.  Being unemployed is taking it's toll, along with other factors in my life.  Some are things I can control.  Many are things I can't control and must take time to deal with.

One continual joy in my life is the monthly Writers Circle at my local library.  The group grows and changes, yet is always full of talented, enjoyable people.  A frequent activity for us is to do a writing exercise, often with a prompt of some kind.  This month, we are writing from a picture, prior to our meeting, and then presenting our creations to each other.

After staring at this picture for long moments, and mulling it over, I came up with what follows.  The inspiration was two fold for me.  I was first inspired by the feeling I was infused with by the photo. The second was the personal connection that feeling brought forth.  Here is the result.  I hope you find something personal here, that it is touching and not saddening.

Lonely Beach

By Kimberly L. McClune

September 7, 2013

Looking out across the gleaming waters                                    

Eyes squinting, hearts pinching                                      

We walked together and yet separate.

Neither the rush of waves nor the glaring sun

Could penetrate our joint solitude.

The cry of a distant gull hung in the air

Unanswered

Just like the longing so ardent in our souls.

Would we ever?

No

Never.

Holding tears behind our eyes

Unwilling to show the pain

Unable to share the depth of feeling

We strode along the water’s edge.

The actual writing prompt was to write a paragraph or poem based on the photo.  I didn't really care which I wrote, I simply wrote what came to me.  In fact, my first scribblings were almost the makings of a paragraph, but I found that what came of this exercise wasn't a little story, rather, it was expressing the emotion that this photo inspired inside me.  My feelings often come in the form of a poem rather than stories.

You may find the same thing as you write, that emotions are expressed in a certain form and that anecdotes and experiences take another.  Perhaps they take the same form for you.  Regardless, I find that I miss writing very much and look forward to making much more time for it in the coming weeks.  I believe that you cannot become accomplished at anything unless you DO IT, and do it a lot.

Writing prompts are a good way to practice your craft.  You can find ideas on the internet with simple searches or challenge yourself or a friend.  You could select a photo, make up a title, or choose a subject for a simple paragraph or four stanza poem.  These exercises can become the basis for a new piece or just stay as an exercise.  Your writing is just that, YOURS!  No one else should tell you exactly what words to write or you are no longer the writer.  

Well, I've to get back to writing, etc.  Take care and enjoy the day.

Been Writing Again

Amid my job searching and grant writing internship work I have had a few moments of inspiration creatively. Here are a few poems I came up with since the first of the year.  Also, I submitted more poems to Poetry Quarterly in hopes of being published again.

Clay

By Kimberly L McClune

January 3, 2013

When I am wet, my heart is open

Pliable and easy,

Smooth and bendable.

Mold me with Your spirit

Shape me into Your will

Make me in Your image.

I am Yours

I exist for You

I was created by You.

But when I am dry, I am hard

Coldness seeps in

My heart is closed.

I resist You

Push You away, 

Turn my back on You.

I let fear overwhelm me.

My spirit shudders, fades,

I cower inside, afraid.

My soul is dry, hard clay

Stiff and unyielding

Crumbling,

Chipping,

Cracking.

Rain on me!

Make me supple again

Soft and flexible

Bend and shape me

Make me useful,

A jar to hold Your spirit. 

This piece was written in a moment of spiritual searching.  As you can see, I was asking God to make me His own and help me to not rely on my own powers and understanding, but His.  I found great peace in creating this.

Melody and Lyric

By Kimberly L. McClune

April 5, 2013

Wordless

Lilting tones

Spilling over eardrums,

Slipping into the soul,

Married with sweet harmonies

Create moods in notes

And rhythms.

Stealing upwards

Toward the sky

Happy sounds lift spirits,

To soar with angels,

Carried on melodic themes

And intonations.

Words

Letter formed

Gripping the heart

Touching the soul.

Carefully chosen rhymes

Stories of love

And heartbreak,

Reaching inside

Pulling at thoughts

Tugging at memories.

Told to open hearts,

Tales of sorrow

And joy.

This piece was written specifically for my former Music Professor at Lycoming College who is retiring this year after teacher there for 37 years.  He was very special and I wanted to create something to share with him on his retirement.  This was sent in a package along with some photos and the next poem to be placed in a memory book for him and his family.

On a Song

By Kimberly L. McClune

October 4, 2010

Taking flight,

Soaring in your heart over memories,

Hopes and dreams.

Reaching into yourself,

One moment flowing into another.

Time, captured by a tune,

Lost inside the melody

Held by the words,

Glint of a dream

Shadow of a tear.

While I recently sent this and the previous poem to my college for the memory book, I had written it a few years ago to recount my feelings and thoughts after listening to a particular;y touching song.  Music is an important part of my life, so is writing.  When the two are put together into a song, it is especially moving for me in most cases.  Both of these previous poems have been submitted to Poetry Quarterly as well.

I have written some other pieces since the first of the year, but I don't want to cram too much into this post.  Would that I could spend more time on poetry and stories.  I have several stories and many poems started and in various stages of completion.  Oh that the things that call me away from writing would do themselves so that I could just write and write and write.  Alas, this is but a dream.

I hope that you enjoy these pieces and will watch for another post soon with a few more recent works.

End of year poem.

So in the course of looking for work and writing articles and all that stuff, I found myself sitting in my quiet house the other day enjoying the world's silence.  Then, of course, the silence was broken by the most incredible sounds.  We've all heard it before, but to me it was a revelation and inspiration even.  From my broken silence was born a poem.

Geese Cacophony

Kimberly L McClune

December 29, 2012

Afternoon silence

Quiets the heart

Like dusk descending slowly

Across the horizon

A slow crescendo

Dawns on the senses

Gradual growing

Cacophony

Non-rhythmic squawks

Unharmonious honks

Out of sync

Untimely

Noise grows across the sky

Honks and flaps

In scattered V

Graceless beauty

Headed South

Focused and determined

The geese cacophony

Flies

This simple poem is a revelation because I have been so caught up in trying to find a job and doing all the other massively important things that must be done in a life that I have not written anything new and creative in quite a few months. 

I hope this poem brings to mind the very experience of having your silence broken by such uncoordinated song birds. 

Do enjoy the last moments of this year and take time to think back on the joys and only the joys for the remainder must be left behind at midnight.

**credit for photo - Wikipedia

Here Comes Christmas Again!

Well, we're in the midst of the holidays again and I dare say we shall survive.  I know I will despite still looking for a permanent job, doing more than one volunteer internship as a grant writer, keeping up with my daughter and trying to do some creative writing too.  Unfortunately, try is all I've done on the creative front lately.  

I did participate in NaNoWriMo last month and successfully wrote over 50,000 words towards a book.  NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month and it was fun but hard work.  I was writing my memoir which is not a usual novel type for NaNo, they prefer that you write fiction.  I was able to participate and win in any case.  Now I have a great start for a project I had wanted to work on for a few years.

As for other creative writing outlets, there have been none lately.  I don't regret that I have been doing grant work and the memoir, but I do miss putting a poem on paper though.  

Despite my lack of poetic creation of late, I do have a holiday poem to share along with the picture that inspired it.  

Our Tree

By Kimberly L. McClune

December 6, 2011

Tall, proud and elegant

Showing its best side

Twinkling, reflecting majesty

An elegant representation

Hours of preparation are forgotten

Lingering on a pillow

Stretched out by a fire

Admiration abounds

Up high, near the top

She looks out across her domain

Peaceful and loving she watches

Holding fast all dreams

All wishes

Beneath the lowest bows

Colorful packages scattered

Bows and ribbons peek out

Small ones teeter on the edge

Large ones impose

From the lawn a gentle glow

Escapes the bare panes

Beckoning all to view

Graceful glinting colors

Lights shining brightly

Never has there been such a one as this

Last year seems ages away

Next year seems it will never come

Only now, only this year

Is our tree the best.

This poem, and even this picture, bring to mind memories and images of Christmases and Christmas trees in my past.  I've decorated both real and artificial trees over the years, some large, some small.  It's never mattered to me what type of tree I adorned with lights, ornaments and tinsel, it only mattered that I was joyful in doing so.  Of course, the decoration of a tree must be accompanied by not only music, but the presence of family and/or friends to make the experience complete.  I don't believe that a tree can be properly decorated by just one person.  At least, that's my experience.  The more the merrier!!!

So as you do your traditional things for the holidays this year, make sure to enjoy everything.  If you find things getting boring or you feel its no fun anymore, change things up and make them fun.  No matter what holiday you celebrate at this time of year, take the time to embrace the joy that it brings for you.  Also, embrace your friends and family and remind them just how much they mean to you.

Happy Holidays!

When There's Not Much Time to Write

I've been so busy lately with my job search, taking care of my daughter and doing some blog writing for others that I haven't done much poetry writing lately.  I have jotted down a few that I have been working on and wanted to share a seasonal one today.

I can't remember what prompted me to start this one, but I finished it today with renewed interest.  I seem to remember not knowing where I wanted this to go when I first began to write it out.  I like where it ended up. I hope you do as well.

Midnight Walk

By Kimberly L McClune

October 22, 2012

I took a midnight walk

On the spookiest night of the year,

Past unlit houses

Under barren trees where

Darkness lends a new perspective.

The trees,

Whose once lush and full canopy

Would shade the moons light,

Now gape as coloring, drying leaves

Depart, clearing pathways

For descending moonbeams.

The moon is near her fullest

Hovering magically within

A black sky laden with clouds

Masking the stars,

Threatening reflected beams.

Across an open field,

The moon escapes her veil.

She tats a lacey trim

At the tree-lined edge.

Beams cast down between

Barren branches weave

Delicate patterns on illuminated grass.

Once familiar objects

Now only darkened outlines.

A mailbox looks like a man,

A pot of flowers like an animal.

Even the trees

Become eerie specters in

Haunting moonlight.

Walking at midnight

On the spookiest night

Gives one a new perspective.

**

I must admit that it was easy to complete this one today.  I have been sitting at the computer listening to the trees rustle in the wind for a while now.  Autumn is in full swing with crisp air, sunny days, and crunching leaves beneath your feet.  This is the time of year that I feel the most inspired.  You will likely see more posts from me in the next two months, despite my job search activities, as my writing notebook becomes filled with ideas, half written works and jotted notes.

Enjoy the poem and enjoy the Fall.

Inspiration

Well, I have nothing to lose by trying again to be published in another issue of Poetry Quarterly.  I submitted four poems, all older works, to them this morning.  This was inspired by having just written my first poem in at least two months.  Recently, my time has been spent in study for a new career, job hunting and raising my child so there has not been much time for writing, as I had hoped.

The inspiration for this new poem was not what most expect.  It was a very personal poem, kind of a healing work.  You see some poems are inspired by beauty and what you glean from the world around you, and some are from the depths of your soul and express deep emotion.  Take a sonnet from Shakespeare.  These works are doubtless the inspiration from the depths of a soul tortured in the fullness of love.  I say tortured because love can be a difficult emotion.

To continue on the topic of inspiration, when I write about a tree or sunset, there is less emotion and more appreciation for beauty in that work, that desire to put pen to paper and describe my view.  I love to paint pictures with words, to make a scene come alive from the written page.  What I have been learning in the last year or so is to bring emotion up from the page as well and this is harder because that emotion comes from deep within me.  I find that I do less editing on a poem that is filled with emotion.  The feelings must be real and they must be raw on the page.  They must not be altered to make them sound or appear a certain way, they must be the way they first come to me from deep within or they are not true.

Now, when you see the poem I wrote this morning you will find that it has a sort of rhythm.  This was not necessarily intentional.  This is the way that it came to me.  Honestly, it came to me as a song as I drove home from my daughters school before 8am.  I sang the first few lines to myself then came in the house and started to write.  The poem I will share here is exactly what came from me first thing this morning.

I cannot say that famous poets or more learned poets would take the same position about writing as I do.  I also do not profess to be particularly learned on poetry.  However, I can say that I am pleased with the results I achieve in my own writing.  Others, whose opinions I value, have given me honest, positive and constructive feedback on my work.  This gives me cause to believe that I have a talent for poetry beyond just my own pleasure.  Whether the world would agree or not is something that I am not concerned about.  If I took on the weight of pleasing everyone the joy of writing and the restorative peace I receive from the process would be lost and I would give it up completely.

So enough about the process and on to the work I produced in very little time this morning.  I will not reveal the reasoning behind this work as it is personal and not important to reading and culling your own enjoyment and thoughts from it.

World of Dreams

By Kimberly L. McClune

September 19, 2012

In my world of dreams

I would love you better,

Hope would come more easily

Faith would be more natural

Dreams would all come true.

In my world of dreams

You would always come to me

My arms would open wide

We would be so comfortable

Just to be.

In my world of dreams

I would know you love me

Just the way I am

No need for forgiveness

You would know I love you, too.

In my world of dreams

We’d have all we needed

No more need for fear

Worries all behind us

Together, just we two.

PUBLISHED AGAIN!!!

Well, two days after the first publication announcement I received my second publication announcement.  Poetry Quarterly has published a dual issue.  They combined their Winter and Summer issues in what they call their "Tricky" or "Sneaky" Issue.  My other two poems, Passionate and Under a Cloud Speckled Sky are both in this double issue.

http://poetryquarterly.com/?page_id=7
This link is where you can go to check out this issue and see my work.  The issue is only available for free for a short time, but can be purchased as well.  Of course I have a copy of both this and the previous Spring Issue.

I have shared these with my Writers Circle and received a nice response from all of them in congratulations for being published for the first time, even in an online journal.

Personally, I consider it a great honor and opportunity to be published alongside award winning poets and the other wonderful talents that I have read in both of these issues.  I strongly recommend any of the issues from this site to anyone who enjoys poetry.

Unfortunately, my job search, studying my online grant proposal writing course, watching my friends son and working a weekend job are keeping me from doing much writing this summer.  I miss putting my thoughts on paper, or in a Word document.  Every once in a while I will take out a sheet of paper where ever I am and jot down some phrases, but nothing complete has been written for a few months.

I consider myself in a time of living.  So much has been happening and there is so much to write about.  When things have percolated long enough and are ready, the writing will come.  That's kind of how poetry is for me.  When the thoughts/words are there, I write them down.  I find that if I try too hard to find the words for a poem in the first writing, then the poem will never come together for me.  I can go back and re work a poem to get it just right, but it has to be congealed at its first writing.

Enough about my writing style for now.  Suffice it to say that I am extremely proud and excited to be published.  If this year ends and I am still unemployed, I will at least end the year having reached a goal outstanding since childhood, to be published.

Good evening and good writing.