NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 10

Current state of writing nook

Lost Reflection

A time to sow
lost souls
Hush
kindness goes unpunished
the final reflection…
Perfect escape

Lost Reflection

NaPoWriMo Prompt – But today’s prompt should be a little bit less emotionally involving — a nice chaser for yesterday. Today’s prompt comes to us from Lillian Hallberg. She challenges us to write a “book spine” poem. This involves taking a look at your bookshelves, and writing down titles in order (or rearranging the titles) to create a poem. Some fun images of book spine poems can be found here. If you want to take things a step further, Lillian suggests gathering a list of titles from your shelves (every third or fifth book, perhaps, if you have a lot) and using the titles, as close to the originals as possible, to create a poem that is seeded throughout with your own lines, interjections, and thoughts. Happy writing!

Easy? Ha! Do you see my workspace is still in disarray? And it also had my bookshelf. Now yes, being a house of readers there are a multitude of bookshelves in this home. But I wanted the poem to reflect me not everyone else. I think I put together some titles as to how I feel about the current upheaval. Notice in the top picture the drywall is up. Painting won’t be done until April 20th and I’m told it will be an all day affair. Yes, I am still lost and do not have my place to escape and reflect.

Notice the shout out to Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, opening book and then to Jennifer Brown, closing book. 😉

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Strange New Worlds

I’ve always enjoyed writing. Way back when (1988) I won honorable mention for a story I wrote and submitted to a contest held by OWL magazine. My prize an autographed copy of Animalia by Graeme Base. So cool I still have the book in my library. But after that I stopped submitting pieces to editors and/or contests. Then I picked up the first volume of Strange New Worlds. The editors over at pocket books opened up a writing contest to Star Trek fans and they published the winning stories in an anthology!

No I did not start submitting stories right away. I was busy mothering a baby girl and then a second one came along. But in 2002 when I had one off in pre-k and getting bored at only being a stay-at-home mom, you guessed it. I was going to give writing and submitting to actual editors a go. I found a SNW (Strange New Worlds) writing critique group online. Filled with want to be, current and previous writers of the anthology. One of those writers was Dayton Ward.

I never made it into the Strange New Worlds anthology. But the first year I submitted, I also submitted a creative nonfiction story to a different anthology. To my amazement, joy and a little disbelief, I sold my first story! I continued to submit to Strange New Worlds while it was open. I made the second read pile often, but the best part of my Trek geekiness was the other writers I met in the critique group. Obviously I moved on, and began writing what I know. Who would have thought the advice Beverly Cleary gave in Dear Mr. Henshaw would prove to work. I still kept in touch with Dayton. I even sent him the lecture notes Rachael’s teacher gave his class the last day of school a year ago. My geekiness rubbed off well, because when the teacher asked the name of the ship capable of warp 5, Rachael raised her hand, Enterprise.

She recognized the Star Trek universe. The rest of the class… when she was told correct, the class thought the teacher was giving a real history lesson the last day of school. Yes, the subject was history. 😉 never mind the dates on the board haven’t even arrived yet.

Meeting Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore

When I heard Dayton was going to be in Phoenix for the Leprecon, of course I got tickets. Gretchen was excited to meet a real life author. Hello, mom is chopped liver. She even asked if there would be paparazzi following him. The girl met John Barrowman last year sans paparazzi still I was happy she put writers on a pedestal higher than actors. As you can see above, I brought my own paparazzi (aka my hubby). He posted the release of The Great Gatsby Anthology on his Facebook wall and now people want signed copies. Yes, definitely feeling like chopped liver here. Gretchen met a real life author and didn’t have a thing to ask. She is taking after her mother, starting off writing fan fiction. Shhh… I probably already said too much.

Sabots – Haiku

Fear obsolescence
Machines yield higher profits
Sabots create hope

 

#haikuchallenge on twitter was to use the word hope.  The weekly poetry prompt on Writer’s Digest is industry.  Here is how my mind works.  I was thinking of being a book girl because of Monday’s #litchat on twitter.  You know, John Barrowman and his sister, Carole, are writing a book series for middle schoolers.  I learned about it at their table at Phoenix ComiCon.  They had copies there for sale.  I wanted to read up more on the books before buying one.  But now I think I am a bigger fan of Carole Barrowman than John.  I think it’s great John and Carole are working together.

I talked about my book girls on Monday then I mentioned how Rachael’s history teacher gave her class Star Trek notes the last day of school.  She messaged me pictures of the notes.

Rachael knew the name of the first warp 5 starship.

 

Of course I had to show the notes off and Rachael asked her teacher if he knew who Dayton Ward was because her mom just showed him your notes.  She told me her teacher sat in his chair; grabbed her phone to see if his notes really were seen by Dayton Ward; and then he giggled like a school “girl” (my daughter’s words).  When Rachael got home from her last day of school, we had to watch Star Trek VI.  She’s only seen up to IV with the original cast.  And any Trekkie knows the word sabotage is explained in the movie.  Then a couple weeks ago, my husband said he was talking about sabots and no one knew what he meant.  I asked Rachael if she knew.  Oh yeah, it was in a movie we watched recently.  HA! the girl didn’t even remember it was a Star Trek movie!

 

 

And yes, all these things were floating through my head while I wrote this haiku.