The High Existence Blog offers great resources for creators. Click on the link below to read the post. It will help you get going and keep working.
Tag Archives: fun
Prepare Now for Submit-O-Rama in October
I just found out about this today. It’s another monthly challenge. This one is held in October, just before NaNoWriMo. The assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to submit as many things as many places as possible in one month. Read all about it by clicking the link below. Start collecting resources, reading interviews, and saving submission sites now for maximum effectiveness.
Celebrate World Read Aloud Day with a Virtual Food Fight
If you have time and want to have some fun, join the food fight!
The Write Routine: World Read Aloud Day: Celebrating with a FOOD FIGHT Contest! Join Us!.
People Who Have Changed My Life: Part 2: My Dad
Here’s the second in a series of posts about people who have changed my life. This one is about my dad, a California Scene painter, and his influence on me as an artist, so I posted it first to my neglected art blog, Notes from a Virtual Easel. The link is below. I mention it here because writing is an art, too, and many of the same attitudes and disciplines apply.
A Magic Idea Generator
Here’s a simple online program that will help you generate ideas. It takes a while to input words and phrases into your lists, but once you do, you have a custom random concept engine. As a writer, I added a list of interesting names, a list of feelings, a list of problems, and added to the places. When you are ready to create an idea, choose the lists from which you wish to draw, and then press the magic button! You can add or delete lists, words, or phrases at any time.
Give it a try. You will need to have some paper ready to write the ideas down. (It’s free. You just need to log in with your Google account.
Just Say Okay
Here’s a blog that will keep you up on the latest news in creativity. Today’s post discusses the importance of commitment.  Too often, we put everything else first.
Annual November creativity challenges such as Picture Book Idea Month give us permission to put our creative lives front and center. The resulting excitement inevitably spills out into the rest of the year.
Magic Beans
It’s day one of NaNoWriMo, PiBoIMo, and Art Every Day. To celebrate, before I sign off to write on my Alphasmart, here’s a great creativity site from the UK.
Good luck everybody on your 1700 words, picture book idea, or artwork for the day.
From Out of the Past: An Easy Form
This morning I was reviewing my current writing assignment.
I had decided to provide examples of many poetic short forms for teachers to use in lessons, even though this will not be not the focus of the publisher’s product.
I wrote the following poem following a word substitution format.
Thinking about the little verse during my revision process, I decided it was too abstract for fifth and sixth graders and replaced it, but it seemed a shame not to share it with someone, so here it is:
Languages: flowing rivers between thoughts
Rivers between flowing thoughts: Languages
Flowing thoughts between languages; rivers
Between languages, thoughts; rivers flowing
Thoughts—rivers; languages flowing between
If you want to write one of your own, use find and replace in Word. Noodle with the results until you get something that pleases you.
Poems from Previous Challenges
This collection of poems has been forwarded from my Posterous blog archive.
I I warned you that I have too many interests. I have been writing poetry as long as I can remember. Every year I find myself drawn into National Poetry Month. I didn’t write a poem a day. The weather was too beautiful at the end of the month. If you want to see the great prompts by Robert Lee Brewer, visit http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/default,month,2011-04.aspx.
2011-04-01
From minute to minute
I move, like the destiny
of a dragonfly from
penetrated egg, through
wiggling nymph into the
blue summer sky, skimming
lakes of possible futures,
but moved, inexorably, by
ancient tides within
my blood; the multiple eyes,
the segmented soul, the
fragile, beating wings.
2011-04-02
Postcard
Like a curtain pulling back
for an anticipated performance,
first light creeps down from
the juniper-fringed rim of the
Colorado National Monument,
spilling into canyons where
eagles nest and bighorn sheep
rest in blue shadows. Subtle,
at first, as if in imagination,
it intensifies, like a rising
overture, until the full face
of the edge of centuries is
lit. From power lines along
the road, rows of birds watch,
silent.
2011-04-03
If I had never been born,
my father would have painted longer,
and might have been known
before he died, rather than after.
If I had never been born,
my husband might have married the dancer
who studied French at the Sorbonne.
But if I had never been born,
my daughter would not be the same,
and that one change could shift
the course of stars.
2011-04-04
Artist
He lays out colors
along the edges of an
enamel tray, feeling
an electricity across
the empty center that
nobody else can sense.
(18 words)
2011-04-06
Don’t Speak, Listen
Walking the canyon trail,
We fall silent,
After so many years
We have heard all the stories
And know the refrain of opinions.
Off to the right, on top of a rock,
Poised against the storm-darkening sky
A bird lifts his head and sings out,
Beckoning a prospective mate.
He pauses and a grumble from the distant
Interstate fills the stillness.
Then, he sings again.
2011-04-07
What if I had awakened late
and joined the registration
line at the end? Then, the
art class would have been filled
and we would never have met.
Then, I wouldn’t have taught
and we wouldn’t have bought
that house in the mountains
where we spent so many happy summers.
We wouldn’t have slept in the back
of the jeep or rocked our child
in the house on Lincoln. You wouldn’t
be you and I wouldn’t be me
if I had awakened late and joined
the end of that registration line.
2011-04-08
Celebrate
Blow up
the balloons.
Light
the candles.
Sing the
familiar old song.
Open
all the gifts.
Or just
Open your eyes,
Stretch
And give thanks
For
Yet another day.
(16 words)
2011-04-09
Eleven Eighteen
Outside the window, rain is falling,
giving shadows color on the silent
street. Washed clean, a cool breeze
brushes the young pine in the front
yard, and also the tall cottonwood
that has become too hazardous to keep,
creaking ominously in spring winds
that just died down. Inside, I have
been downloading poetry from rich
centuries for the magic tablet I carry
to read on future trains and planes.
A wind chime plays. A sweet bird sings.
2011-04-10
Never Again
Will I tell a friend
who has started to annoy
me that she has
and how and why.
Never again will
I go to that one last
dinner, or walk, or concert
Just to be sure.
Never again will
I try to rescue
a connection that
never really was.
Instead, I will be
as busy as I always am
Wishing things weren’t the way
they are, but are.
2011-04-11
Maybe I’ll Be Better
Maybe tomorrow I’ll
follow all the resolutions
I make with so much sincerity
as I slip between the covers
and pull up the blankets tonight.
Maybe I’ll walk a few miles
in the morning, write dozens
of pages, and after dinner
skip the cookies.
Maybe I’ll be kinder, wiser,
and more beautiful tomorrow,
or, maybe, I’ll wake up
and be my same old self
for yet another imperfect day.
2011-04-12
In the still orchard
peach blossoms unfurl petals,
soundless firecrackers.
2011-04-12
………………up………………….
…………..in the blue……………..
………..April sky, among……………
…….soaring larks, a dragon…………
…………writhing in the……………
………….shifting wind…………….
……………..then…………………
………………..drifting…………..
…………………..slowly………….
……………………..down…………
(10 words)
2011-04-12
Do not stash your soul away.
Do not shackle it to clocks.
Let it fly and sing its say.
Don’t insist that it make hay.
Never keep it darning socks.
Do not stash your soul away.
Go to meet it every day.
Undo knots and open locks.
Let it fly and sing its say.
Never try to make it pay
or use it to outwit a fox.
Do not stash your soul away
like a winter coat in May
buried in a cedar box.
Let it fly and sing its say.
Let it, like a wild wolf, bay
and bound among the mountain rocks
Do not stash your soul away.
Let it fly and sing its say.
A Community and Blog Especially for Poets
If you are a poet, you really should know about Robert Lee Brewer’s blog on the Writer’s Digest site. He offers ideas, challenges, prompts, and more all year long. The link below will take you there.
One Way to Wonder 