Poem for a Sunday

A friend of the family passed away this week, so this one feels appropriate.

Remember by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

No Thursday 13

As I am in the middle of packing for a week away from the internet, so I can get lots of writing done.

That’s the plan anyway.

Hopefully, I’m going to schedule a poetry post for Sunday. See you all in a week.

WIP Update

I'm guilty of not doing one of these for a while, so below is a list of how things are going at the moment.


The Bargain (Working Title)

m/m, current wordcount 12,214/50,000

(Yes the expected end wordcount has gone up just a little bit). This is my vampire/werewolf road trip story, and my main WIP at the moment. A very small teaser can be found here. At the moment it's looking like a two part story and I'm hoping to have part 1 completed and submitted to crit group by the end of October. The Bargain is set in the same Universe as the Land of the Fey, but centuries later.

Robert (working title)

m/m fantasy, word count 0/50,000, outlining

Yep, I suck at thinking up titles. This is my NaNo piece and is what I'll be concentrating on in November. Probably working on The Bargain Part 2 at the same time.

Land of the Fey

Raven

m/f, current word count 12,250/50,000

I've written and submitted several chapters of Lily and Darvan's story to crit group. I know the major plot arc of the story but at the moment the beginning as written isn't working. So it's back to the drawing board for a rewrite.


Fox Prince

m/f

Genys and Reynard's story. It's possible Reynard's story may be completed before Lily's. Fox Prince will give a much broader overview of the Fey World and the larger situation at the time of the Civil War. It will also explain why Genys allowed Alaric to be wounded.


Other Works

Silvertree

m/m sci/fi, current word count - 8000/50,000, on hold

The beginning of this needs rewriting. LOL - mainly because I've nicked a big chunk of it and am going to incorporate it into my NaNo story. So leaving this one with a big piece of plot missing.


The Tithing

m/f, current word count - 50,000/50,000

Awaiting revision. This was my 2006 NaNo novel. It needs tightening up and slightly replotting in places but I'd really like to look at this again before the end of the year. It's a vampire fantasy kind of set in the same Universe as the Land of the Fey

So that's the situation at the moment. :)

Review

Up at Uniquely Pleasureable

If Wishes Were Horses Review

I hope if anyone else out there struggled with the politics and larger story in If Wishes Were Horses that they'll be pleased to know I will be writing more Land of the Fey stories.

Poem for a Sunday

Not a sonnet this week. I first read this poem in a story about a woman with amnesia - ironically I’ve long since forgotten the title and author of the story, but by the end of the book I’d memorized this poem. It’s written by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933).


Off Algiers

Oh give me neither love nor tears,
Nor dreams that sear the night with fire,
Go lightly on your pilgrimage
Unburdened by desire.
Forget me for a month, a year,
But, oh, beloved, think of me
When unexpected beauty burns
Like sudden sunlight on the sea.

Thursday 13 #8 - Writing

13 writerly things - things I’ve found useful/helpful/inspirational. Bearing in mind this 13 is written by someone who still feels like they’re running around not really sure what’s going on.

1. My Collins dictionary. Probably the book I would save in a fire. It’s I don’t know how many years old, could double as a door stop and I love it because it has both US and UK spellings. And if I had time I’d save my Roget’s Thesaurus as well.

2. http://dictionary.reference.com/ - for when I can’t get to my trusty Collin’s dictionary.

3. Wordle - I first read about this on Lynn Viehl’s Paperback Writer blog. A great way to see if you’re overusing words in your WIP.

4. On Writing by Stephen King. If I had to recommend one book about writing, this would probably be it.

5. Crit Groups. Not for everyone, but I’ve found them invaluable. You need to find one that fits you. Not only will it give you an opportunity to share your work with others, it will also expose you to the habits and styles of other writers. And if you’re lucky you’ll be able to follow a book through from first draft to final copy.

6. Beta reader - slightly different to a crit group. Someone who’ll read your polished work and give you an honest opinion before you submit it.

7. Wikipedia - Very good as a jumping off point for research. Bearing in mind you may have to double check your facts.

8. A plotting state of mind. LOL - does anyone know what I’m talking about. There’s a certain state of mind where plotting seems to come really easily - just before you go to sleep, just before you wake up. Certain activities are more conducive to achieving this state. If I’m driving and listening to music I often find it easy to sort out plot problems. Ironing! LOL. Anything that clears your mind of extraneous bumpf.

9. Reading - In your own genre, in other genres. Expand your horizons and keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on. Main problem is finding the time to read once you’re writing seriously.

10. NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. A phrase I will probably be quoting more and more often the closer we get to November. The challenge - write 50,000 words in a month. Once you know you can do it, you know you can do it again.

11. Don’t quit. This is a toughie. But the fact is even if you’ve got a brilliant story if you don’t complete it no one will ever read it. That book you read that you knew you could write better? The difference between you and the author is that the author didn’t quit. There is an oft quoted statistic which I wish I could remember which states that the vast majority of writers fail because they don’t stick at it.

12. Always have a notebook to hand. (I suck at this one and am forever writing plot ideas on random bits of paper.) The point is, you never know when inspiration might strike and you may not always be able to remember that fantastic idea.

13. Write! At the end of the day, you need to put your bum in the seat, at your typewriter / notepad / computer and get those words down. There are always a million other things that need doing. And boy am I the queen of procrastination, so I should really take my own advice here. So I’m off to get some of my own words down on paper.

Sonnet on a Sunday

36

Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love’s sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


So I’ve picked today’s sonnet because it was used in one of my favourite m/m stories - A Strong and Sudden Thaw by R.W.Day. Which if you haven’t read and you’re looking for a good m/m story I recommend.

Around Blogland

Apologies, no Thursday 13 today. To be honest I didn’t even realize it was Thursday until I saw everybody elses TT’s. Part of me is still convinced it’s Wednesday. I’ve been incredibly busy all week at the EDJ, and have been writing at night. If this were closer to New Year’s I’d make a resolution to be a better blogger.

So in lieu of a TT, I’m posting a link to one of the blogs I dip into now and again, it’s a poetry blog, the one I mentioned in the comments on Sunday.

I often get to know poems when they’re quoted on tv or film, and I stumbled upon this blog whilst trying to find the poem used in an episode of House (The Socratic Method). The poem was Her Praise by W.B.Yeats.

Poevies Blog

What was great about the blog, was how many other poems it had that I was familiar with through tv and film. With the most recent entries being from Prison Break and Heroes.
The poem from Heroes another Yeats poem and one of my favourite verses.

From The Second Coming by W.B.Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

As a writer I find this such an inspirational piece of work - so vivid. LOL - and I even remember where I first heard it quoted on tv, in an episode of Babylon 5 I think (well I’m pretty sure) they used the line or paraphrased - things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. It’s probably one of the most quoted and used poems, and one of the few I can almost instantly pick out when it’s quoted.

Sonnet on a Sunday

116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


This is the sonnet I had in mind whilst writing Valerian and Alaric - love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

Thursday 13 #7 - For Banned Books Week

So I am sort of borrowing this idea from the Bookwyrm Knits blog. I really wanted to do something for Banned Books week, but time kind of slipped away from me, and now we’re nearly at the end of the week. So to introduce this I just wanted to mention two of the most disturbing things I’ve seen in a movie are in the Indiana Jones film where you see the Nazis burning books - as an avid bibliophile this was almost painful to watch - and in the film Equilibrium where they torch the Mona Lisa. (Guess you can tell I’ve never watched a slasher flick, huh?)

I wish I’d read more of the books on the banned books list, I can’t help but wonder why some of them are there. (You can see the lists of frequently challenged books here. I did read a book when I was a teenager that disturbed me - it was about cannibalism and didn’t have a happy ending. But funnily enough that book isn’t on the list.

As I haven’t read 13 books on any of the Banned Books lists, my Thursday 13 will be books I have read, or am going to make a supreme effort to read before Banned Books Week next year.

1. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (Top 100 challenged books 2000-2007) I studied this one at school. And am pleased to say that when quotes from it were used on Lost I recognized them before being told where they’d come from.

2. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (Top 100 challenged books 2000-2007). Another one I studied at school, with the same teacher as Of Mice and Men IIRC.

3. The Pigman by Paul Zindel (Top 100 challenged books 1990-1999) - Yep, another one I studied in that same English class in high school. IIRC this was free reading rather than part of the curriculum.

4. Cujo by Stephen King (Top 100 challenged books 1990-1999) Okay, this one I didn’t read in class. I can’t remember whether I watched the film first or read the book. I think I saw the film. It was during my horror phase in my teens, and I was studying Stephen King as part of my wide reading for A-Level. That was the part of the course where you had to choose an author to study. (I was told at the time to make sure I submitted an essay on something classical as well in case I completely scuppered my course result by choosing to study a horror novelist. So one essay on the short stories of King, and one essay on Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare).

I remember reading about his thoughts on Cujo and why it (the book) had to end the way it did, and why of course the film had to end differently.

5. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (Top 100 challenged books 1990-1999). One of my favourite books from childhood. I’m sure we read this at school as well.

6. The Dead Zone by Stephen King (Top 100 challenged books 1990-1999) Again read during my horror phase, though I didn’t study this one for class. Funnily enough I never read Carrie which is also on the list, maybe because I found high school horrific enough without having to read about it.

So that brings us to the end of books I’m sure I’ve read on the list, :sigh: I definitely feel I should have read more. So below are some of the books I intend to read before Banned Books Week next year.

7. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Top 100 challenged books 2000-2007). Now I’m already halfway there with this one because it’s in my TBR pile.

8. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. (Top 100 challenged books 2000-2007). This one has been on my wishlist for longer than I care to remember. I’m not 100% clear how it got there but it makes this list.

9. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (Top 100 challenged books 2000-2007)

10. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Top 100 challenged books 2000-2007) Kind of ironic that this book is on the list given its subject matter, and because of that probably one I should read.

11. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (Top 100 challenged books 2000-2007)

12. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson (Top 100 challenged books 2000-2007)

13. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle (Top 100 challenged books 1990-1999)

If you have any recommendations from the challenged lists, I’d love to know.