Sunday afternoon, it's raining outside, and so my day has been decided: I will stay happily warm and dry inside my castle, and yes, although they say "An Englishman's home is his castle", I can tell you a Englishwoman's home is her castle too, and is certainly better decorated. So the Sunder afternoon is a special time, when you can dedicate some time to yourself (and I hope you can too!). That is what I am trying to do with my afternoon today, even thought I do have other moments of free time, it's usually occupied with "doing" something, like chores around the house, keeping fit, or just any activity that you have to do that isn't fulfilling.
So this afternoon, I thought that I would put on my poets cap, figuratively speaking, and start writing my next masterpiece (my other masterpieces just haven't been discovered yet), so the process begins with my preparing a hot cup of Horlicks Original, accompanied by some dates on the side, burning my lip on my drink as I'm too impatient to let it cool, and then starting writing. I had originally wanted to use a story of my own creation for the basis of this poem, but I found an amazing story just by chance, that has all the ingredients to inspire a poetic creation. I won't say any specifics, but it has the ideal setting, scenario and tragedy to work, at least for me.
I begin my poem, not by taking a pen and writing the first verse, but by summarising the story into highlights, so that a simple 5 word statement could describe what a paragraph of the poem will hopefully express. For me that was 22 statements, split across two parts; the build up and the backstory, then the main event and it's repercussions. These statements make up the foundation of the poem, and will need to be transferred into verse. It is now that the inspiration and creativity are needed. So I will write and write, and then read over and over, each time making minor changes, until I can read it from start to finish and feel happy with every letter of every sentence.
Sometimes, it's not so complicated, and I just take pen to paper, and hope for the best. Do you have any methods for writing your poems or short stories?
Comments