A Lot of Contests, Celebrations, Poems
ost Number 499! I'll be celebrating 500 on Friday, with lots of flashbacks and prizes.Meanwhile, check out these other celebrations and exciting events:
Zan Marie is celebrating her 100th post and 200th follower, with prizes!
All The World's Our Page have a new interview, with Elizabeth Loupas, author of literary mystery and historical novel, The Second Duchess. With prizes!
Brenda Novak's annual auction (raising funds for the search for a cure for diabetes) is on! So many exciting items to bid for, including revisions and reviews by agents and editors, drinks and dinners with authors (including Diana Gabaldon), all sorts of ARCs, crafts, etc. Bidding starts at two dollars and goes up from there.
Mahtab Narsimhan is blogging from TD Canada Book Week!
Theresa Milstein has a rundown of all sorts of exciting stuff happening this month, including the publication of 100 Stories for Queensland (featuring a story by herself, one by Jessica Bell, and so on), proceeds of which go to Queensland Premier's Flood Appeal.
And, oh yes, A Round of Words in 80 Days. I've signed up for Barbara Rogan's Revising Fiction Workshop! As part of that, I've begun work on the synopsis for Out of the Water (eep!). Meanwhile, I've been reading Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled and practising writing poetry for the first time in years, all because my hero sends a few poems to my heroine and I want to match his level of beauty and passion.
Which verse form should I choose? Ghazal? One with an Arabic metre? A Spanish Redondilla or Serventesio? I tried to title this post in iambic pentameter, with a feminine ending. Not sure I have the ear necessary to create poems (though I had a few not so bad specimens back in the day when I was writing poetry more regularly). You should see the silly stuff I've been writing as part of Fry's exercise. Today I tried sixteen lines of iambic pentameter, with extra points for every enjambement, feminine ending, and trochaic or pyrrhic substitution. I might post a few lines on Friday, just so we can all laugh together.
A Whisky Trench Riders B-side!
Comments
Keep us updated, pretty please. I'll workshop vicariously through you. [g]
I think some of your poetry would make a delightful blog post. I'm beyond terrible at it, so you're guaranteed to absolutely not be the worst poet in the world, even if only by one!
I've never seen or heard of a lot of those foreign poetry metres, so why not introduce poetry dunces like me to a few of them?
Thanks for all the links. In a word, let me say 'woah'. hehe
let me visit the links!! Thanks for them all!!
with warm regards
CatchyTips for Writers
I hope you enjoy the fiction workshop.
Thanks for linking my blog and the book!
There's so much great stuff in (on?) b-sides, Trisha. Of course, there's no such thing as a digital b-side...
That sounds very interesting Nadja! If I could, I'd sign up for more classes, but I guess that would be squeezing too much into a working full-time schedule. I'm glad you think I'm getting work done! I always feel like I'm not accomplishing a thing...
Thanks for coming by Abhishek!
I couldn't believe I had so many, Theresa! Though some of the early ones were only a paragraph or so, apparently - went back through them today.
Do you like Ghazal?
Good question, Naina. I really haven't read enough of it to say. I'd like to find some classic Turkish/Ottoman examples, but it's harder to find that sort of thing on the internet, and all the Turkish poetry collections I have at home are modern ones (from the last century or thereabouts). Do you have any good sources?
So I wouldn't know anything classical. Like you, I am more aware of the modern stuff.