Contradictory Abstract Nouns (Photography Challenge)

Today I’m looking at finding the disappointment in fulfillment and the fulfillment in disappointment. For today’s images I chose a couple of the hot glue filters that I didn’t think had reached their potential previously, and took them out in nature. Not knowing what would constitute fulfillment, and searching for disappointment, was freeing and led to some interesting images.

November PAD Chapbook Challenge

It is two for Tuesday, so today’s prompts are:

1. Write a form poem, and/or…
2. Write an anti-form poem.

I thought an anti-form poem fit well with an exercise from Tony Hoagland’s The Art of Voice. The second exercise that goes with Chapter Three: “The Sound of Intimacy,” provides a list of “speech additives.” I thought I would walk around with a recorder and use these phrases to literally create a “voice” in my poem.

dVerse Poets Pub

Today’s Poetics prompt is to include titles of movies that won Razzies (from a list) in the poem.

This fits well with my idea for today’s poem. I will see which of these movie titles fit with the “speech additives” as I record myself talking my poem. Then I’ll choose my favorite phrases and write it down. Here goes. Lillian promised no poem Razzies.

Thinking Out Loud: Fulfillment or Disappointment

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard the lonely lady speak of fulfillment
I mean she must have known it at some point for better or worse

Don’t laugh, I—
Laugh if you like, but it seems odd to me for the lonely lady to be talking about fulfillment
Don’t worry I’m not trying to sensor her, but it seems odd, don’t you think?
Someone who obviously knows disappointment,
where would she find fulfillment in her loneliness?

Don’t let me get swept away in these difficult abstractions
come to think of it my bias might come shining through

And when she’s lonely in the empty darkness
swept away by her dreams the color of night—hmm
and another thing is there really ever fulfillment for anyone?
As we wander along between right and wrong
in an area with at least fifty shades of gray,
what is it that defines the disappointment?
Is it the one who seeks fulfillment,
or the one who doesn’t measure up?
I mean, you tell me
Where is the line?

Once a goal is reached, there is always a further one
Fulfillment is never completely reached
Like I always say:
You can’t be disappointed, if you have no expectations.

NaNoWriMo

I’m glad I used my character creation spreadsheet yesterday. I used the results to brainstorm a series of scenes in which my protagonist and the character from her past had strange interactions that made her suspect him. The character creation spreadsheet informed the scenes with his fears, hobbies, and obsessions.While she can’t sleep, these scenes are playing in reverse order in her head. I’m enjoying writing it.

When I finish this series of quick scenes, I plan to introduce a scene with one of my Big Five characters, so I’ll quickly fill in her character sheet using the character creation spreadsheet before I dive in.

The next exercise in A Writer’s Workbook by Caroline Sharp is “Picture This.” For the exercise, she says to find an image that makes you feel, then write for thirty minutes about what’s going on in that image. I set up a Pinterest folder of cinematic images before NaNoWriMo began, having no idea I would pick up this book and do these exercises, and I haven’t looked at the images since I collected them. I’ll take a look at the first image, and see how it inspires some scenes, or informs a scene for my novel.