Sounds of Words: Cacophony

Welcome back for the fourth day of Writober. Today, all our prompts will continue to explore the universal fear of Ego death: the loss of subjective self-identity by looking at fear of failure.

Fear of failure can stop us from even starting, which of course is failure in itself. A terrible cycle that can be completely debilitating. But, failure is a part of learning and growing. That’s why the saying, “Try. Fail. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” (attributed to Samuel Beckett) is so well known.

Fighting Fear of the Blank Page: When we want to write, sometimes the blank page stares back like a judgemental enemy or a white-washed wall. But what if you set out to not write anything on the page?

Intend to fill the page with jibberish: Get to the page with the full intent to only write jibberish and nonsense. How long can you keep it up before you accidentally write something interesting?

*Quick Note about links in this post: I am an amazon associate, so most of the links in my post will take you to amazon products. If you buy from these links, I will make some pennies which will help me pay for this site and my creative endeavors.

OctPoWriMo

Poetry Toolbox

These are quick exercises that I hope you’ll do every day. We will build on these exercises throughout the month.

Word list: Write down the first ten words you think of when you think of fear or shame. Any words at all. Anything that comes to mind. Then choose your three favorite. Mark their stresses and duration. Say the words aloud. Do you notice any inharmonious sounds? (Inspired by Frances Mayes’ list of a hundred favorite words in The Discovery of Poetry)

I created this Excel Spreadsheet for you to use to collect and explore your fear words.

OctPoWriMo wordlist Download

Sensory Imagery: In your journal or a word processing file, fill in these lines as quickly as you can with something different from yesterday. You may want to revisit one or two in more detail if you’re inspired and have time.

I saw

I heard

I carried

I smelled

I followed

The crowded room

The slap of

I tasted

The heat of my cheeks

I witness

I touch

(Inspired by a week one exercise in the poetry chapter of The Portable MFA in Creative Writing)

Poetry Building

According to Jeff Mock in his book You Can Write Poetry, cacophony is “a combination of sounds that grate on the ear” like the harsh and jarring j, x and k sounds in “When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw” from Alexander Pope’s long poem,” An Essay on Criticism.” Cacophony can achieve dramatic results. Another example of cacophony Mock gives is the double k sound of “black flak.”

To achieve cacophony in your writing use explosive consonant sounds like “kuh” and “koff” close together. Other sounds to use include: “C”, “CH”, “Q”, and “X”.

Today’s example poem, copied here for educational purposes from hplovecraft.com, is Nemesis by H. P. Lovecraft.

Nemesis

Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

I have whirl’d with the earth at the dawning,
When the sky was a vaporous flame;
I have seen the dark universe yawning,
Where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.

I had drifted o’er seas without ending,
Under sinister grey-clouded skies
That the many-fork’d lightning is rending,
That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons that out of the green waters rise.

I have plung’d like a deer thro’ the arches
Of the hoary primordial grove,
Where the oaks feel the presence that marches
And stalks on where no spirit dares rove;
And I flee from a thing that surrounds me, and leers thro’ dead branches above.

I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
That rise barren and bleak from the plain,
I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
That ooze down to the marsh and the main;
And in hot cursed tarns I have seen things I care not to gaze on again.

I have scann’d the vast ivy-clad palace,
I have trod its untenanted hall,
Where the moon writhing up from the valleys
Shews the tapestried things on the wall;
Strange figures discordantly woven, which I cannot endure to recall.

I have peer’d from the casement in wonder
At the mouldering meadows around,
At the many-roof’d village laid under
The curse of a grave-girdled ground;
And from rows of white urn-carven marble I listen intently for sound.

I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
I have flown on the pinions of fear
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages,
Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.

I was old when the Pharaohs first mounted
The jewel-deck’d throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.

Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,
And great is the reach of its doom;
Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,
Nor can respite be found in the tomb:
Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.

In this poem, Lovecraft’s speaker appears to be stuck in perpetual darkness. Is it due to fear of failure to to survive the light? 🎃 Notice the cacophony throughout: like cave-ridden/bleak/ fog-foetid/ooze/hot cursed tarns all in the fifth stanza.

Today’s poem: Write a poem that explores the fear of failure using cacophony.

Form: If you’re looking for more of a challenge, write a poem in as many five line stanzas as you would like where the first four lines are two rhyming couplets and the fifth line is a repeating refrain (aabbX, ccddX, eeffX, etc.).

Writober Flash Fiction

Write a story with a beginning, middle, and end with conflict that leads to change in less than a thousand words (no minimal word count) inspired by one of the images in the Ego death folder of the Writober 2024 Pinterest board. How does fear of failure affect your character?

NaNo Prep

Now that you have some ideas for your main character, it’s time to think about the opposition. The antagonist is the character whose goals are counter to your MC’s. The antagonist stops your MC from reaching his r her goals whenever possible, creating conflict and raising the stakes.

What is your antagonist’s goal? How is it in opposition with your MC’s mail goal?

What is your antagonist’s wound that warps her/his point of view? What happened? When did it happen? How does it show itself in the character’s behavior?

What is your antagonist’s strength? How can it become a flaw?

What is your antagonist’s deepest secret? The one he or she would do anything to keep hidden? What would happen if it ever came to light?

We’ll be working on our characters for a while, so just sit with your antagonist and brainstorm what would make him or her the most interesting to you.

You may want to set a timer for fifteen minutes and write as your character. Let him/her answer the questions above. Or you may want to imagine you’re interviewing your character.

Look for images of your character. For fun you can cut parts of people out of old magazines and make a collage of your character, or play around in photoshop or GIMP (free photo manipulation software) to create how your character looks.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Take a photograph that depicts failure, fear of failure, or how to deal with fear of failure and link to your photo in the chat.

Get Moving

Now that you’ve read all the prompts and have all these ideas running around in your head, it’s time for motion. It may seem counter-intuitive, but while you are moving, your mind will still be working on your ideas while you are busy doing something else. Write down some quick notes, your initial thoughts from the prompts and then get your body moving in any way you can that you enjoy. I’ve been a member of Masterclass for years. Masterclass has some movement classes I’ve enjoyed. I recommend:

Yoga Foundations with Donna Farhi

Mindfulness and Meditation with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Fitness and Wellness Fundamentals with Joe Holder

Don’t forget to come back and post a link your work in the comments.