For today’s images I’m trying to capture the indolence in perseverance and the perseverance in indolence. To me both abstract nouns have to do with repetition, but one is active and one is inactive, one requires expending energy, and the other preserving energy. It would be fun to cut out a sloth (the animal) filter—I don’t have one of those yet—but I don’t think that will help me find the indolence in persistence. I took my circle with arrows filters out to meet the Halloween lights this morning.
Today’s photoshoot was super-fun. Using movement with my outdoor light display produced great effects. And I enjoyed trying out some transparencies as well.
Today’s prompt is to write a childhood object poem.
Perseverance and Indolence
You push and push on the red plastic circle The corkscrewed metal post resists and the point slips The bicone rolls away on its center seem You fetch and balance and push even harder This time it gives The turning begins and you push and it springs back and the bicone turns faster and you push and it springs back and it whirs into a tone and you push and push and it spins and spins and the tone becomes a melody and now you’ve had enough You leave it fallen on its side, rolling in its small circle until it tires
How did your first day go? The NaNoWrMo Youtube Write-ins inspired me to start several scenes. It always surprises me how write-ins actually work to get me to write. I wrote over 2,000 words on my new novel yesterday.
I set up two different Scrivener files: One on my laptop using Derek Murphy’s 24-Chapter Novel Writing Template, and one on my no-internet-access desktop computer using my own template based on the Save the Cat Beatsheet. When I finished a write-in, I copied my words into my Scrivener files and wrote quick scene summaries. It was a very productive first day.
That’s why I’m glad the Global Write-in Crawl started this morning right when I woke up. I can jump in and join write-ins whenever I have time over the next few days.
The announcement on the NaNoWriMo site for the Global Write-in Crawl is confusing and mistaken. The Virtual Train Ride on Discord started with its first stop at 5AM (Pacific Time) this morning. Each stop is two hours of writing and chatting and then there’s an hour break. So hop on the train at any time for sprints, prompts, and writing comradery at any time: Global Write-in Crawl (GWIC) Discord.
For today’s images I’m trying to capture the inevitability in ambiguity and the ambiguity in inevitability. To me inevitability is a straight line to a conclusion. It can not be altered nor avoided. Ambiguity is blurry, unclear, indefinite. So for today’s images, I put a straight line on a clear filter and took some pictures of my Halloween lights before dawn. I played with getting different blurs of my straight line.
I really enjoyed this photoshoot. It’s fun to jump out of bed and get bundled up, wander out into the dark morning and turn on my Halloween light display to explore the different combinations of lights up and down the driveway. During today’s shoot I found that the ambiguity in inevitability arises when trying to decide which line is the line of the inevitable, or if they all are.
Today’s prompt is to write a declaration poem. What do I have to declare about inevitability and ambiguity? For today’s poem I played with the Mirrored Refrain form constructed by Stephanie Repnyek.
This is a declaration of utmost certainty The lake blends with the sky’s inevitability while I splash in the ambiguity
And I declare the borders blurred making me question its credibility While I splash in the ambiguity the lake blends with the sky’s inevitability
This declaration may be absurd when facing its incongruities The lake blends with the sky’s inevitability while I splash in the ambiguity
But I declare the line meets conclusion without any flexibility while I splash in the ambiguity The lake blends with the sky’s inevitability
These statements so declared superfluity in perpetuity The lake blends with the sky’s inevitability while I splash in the ambiguity
Today there are a series of Youtube write-ins. I caught the first one at nine am and already have over six hundred words on the day. It always surprises me how write-ins get me to write my novel, but they work. So I’ll be enjoying each of the write-ins today as I explore my opening scenes.
If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I am responding to the prompts from Show Off Your Costumes.
For today’s image prompt I thought it would be fun to have a “Costume Contest” of the photographs I took this month in response to the prompts. The photos on this page are my three favorites.
The 13 Days of Samhain prompt “Magic Words” sparked an idea that goes well with the image prompt.
Logline: A man whose twin died in the womb, is triggered by a voice in his head when it says “Say the magic words.”
Dead Twin Powers
People called him Split Rick, Cracked Brat, Double Mumble because he often spoke to himself in his two different voices. His mother said he was a twin, but his brother died in the womb. So when he heard the voice in his head, he imagined a little man that looked just like him curled up in his head, trying to get out, trying to take control. Most of the time, Rick didn’t mind him; he liked having a brother any way he could. But sometimes when people were mean, and he got really mad, his brother would whisper, “Say the magic words,” and he would get a little scared because he knew he was in trouble, because he had to say the magic words. He had to. And he would say, “Come out. Come out. It’s time to play.” Then Rick would go away. Usually until the next day. Sometimes for several days. He never remembered where. Usually bad things happened and he would get in trouble, but he didn’t feel bad because he didn’t do it.
Yesterday I finished making the quilt pockets for November and spent this morning setting up my office to be inspiring and productive. I made a butcher paper timeline and plot line for one wall to put post-its of scene ideas on. I filled in my small dry-erase calendar for event dates. I put away the room air-conditioner, and put up my magnet board for magnetic poetry. Some of my pocket rewards will be magnetic poetry words, so that over the week my rewards will make a poem. I enjoyed the YouTube Write-in. I’m getting excited about my novel.
November Photography Challenge
I will be continuing my daily photography practice through November. Each day I will attempt to make an image that shows contradictory abstract nouns in one image. I started this study over a year ago. If you’re interested in learning more about it, you can start by reading my post Contrasting Abstractions. All of the contradictory abstract nouns I chose for November are related to my new Big Five. I discuss how I chose them in my post Continuing My Contradictory Abstract Noun Study. The Big Five I’m studying in November, and using to model my characters’ personal journeys are:
Certainty / Doubt
Determination / Reluctance
Creativity / Actuality
Value / Worthlessness
Patience / Impatience
Here is the calendar of daily prompts for November:
A Witch at Home by Maria L. Berg 2019All Dressed Up and Ready to Play by Maria L. Berg 2020Pterodactyl Baby Duck by Maria L. Berg 2017
HAPPY HaLLoWEEN!! It’s here. IT’S HERE! All our fun has built to this one last poem, one last flash, one last Halloween photo shoot and then Halloween will turn into November.
OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears
Let’s end with the prompt I wrote as a warm up, “You Don’t Frighten Me.” If you tried it the first time, try a combination of the other options. Inspired by Maya Angelou’s “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me,” here are a few ways you could use this poem as inspiration:
Subject:
You can write about something that most people are afraid of but you aren’t, and express why it doesn’t scare you.
You can write about something you are afraid of but use the poems to convince yourself and others that you are not afraid.
You can write about something you’re not afraid of, but maybe should be, and explore the pros and cons of being afraid of it.
Form: This poem also has a fun rhyme scheme with a refrain. You can follow the form of the poem with any topic you choose. Notice the change in the fifth stanza where her rhyming couplets tell of her action and the scary things’ reactions. How do you keep fear away?
If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I am responding to the prompts from Beware the Cat.
For today’s images, I jumped out of bed and put on my thermals to hunt ghost cats in my Halloween lights before dawn. It was a little foggy near the street and frost sparkled on the pavement, but the sky was clear and the stars were out. The perfect morning for some Halloween ghost hunting.
Where the Ghost Cats Play by Maria L. Berg 2023
I put a cut out of a cat shape in a house shape, and then tried my new technique of taping the cut-out to a clear plastic filter and found a ghost cat on a star.
Ghost Cat by Maria L. Berg 2023
OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears
Lost Hope
What can’t be replaced What is lost Lost in time Lost forever Forever remembered Forever missed Missed opportunities Missed the target Target of theft Target of cruelty Cruelty of memory Cruelty of forgetting Forgetting them Forgetting the lost Lost in the woods Lost to time Time stole its luster Time dulled desire Desire for objects Desire to find it It wasn’t just a thing t was memories Memories of happiness Memories now nostalgia Nostalgia locks us in the past Nostalgia blurs then with better Better than now Better than this This is not the same This is cheaply made Made to fall apart Made to be replaced Replaced is only copied Replaced doesn’t have the right feel Feel the sneaky repeat of loss Feel the empty space Space—a void it filled Space left vacant Vacant stares Vacant room Room for rent Room for everything Everything breaks Everything is lost Lost cause Lost hope Hope for tomorrow Hope is eternal Eternal rotation Tomorrow will come
Beware These Ghost Cats by Maria L. Berg 2023
Writober 2023
The 13 Days of Samhain prompt “At the Crossroads” sparked an idea that goes well with the image prompt.
Of One Mind
That misty morning the gray and black short hair neighborhood cats all disappeared. They raced through the overgrowth, meeting along the dirt tracts to the abandoned building at the crossroads of Nowhere and Don’t Go There. Each cat slowed and stopped equidistant from the cat in front of them. If seen from above, there was a grid of almost identical gray and black cats spreading south under the power lines, sitting still in the muddy road staring, hissing and mewling at a derelict wood structure of no apparent purpose. The ground shook. The building appeared to breath a few times, creaking and groaning. Then the roof splintered and broke open. Giant vine-like tentacles protruded in every direction. The cats’ heads followed the movements of the vine-like limbs slithering down the wood siding and expanding, reaching along the ground. They growled and hissed, but did not move.
Many believe that cats have psychic abilities, and how else could one explain these cats’ all coming to witness this monster emerging. But it also made them susceptible to its control. Each vine curled around a furry body, lifting it without resistance into the air, into the building. The whole town was plastered in missing signs for months. All of the cats in the posters looked the same to me, but each spot or marking was a different heartache to someone. But I can’t imagine that’s why all of the owners are now in the hospital, the jail, or dead. They all walked around with blank stares like they were seeing nightmares we couldn’t see, then they just lost their minds. Some became outwardly violent, others inwardly. Those who weren’t violent started hissing and licking themselves in public.
I’m excited to say that I’m prepared for Halloween tomorrow. My decorations are up. I put my house on the Neighborhood Treat Map, and I’ve got a bowl full of candy. Prepared for NaNoWriMo? Not so much. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m trying a new genre, or because I didn’t give myself enough prep time, but I feel like ‘m flailing about in a void of vague ideas. Luckily, I do have an ideas for the opening scenes, so today and tomorrow, I’ll be brainstorming names and putting those names with faces for the characters in the first few scenes. Then I’ll outline those scenes the best I can, so I’m at least ready for day one. One day at a time. I can do this. It’s going to be fun.
As for my quilt pockets reward system I talked about yesterday, I’m going to try rewarding myself with permissions to take time away from writing to do something active. The pocket can have a slip of paper in it that says, “10 minutes on the mini trampoline (I like to bounce), or “take a walk around the neighborhood,” or even “go do an X-box Dance.” Other rewards can be slips of paper that say “You’re doing great!” or something else I need to hear, or fun prompts to try in the next scene. So now I have to decide when to give myself these rewards. They need to work as incentives to reach my goals. I think I get my first reward for handwriting three full morning pages, then for each 500 words I write on my novel. I’ll see how that goes.
There’s a Global Write-in Event today on Discord that I think I’ll take a look at. And a write-in tomorrow on Youtube that I hope will help me feel more prepared. How are you preparing for November first?
Imagining How You’ll Taste by Maria L. Berg 2022Mesmerizer by Maria L. Berg 2022
Here we are at the penultimate prompt post. How is everyone feeling? Sad it’s ending; relieved it’s over, excited by all the creativity and wanting more? I’m feeling all of those things. I’m glad I took on hosting all three challenges. I love them all. Next year, I’ll (hopefully) be more prepared.
I appreciate every one of you that linked up your poems, photos, and stories, and the extra efforts of those that couldn’t link up. And to those who thanked me for inspiring their creativity—You made my Halloween.
OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears
Lost Version Two: Write about something precious you lost. Focus on a specific object. Use all of your senses to describe the thing in minute detail. Describe both its perfections and its faults. Why was it so precious? How did you lose it? Why do you still think about it? What would you do to get it back? What would you do if you got it back? Do you actually want it back?
Kitty and I Had a Carving Party by Maria L. Berg 2023
If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I am responding to the prompts from Halloween Party.
For today’s Photo Challenge prompt “Party” I spent my morning setting up all my lights outside for Halloween with my light up ghosts, and skull and hands coming out of the ground. I put the scary skulls door cover on the front door and the rubber bats in the bushes by the front door. After lunch I had a carving party with a small pumpkin. Though these pictures don’t show off the lights, since it’s a bright, sunny day, they show off my new party atmosphere. I can’t wait until the sun goes down.
Kitty is Helping by Maria L. Berg 2023
OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears
A Future Unseen
At this supreme Halloween bash My full masked costume makes a splash The spirits are tasty and free No one can identify me
A live band plays all spooky hits We dance because we can’t resist Sweaty and tired but on joy’s wing No one can identify me
Scary stories round the bonfire to which all others will aspire No other place I long to be No one can identify me
At the supreme Halloween bash no one will identify me
These Jack-o-lanterns Show the Way by Maria L. Berg 2023
Writober 2023
The Train Has A Million Legs
Joshua sprinted down the stairs. A quick glance over his shoulder reassured him that he had lost the cop tailing him when he ducked into the subway entrance. He ran across the platform and climbed down to the maintenance path along the side of the tracks. Another street kid had shown him this entrance to an old abandoned station a few months back when they needed to get out of the cold. He said to only use it in emergencies, but never explained why. He had disappeared before Joshua woke up the next morning, and he never saw him again. Joshua squeezed through the boards under the Keep Out and Danger signs.
The smell of death became stronger with each descending step. He grasped the handrail and stepped carefully toward the ghostly light below, expecting to encounter a decaying rat, or raccoon at any moment. When he reached the platform, he was shocked to see people waiting. They were still and silent, standing in clusters or separated and alone, but they were all staring at the tracks toward the tunnel.
When he was here before, it was dark, dusty, and full of cobwebs. The tiles were falling off the wall, paint peeling off the pillars, and part of the ceiling had fallen down. The tracks had been covered in garbage and debris. Now, everything looked pristine, almost new. Joshua’s eyes went wide as he took it all in. Why would the city spend so much on an abandoned subway station? He slowly walked along the back wall. No one was seated on the benches. A woman in a long dress with a bustle and small veiled hat, who might have stepped out of the 1800’s, held a greyhound on a leash. Even the dog was silent and watching the tunnel.
The rumble that approached from the tunnel didn’t sound like a train at all. It was a skittering, a clattering, like rock on rock, or nails tapping on a countertop. The whistle announcing the train’s arrival was more of a ghostly moan than an announcement. Those waiting shifted their weight, or took slight steps closer to the edge. Joshua also moved forward, thinking he would join them and ride this train wherever it went, but then it emerged from the tunnel. It was chalky white with two black windows at the front that looked like skeletal eyes. Joshua couldn’t see a conductor. And no wheels held it to the rails. It had legs. Short insectoid legs on each side like a millipede, pumping up and down in waves. Joshua wanted to scream, but no one else reacted at all.
The train stopped, and doors slid open on its side. Joshua felt a rush forward and was swept up in the crowd. He pushed back, used all his weight to resist the push, but crowding bodies pulled him off his feet. The doors closed with a hiss. He pounded on the wall where the door had been, screaming Let Me Out, but the wall felt mushy like a wad of spiderwebs. His pounding made no sound, and held him in place. A speaker crackled like an itch in Joshua’s brain. It said, “Next stop, The Gates.” All the silent riders’ mouths opened wide and filled the train with tortured screams.
Yesterday, I designed and made a new football-shaped quilt square for my quilt pocket calendar with Seahawks fabric left over from shorts I made in High School. The idea of my pocket quilt calendar is to put little treats in each of the pockets to reward myself for reaching my writing goals each day. The quandary now is what to put in the pockets that I will find rewarding, and what achievements to reward.
RIPXVIII All of the links below are Amazon Associate links.
For Halloween, Amazon kindle presents Creature Feature Collection, a series of short horror stories by bestselling horror authors, free for prime members. So far I read The Pram by Joe Hill and In Bloom by Paul Tremblay. I noticed that each story appeared to call back to a well-known horror story. The Pram made me think of Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby and In Bloom made me think of The Blob. Both short stories were fun reads for the season.
I’ve downloaded the other four to my kindle and hope to add them to the Peril of the Short Story over the next few days.
Halloween Party by Maria L. Berg 2022Party Ghosts by Maria L. Berg 2021
OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears
Fear of the Future: Imagine you are at a Halloween party in the future. What are you afraid of before you go? Imagine it’s the best Halloween party you could ever go to and nothing goes wrong, everything is the best Halloween party fun you can imagine. Write a poem describing the experience with all of your senses.
A Kyrielle Sonnet could be a good way to structure these ideas.
Today’s image prompt is a millipede skulltrain. Where, when, and how does that happen? And why are people with pets waiting to ride it? Or are they as confused as I am?
Halloween Photography Challenge
Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I am responding to the prompts from What Makes a Villain.
For today’s images I revisited the classic monster transparencies I created at the beginning of the month. Thinking about the difference between monsters and villains, I realized I would only consider some of the monsters villains—the ones who chose to act monstrously.
I tried a couple of things I’ve never tried before: taping the transparency to a clear plastic filter, and taping the transparency directly to the edge of the lens.
Today is also Stream of Consciousness Saturday and the prompt is “oo.” Looking up “oo” words inspired my response to today’s OctPoWriMo prompt. Here’s my stream of consciousness thinking about it:
I could write about oo spooky or oo gooey but I was also thinking of something villainous to use in my compound word poem. crook, took, good, look, taboo, tattoo, hood would probably work well, neighborhood, childhood, knighthood, unlikelihood, likelihood, brotherhood, sisterhood, priesthood, victimhood, parenthood, falsehood, selfhood,
I like those last two but I don’t think there are a lot of compound words to go with them. I’m going to have to spend some time with the dictionary this morning, or I should say, I get to spend time with the dictionary this morning.
The poem could be Hidden Under a Hood I can still use words like taboo and tattoo, I could end each line in an oo, so goo, kangaroo, hullabaloo, too, bugaboo, boogaloo, switcheroo, peekaboo, cockatoo, cockapoo, vindaloo, shampoo, booboo, boohoo, hoodoo, voodoo, kazoo, boo, moo, zoo
The scrabble dictionary online is great for this, and so many great words. Now I’m getting excited for my poem. I need a few more hood words and then I can start playing around with what someone with rose-colored glasses has to say about my villain. Maybe I can explore how the girlfriend/friend character sees my angry spirit out for revenge. I wonder if Kanopy* has the Crow. I bet it does.
*kanopy.com is a site where I can watch five movies per month for free through my library system, and it does have The Crow, so I’m going to (re)watch that later.
Hiding in Plain Sight by Maria L. Berg 2023
OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears
Hidden Under a Hood
Though his every act is taboo this moral game of peekaboo a falsehood
Complaining like a worn kazoo He’s tired of their whiny, boohoo victimhood
Just gossip and hullabaloo A projectory switcheroo of selfhood
They accuse him of bad voodoo but that’s just a boo from this zoo neighborhood
Once you look past the face tattoo you’ll see he’s not the bugaboo in likelihood
Villains by Maria L. Berg 2023
Writober 2023
Today’s prompt for 13 Days of Samhain is “If These Bones Could Talk” which sparked an idea to go with the visual prompt.
Here’s the beginning of my story:
The Talking Bones
We’ve been down in this dark cavern for days. I don’t remember how you convinced me this would be a fun afternoon hike, and I should have known better when we packed headlamps and extra flannel shirts. Looking into the dark hole which greeted us with a cold moaning wind might as well have been yelling “run away,” but I took your hand and followed you down the the initial deceptive stone steps into the dark. At first it seemed like it would be crowded and claustrophobic, but almost everyone else stayed in the wide tall cavern. We did not. We veered off to the deeper regions where my headlamp revealed hills of rocks to climb almost to the ceiling and then down again, only to meet another hill of rocks. It didn’t take long before I was sweating and exhausted. You started a mantra of “Not long now” and when we encountered a chasm with a rope, I wanted to give up and die, and tears flowed down my cheeks in frustration.
When I finally made it to the other side, I could see your headlamp ahead of me off to my right. I thought you had strayed from the path to sit and wait for me, and heard another voice. Who could you be talking to?
I had to get down on all fours and crawl under a rock ledge. The voice sounded far away like we were only hearing the echo off the walls. When I touched your shoulder you shuddered then said, “Oh good, you made it, but then put your finger to your lips, so I wouldn’t talk and pointed at a pile of bones. It was a rather large pile of bones of all shapes and sizes. And somehow I knew that the voice I heard came from the bones.
I sat on my knees and rested my head on your shoulder. The bones were telling the story of their lives in this cavern. The speaker had appeared as a human baby never aging or growing more than three feet tall. It kept a faceless humanoid as a pet and rode it as it crawled through the caverns. The speaker called his kind “Tites” and the pet an “Agmite.” The Tites were an aggressive, warring group, and learning to tame and train the Agmites gave them an advantage over other clans of Tites who they ate, and used their bones as weapons and armor.
I tapped your shoulder. I was feeling uneasy and not enjoying the cannibal bones history lessons, but you wouldn’t move. You just waved me off. My feet were falling asleep and my knees were sore from the cold stone. I switched to my butt and leaned against the camp cave wall. The drone of the bones quickly put me to sleep.
I woke up shivering. At first I didn’t know where I was. When I remembered, I was scared you had left me, but I heard the bones. My headlamp was off, and I feared the batteries were dead, but I hit the button anyway and it came on. I sighed in relief. You must have turned it off for me, or I did in my sleep.
“Oh good. You’re up,” you said. “You may want to save your headlamp battery. Besides it’s easier to visualize the story in the dark.”
“How long was I out?”
“Long enough to miss some important battles, some feasts, some deaths and births. It’s an epic tale.”
“I really want to go now. I’m freezing and sore.”
“And miss the rest of the story? No way. These bones are speaking to us. Telling their story to me. You know? I found them. It’s my responsibility to hear them to the end.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“Not long now.”
I had heard that one before. We could be down here forever. “Do we at least have food and water?”
“I finished it while you were sleeping.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I guess you’ll have to head to the surface and get more and come back.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t expect me to leave and come back. I don’t even know how to get back to the path.”
In my search for resources to help me write my first supernatural horror novel, I found Writing Monsters (assoc. link) by Philip Athans.
Here are the traits that he says define monsters:
They are unpredictable
They have a disturbing capacity for violence
They exhibit an “otherness” = come from the Unknown
Our imagination makes them scarier
They are amoral
They are beyond our control
They are terrifying in appearance
They turn us into prey
Today, I’m going to brainstorm scenes that show these traits in my supernatural entity.
Villain in the Garden by Maria L. Berg 2016Villain Meditates by Maria L. Berg 2016
OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears
Fear of the Bad Guys: Everyone believes they are the hero of their own story, so how do people who do such evil things still believe they are the good guys? For this poem, try to get into the heads of those you see as pure evil. How do they justify their actions? How do they see them as good? Either write your poem as a villain(s) praising all the good they do, OR as someone trying to see the good in everyone talking about a villain.
Seems like a Villanelle goes with villains, but if you already did one on the 4th and don’t want to repeat, this prompt might work well with Compound Word Verse created by Margaret R. Smith.
Today’s image prompt is the creepiest gif I have ever seen. I have no idea who the villain is in this moving monstrosity, but I don’t think it’s the pig. I could be wrong.
Halloween Photography Challenge
Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
RIP XVIII
Today’s theme led me to a pleasant surprise movie called Villains(assoc. link) available on Amazon Prime video/Freevee. This 2019 Horror/very messed up comedy is all villains all the time with a very interesting casting combo including Bill Skarsgård, Kyra Sedgwick, Jeffrey Donovan, and Maika Monroe.
Experience Writing 