Today I finally have the day to myself and the prompt “Off “should fit well with my mirror world–images reflecting off so many surfaces, and the tilt of the mirror making everything a little off–but the sun came out, so those plans are off. I decided to go see what was popping off outside. A fish-eye lens really helps one see things that are a little off. Kitty is a very uncooperative model, but since he follows me around, he got in the pictures. 😍
I object to objectifying this object. obvious objectification obligates obscurity–observation obfuscated obnoxious oboe obbligato of objurgation
I object to any obvious objections Obedient observers obey objectivism obscure obligations obnubiate oblong obesity in an obituary’s orbit
I, the object objectified obstinate an obsidian obelisk of oblation obstructed obligated to obesity and an obituary an objective correlative to obsequy
Fish-eye Kitty-head by Maria L. Berg 2021
November Daily Prompts by Maria L. Berg 2021 Please leave your links in the comments. I hope you will join me.
The Oracle in the Mirror World by Maria L. Berg 2021
Inspired by Es Devlin’s Masterclass, I spent part of yesterday and this morning creating a mirror world. I had big plans to play with the oracle ball I made and bokeh and all sorts of things. I thought it would be perfect for tilt because I tied one of the mirrors to tilt at about a forty-five degree angle, based on Es mentioning that was an old theater trick to make things float. However, life got in the way today and I didn’t get to play in my mirror world, so today’s images are process photos, but they’re still kind of cool.
For today’s images I played with the homograph (words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings, and may be pronounced differently) of tear. Building on yesterday’s images and inspired by the work of Erica Baum and Tracie Morris from week 10 of ModPo, I physically put tears in some of yesterday’s oracle pictures.
In your absence I will tear into that like the fangs of a bat on the haunch of a donkey in the dark
You won’t miss it you won’t know I’ll never tell
In your absence I will tear into that like a cat on a rat pouncing and growling then licking my lips and leave bloody scraps as a gift
You won’t be as pleased as I am with my display
In your absence I will tear into that like claws to a sofa or brand new curtains I will shred like a thresher leaving only threads
You’ll be at a loss for a cause
Tear the Lid Off the Box by Maria L. Berg 2021
NaNoWriMo
I made it to the regional Zoom meeting yesterday. It felt great to have my words almost done early in the day. I wrote the most words in a day so far this NaNoWriMo yesterday and hit 25K, the halfway point of the wordcount goal: All exciting milestones. However, in my story I’m about to write into Act II, so I’m also on track to create a 100k draft. The only thing that’s bugging me is my strange internal conflict of wanting a plan and having more fun winging it. I’m going to keep trying to map out everything I’ve set up so far and create some sort of map of how everything will come back into the story.
I hope everyone working on their novel is finding their groove and having fun.
Laughter and Tears by Maria L. Berg 2021
November Daily Prompts by Maria L. Berg 2021 Please leave your links in the comments. I hope you will join me.
For today’s images, I wanted to build on yesterday’s fun discovery. The eye photo from yesterday makes me think of an oracle. Then I thought of a magic 8 ball. I used to have one and really liked it.I found an online 8 Ball, but it just wasn’t the same. The physical holding and shaking of the ball, watching the words rise to the surface, how could I capture the feeling and experience? I thought of the joy of Erica Baum’s photographs of clever found text in the world. I have a triangle bokeh filter.
Then I looked at the theme for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday which is “cam.” When asked to think of a word with cam in it, of course I think of camera, then camera, then camera, so I put cam in a search and got “campfire.” I haven’t had a fire yet this yea,r and I had a small dry log and some kindling in the fireplace from a photoshoot I did in October, so I decided to light that up as my background. Not exactly a campfire, but though it is not supposed to rain again until tonight, the world outside is way too wet, so the fact that I have one small dry log is in fact “lucky.”
With fire as my backdrop for my oracle, I needed to figure out how I wanted to gather my questions and my answers. How would my oracle answer yes or no questions? I wanted to find the text on things around me, but how to get the words in my triangle, in front of the fire?
The classic 8 ball had 20 answers: 10 affirmative, 5 maybe, and 5 no. I started taking pictures of text I thought would make good answers. Then I saw my word jars on the mantel and thought, what could be more found-text oracle than randomly pulling nouns from a jar to represent yes, no, or maybe? So I pulled out 20 nouns and got to work.
I must be the luckiest person: I went to the oracle and the oracle said Only Yes or No questions so I asked: Will I meet my soulmate? They answered: nest Which is exactly what I needed to hear It makes sense that I should make a home, a comfortable place, for love to be drawn to Then I asked: Have I found my purpose? They answered: smoke which confirms that life is fleeting and I need to follow my heart, so I asked the question burning inside: Will I be remembered? They said: flavor And I knew I would leave good taste in the world.
I must be the unluckiest person: I went to the oracle who said ask only Yes or No questions so I asked: Will I ever find love? and they answered: sneeze which only confirms that I sneeze funny and it puts people off I asked: Do I have a purpose? They said: poison Which is what I’ve been dreading; I’ll have to quit my job before that go-getter poisons them against me. He probably has already, so I asked: Will anyone notice if I am gone? They answered: key Exactly as I expected. No one will miss me unless I don’t turn in my keys.
Yes or No Answers by Maria L. Berg
NaNoWriMo
Last night I did 20 minute word sprints with my ML (municipal liaison) and the part of my story that had me a little stuck opened up in a new direction. It really is amazing to me how just knowing that someone else is out there doing timed writings “with” you does actually make a difference. Strange human mental gymnastics, but whatever works. I’ll be trying the zoom write-in today and see if that works as well.
Fire Oracle by Maria L. Berg 2021
November Daily Prompts by Maria L. Berg 2021 Please leave your links in the comments. I hope you will join me.
It took a couple days, but I found a moment of wild abandon! This morning, I wanted to try a new skill. I remembered my screw-on fisheye lens that I haven’t played with in a while, and noticed it made bokeh with some lights I had hanging. I put one of my shape filters over the lens. I am so glad I did! The short lens doesn’t create bokeh shape photography, but obscured in fun ways instead. I had one of those mornings like last month when the techniques I’ve been trying built on each other and today I created some photographs I really enjoy.
Secret Music by Maria L. Berg 2021
November PAD Chapbook Challenge
Today’s prompt is to write a raw poem. The definitions of the word “raw” are a poem in themselves.
Every Day in the Raw
I come to the green marked by lack of refinements not tempered unbridled vulgar, coarse I come inexperienced without understanding disagreeably damp and cold
I come abraded or chafed to the surface very irritated lacking covering not protected which leaves me susceptible to hurt
I come to the naked– not cooked not processed not purified –natural state unprepared or imperfectly prepared for use
Secret Song by Maria L. Berg 2021
NaNoWriMo
I got burned out, as I had feared I might. So I won’t be getting the every day goal-meeting badges, oh well. However, I got back to it and caught back up yesterday. Today, I got up early, got straight to my morning pages, and made plans to explore all of my characters’ secrets, and put them on post-it notes, and put them on a timeline, and map out the scenes in which all of these secrets are revealed, and how they move the plot, and then have a wonderful writing day writing all these scenes. Then I started taking today’s pictures, and all I want to do is take pictures. And now it’s almost noon.
As you can see, I need to be more flexible. I still want to do the post-its with the secrets and brainstorm the scenes, but I’ll do that over the whole weekend and play a bit of brainstorm, write, brainstorm, write leapfrog each day. Hopefully I’ll get to the point soon where the words start to flow, and I’m not updating the NaNoWriMo page every 500 words, hoping it will be more than it is.
November Daily Prompts by Maria L. Berg 2021 Please leave your links in the comments. I hope you will join me.
For today’s images I thought it would be interesting to obscure my world with an object. I thought of those two yellow wiffle balls I found during my lost photos. When I went to grab one, I found a third. 🤨
When I included “abandon” as a prompt, I imagined things left behind. I was feeling that kind of abandon yesterday, but I want to leave that behind. This morning when I thought of abandon, I thought of wild abandon: bright colors, spinning until falling, rolling down hills. The surrender kind of abandon. This bliss kind of abandon.
I’ll try to bring both aspects of abandon to a poem to fit yesterday’s Poetics prompt: In the Light of Other Days.
I ask my morning what I can abandon to enable a feeling of wild abandon Worry, said the morning abandon your worries like branches abandon their leaves to the wind and I hear the lawn is getting too long and you have dishes in your sink and I remember the black grit on the gray kitchen tiles I ask my morning how to abandon all the worries I’m facing so I can feel reckless abandon? Face them with action So I mow the lawn with abandon and as the grass abandons inches I turn my ankle but I do not abandon my mission I yell the pain at the wind and for once the pain walks off when I finish and lock the mower in the shed I find that my shed keys are lost most likely locked inside the shed and while not finding my keys I notice the drip from the outside faucet drip, drip, abandoning water (and money) into the mud which is worrying
Dimensional Abandon by Maria L. Berg 2021
November Daily Prompts by Maria L. Berg 2021 Please leave your links in the comments. I hope you will join me.
This morning when I woke up, my idea for “lost” was to take pictures in crevices, vents, drains, inaccessible corners, etc., but my camera battery was dead. That has been happening too often lately, so I ordered an extra battery. I’m surprised I never did that before.
While I waited, I did a Bing search of “lost” to see what came up. I was not surprised to see a lot of movie names. The only thing that came up that was interesting was “Lost in Random.” I clicked on it and it turned out to be a video game which looked like it might be my cup of tea except for the fighting parts. I get all stressed in the fighting parts of video games.
I then tried “lost” in Google and got many of the same answers as Bing except Google had “Lost Lake” which surprised me by not being a movie or a video game, but many places in Western Washington. People appear to lose lakes around here–a lot. I am surrounded by about sixteen lost lakes. But since I was looking at pictures of these lost lakes, it seems to me they were not lost, but found, named, reported, recorded, visited, etc. This got me thinking about the absurdity of naming something “lost” (and naming in general, an issue for me forever). And of course I have a whole new novel idea. This brain, I swear. But that’s for after NaNoWriMo. I guess it’s a good thing to know what I’m doing next. Not like I was lacking in things to do.
By then the sun had come out and I went out to enjoy it and saw those adorable little fungi growing out of the dock. They looked so out of place, they looked lost. Thus I ran back in and got the camera and my photographic challenge took a new turn.
Got Lost? by Maria L. Berg 2021
November PAD Chapbook Challenge
The prompt is to write a poem with the title “(blank) of the (blank),” replacing the blanks with a new word or phrase. The idea of naming a lake Lost lead me to my title, “The Found of the Lost.” While taking my pictures, a little photo story happened that made me smile.
The Balls of the Fall
Left Behind by Maria L. Berg 2021Still There by Maria L. Berg 2021
Surprise Twin or. . . . by Maria L. Berg 2021All the Lost by Maria L. Berg 2021
Yet Another by Maria L. Berg 2021
The Found of the Lost
Lost can be defined in cost to the loser but lost can be temporary and lost could be good like a pock lost by new skin or a lock lost when you want in or a rock lost while drowning Lost can be defined as not knowing where one is, these days its harder and harder to do everything and everyone is lost in time glossed over moss covered mocked Lost can be defined as the space place and time before found which comes around again more or less often and then less often Lost is a feeling when a wanted thing isn’t found like a piece of saved fabric or a purpose or a soul Lost can be that thing you thought about but forgot about but suddenly want more than anything will die without but can’t have Lost is that scream I made when I came home and the only instruments I had left after Katrina were stolen and the police wanted serial numbers they were my body, they weren’t numbers those aren’t victimless crimes those aren’t ensured when they’ve only recently been reattached because their sounds made me cry I bet they sit in corners lost in dark shadows because they are haunted by my touch
NaNoWriMo
I put “word crawls” in the search bar on the top right of this sight and was taken to a post I did on November 11th 2019. The word crawl that day was The Joy of Painting Crawl, but then I noticed that there were some interesting statements about my main character. In 2019 I wrote the basic idea for the novel I’m re-writing now. I’m glad I hadn’t been looking at those posts during the first week, but today, the comparison is fun.
I went to the post that would correspond with today, Crossing The Threshold on #NaNoWriMo Day 8 and had fun looking through my past self’s thoughts. It’s fun to see that I’m more on track to write a full draft this time. I’ve set up so much more of the plot at the front end that many more things need to happen before I get to the scene I was working on that day. However, this morning’s scenes to be Crossing the Threshold for my Detective. She’s still trying to figure out who lived on the property, why it was abandoned, and why nobody seems to know. The simple task from 2019 could work in today’s scene when Naomi goes back to the property.
There wasn’t a word crawl chosen for Day 8 so I looked back through the posts. On Day 4 I found The Hunt for your Muse. I think I’ll play through that this morning. I’ll leave The Joy of Painting Crawl for Day 11.
Gutted by Maria L. Berg 2021
November Daily Prompts by Maria L. Berg 2021 Please leave your links in the comments. I hope you will join me.
Experience Writing 