So far, so good. My prompts are inspiring me to hop out of bed, grab my camera and try new techniques. When I woke up, I made a quick list of things found in the wild that I forgot to put on my abandoned property description yesterday. This included: spiderwebs, spiders, huckleberries, salmon berries, ferns, maple trees, etc. The list of these details made me think of a set of screw-on macro lenses I bought a while ago and only tried once or twice. I set my camera to macro, grabbed the 10X lens and the 4X lens, and set out into the wild.
The world was very cooperative. It temporarily stopped raining and a little morning sun peeked out from the clouds occasionally. The leaves held lovely droplets. I was hoping to find one little shriveled up huckleberry clinging to the tree, but instead found many tiny huckleberries hanging on. They were delicious crispy, juicy treats. What a nice surprised.
November PAD Chapbook Challenge
The prompt is “As (blank).”
As Wild
Today I am wild
as wild as a huckleberry
after the first frost
a crisp, tart-sweet burst
as wild and fresh as raindrops
collected in the yellow petals
of a buttercup among ferns
as wild and fresh and vibrant as light
breaking through the thick gray
to reveal threads of spiderwebs
from sori dot to sori dot
as wild and fresh and vibrant
and dangerous as thorns
hiding entwined on blackberry vines
weaving through it all
like sharp fangs behind
plump, closed, smiling lips
ready to prick any bit of
vulnerable bare skin
that comes too near today
I am wild
And for Ingrid’s Poetics prompt at dVerse yesterday, a version of only the concrete.
Today I am
a huckleberry
after the first frost
a crisp, tart-sweet burst
raindrops collected in yellow petals
of a buttercup among ferns
light breaking through
the thick gray clouds
to reveal threads of spiderwebs
from sori dot to sori dot
thorns hiding entwined on
blackberry vines weaving
through the underbrush
like sharp fangs behind
plump, closed-smiling lips
ready to prick any bit
of bare skin
NaNoWriMo
Yesterday I made the Miso and Squash soups I had been planning, so my meals are only a matter of quick warming for a while. I had forgotten all about my word count sticker sheet and bingo card, so I have some fun stickers to put on things today. Hopefully that will get some fun motivation started.
Writing Exercise: As my warm up today, I’m going to keep Chekhov’s gun in mind today and make a little map of everything I’ve set up in my opening scene: All of the props, sounds, people, etc. that have been brought to the reader’s attention as important and brainstorm how they may be revisited and build toward the climax of the story.
There’s also a Chekhov’s Gun Exercise from 101 Creative Writing Exercises that sounds interesting.
Yesterday, during the BARN writing group, a new member mentioned Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner, so thinking of today’s photo prompt, I looked it up. It consists of 15 minute hand-written writing sprints, writing as fast as you can. Sadly, I press hard even when I try not to, and do not write very quickly. But I do write faster when hearing the tick of my kitchen timer, so during my morning pages this morning, I will attempt to write as fast as I physically can and hope it leads me to bi-passing my inner critic and get to my intuition and instinct.
Experience Writing 