GWJ Writer's Throwdown: March 2013 - Madness!

So, here we are at last. The month of lunacy: March Madness.

Your mission this month is to write as you normally do not. If you normally write with heavy conversation then you should write almost entirely in description. If you normally write prose then you should write poetry. This month is the month of challenging yourself with opposites and alternatives; things you are NOT comfortable with...

As per usual:
Rules: Post your story somewhere else, and post a link to it here. State what you decided to do that wasn't normal for you.

Bonus words:
Proctology
Nemesis
Abase
Oppulent
Votary

Aye, aye, cap'n!

Interesting challenge! I've just spent the last 10 minutes trying to make a haiku of the bonus words. No success so far - but I'll come up with something!

Thanks for setting this up, Duoae!

I decided to revisit my old days of prose and work up some poetry. Given my disdain as I've grown older for what I perceive as the pretentious and overly dramatic nature of most poetry, I've decided to have a little humor in my poor creation so as to make up for my many failings as a poet.

Aging with Grace and Dignity

I tried to stick to Iambic Pentameter for this sonnet as best I could. Hope it passes muster and it is, at the very least, enjoyed

Haha! Made me laugh when I got to the third stanza!

Was this based on anything in particular? It feels like it has all the trademark storytellings of a real epic or game story. Really well done - and very quickly too!

Still working out what I'll be doing.

That was fantastic!

You know, I've read some very similar stuff that gets published in chapbooks here and sold at the yearly book thingy the library has. Very over-wrought hand-wringing sort of stuff that's supposed to make you feel a feeling for the first time ever (and the more over-wrought, the greater the poet's tortured genius, or something like that).

This was a fantastic send up on that kind of stuff. Loved it!

Duoae wrote:

Haha! Made me laugh when I got to the third stanza!

Was this based on anything in particular? It feels like it has all the trademark storytellings of a real epic or game story. Really well done - and very quickly too!

Still working out what I'll be doing. :)

Mimble wrote:

That was fantastic!

You know, I've read some very similar stuff that gets published in chapbooks here and sold at the yearly book thingy the library has. Very over-wrought hand-wringing sort of stuff that's supposed to make you feel a feeling for the first time ever (and the more over-wrought, the greater the poet's tortured genius, or something like that).

This was a fantastic send up on that kind of stuff. Loved it! :D

I'm so glad you guys enjoyed it. Humor, when I attempt it, always makes me nervous

It was pretty much improvised. I came up with the idea of an aging dragon (proctology being the key word there), decided upon a specific poetic structure, and then ran with that. Can't say I'd ever revisit this concept, though... might be considerably tougher, for me, to maintain the comedic line and make a whole book of songs about aging dragons and their woes... though I must admit it is quite tempting; I keep seeing images of dragons missing dentures and the like... AH SCREW IT! I guess I have a new project... maybe I can get someone to illustrate it and have it released as an ebook or website... or kickstart it.

Ugh... now I feel a little self-conscious because mine's all serious and semi-pretentious (as a result of the parameters I laid for myself), but I'll post it when I'm ready to do so.

Rubb Ed wrote:

Ugh... now I feel a little self-conscious because mine's all serious and semi-pretentious (as a result of the parameters I laid for myself), but I'll post it when I'm ready to do so.

Oh, mine'll be serious too. You guys don't want to see what passes for humour in my head!

Rubb Ed wrote:

Ugh... now I feel a little self-conscious because mine's all serious and semi-pretentious (as a result of the parameters I laid for myself), but I'll post it when I'm ready to do so.

Don't let my disdain for serious poetry deter you in any way I just did that gig too long when I was younger, so my perception of it is quite skewed and saturated with adolescent, hormonal and gothy/emo overtones.

tag

muraii wrote:

tag

You know, they added the "add to favorites" link at the bottom of every opening post to give people that function.

Yup. I have so many threads I follow "the old way" that I don't subscribe. Guess I could make a lore substantive tagging post.

Rocking. I don't think I'll be able to pull something together for this month; kiddo spring break really threw a wrench into my schedule, especially since our house is where ALL the kids are. All the time. I need a vacation after their vacation, I tell you what. I'm exhausted.

So the thing that isn't normal for me is to write, so any writing takes me out of my comfort zone. So, here it is, my first submission! Hopefully I followed all the rules:

Mick's fight

I explain how I suddenly turned into an undergraduate creative writing major in my post.

3 Sonnets

Iridium884 wrote:

Mick's fight

Wow! Is this semi-autobiographic? I like it! Reminds me of times when the "stupid thoughts" run through your head. One thing I found to be a little difficult to read were the compressed, rushed italic thoughts. I know and get what you're going for but maybe by slowing the reader down through them trying to decipher the sentences you're inadvertently producing the opposite result and feeling in your reader. I think they work better as separated words, no capitals and still italicised. Other than that a couple of minor things, it's a really nice piece!

Rubb Ed wrote:

3 Sonnets

This is really heartfelt - or at least I feel so. I'm not much of a poet or sonnet person so I can't critique on those aspects but my biggest criticism is that the last sentence did not display properly in my Chrome browser. It cut off half of the words and cut off my connection with the feelings you were projecting. It's a really nice poem though and I think a more usual vertical reading style might help it.

Still working on my own. Yes, it's also poetry, but I honestly I have no idea what I'm doing and it's going badly!

[edit]
And here I find, clicking away to see your other stuff on the site, that your permalink messed up the format somehow?!

http://redbearwrites.tumblr.com/

This shows all the sonnets and in a vertical format. NOW I understand!
Very good! There are some awkward lines in there that might benefit from the removal of a word but other than that it works really well.

[edit2]

Okay, I'm not entirely happy with mine but I don't have a lot of time to work on it for the rest of the week so I'm going to put it up here now.

Haffenlowe.

I bore in mind the borrowed beast,
Of Jabberwock, Grendel,
If you look beyond the least,
Of words you might... aww damnit!

Yeah, it was a stylistic thing, so I can understand that. Thanks for the feedback. I'll read the others later tonight.

Hey guys,

The first of the month snuck up on me again. I swear, I'm just not living in the same time stream. Do you want me to throw together a quick thing for April, or does someone have something planned already?

duckideva wrote:

Hey guys,

The first of the month snuck up on me again. I swear, I'm just not living in the same time stream. Do you want me to throw together a quick thing for April, or does someone have something planned already?

Don't worry about it. I'm sure when you set up this "club" that you envisaged it as an entity rather than a challenge.

I could do a generic "april fools" sort of post, if you want.

Sure; that would rock! I'm just elbows deep in two different novels, each of which has interest from publishers (no advances, but I may have an advance on one, if I can just get enough finished to prove I'll actually write the damn book)...and I'm supposed to have something to show by October on one, and August on the other...plus I need something for a workshop with Teresa Nielsen Hayden...and frankly, I'm starting to panic anytime I see words at this point, I've just worked myself into a fear spiral, I think.

Left to my own devices, I'd probably structure the challenge so I could keep working on one or the other of these, and that's not fair to everyone not writing either Mommy-Porn or a re-imagining of Paradise Lost.

duckideva wrote:

Sure; that would rock! I'm just elbows deep in two different novels, each of which has interest from publishers (no advances, but I may have an advance on one, if I can just get enough finished to prove I'll actually write the damn book)...and I'm supposed to have something to show by October on one, and August on the other...plus I need something for a workshop with Teresa Nielsen Hayden...and frankly, I'm starting to panic anytime I see words at this point, I've just worked myself into a fear spiral, I think.

Left to my own devices, I'd probably structure the challenge so I could keep working on one or the other of these, and that's not fair to everyone not writing either Mommy-Porn or a re-imagining of Paradise Lost. ;)

While it's tough to have so much on your plate, I'm quite happy that you've gotten some interest from publishers. It's more than I've mustered so far hahaha not that I've submitted anything, mind you... I have a problem deciding when something I write in novel form is done, so to speak, or ready to be looked at.

duckideva wrote:

Sure; that would rock!

Okay, I changed my mind but here it is!

I'm just elbows deep in two different novels, each of which has interest from publishers (no advances, but I may have an advance on one, if I can just get enough finished to prove I'll actually write the damn book)...and I'm supposed to have something to show by October on one, and August on the other...plus I need something for a workshop with Teresa Nielsen Hayden...and frankly, I'm starting to panic anytime I see words at this point, I've just worked myself into a fear spiral, I think.

Left to my own devices, I'd probably structure the challenge so I could keep working on one or the other of these, and that's not fair to everyone not writing either Mommy-Porn or a re-imagining of Paradise Lost. ;)

Wow, good luck with all of that! Sounds very exciting and terrifying at the same time.

brokenclavicle wrote:

...not that I've submitted anything, mind you... I have a problem deciding when something I write in novel form is done, so to speak, or ready to be looked at. :P

Yeah, mine were queries, with chapter samples...and I have virtually nothing else done. I've got 6k words or so on the steampunk dominatrix story, but the Paradise lost one I'm just putting off for now because I've decided I can't switch characters in my head without contaminating the stories.

Duoae wrote:

Okay, I changed my mind but here it is!

Awesome!