Organized Much?

Thursday is gone,
but not forgotten.
It passed me by without
a post here. But some things
are in the works.
Endings.
Beginnings. And hopefully
time
management.

In the meantime, please check out the June issue of Mouse Tales Press. Okay?

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And I wouldn't mind if you read about my latest chapbook-making session either.

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Making a Poetry Chapbook

This is chapbook creation week in the class I’m taking with awesome teacher, Christina Burress. My printer decided to take a vacation, so I considered my options:

1. Create a chapbook using InDesign (which I’ve been wanting to learn anyway) and submit a digital version.
2. Take my flash drive to Staples to have them print copies and use them to create a hands-on version.

I started on Monday by creating my layout in InDesign. After adding in all of my poems and some of my own photos, I realized, it wasn’t where my heart was. I wanted to paint, cut, and paste.

While I pondered hand-writing all of my poems, I went with Xerox copies instead. Because my book is so large, I decided to create an accordion binding:

On about Wednesday I got the urge to make some leaf and flower prints. Then I pulled out the watercolors. Here are some photos from my work:

If you’re interested in book-making, here is a favorite book from my collection that I refer to when creating chapbooks.



I will post additional photos next week when I am finished. Thanks for reading!

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• Visit the Mouse Tales Press Blog post on Spine Poetry.
• Visit Mouse Tales Press literary magazine.

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The Liebster Awards - Again!

No, you’re not having déjà vu. I did post about this once before, on May 2. My blog was nominated again the other day, this time by the very kind, Claudette Young of Claudsy’s Blog.

But I’m confused because I noticed the Liebster rules were different on another blog that I visited where it stated nominate “up to” five blogs. I had formally been told these were the rules:

The Liebster Blogger Rules are: 

• Thank the one who nominated you by linking back. 
• Nominate five blogs with less than 200 followers. 
• Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
• Add the award image to your site. 

For today, I have found three I recommend:

1. If you’d like to satisfy your need to read some beautiful poetry, visit de Jackson at Whimsygizmo where you can read about “poetic ponderings…parenting…procrastination…” (And anyone who professes to be a “mean Scrabble player” wins over my heart.) On a side note, Mouse Tales Press is pleased to announce that her poem, “Triathlon,” will appear in the June 2012 issue. 
2. Laura Howard blogs about “Finding Bliss.” That title drew me in and made me feel . . . well, happy. When I saw her post about Random Acts of Kindness, I knew I loved it. Visit her blog if you want to feel good – and learn something, too.
3. Now I’m going to sneak this in because I really enjoyed Claudette Young’s blog, Claudsy's Calliope where she blogs about life as a writer. Enjoy! 

*****

• Visit the Mouse Tales Press Blog post on Spine Poetry.
• Visit Mouse Tales Press literary magazine.

*****

• Connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Oh, and I'm now on Pinterest!
• Sign up for email updates from this blog by signing up in the box above my profile photo at the top of the page.

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The Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms

If you played along with (or read) my recent blog post, thank you! I had so much fun reading through your poems and I'm hoping more will still dribble in.

It’s interesting noting both the similarity and the variation in each one. What a fun "experiment"!

Silly me though. I should have posted a link to the book where I got the information about Bouts-Rimeś from (recommended by my teacher).

If you are interested in purchasing, I would be forever grateful if you could buy through my link. It will help Mouse Tales Press to keep running.

The book is The Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms edited by Ron Padgett:







From Amazon’s site: “A reference guide to various forms of poetry with entries arranged in alphabetical order. Each entry defines the form and gives its history, examples, and suggestions for usage. For this second revised edition of the Handbook, 19 teaching poets have written 76 entries on traditional and modern poetic forms. The Handbook succintly defines the forms, summarizes ther histories, quotes good examples (both ancient and modern), and offers professional tricks of the trade on how to use each form.”

I love this book! I think you will, too.

Read - and write - on!

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Writing Poetry: Bouts-Rimeś

Inspired by my teacher in my Forms of Poetry class, I have been studying the various . . . um, well . . .  forms of poetry.

Do you like collaborating?

I do!

My family and I play a game at the dinner table where one of us starts a story with one sentence and then we go around the table, each person adding another sentence so we can create a tale together. This is similar to an exercise I enjoyed with classmates in acting school, creating poetry through words and body movement. (Although my old brain can’t recall whether we spouted out one word or one sentence at a time.)

So I found this form that appealed to me because it is often played with others, the Bouts-Rimeś, which is French for “rhymed ends.”

One person makes a list of rhyming words and then gives it to another person to fill in the rest of the lines (using the words from the first person as the last word in each line – while keeping them in order).

Here is a famous example by John Keats, “ On the Grasshopper and Cricket.”

Is anyone game? Use the following list as your end words in each line:

Funny
Broke
Sunny
Spoke
Soft
Tiny
Coughed
Spiny
Pampered
Dewy
Hamper
Achooey

I think that’s good for a start. Go! And please post your results in the comments.

Here is my attempt:

One day when I was not feeling so funny,
a bank account looking quite broke,
the weather outside went from thunder to sunny,
clouds opening up when I spoke.
Could you please keep in mind that my spirit’s quite soft,
my presence forever quite tiny?
To my amazement, before any words, he coughed,
then transformed from cottony to spiny,
“As a child you were loved and terribly pampered,
though your heart and eyes were often quite dewy.
Let this not ever hinder or hamper
success.” Then he just blew out an “Achooey!”

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Lara Britt was so kind as to include a blurb about my blogs and my literary magazine, Mouse Tales Press, today on her website. Be sure to read through the rest of her site to experience both her wonderful writing and additional links to recommended blogs. Thank you so much, Lara!

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Time Management for Writer Moms

When time is so precious. Time to spend with children. Time to write. Time to hide in the bathroom for your date with that box of cookies. The mystery is how to find enough.

These tips on time management for mothers might help . . .

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Need more ideas?

• Having a clutter-free home will help free up time for writing. Imagine not having to search through disorganization for the item you need!
• Don't waste time trying to think of what to write. Check out these games to help end writer's block.

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Liebster Award: Great Blogs to Follow

I learned a few days ago that my blog had been nominated by Rebecca Barray as a Liebster Blog.

I met Rebecca Barray while we were both participating in Robert Lee Brewer’s Platform Challenge. The challenge helped me to brush up on my time-management skills. (I did have a few organizational ideas before. Be sure to read my blog tomorrow for some tips!)

I am forever grateful to have met such a wonderful group of writers that I can share my writing ups and downs with. Not to mention, I was given the boost I needed to brush the dust off my blog and create a writing schedule for it.

Anyway, wow! Talk about heartwarming. Talk about encouragement.

Rebecca’s comment about my blog was, “Linda posts about lots of different topics, all interesting.”

Thank you so much, Rebecca! I appreciate your kindness very much.

The Liebster Blogger Rules are:

1. Thank the one who nominated you by linking back.
2. Nominate five blogs with less than 200 followers.
3. Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
4. Add the award image to your site.

My nominees are:

1) Muddy Kinzer’s Muddying the Waters – The description on Muddy’s blog says “There is life after kids & I'm just finding my way back in it!” Funny and conversational, not to mention, easy to relate to for the rest of us moms, her blog will not disappoint.

2) The multi-talented Veronica Roth – Writing, painting, photos. Her blog makes me smile, it makes me cry; it is full of life.

3) Bonnie Vesely's Just Venture Coaching – Bonnie is full of insight on finding your life’s purpose.

4) Anne Kimball’s Life on the Funny Farm – Be sure to check her out if you would like a good laugh!

5) Romelle Broas – Follow Romelle’s journey: “A Timeline on Becoming a Children’s Picture Book Author.”


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