Mused Lily

Contest for Writers

2010-04-18T08:01:00.001-04:00

Sarah with a Chance is running a contest over at her blog...serious prizes...critiques and candy.....what's not to love about that???

Check it out!!!

2009-11-16T07:11:00.003-05:00

Wow! It's been a long time since I've even mused about blogging! I've recently been watching a couple of friends blogs and thinking --geez, this doesn't look so hard after all. Then I started, out of the blue, getting all of this spam on this ol'blog of mine and it's pulled me along and made me revisit this site. So, here I am today, looking at what I wrote long ago. Back when I was pushing myself to write. I think I was trying to be too personal and confessional with it and that's why it became a chore. Now I've got a new perspective on it: I'll just post about what I am researching....that's easy enough. So here goes nothing!

I'm trying to write a love poem about Morning Glories, so I researched their seeds to get a feel for their look. They look rather like raisins, which is not really a romantic image, but I'm going to see what I can do with it before I cry poetic license.

From Wikipedia:

Morning glory is a common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, whose current taxonomy and systematics is in flux. Morning glory species belong to many genera.he flower usually lasts for a single morning and dies in the afternoon. On a cloudy day, the flower may last until night. New flowers bloom each day. The flowers usually start to fade a couple of hours before the petals start showing visible curling. They prefer full sun throughout the day and mesicsoils. Some morning glories, such as Ipomoea muricata, are night blooming flowers.
In some places such as Australian bushland, morning glories develop thick roots and tend to grow in dense thickets. They can quickly spread by way of long creeping stems. By crowding out, blanketing and smothering other plants, morning glory has turned into a serious invasive weed problem.

An invasive weed huh? Also not sounding beautiful and lasting like love. Hmm... But, the glory of waking in the morning with someone you love and blooming at that moment just for him...mmmmm. I still think I may be able to get something from this. I'll keep working on it.

Bog, Blog, Blog

2008-03-08T08:13:00.004-05:00

OK, I stink at being disciplined in my writing, which is why I started this blog in the first place. I was trying to motivate myself. Has it worked? I think you can guess. However, I will attempt this once again, anyhow. To write once a week might be a good goal. Hmmm. But then, I just had a pleasant conversation with another wonderful well published writer (I was not referring to myself being in the wonderful, well published part of that statement) and we were discussing this very problem of mine. Discipline. She has been in the business a very long time and her advice was to take it easy on myself. There is no reason I cannot produce quality work without pressure. Writing a mound of dribble to get one good piece or just writing that one good piece. Either way you end up with the same thing. So, raise your glass with me to my one good piece, no matter how it gets there.

It IS a changing year

2008-01-09T23:13:00.001-05:00

OK, yes, I am jumping on the band wagon with all this New Year resolution stuff. I know, it's so 1984 (that's for my buddy Marek). But, it is a good time to get serious about things. I joined a new dating site, started meditating, exercising and joined weight watchers too. To add to all that fun, I even started my own social group for divorcees who have older kids, like me. I know it would be great to have people to get out and do fun activities with, with and without the kids, so why not? So, I have been busy organizing, when I probably should be job hunting...next thing on the "to do" list. Well, that and a million other tedious things like make dentist appointments, etc, etc. It seems to never end...except for this blog, right now.

2007-11-28T22:06:00.000-05:00

Now that I have stopped pressuring myself so much, I definitely feel better about writing again. I even wrote another non-fiction piece this morning....an accomplishment, since it is only the third I have written all year. I am pretty proud of it. It's funny, fresh and timely. Now, to find a place to publish it. That may be a challenge since I am still not in familiar territory.

Speaking of publishing, I got two recent heartfelt rejections. It is nice to see the more personal ones, though I really thought for sure both of those poems would be accepted. They just seemed to fit the theme perfectly, that those mags were pushing. Oh, well. Back to the paper file for them for a bit.

I think I will try to concentrate a bit more on my non-fiction in the future months. I think I am getting a taste for it. Though...didn't I recently say something about not pressuring myself? Hmmm...

Smelling the lilies

2007-11-13T21:40:00.000-05:00

Ok...I am an emotional, over-reactive creature...I get that. So, blogging at times seems a bit like stripping at a club to me. Remove just a glove at first, then the other, then... When I am emoting, brooding, muddled in grey areas, I don't much feel like taking off my thong at the moment. Get it? Now, the really interesting part...besides the fact that I overuse ellipses (ok, that wasn't interesting at all!)...is that I just realized that I can do whatever the he2hockeysticks I want. This is my blog, and there is no one with a pie or a gun to force me to write. There is only me, and if I am not into it, then I can be alright with that. I will write when I get the urge and not when I feel I must. I am tired of deadlines on myself and at this time of year, I am rethinking my priorities and my self-imposed pressure. So, maybe if I just give my self a break, smell the lilies and chill, then flowing may actually become less of a chore...like it is right now. :)

Ahhh...the dangers of creative writing

2007-08-29T23:33:00.000-04:00

I read a poem of mine to some friends the other day and they said they loved it...a great sex poem. Well, the trouble with that comment was, it was never intended to be a sex poem.

I had sat myself down at the computer one day to research some writers markets and came upon a site for a magazine about the ocean. I thought, "Hmmm...that is something I love that I never have written about." So, I decided to try my hand at writing a poem about the majesty of the ocean, it's beauty and depths. I have always been a water lover, so I put on a little ocean sound and sat. As, I started to write down adjectives, I began looking for an image that was fresh, refreshing, and stimulating to compare the ocean too. My mind turned to lemonade, the sandy sugar, the crisp scent, the coolness. I thought it would be perfect, and so I really began to write. My words formed and melded and painted and I started to see the process of making lemonade become sexual and I let the inspiration flow with it. I was aware that it began to whisper sex, but I felt it still only whispered and it also whispered ocean...with the focus of lemonade. I liked it, so I put it away for a week or so to mellow.

I went back to it then and it seemed no longer to speak of the ocean much at all. I was disappointed in that, but I still liked the poem. I felt I would just have to tweak it and add in a more specific reference to the ocean somewhere in the beginning so the readers mind would begin to look for it within the lines.

I decided to get feedback first and my friends loved it...just the way it was. A sex poem. Makin' love = makin' lemonade. It all leaves me a little torn. They loved it...that is what I wanted...but I also wanted a poem about the ocean and lemonade. Can there be two versions of the same poem?

Fun with Regional Dialects

2007-07-30T22:52:00.000-04:00

Today, a topic creeped up between my writer friends and I that centered around Buffalo-ese. By this, I mean we were talking about how Buffalo, NY has it's own special regional dialect of the english language in America. Language anomalies are something I am becoming more and more fascinated with and are great fun to writers, in general. In particular today, we were having fun in our messages to each other with the slaughtered word "youz", as in "Youz guyz need to get over here!". Which then brought up the topic of Canadian English and the documentary I saw about it, where Buffalo was mentioned because we share some of our "speak" with the nearby border cities in Canada. The documentary was part of the Canadian Experience Series called Talking Canadian http://www.cbc.ca/canadianexperience/talkingcanadian/ . It was hilarious and accurate to a tee.

For more about Buffalo-ese, see http://www.geocities.com/libmary/bfloslang.htm
More about Canadian English can be found at ttp://http://www.cornerstoneword.com/misc/cdneng/cdneng.htm
More about the different dialects in all of America can be found http://http://www.pbs.org/speak/

Starting a Blog

2007-07-29T22:53:00.000-04:00

Truly, this is not something I meant to do. No premeditation on my part, that is for sure. Just a blind leap into an unknown world. Look...I need to write, so here is a new place to do it. I am told I should write everyday. That seems daunting. So daunting, in fact, it feels stunting. And so, I turn to bloggerspace to see if this will be a catalyst. The trouble seems to be that I feel inspiration, but not direction. Is that possible? Direction...I think that is why I sometimes find these writing contests with specific challenges set forth to me. Then I just sit and run with it. Sometimes it works, other times it sits. But even when it sits, it is breathing still. Then I eventually get back to it and work it into something real. It really is creation. My taste of Godliness. Amazing.