Announcements, art, call for submissions, Personal Essay, poetry, writing

Dear Heart – Call for Submissions

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Years ago, before computers, we wrote letters. My mother’s letters were like little novellas. They sometimes were several pages long. She wrote her family members and friends and they loved to get her “books.” How I wish I had saved my letters from mom. As a witness to her letter writing, I would watch as her pen moved passionately across the pages, sometimes witnessing her eyes well up. Letters were her release. They were her way of expressing herself in ways she could not voice. Sometimes she would write letters to people out of anger and then tear them up. To my knowledge, she never sent one of those angry letters. It could have been politicians, relatives, and those are the ones I knew about. She would express her heart’s desire, open up her soul, and pour out her thoughts.

As a letter writer, I did not have the beautiful penmanship of my mother, but I learned that the pen was my power. I also wrote letters and tore them up. I even wrote one about the need for a doctor in our little town and it was published in the newspaper. I wrote letters to family, friends, old friends found from a long time lost, family who I wanted to see but knew my letters would reach them long before I ever would.

Now, I am a writer and a poet. I write as if my words are letters to the world, at times. Other times, I write to express my desires of the heart. And other times I write to write.

I firmly believe that when we do express our desires within our heart that this has a way of stirring up thoughts and even action plans to make things happen. Sometimes those things that happen are acceptances of things that can’t be changed, but sometimes they are steps to taking up the courage to make something happen in our lives.

What is the desire in your heart? This is my challenge to you. I would like to read about the desires in your heart in the “Dear Heart” anthology of letters, poetry, art, photography, and whatever ways helps you express your passion.

There’s a caveat to this. These are all to be sent to me via good old fashioned snail mail. I will sort through these and select which submissions to publish.

Please drop me an email to prolificpulse@gmail.com for the specific call for submissions.

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blog, Personal Essay, poetry, short story

Writing Raw and To Prompts Opens up Possibilities for Creativity

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Writing Raw and To Prompts Opens up Possibilities for Creativity

Many times when we write it’s to some kind of theme. It could be from a prompt or thought finding a place on paper. Have you ever written raw? Writing raw is putting pen to the paper and writing whatever thoughts come to mind. When I took the course The Artist’s Way I found this technique to be most helpful. We wrote every morning in what they called the “Morning Pages” and there were no hard and fast rules. You just grabbed your notebook and wrote by hand (yes no keyboard) and wrote a designated amount of time. Then, you put it away and went on about your other life duties. In the course, you came back to the writings and from them could find things to further write about or learn from. It was very revealing to me about certain things needing focus and other things I needed to let go. It was a revealing and healing exercise. It also helped me to use this technique in other writing.

 

I am in an online group call Signs. It is a slow writing group where we write to a certain theme, but it’s not rushed. You take some time to write to the theme and just let it flow. No edits. Just flow with the theme and write whatever comes to mind. It’s another way of revealing to me, my innermost thoughts. It’s not completely writing raw as there is a theme or photo prompt, but it can end up being a piece that may not have one thing to do with the prompt. So, I would call this writing “Lightly Prompted.”

Another online group I belong to also has prompts and you write six sentences to reveal your thoughts around the prompt word. I have been a part of this group for a good while now. It has opened up for me to be more concise with my words and to tell a story with fewer words. Sometimes I write poetry to these prompt words and, one of my personal favorites is to do acrostics. The group supports each other with responses and it is fun to see what develops. Some have developed longer stories from their works on this challenge.

Recently, I started writing to a haiku/senryu online challenge where we have a picture prompt which we interpret and write to in the form of a haiku or senryu. This is a newer challenge and I am loving this. It is interesting to see what others come up with and is a lot of fun.

About once a quarter the Living Poetry group here in the RTP area has a Germination Workshop in which we write to prompts. This helps generate some rough draft poetry. You can develop poems from this and some have been published. The reveal, where we all share what we write is interesting as you hear so many points of view.

What do you write to? Are prompts helpful for you or do you prefer writing raw? I like to mix it up. When you are stuck or need a warmup exercise for your other writing, thinking long work report you must get done, try to write a haiku or short, short story just to get the brain warmed up before entering the demands of life. That is what I am doing right now. It’s gonna make for a much better day.

If you would like links to the online challenges please let me know. I am happy to invite others to join the fun.

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Ten Things of Thankful – April 12

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It’s time to reflect on the TTOT gratitudes of the week. I have several gratitudes and will do my best to share.

1. April 15 is 2 days away!!

2. It’s raining. I live in North Carolina, which seems to be the pollen capital of the world. I am grateful for the rain to wash the pollen off the car and clean up the area. Realistically, it’s just going to be more to come, but allow me this bit of joy.

3. Trying new things. I was invited to a virtual art workshop this week and was able to get in three days of the five. In those days I created some artsy pieces. We just took 30 minutes, starting with breath work and then focusing on our individual intentions for the day. It was in the morning, so I was able to start off my day on the right foot. Here’s the link to the website of the leader. I find her emails to be very nice. My intention is to make this a daily practice.

4. National Poetry Month. I have been successful with getting my one poem per day accomplished. Here’s my most recent one: Views of Nature

5. Six Sentence Story has been a fun trial and I am grateful that I am able to keep up with this one on a weekly basis. Here’s the last one I posted. No Contest
6. I lost 2# this week. This is really working!

7. Yesterday, I interviewed a fellow poet. It has been years since I have done anything like that. It went very well as we had a relaxed, conversational tone. Once the video is ready, I will share.

8. Friendships. I have many people I call my friends. Many are nowhere near my location, but I have kept up with them, sometimes for as long as Junior High. How I wish that I could reach out more than I do when I know a friend is in need. There’s something about presence that helps. It’s not always possible, so I reach out as I can and sometimes send a card or gift to let them know they are cared about. I’m often left with feeling like I don’t do enough. This didn’t mean to come across as sad. I am mainly stating that I am grateful for friendships and friends who become family.

9. Birthdays. One of my brothers turned 71 this past week. How is that for one big happy?!!

10. Writing community. It seems that my writing community is growing. I am most grateful as I find that having others sharing in this makes my days much nicer.

What’s happening with your week? Please come share on TTOT!