creative writing

Daily Dish – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
the pristine white fridge, pure and clean
dirtied by the "schedule," corners peeling.

monday: meatless
tuesday: tacos
wednesday: pasta
thursday: meat
friday: pizza

defining dinnertime before it happens, waiting
for us to wield our forks at the dinner table
silently.

I want to peel the sad list off the fingerprinted
surface, but it's nice to pretend things are normal
and so are we.

This is a really cheesy and somewhat dramatic piece, but it was fun to write as always. It was inspired by my mom making that exact schedule for our weeknight dinners so she can plan everything when she goes to the grocery store. As a picky eater, those are the main things I eat. Please feel free to leave feedback in the comments and/or writing challenges. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Let’s Talk: Unfinished Pieces and Revising Your Writing

BrookeLeave a comment

Welcome back everyone!

Today I want to talk a little bit about leaving writing pieces unfinished and revising your writing. These are two things I’ve struggled with a lot in the past (and still do!) so I thought it might be relevant to others as well. I also recently learned a lot about revision through my time in the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference. If you’re interested in learning more about my experience with these two issues, keep on reading!

I often have an idea for a poem or short story (or even novel if I’m feeling ambitious) that I will start to run with, get stuck, and just kind of leave there. There’s nothing wrong with this, and a lot of great lines or portions of pieces can come out of just putting pen to paper when you have an idea. However, it can be difficult to shape these half-pieces into something you like or something that’s actually meaningful.

In a way, I think having that time away from the piece is really important to preventing writer’s block. However, you want to make sure you don’t take too much time away from the piece to the point where you forget what you were actually thinking about or trying to say when you wrote it. Also, try to spend your time mulling over possible directions to take it once you come back and work on it again.

If you end up just abandoning a piece completely, that’s completely normal and totally fine. I just recommend looking it back over to see if there’s any sentences/lines or whole excerpts you think could be useful for other pieces you’re currently working on or something you might want to write in the future.

I always feel like I’m missing out on something or losing something if I don’t see a piece out to its end, but it’s important to refrain from pressuring yourself. You most likely won’t be happy with what you write if you’re putting pressure on yourself anyways. If a piece isn’t working for you, listen to your inner writing voice and don’t worry about leaving it behind. Like I already mentioned, you can always come back to it later if you’re inspired to do so.

As far as revision goes, I had no clue how to actually revise my work in an effective way until learning more about that in my writing workshop. I would always use spellcheck and edit my grammar as well as sometimes tweak a few words for the sake of diction, but I never knew how to really dig deep and take a piece further.

In the workshop, I learned it’s normal to go through tons of drafts in the revision process, and generate lots of new lines and content to see what sticks. It might take a few drafts to figure out what you’re really trying to say and what made you decide to start your piece. Sometimes we’re not ready to put that into words yet, and that’s when you might find it beneficial to step away from the piece a little bit.

These are just a couple things I learned as a result of my writing workshop and my personal experiences lately, but I hope they prove helpful to you as well. Let me know if you have any questions, and please feel free to leave feedback and/or post requests in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Walking On A Thursday Night – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
it's seven o'clock and the sun won't set until eight.
we're walking through this park, past the unmowed
grass and i wish we were in a city on the busy sidewalks
instead. don't you ever wish for something bigger?

I wish you didn't think I'm selfish for wanting more.
let's move to the city or the country, anything but this
suburban purgatory. I know you can be yourself anywhere,
but I can't be myself here.

I walk faster than you, trying not to be noticed. your easy
stroll is so different than my fast-walk, almost broken into
a jog. we pass families, kids on bikes, couples having picnics
on ratty beach towels, but we are just here, walking.

I hope you liked this little piece! I get so much inspiration from the nightly walks I go on, and today’s piece is one of those small bouts of inspiration. Please feel free to leave feedback and/or writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

The Move Out – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
when the movers showed up in the bulky, white truck
with the wheels that so badly needed to be oiled, I still

couldn't believe it. how fast time passes, how slow time
passes, how the boxes were already all packed up and 

making their way into the back of that truck. and no, I
wasn't having a change of heart. I was thrilled to see the

truck drive away, your car trailing after it, almost rolling
through the stop sign at the corner. but that doesn't mean

I wasn't shocked that the day finally came-- I guess I shouldn't
have been, as all days eventually do come.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! It’s inspired by my grandma finally getting her own place and moving out from my family’s house after about 8 months of her living with us. It had been an extremely rough time since we didn’t exactly have the room for her and I have a rocky relationship with my grandma, but the light at the end of the tunnel is here. Feel free to leave feedback and/or writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

My Experience At The Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference

BrookeLeave a comment

Hello everyone!

Today I’m going to be talking about the amazing experience I had attending the virtual Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference. Although I’m disappointed I did not get to experience the conference and meet all the lovely faculty and writers in person, I am so thankful to have been a part of it virtually and I still grew a ton as a result. If you can’t already tell, this is going to be somewhat of a gushing post. Keep on reading if you want to find out more about the conference!

For reference, I was in a poetry workshop. Each workshop group had seven young writers and a faculty member, and we were in those individual groups for a few hours a day (the bulk of the workshop). We had joint classes with the other poetry workshops a couple times, and there were activities with all workshop groups such as optional evening classes on more niche topics (love poems, found forms, etc).

I had never workshopped a piece before, so going through the workshop process with my group was really helpful and interesting. We each workshopped a poem that we read in front of the whole conference on the last day, and I felt so empowered throughout the whole process.

Daily workshops consisted of reading poems and essays and discussing them in our groups, with a writing prompt to complete during our lunch break. Similarly, we’d have short homework assignments that were usually just revising our work and/or reading a couple short pieces and annotating them. The selection of authors and works that we read were diverse and really, really amazing in my opinion. I definitely fell in love with a few new writers.

At first I was intimidated by the talent of the other people in the workshop and my group, but as I got more comfortable I realized we were all there to learn and grow. Everyone had their strengths and the things they wanted to work on in the workshop, and it was awesome to see my work grow as well as everyone else’s in such a short period of time.

Even though it’s tough to get to know strangers across the country over Zoom, I feel like we did a pretty good job in connecting. I guess sharing pieces of writing about the most vulnerable parts of yourself and your life will do the trick for that. 🙂 I loved my group. And after listening to everyone at the end-of-conference reading, I knew for sure that these were some of the most talented people I’ve ever met. They’re definitely on track to do big things!

I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to attend a workshop like this and work on my writing on a more serious level. It opened me up to different types of writing and exploring different themes in my work, digging deep within myself. I had so much fun meeting new people and listening to their work, and discovering and reading works by writers I hadn’t been exposed to before.

I hope you enjoyed this little anecdote about my experience! Feel free to ask me any questions you may have– I know I didn’t go superrrr into detail about everything. I encourage you to apply next year, whether it ends up being virtual again or in person! Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Online Goodbyes – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
I never got to see your faces in person; only the
little boxes on my laptop screen. I paid attention

to your backgrounds; the different colors of everyone's
walls, dressers or stacks of books behind you. 

Why does it feel like I'm letting something so real go,
when it never existed face-to-face? If only we got

to go to the mountains, see the sunset, watch the
fireworks together-- all in a place I've never been.

Maybe next time. But for now, it's time to log off.

This is a short poem regarding my writing workshop being online instead of in-person this summer. I already miss it. A post detailing my experience will most likely be up next week, in case anyone’s interested. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

It’s Different Now – Poem by Me

Brooke2 Comments 
There's a mask on my desk, two masks in the center console
of each of my parents' cars, a mask in my bag, a mask in 

my mother's purse. New accessories for new times, a band-aid
for the giant wound our world is suffering. Don't forget your

mask, my mom reminds me each time I leave the house. And 
I forget, a lot. Not because I don't think it's important to wear

it, but because how is this our reality? Six feet apart lines in 
stores, a growing death count on the news that never stops

flashing the 'Breaking News' banner because there's always
something new going wrong, schools and businesses shut

down. But there's more. Kids zooming down the street on
bikes and scooters, friendly strangers waiting to lend a hand.

If we have to do this, let's do this together. The slivers of good
will become rays of sun that eventually outshine the bad, and

we will win.

I hope you enjoyed this poem! I was trying to have a more optimistic spin on the craziness and second waves of COVID-19 going around right now. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay healthy and safe out there.

Brooke

A Lonely Dance – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
Will you all crank the music up and dance with me,
like we're not supposed to be six feet apart?

To listen to music from summers of years past,
when we were younger and worries barely crossed

our minds. Ignorance is not bliss, but let's pretend it
is for just this once. Pretend we don't know the things

we do, that we aren't growing up? And I know we 
didn't get the normal dance, under the tacky strobe

light in the gym with all our friends laughing and
bumping into each other, sweat dripping down our

backs, blisters forming on our feet even though we
switched our heels for sneakers after pictures. Let's

pretend there will be more dances, and they'll happen
soon. Let's pretend we don't know about the things

we don't want to, and that we do know everything will
be okay soon.

I hope you enjoyed this piece! I’ve been in a nostalgic mood lately– with it being summer and all, I normally love listening to throwback songs. Pair that with my writing workshop ending, missing my friends… you get poems like this! Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

My Poetry Writing Process For This Blog

BrookeLeave a comment

Hello everyone!

Today I’m going to be giving a quick overview of my writing process for the poems I post on this blog. It’s a little different than my writing process if I’m writing poems for myself/for another purpose and obviously it’s somewhat similar to my normal blog post writing process (I’ve written a post on that before as well!) so I’m not going to go into too much detail. Keep on reading if you want to find out how I write the poems I post each week!

  1. Do the normal blog set-up. I figure out what I’m going to write a poem about based on inspiration/prompts/feelings from the day, choose my tags, find a matching picture on Unsplash.com, the works.
  2. Sometimes I come up with a title before writing the poem, and sometimes I come up with it after. I also might tweak it after finishing the poem– it all depends how much I have planned in my head when I start writing.
  3. I write the poem! I experiment with a few different structures of poems on here, but I start out just doing a free verse outline of what I want the poem to be. I try to get out all my thoughts quickly and edit them afterwards. I make sure to write it in the “Verse” block on the WordPress editor.
  4. I edit the spacing/line breaks of the poem to my liking.
  5. I check the poem for possible confusing lines or grammar mistakes. I honestly don’t revise my poems on this blog beyond that, as it’s kind of a spur-of-the-moment free write thing. I recognize that lots of the poems on here are far from perfect, but I think there’s something beautiful in that as well. Feel free to disagree: I fully believe there’s still a time and place for raw, unpolished writing, and on a small personal blog this is one of those places. 🙂
  6. I write the little blurb after the poem. Sometimes I’ll explain the backstory/inspiration to the poem, sometimes not. It depends on how much clarification I think it needs. I’ll also do my normal call-to-action asking for feedback and writing challenges, and send you off with well wishes.

That’s all there is to it! It’s definitely not as intense of a writing process as when I’m trying to write and polish a more serious, longer piece. I love getting creative on here and writing little image poems, but I do plan on posting some longer and experimental poems in the future. Please let me know if there’s other types of poems you would like to see me explore. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke

Things They Don’t Teach Us – Poem by Me

BrookeLeave a comment 
Nobody taught us how to feel, what to say--
we just did it, and we figured it out together.
You and me, always in it together. They don't
teach us how to fall in love, and they definitely

don't teach us how to fall out of it. If we had
learned to control our emotions, how to 
treat each other right, maybe everything would've
been different. But it's not, and trying to teach

ourselves these lessons is only a reminder that
we didn't know them in the first place. And it
was never love, but they didn't teach us that 
either. So we go along, now with the new 

knowledge we didn't have before, and we 
keep learning.

I hope you enjoyed this poem! It was another short one, but I’ve recently written a lot of longer poems for my writing workshop and it’s been fun to experiment with short poems again. Please feel free to leave feedback and writing challenges in the comments. Stay safe and healthy out there.

Brooke