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How To Win An EP By Accident... (A lecture on writing poetry...)

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Quote by tiddlywink


You are being quite beastly and winding me up something rotten.

I was going to reconcile with you. After that derogatory remark, I shan't bother.

Now take heed and skedaddle.

Whether you were gonna reconcile with me or not, it is just a simple fact: if you are gonna play in the rain, you are gonna get wet. Be mad at me if want, I really don't care. Ironically, that is coming from someone you thought of as your best friend at one point. Wonder why I would say that now. What do you think?
trinket
Convict
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Quote by stephanie


https://www.lushstories.com/stories/love-poems/leningrad.aspx

"Hello everyone... Settle down... MOBILE CELL PHONES off PLEASE!!! WHAT??? (Okay then Rachel Sprite can keep her 'phone on in case there is an Editorial Emergency on site... JESUS!)

Today we're going to discuss 'LENINGRAD', a piece I wrote that at least at the time, to paraphrase MEGAN TRAINOR, was all about the base, no trouble... (It took about 15 minutes to write...) Concept (??????) to POST.

As you know, I'm not a REAL writer. I don't think about it very often, I don't edit and I hardly ever PROOF. (I just WRITE...) So WHY 'LENINGRAD'???

I liked the SOUND of the WORD. Quite literally. I WROTE the word and looked at it. No idea where I was going. LENINGRAD. (It's a MUSICAL word...)

So one considers.

WHAT DOES THAT PRETTY WORD CONJURE?

Well, LENINGRAD was a place in SOVIET RUSSIA that no longer exists. I think it's PETROGRAD now or St. Petersburg? But TO ME, LENINGRAD is a SIEGE, a COLD place, a story, a HISTORY, a tragedy, a place of DARKNESS...

So now, as a WRITER, I'm there...

There IS COLD... "I can write my name in my smoky breath..."

The speaker is ALONE... He is LOST. Doesn't know WHY he is here... (WE find out...)

"Her flat is cosy and it's warm..."

AHHHHHH! So it's a TRYST!!!



But WHY??? How do you get FROM THERE TO HERE? (Well, the WORDS AND CHARACTER tell you... He's TROUBLED... Indeed he's APOLOGETIC... WE find out WHY...)

"I never meant you any harm..."

(But he's going to cause harm... To WHO? Not to the girl he allows bring him to her SINGLE bed. Is that relevant? Her's a SINGLE bed? NOT LIKE WITH HIS PARTNER AS WE LATER DISCOVER! They share a larger bed...)


In the TAKING of this (young???) lover, he is conflicted even as he enjoys... "Which only later reminds me of you..." His GUILT ruins this moment...

He indeed discusses it...

"And may God forgive me/Because you won't/And may God Forgive Me/Because I won't...""

He comes home to his girl after his TRYST... Normality now COMPROMISED by his action... "You move across and snuggle me/I hear the sound of my heart break..."


The last lines of the poem are him really talking to HIMSELF, trying to JUSTIFY his own actions... He NEEDS to sort himself out...

What he is doing DOES NOT MAKE HIM HAPPY! (The opposite...) But he is not brave.

But... If as I have truthfully said I started out WITH NO IDEA where I was GOING than WHY did I get THIS??? Well, everyone writes DIFFERENTLY... I follow the WORDS, the CHARACTER... I'm very into the SYNTAX and the PLACING of words, again, it's a lot about rhythm/music with me... THE WORDS WILL TELL YOU WHERE TO GO!!! Let your imagination and your ability see where it takes you...

My POINT with this post is that I GOT AN EP BY ACCIDENT!!! (I had NO IDEA where I was going!!!!)

NO FALSE MODESTY I TRULY DID NOT!!! (But I CRIED after I finished it...) By accident! (Smiles...)

As an artist, a writer, I find your very best is often what you least understand. (This is IN NO WAY my best work IMO...)

I post this to encourage fellow members to just go THERE. (You never know what's gonna make BUCKAROO buck!!!)

Hope that didn't bore you.

xx SF



Seeing as this IS Steph's thread about him being such an awesome writer that he can get an EP accidentally, I would like to say Steph, that I think I commented at the time, Leningrad is THE best thing I've ever read. That's just my opinion though. It was like 'reading chocolate'. Smooth, soft, and it made me cry buckets. choccy makes me cry because it makes me fat.

I also like the word "leningrad". I had no idea until now what it meant. Funnily enough though, I did picture someone walking home in the cold(perhaps it was the 'smoky breath' part that gave me that idea), a man with his jacket slung over his shoulder, with his head down. (don't ask me why he wasn't wearing the coat if it was that cold, I dunno, you would have to ask him). I pictured his SO lying in bed asleep, blissfully unaware she was about to have her heart shattered, and then pictured her snuggling into the cheating arse that just betrayed her. I HOPED he wouldn't tell her, that he would just suffer himself and not hurt her. I was actually sitting at my laptop thinking "oh please don't tell her," and then started to cry because I have BEEN her.

Who CARES if you THINK you got it by accident? You still got it. Doesn't matter if you just wrote without thinking where you were going at the time. You still got it. I write without a plan all the time and I never end up with anything close to the brilliance of Leningrad, so I can't see how you can say you got it by accident. If that were possible, everyone would be getting them. and we ALL know that's not going to happen any time soon

I even murdered Shakespeare once and literally thought people would hate it and would tell me so. Everyone liked it. So... you never know where you will end up, when you don't know where you're going. Leningrad...it's a beautiful word.

Steph: I GOT IT BY FUCKING ACCIDENT!!!

Me: No you didn't Steph, you earned it. You're brilliant.

Steph: I KNOW IM FUCKING BRILLIANT BUT I GOT THE EP BY ACCIDENT!!!

Me: *sigh* You don't have to shout.
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Quote by trinket


I write without a plan all the time and I never end up with anything close to the brilliance of Leningrad,




But, darling, That Is My Exact Point... for so do I, and I don't strike gold very often... (Would that I could...)


Indeed, if you think about it, it IS NOT the Writer who decides what's good, it is the reader... (And to be clear, I am HUGELY flattered by your appreciation of 'LENINGRAD' but YOUR BEAUTIFUL INTERPRETATION of elements of it were a pleasant surprise to me, for they were not in my conscious mind at the time of my writing it...)

I was amazed by the amount of readers who wondered about what happened next morning. ("Did he confess???") I honestly have no idea.

Writing really is MAGIC! (And like magic, I don't know how it works.) I'm FASCINATED by how others do it. I'm happy to talk about how I do it, but to be really honest, I converse about that more than anything in an effort to understand my own writing... (Because I am a selfish, egotistical asshole...)

I am about the 65th best writer on LUSH STORIES in my opinion. (Depending on the reader's taste...) If you LIKE the kind of stuff I write, there are TRULY about 64 other people who do that better. I have ALWAYS tried to encourage other writers, specifically NEW WRITERS, and posts like this one are nothing more than an effort to do just that.

I WOULD love to see other writers dissect and discuss their work. (We'd all learn from that, I feel...) But it's a Big Ask, I guess.

For Me, it's most often about the MUSICALITY of a word or phrase. Then exploring what that means in fact, leading to CHARACTER and PLOT... An inherent ability to fashion words PRETTILY does no harm. It's a kind of Mental Alchemy, and SOMETIMES you get GOLD!!! (Not often...)


xx Steph
Mysteria27
Prolific Writer
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I'm just so happy that you finally got your Editor's Choice Award. Your poem was beautiful and stunning.

Your poetry is just amazing and I'm so glad you were finally given a much deserved award on "Leningrad."

You're the best in my eyes.

Hugs,
Mysteria
xox
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Quote by Mysteria27
I'm just so happy that you finally got your Editor's Choice Award. Your poem was beautiful and stunning.

Your poetry is just amazing and I'm so glad you were finally given a much deserved award on "Leningrad."

You're the best in my eyes.

Hugs,
Mysteria
xox



Finally??? I had TWO before this 'un. (Long Story.)

xx SF
Mysteria27
Prolific Writer
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Quote by stephanie



Finally??? I had TWO before this 'un. (Long Story.)

xx SF




You should get lot's of them...

xo
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Quote by Mysteria27




You should get lots of them...

xo



Somebody put this woman on the EP panel...

(Giggles!)

Actually, (and this is true), when I was on the EP panel, I think I was the only one who didn't have an EP!!! I LOVED EP panel. It's the thing I miss most about Modding. In fact, I realize just now that posts like this one are my attempt to re-discover that type of discussion and debate.

As I remember it, Mods generally, and the EP panel in particular, are among the most brilliant writers I've ever worked with. (All very different, too...) I don't THINK that has changed since my day. But I'll be honest, I miss the cut-and-thrust of literary debate at that level. (Note please that many of LS finest writers are NOT moderators. However ALL LS mods are among the site's best writers, with a FEW notable exceptions who are there on a different kind of merit...)

To be QUITE CLEAR, 'Leningrad' is NOT the first solo work of mine to be NOMINATED for EP. The others, (one nominated by Nicola herself...) just didn't get through the selection/debate process for various reasons. And you know, I can't ARGUE with that. If I learned ANYTHING from EP panel it's that these people know what they are doing. They are eminently qualified to do it and they do it very well. And they take it SO SERIOUSLY bless their little cotton sox!

There IS a deeper truth here. I don't think 'Leningrad' is the best thing I've ever posted here. (Neither does Frank Lee!!!!!) BUT the panel (I guess...) does think that.

Wanna read what I THINK is the most beautiful thing I've written here? (And I didn't even post it on Home Page...) It's this, (You need to watch the video first!) :

https://www.lushstories.com/forum/yaf_postst41842_Fucking-Around.aspx

(And then Rachel Sprite ran with that phrase and pissed all over what I'd done. Beyond better.)

You can't win!!!

*LAUGHS!*

xx Steph
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Thank you for your honesty Stephanie. I love hearing how other writers operate: the process, the thoughts behind the words. I completely agree with you about the right mod, in the right mood, at just the right time reads something that really speaks to them at that moment and awards an RR. We, the writers have no control over that whatsoever. Some of my better poems (IMO anyway) haven't attracted many reads at all and others have been awarded RRs For some reason. IDK, but I'm grateful they spoke to someone.

I remember reading Leningrad and how powerful the emotions hit me. It's funny how something so simple as the sound of a word as it rolls off a tongue can spark the creative process. Most of my poems hit me fast and hard. Within an hour I'm usually looking for a pic to go with it. Half the time I'm not sure where the idea even came from.

Thanks again for letting us inside that head of yours... not that I want to spend too much time in there ;)
sprite
Her Royal Spriteness
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If you're writing a story with the sole intent of getting an EP - you're doing it for the wrong reason. awards should be the last think on your mind, even in a competition. you should be writing the best damn story, the most entertaining, striving for perfection each and every time - that's all that matters. the rest will either come as a result, or not.

btw, Steph, if you want to talk process, i'm game...

Ice.

i like writing fairy tales. it started out as one. For the record, so did Paris in Flames. It started out as my version of The Little Mermaid. If you read it carefully, in fact, the elements are still there, just hidden like colored eggs on easter morn.

Ice was my version of The Snow Queen or Frozen. It was the tale, not of a sniper, nor of a target, but of the land itself, how it had suffered under the harshness of winter, of war, of death. And... well, it needed someone to witness it, to evoke it, to represent it. The sniper. He became Winter. His wife, the distant summer, both forgotten and unattainable,, and the woman he chose not to kill was spring, or rather, the promise of renewal, of life, of warmth. yeah, i know, too many drugs, but it really is the story of the land and the city itself - the people in it are not incidental, but yes, they are not the only characters i wrote about.

once i had the story in my head, i wrote it. two hours i think, and then as many for editing? sometimes things just roll out of you, this was one of them. i didn't even place in the comp - i didn't expect to, honestly - it's not a Lush story, though i cheated and used the 'love story' catagory to slip it past the horrible story mods. biggrin

You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.

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Quote by sprite


Ice.



https://www.lushstories.com/stories/love-stories/ice.aspx


THE BEST STORY I EVER READ ON THIS SITE!


(IMAGINE what SHE did!!! Here's a STORY with LOVE but NO SEX... And it's about DEATH... And why even the dream of LIFE is better...)

SHE will say, "I just threw that out..."

THE BEST STORY EVER ON THIS SITE. (It IS sexy if you GET IT...) IN the BEST way... SEX isn't what we ALWAYS do in everyday life... It IS always what WE THINK about... Even if you are a SNIPER in A WAR!!! (LOVE WINS!)

This writer PISSES talent.

xx SF
sprite
Her Royal Spriteness
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Quote by stephanie


https://www.lushstories.com/stories/love-stories/ice.aspx


THE BEST STORY I EVER READ ON THIS SITE!


(IMAGINE what SHE did!!! Here's a STORY with LOVE but NO SEX... And it's about DEATH... And why even the dream of LIFE is better...)

SHE will say, "I just threw that out..."

THE BEST STORY EVER ON THIS SITE. (It IS sexy if you GET IT...) IN the BEST way... SEX isn't what we ALWAYS do in everyday life... It IS always what WE THINK about... Even if you are a SNIPER in A WAR!!! (LOVE WINS!)

This writer PISSES talent.

xx SF



A heart felt thank you for all the wonderful things you have said about this piece, Steph. It's much appreciated and, although it embarrasses and humbles me, it's also lovely to hear. I should mention something else very important. This was conceived shortly after we did the EP vote on Leningrad, which is how Stalingrad ended up being the setting - in a way, you inspired it. thank you for that.

You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.

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Quote by sprite


A heart felt thank you for all the wonderful things you have said about this piece, Steph. It's much appreciated and, although it embarrasses and humbles me, it's also lovely to hear. I should mention something else very important. This was conceived shortly after we did the EP vote on Leningrad, which is how Stalingrad ended up being the setting - in a way, you inspired it. thank you for that.


You just OUTED yourself as EP MOD!!!

(We all KNEW you were Senior Mod...)

I NEVER EVER thought I might say this to one so BEAUTIFUL as you, but "ICE" was in your heart and thoughts. And HOW you THREW that thought OUT... And how perfectly...

You make the most BRILLIANT look so EFFORTLESS.

(That's WRITING.)

xx Stephen
Liz
Scarlet Seductress
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Quote by stephanie
This writer PISSES talent.


I can confirm this.
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Quote by Liz


I can confirm this.


Words of a DICK are about to follow:

https://www.lushstories.com/forum/yaf_postst41842_Fucking-Around.aspx

I loved that I did this. Throwaway, quite lovely... Proud of it.

But SHE, GETTING THE GAME INSTANTLY, batted it back like a tennis serve, inserting a much more metaphysical element and indeed, matching AND BETTERING an initial idea. And you JUST CAN'T FUCKING ARGUE with that kind of elegant eloquence.

There's a famous quote, (at least among historians) about the troubled T E Lawrence, "He was not brilliant by accident..."

Neither is my sister.

xx SF

(Had to edit that to correct the quote!!)
sprite
Her Royal Spriteness
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Quote by stephanie


Words of a DICK are about to follow:

https://www.lushstories.com/forum/yaf_postst41842_Fucking-Around.aspx

I loved that I did this. Throwaway, quite lovely... Proud of it.

But SHE, GETTING THE GAME INSTANTLY, batted it back like a tennis serve, inserting a much more metaphysical element and indeed, matching AND BETTERING an initial idea. And you JUST CAN'T FUCKING ARGUE with that kind of elegant eloquence.

There's a famous quote, (at least among historians) about the troubled T E Lawrence, "He was not brilliant by accident..."

Neither is my sister.

xx SF

(Had to edit that to correct the quote!!)















Drats! I've been outed! Yes, I really am T E Lawrence. i spent several years riding camels in the African desert while dressed as an arab and blowing up trains... wait.. Lawrence of Arabia? really? they're not the same? nevermind!

You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.

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Quote by sprite
If you're writing a story with the sole intent of getting an EP - you're doing it for the wrong reason. awards should be the last think on your mind, even in a competition. you should be writing the best damn story, the most entertaining, striving for perfection each and every time - that's all that matters. the rest will either come as a result, or not.

btw, Steph, if you want to talk process, i'm game...

Ice.

i like writing fairy tales. it started out as one. For the record, so did Paris in Flames. It started out as my version of The Little Mermaid. If you read it carefully, in fact, the elements are still there, just hidden like colored eggs on easter morn.

Ice was my version of The Snow Queen or Frozen. It was the tale, not of a sniper, nor of a target, but of the land itself, how it had suffered under the harshness of winter, of war, of death. And... well, it needed someone to witness it, to evoke it, to represent it. The sniper. He became Winter. His wife, the distant summer, both forgotten and unattainable,, and the woman he chose not to kill was spring, or rather, the promise of renewal, of life, of warmth. yeah, i know, too many drugs, but it really is the story of the land and the city itself - the people in it are not incidental, but yes, they are not the only characters i wrote about.

once i had the story in my head, i wrote it. two hours i think, and then as many for editing? sometimes things just roll out of you, this was one of them. i didn't even place in the comp - i didn't expect to, honestly - it's not a Lush story, though i cheated and used the 'love story' catagory to slip it past the horrible story mods. biggrin



Well, well, well...

This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I'm talking about when I ask writers to talk about the process.

Thank you, Sprite.

(Now, and I WAXED most-lyrical about "ICE" when I first read it, there are elements in RACHEL'S expo that passed WAY over my dumb head! I just thought that AS A PIECE it placed me (the reader) in the mind of the character. I FELT it... (I felt my finger on the trigger, indeed...))

That's FUCKING FINE WRITING.

Many writers come here and develop, reading, learning, writing, asking questions... (I did it myself, and learned by it...)

Rachel's honesty in describing HOW she came to write this story, I think, is hugely helpful to burgeoning writers whose most often question is, "How Do You Do It???"

I'm a GOOD WRITER... "How Do I DO IT?" Very Often I Have No Idea...

But WE ARE ALL at University here... Posts like this one help us all to understand the different kinds of processes and ultimately make us all better artists. And we ARE artists.

I KNOW Rachel guards herself and her work MOST CAREFULLY.

I'm so pleased she allowed us a peek into her creativity. Of course, EACH story evolves and develops in its own way, but to read how one of our finest produced what I am ON RECORD as saying is the best piece of writing I've read on here is such a thrill...

(I'm a big fan of Director's Commentary's on Movies too!)

Perhaps others might follow?

xx Stephen