Tag: DD Writers Jam Fest

DD Writers Jam Fest: Group poetry jam edition

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    Greetings and salutations!

    In my last entry to the DD Writers Jam Fest series, I discussed various styles of poetry.

    For more info on styles of poetry, click my previous DD Writers Jam Fest diary

   But, having dispensed with formalities, I think it is time for some real inspirational brainstorming.

   And, knowing the brainpower on display daily here at Docudharma, I doubt we will be disappointed.

   So, I open up the floor to any and all who are inspired by the muse, for those who want to share the classics or there own verse or prose, for thse who wish to collaberate, pontificate, meditate or celebrate.

   We come to celebrate the word, spoken and written.

   We come to celebrate one another, and share this gift called life

   We come to celebrate ourselves, and to honor what we hold dear

   And we come to pay our respects, to the muses and the Gods of Bacchus and Hera, and to other Gods long forgotten.

    Go below, and on to the show

Famous

So I google myself tonight and I find my DocuDharma entry second only to my Cliffs Notes.

Not only that, but the two top image results are from What’s for Dinner.

Impact is funny sometimes.

What is famous?

Now frankly, I don’t often think of myself as famous.

buhdy is much more popular than I am and while he admires my writing on certain technical levels (or at least has said so).  I don’t like any of it except for particular turns of phrase.

Cheap theatrics I can teach anyone.

Fortunately good writing is the least of your problems if you want to be famous.

Persistence and Regularity

Whatever success I have is entirely due to persistence and regularity.

Well, isn’t that what you expect a writer to say?  It’s as big a cliche as thanking Touchdown Jesus.

Eat some fucking bran if you want to be regular.

Establishing a reputation

C’mon, let’s all take the Poet’s Pledge-

I, [the Poet’s name], do hereby solemnly pledge:

To be peculiar in the most unusual way I can cook up

To write excellently, or more especially to be known to write excellently

To master bards of old and bards anew, or at least never give on that I haven’t

To advance in gestures of my own and not in the stirrings of a majority, except where money is at stake

To be perceived as morally suspect, no matter what the truth

To sniff at adulation and pooh-pooh honors no matter how much I crave them

To obey whim and eschew duty, or at least appear to

To rove ruffian-like across continents of poems with ease, or at least make them think so

To engage in ridiculous arguments, all hot and sweaty for my own position

To be judicious only in the judging of my own merits and mean about the others

To die young, or if I linger, to be ignored and abused well

To write tons of crap for every good poem I do write, and obfuscate the difference with rhetoric

To suck up to important editors with honeyed words, and cuff the assistant editors often

To bemoan the sorry state of poetry in my country and do not one damn thing about it

To speak so incoherently that everyone thinks I am a genius

Oh-

“Batter my heart three-personed God, for you as yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend.”

That was my thirteenth diary, not that you should be jealous because like a cesspool only the biggest pieces of crap rise to the surface.

Did I mention that only my Cliffs Notes are more famous than I?

Hornbeck’s character is static. He is as opinionated and iconoclastic, attacking institutions and firmly held beliefs, and he does not change throughout the course of the play. His character is also shallow and one-dimensional.

How do you survive?

Well if people had only understood how much I inhabit my character they would surely have strangled me in my cradle because I can’t dance nearly as well as Gene Kelly.

But stories?  I bang on the keyboard every day.  I average 40+ comments and 4.5 recs per (when I keep track of such things which I never do).

Attempts to silence me fail on the sheer volume of my record.

It also has this additional benefit which is not to be despised-

People know me and are interested.

On becoming the Paris Hilton of the inter tubz

Have you met my dog Frenchy?

Alas he has passed to a 72 coke bottle fucking paradise.

You can try Pooty Pics.

Writing under constraint: and why it rocks.

I’ve mentioned this in a few comments already, but I thought a broader discussion of the topic of constraint was worth having, and dovetails nicely with the Writers’ Jam Fest.

(If you want to skip to the fun stuff, move on to parts three and four of this essay, Examples and Assignments.)

1. What is a ‘constraint’?

Simply speaking, a constraint is a formal rule that you set for yourself at the outset of writing.  Constraints can be broad (All my protagonists will have names beginning with ‘A’) or unproductively narrow (I’ll only use punctuation to tell my story), but they help set parameters for your work.

Now maybe you’re looking at that and thinking, “Meh, that’s too artificial.  I prefer to write from inspiration.”

But there are other ways to look at it, too.  Imagine I gave you the following assignment: “I want you to write a poem about whatever topic you want, but you have to limit it to exactly 14 lines.  Oh, and every line has to be in iambic pentameter.  Also, I want you to alternate rhymes for the first three sets of four lines, and you have to treat the remaining two lines like a rhyming couplet.”

Sounds stupidly artificial?, but that’s your recipe for a Shakespearean sonnet.  

It may seem counterproductive, but the paradox of constraints is that they actually foster creativity rather than limit it.  By having to meet a predetermined set of rules, you’ll find that you explore paths you normally wouldn’t.

DD Writers Jam Fest: Mothership UPDATED FRI

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We be jammin’ now, dharmanuts. Are you having fun yet? I am. This is my vacation. I know, I should Get A Life, but… heh. Okay.

I’ll maintain this Essay as a “Mothership”, meaning, I’ll add with UPDATES all day today, as Essays arrive. Links to DD Writers Jam Fest essays from Day One (yesterday) are below.

DD Writers Jam Fest… a five days Docudharma exclusive (!) Writer’s… uhm … focus group? no… er, Workshop? well, sorta, maybe. Free For All? hmmm, yah.

DATES: Wednesday through Sunday, August 12 – 16th, 2009

WHERE: Here, mostly, but also in your Brain, CPU or Journal

WHO: You. Everybody. Dharmanoids. Whoever wants in, jump in (as long as you play nice). You don’t have to be a “Writer”, no ID card or credentials art the door required. No Registration Fees either

HOSTED BY: moi but it’s a community thing

REWARDS? PRIZES? MEGA BONUSES? Er, no. Free ponies though!

Basically, the idea here is twofold:

ONE is… just write. Put “DD Writers Jam Fest” in your tags. You can also plop the Jam Fest image Banner into the body of your Essay if you like. Creative writing, or Instructional Essay or Op-Ed or whatever seems suitable to you. Have at it.

NOTE: Please drop a comment here to alert me if/when you publish a Jam Essay so I can link to it here.

TWO is the Round Robin.  The very first Round Robin is going on now! I’ll post a new RR for today in.a.bit…. this afternoon.

UPDATE: OKay so I spazzed out yesterday and didn’t post one. The All New and Improved Round Robin for today is now up. Come on over and jump in. You know you want to.

Here’s the links to the previous brainstorming, which might give you a little of background of how this Jam Fest came about: Part One and Part Two.

I’d like to add that Docudharma has some ongoing Series for writers (and readers) here … in particular, Robyn posts Muse in the Morning every morning. Robyn celebrates the Muses and encourages everyone to contribute their talent there anytime.  

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for?

~Alice Walker

DD Writers Jam Fest: Poetry edition

    I hope you enjoy this edition of the Docudharma Writers Jam fest, and please, feel free to contribute.

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For more detail on different styles of poetry, please go to poetryonline.com

   As my first contribution to this series, I thought it would be beneficial to all to start with a review of different styles of poetry with an example of each. This is a useful tool to show which styles there are and how you can use different styles to convey different emotions.

   I have written poetry since I was 16. I am now 29.

   My first writings were free style rap. I was influenced by Krs One and Rakim, as well as other early 90’s rappers like Jay-Z, Tupac and the Notorious Big. I was what you might call a wigger.

    Krs One, George Carlin and other influences were a strong in my early political and literary life.

    When my father died I dropped out of school and entered the workforce. To excersize my mind I would go to the public (socialist) library and devour books on all subjects, politics, economics, history, and the classics of prose and verse.

    After a year of experiencing the wage slavery of class war head on, I went back to high school. My first class of the day was Poetry. I feel in love and graduated as an honors student 2 years later.

    The problem with hip hop is that it is so highly structured, so fast and so short in phonetic flexibility that it is difficult to say much without being overly repetitive.

    Also, the english language simply lacks the rhymes. French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese are romance languages that are full of rhymes, most words end in O or A, and the depth of communication is certainly more rich than the large and overtly technical English language we use in American discourse.

    As George Orwell wrote of poetry

“Did you know there are only 10 words in modern Newspeak that rhyme with Rod?”

   Therefore, Engliish clearly has it’s poetic limits. The point here, and what makes the works of Shakespear so brilliant, is how we can strcth those limits and expand the boundaries in order to make our language so much more vivid and Descriptive.

   We can create a world of words that goes beyond the limitations of the world around us.

DD Writers Jam Fest: Kick Off Open Thread

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Phew! Finally!!

Welcome to a few days of silliness and, hey, maybe I’ll learn something. Heh.

UPDATE (noon-ish CDT) ALERT! The very first Round Robin is now up!

DD Writers Jam Fest… a five days Docudharma exclusive (!) Writer’s… uhm … focus group? no… er, Workshop? well, sorta, maybe. Free For All? hmmm, yah.

Okay the main thing we’ve agreed to do is a Round Robin.  We’ll see if some of the other stuff comes together…. it’s up to us, you. Shake it up in the comments.

DATES: Wednesday through Sunday, August 12 – 16th, 2009

WHERE: Here, mostly, but also in your Brain, CPU or Journal

WHO: You. Everybody. Dharmanoids. Whoever wants in, jump in (as long as you play nice). You don’t have to be a “Writer”, no ID card or credentials art the door required. No Registration Fees either

HOSTED BY: moi but it’s a community thing

REWARDS? PRIZES? MEGA BONUSES? Er, no. Free ponies though!

So what’s this Round Robin thing? Fun. Da Rulz TBA. Well. I forgot where I was for a minute. “Rules” are just the standard issue Rules of Docudharma: “be excellent to each other”.

Here’s the links to the previous brainstorming, which might give you a little of background of how this Jam Fest came about: Part One and Part Two.

I’d like to add that Docudharma has some ongoing Series for writers (and readers) here … in particular, Robyn posts Muse in the Morning every morning. Robyn celebrates the Muses and encourages everyone to contribute their talent there anytime.  

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If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster. ~Isaac Asimov

Dinner and Darts with the Gecko 20090812

Most of you might not realize it, but Gecko Vo and I are very good friends.  He comes to visit me in the summer because I do not run the air conditioning, and, at 79 degrees F and 80% relative humidity, he is very comfortable.

He visited last night, and whilst I ate some chicken, I sat Vo onto the deck and turned on the light to attract insects.  We both ate our fill about the same time, and turned to conversation and darts.

Hundred Man Chess

Thats what they used to call it. Amusing, I guess that was before “Stratego” or “Risk” was invented.

Hundred is a joke, too… we flux between 30 and 50 now, eliminating players as quickly as new ones pop up. Truth be told, it certainly is more like chess than either, I have to think as I sit here in the Caymans waiting for my meeting.  And really, there are only ten at the top.

Its a decent, unobtrusive bar, and in my yuppie uniform of khaki shorts and a polo, I blend easily with” the little templars” as I like to call them, useful pawns of wealth and power more fleeting than they could possibly understand. Billionaires are a dime a dozen, and as expendable as the rest. At least the ones here are a level up from those American “The Family” guys; most of them are useful ideologues we let act unrestricted for a while… but Good Lord, they travel with entourages and such obvious, tacky excess the real players hate to even meet with them.

They absolutely cream themselves, preening and posturing when they come to our Palaces officially, and would walk by me right now, sit and boast loudly at this bar in their suits and gold, ignoring me, their very creator.

They wouldn’t even see my contact, with his print shirt and dark skin, they would just see two middle aged men, lessers, unworthy of notice.

DD Writers Jam Fest AUG 12 – 16: Part Deux

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Hey who wants to work up a cool banner? UPDATE! Done! Yay! Thank you, On The Bus!!

Okay Part One of the brainstorming of this was here yesterday. I’m picking up with Part Deux today to give everyone a week’s notice in advance, and get into some details. Don’t worry, it’s not that big of a deal, it’s just my OCD showing. heh.

DD Writers Jam Fest… a five days Docudharma exclusive (!) Writer’s… uhm … focus group? no… er, Workshop? well, sorta, maybe. Free For All? hmmm, yah.

Okay the main thing we’ve agreed to do is a Round Robin.  We’ll see if some of the other stuff comes together…. it’s up to us, you. Shake it up in the comments.

DATES: Wed through Sunday, August 12 – 16th, 2009

WHERE: Here, mostly, but also in your Brain, CPU or Journal

WHO: You. Everybody. Dharmanoids. Whoever wants in, jump in (as long as you play nice). You don’t have to be a “Writer”, no ID card or credentials art the door required. No Registration Fees either

HOSTED BY: moi but it’s a community thing

REWARDS? PRIZES? MEGA BONUSES? Er, no. Free ponies though!

So what’s this Round Robin thing? Fun. Da Rulz below. Well. I forgot where I was for a minute. “Rules” are just the standard issue Rules of Docudharma: “be excellent to each other”. The rest (below) is more like Guidelines really.