The Wordsmith's Forge

 I have posted the half-price sale for the rainbowfic Vellum list.  Come browse some bargain poetry!

This is the freebie for the May 2013 Muse Fusion over on Torn World. It was inspired by a prompt from LiveJournal user Wyld_dandelyon, along with her art and description of a new sea creature which is currently in development. This also fills the #5 Drift slot in the rainbowfic Moonlight list.

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This month's theme was "homonyms, puns, and wordplay." I worked from 1 PM to midnight, so about 9 hours allowing for lunch and supper breaks. There were a few prompts early on, a trickle later, but far less than usual. I only wrote 13 poems.

Participation was so low, I actually didn't write enough to activate all the perks, although people could've covered those with general donations. Remember, it takes prompts to make the fishbowl work. I got some extra activity by doubling up on people who sent multiples, but there's a limit to how well that works.

I've had fishbowls tank before; it happens once or twice a year. I suspect it was due to the theme. It was popular in the poll but then people didn't prompt much; they may have found the topic hard to work with. I kind of expected it to be a challenge for me but was willing to give it a try. Sometimes those kinds of themes have turned out really well. But after this, I'm likely to be more selective about what goes into a poll or what I accept from the voting results, and weed out themes that I think might be harder to work with.

Most of the poems were free verse. Some used single prompts while others stacked a bunch together. I finished out the Rainbowfic Sunlight list. Length ran shorter this time: a lot of medium, some short and long, only three epics.

Activity was low. There were 41 comments on LiveJournal and none on Dreamwidth. A total of 11 people sent prompts. There were no new prompters or donors.


Read some poetry!
The following poems from the February 2013 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
"Balance and Tangle"
"Command Line Errors"
"The Geometry of Language"
"Greetings and Solicitations"
"Irony of Eight" (One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis)
"Ohm's Lawyers"
"Portmanteaparty"
"Spathic Personalities"
"Tantalizing"
"That Is the Question"
"Whole Loops"
"Won True Way" (An Army of One)

"The Voyage to Vaucouleurs" (11/6/12, The Arc of Joan)
"Scotch Hobby" (12/4/12, The Steamsmith)


Buy some poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, read the list of unsold poems from May. That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available. The linkback poem "The Voyage to Vaucouleurs" (The Arc of Joan) currently has 12 of 16 verses posted. You can reveal more by linking to the unsold poetry post, or to your favorite poems from this fishbowl.

All currently sponsored poems have been posted. Per the $200 goal, "Scotch Hobby" is the free epic. The other perks did not activate this month. We do have a carryover from previous activity, however. There will be a half-price sale running May 20-26. I'm doing something a little different this time, offering the unsold stuff from the Rainbowfic Vellum list, which consists of 9 poems and 1 short story, spanning several different series.

Donors this month include: LiveJournal users Laffingkat, Zianuray, rix_scaedu, janetmiles, and technoshaman. The donor perk-post is "Wordplay."


The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED.  Thank you all for your support and enthusiasm.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open!  Today's theme is "homonyms, puns, and wordplay."  I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

Watch for the linkbacks perk to go live.  Click to read "The Voyage to Vaucouleurs" (The Arc of Joan).


What Is a Poetry Fishbowl?

Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.

In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "homonyms, puns, and wordplay."  I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things relating to that theme. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.


Cyberfunded Creativity

I'm practicing cyberfunded creativity. If you enjoy what I'm doing and want to see more of it, please feed the Bard. The following options are currently available:

1) Sponsor the Fishbowl -- Here is a PayPal button for donations. There is no specific requirement, but $1 is the minimum recommended size for PayPal transactions since they take a cut from every one. You can also donate via check or money order sent by postal mail. If you make a donation and tell me about it, I promise to use one of your prompts. Anonymous donations are perfectly welcome, just won't get that perk. General donations will be tallied, and at the end of the fishbowl I’ll post a list of eligible poems based on the total funding; then the audience can vote on which they want to see posted.

2) Swim, Fishie, Swim! -- A new feature in conjunction with fishbowl sponsorship is this progress meter showing the amount donated.  There are multiple perks, the top one being a half-price poetry sale on one series when donations reach $300.



3) Buy It Now! -- Gakked from various e-auction sites, this feature allows you to sponsor a specific poem. If you don't want to wait for some editor to buy and publish my poem so you can read it, well, now you don't have to. Sponsoring a poem means that I will immediately post it on my blog for everyone to see, with the name of the sponsor (or another dedicate) if you wish; plus you get a nonexclusive publication right, so you can post it on your own blog or elsewhere as long as you keep the credits intact. You'll need to tell me the title of the poem you want to sponsor. I'm basing the prices on length, and they're comparable to what I typically make selling poetry to magazines (semi-pro rates according to Duotrope's Digest).

0-10 lines: $5
11-25 lines: $10
26-40 lines: $15
41-60 lines: $20
Poems over 60 lines, or with very intricate structure, fall into custom pricing.

4) Commission a scrapbook page. I can render a chosen poem in hardcopy format, on colorful paper, using archival materials for background and any embellishments. This will be suitable for framing or for adding to a scrapbook. Commission details are here.  See latest photos of sample scrapbooked poems: "Sample Scrapbooked Poems 1-24-11"

5) Spread the word. Echo or link to this post on your LiveJournal, other blog, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social network.  Useful Twitter hashtags include #poetryfishbowl and #promptcall.  Encourage people to come here and participate in the fishbowl.  If you have room for it, including your own prompt will give your readers an idea of what the prompts should look like; ideally, update later to include the thumbnail of the poem I write, and a link to the poem if it gets published.  If there is at least one new prompter or donor, I will post an extra freebie poem.

Linkback perk: I have a spare series poem available, and each linkback will reveal a verse of the poem.  One person can do multiple links if they're on different services, like Dreamwidth or Twitter, rather than all on LiveJournal.  "The Voyage to Vaucouleurs" belongs to the series The Arc of Joan and has 16 verses.
 

Additional Notes

1) I customarily post replies to prompt posts telling people which of their prompts I'm using, with a brief description of the resulting poem(s). If you want to know what's available, watch for those "thumbnails."

2) You don't have to pay me to see a poem based on a prompt that you gave me. I try to send copies of poems to people, mostly using the LJ message function.  (Anonymous prompters will miss this perk unless you give me your eddress.)  These are for-your-eyes-only, though, not for sharing.

3) Sponsors of the Poetry Fishbowl in general, or of specific poems, will gain access to an extra post in appreciation of their generosity.  While you're on the Donors list, you can view all of the custom-locked posts in that category.  Click the "donors" tag to read the archive of those.  I've also posted a list of other donor perks there.  I customarily leave donor names on the list for two months, so you'll get to see the perk-post from this month and next.

4) After the Poetry Fishbowl concludes, I will post a list of unsold poems and their prices, to make it easier for folks to see what they might want to sponsor.

5) If donations total $100 by Friday evening then you get a free $15 poem; $150 gets you a free $20 poem; and $200 gets you a free epic, posted after the Poetry Fishbowl.  These will usually be series poems if I have them; otherwise I may offer non-series poems or series poems in a different size.  If donations reach $250, you get one step toward a bonus fishbowl; three of these activates the perk, and they don't have to be three months in a row.  Everyone will get to vote on which series, and give prompts during the extra fishbowl, although it may be a half-day rather than a whole day.  If donations reach $300, you get a piece of bonus material. 


Feed the Fish!
Now's your chance to participate in the creative process by posting ideas for me to write about. Today's theme is "homonyms, puns, and wordplay."  I'll be soliciting ideas for people who play with words, locations related to language or literature, word-based plot twists, homonyms, puns, portmanteus, other bits of linguistic humor, and poetic forms in particular.  But anything is welcome, really. If you manage to recommend a form that I don't recognize, I will probably pounce on it and ask you for its rules. I do have the first edition of Lewis Turco's The Book of Forms which covers most common and many obscure forms.

I'll post at least one of the fishbowl poems here so you-all can enjoy it. (Remember, you get an extra freebie poem if someone new posts a prompt or makes a donation, and additional perks at $100-$300 in donations.  Linkbacks reveal verses of "The Voyage to Vaucouleurs.") The rest of the poems will go into my archive for magazine submission.

Come to Torn World for Sea Monster Month!  I should have some new material going up this month, featuring the hostile aquatic megafauna.  I helped design an entire ecosystem of sea monsters.  It's pretty cool.

The bonus theme was Path of the Paladins.  I worked from 12:45 PM-2:15 AM, so about 11 hours 30 minutes accounting for breaks.  Prompts were slow to start, but I got a good batch eventually.  I wrote 9 poems on Tuesday and 2 more later.

All of the poems were free verse.  Most used one or two prompts.  Many of these featured side plots and supporting characters.  Almost everything was epic length.

Activity was moderate, with 40 comments on LJ and 5 on DW.  There were no new prompters or donors.


Read some poetry!
The following poems from the February 2013 Poetry Fishbowl have been posted:
"Divergent Paths"
"Dog Tired"
"Enlighten the Dark Corners"
"The Epicurean Caravan"
"Hallowing"
"An Impetuous Presence"
"Landfather"
"Manifest Concern"
"Mortal Coils"
"Two Good Hands"


Buy Some Poetry!
If you plan to sponsor some poetry but haven't made up your mind yet, read the list of unsold poems from the bonus fishbowl. That includes the title, length, price, and the original thumbnail description for the poems still available.

All sponsored poems have been posted.  Backchannel copies have been sent to the relevant prompters.

Donors this session included: the_vulture, kestrels_nest, laffingkat, rix_scaedu, janetmiles, zianuray, mdlbear, technoshaman, Anthony & Shirley Barrette.


The Poetry Fishbowl project also has a permanent landing page.

finch wrote a beautiful ace romance poem in "This Was Not What I Set Out to Write."  I think it does a lovely job of capturing the intimacy that lies outside of sex.