The Wordsmith's Forge

Well, sort of.  Ketamine works for treating resistant depression in some people, but both the side effects and the stigma cause significant problems.

This really makes me want to get into Terramagne and write about a character with depression and horse traits.  Because ketamine's main use is, in fact, for large animals.  It's safer for them than a lot of other drugs -- particularly for skittish prey animals who are otherwise prone to spook and bash themselves into walls or trample nearby humans.  So it stands to reason that while antidepressants might work much less well on equine-human persons, ketamine might work quite a lot better.  That doesn't necessarily mean it has no side effects, but it's probably a reliable way of damping down the depression.  One of many ways in which soups, especially primal soups, can have very different reactions to stuff than ordinary humans do.  And yet, truth told, it works well enough for humans that some stick with it like glue -- especially people for whom the usual stuff does not work.  So then, an equine primal, and their human friends who also use ketamine, and their support group, because T-America doesn't bury this stuff under the rug near as much as here.

Or we could always go with Moon Door instead.  You know some of the Women's Chronic Pain Support Group must have tried it, some of them are try-anything types.  My money's on Soma.  

dialecticdreamer is hosting Magpie Monday today with a theme of 'Ohana. Leave prompts, get ficlets! There's also a target for tips:

This month, I’m hoping to reach a total of $65 in tips. If I do, I’ll immediately post the full story “Ripple Effects.”
Aida Finn is nowhere near Jules’ class when events transpired on Thursday, but she certainly sees (and feels) the after effects. She turns to Bennett for help coping with one particular surprise. The story is four parts, a total of 5900 words plus a bit, and is ready to post now.

This poem came out of the February 5, 2019 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from bairnsidhe, gingicat, torc87, and rix_scaedu. It also fills the "reminding someone to do something important" square in my 9-5-18 card for the 1000 Words or Less fest. This poem has been sponsored by ng_moonmoth. It belongs to the series One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis.

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This poem came out of the February 5, 2019 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from ng_moonmoth and Shirley Barrette. It has been sponsored by janetmiles. This poem belongs to The Moon Door series.

Warning: This poem deals with predictable pain and mental impairment, and Hilla prefers that to the unpredictable kind she had before.

( Read more... )

satsuma is seeking cosponsors for "If We Had No Winter" ($154).

I can fund a third of this ($60), but you already have several open
epics...perhaps someone would like to go in on a pool?

EDIT 2/6/19:
This inspired the free-verse poem "If We Had No Winter." Shahana and Ari get asked to hold a public ritual for Spring Greening.
307 lines, Buy It Now = $154

EDIT 2/6/19: ng_moonmoth
I could be talked into a share. Might be willing to go as high as $50. If at least $44 gets pledged from some other source, that should make it a go. Any takers?

The following poems from the January 22, 2019 Poetry Fishbowl are currently available. Poems may be sponsored via PayPal -- there's a permanent donation button on my Dreamwidth profile page -- or you can write to me and discuss other methods. There are still verses left in the linkback poems "The Open Gyre," "Growing Green, Growing Gold," "Mysterious and Impermanent," "Greater Than the Sum," "Nascent Wisdom," "A Lively Feast," "Between the Normal and the Abnormal," "Always Carry Your Goodness," and "Crossroads on the Hero's Journey."


"All the Beautiful Lights"
Your prompts contributed to the free-verse poem "All the Beautiful Lights." Shiv and Luci enjoy a holiday cruise on Lake Manawa.
824 lines, Buy It Now = $412

Lake Manawa looked like a nonstick griddle,
the ice flat and gray under a cloudy sky,
but Shiv knew it would glitter in the sun.

Shiv and Luci walked toward the dock
where the Manawa Marvel waited.


"The Quickest Way to Know a Woman"
Some DW prompts contributed to the free-verse poem "The Quickest Way to Know a Woman." Shiv and Luci go shopping in the Old Market.
1553 lines, Buy It Now = $777

Shiv stood in front of Dymin's desk
and forced himself not to fidget.

"You sure this is a good idea?"
he said, trying to wheedle out of it.

"I'm sure you need winter clothes,
and I'm sure you'll benefit from
a spotter on that trip," Dymin said.
"You and Luci have talked about
shopping the Old Market, so
she's bound to be willing."


"Sky Blue and Grass Green"
A DW prompt inspired the free-verse poem "Sky Blue and Grass Green." Shiv takes a class in underpainting, then freezes up when he tries to do it in complementary colors. He gets through it with a little help, though.
303 lines, Buy It Now = $152

Shiv hopped off of the bus at
the Hipster Center of Creative Arts.

He liked the building -- sleek concrete
with lots of glass windows to let in
all the light that they could, as if
it had been made from Legos.


"Strange and Twisted Creatures"
Molly takes care of Gray after the incident with Chyou.
558 lines, Buy It Now = $279

Gray woke with a headache and
a queasy burn in his belly that told him
he'd gone far too long without eating.

Then he remembered why, and groaned.


"What Seems Like Surrender"
A DW prompt inspired the free-verse poem "What Seems Like Surrender." A week after the chayne incident, Dr. Bloch notices that Shiv has an unusual response to certain types of pain.
572 lines, Buy It Now = $286

A week after the chayne incident, Shiv
got an invitation back to Dr. Bloch's office.

The fact that it was an invitation threw him
off track, but the message clearly stated
that he could either come for a checkup and
probably get excused from bed rest now,
or skip it and wait an extra week before
being excused from it automatically.

Thanks to an audience poll, you can now read the start of "So Many Notes and Colors and Flavors."  Shiv and Heron are comfort-baking again, and things don't go totally smooth.

 dialecticdreamer is hosting Feathering the Nest today on the topic of nonsexual intimacies.  Leave prompts, get ficlets!  Donate to keep the writer afloat, and reveal more fiction if it reaches a threshold.

This poem came out of the January 22, 2015 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from librarygeek, mama_kestrel, and dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "falling asleep" square in my 2-28-18 card for the Slice-of-Life Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by technoshaman. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem deals with the aftermath of sexual assault and Shiv's awful past, but it is mostly cottoncandy fluff.

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The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED.  Thank you for your time and assistance.  Please keep an eye on this page as I am still writing.

Starting now, the bonus Poetry Fishbowl is open!  This is the perk for the Poetry Fishbowl meeting the $250 goal three times.  Today's theme is "Polychrome Heroics: Shiv: the Christmas Thread."  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.


Advance Preparations:
I highly recommend viewing the advance announcement for today's fishbowl, where I laid out the start of the thread and some ideas on where it's going.  If you already have a prompt on the list of carryovers from January 8, you're covered and don't need to leave more prompts today.  I'll write as many as I can.

I have sketched out a little of the storyline. If anyone else wants to write about this, and you need references to make sure you don't step on what I'm doing, let me know who or where and I'll send you the relevant notes.  Just make sure I get a copy and a link so I can connect things. Also, I'm trying to date entries more carefully, so do that too. See the 2015 calendar.


Stacking:
You can prompt for characters, settings, events, or whatever you want to see. I've listed a lot of the scenes that I already know about. Anyone can request those straight from advance announcement post, or second someone else's prompts, if you don't want to write out your own. I will write as many poems as I can, but I may not get to everyone this time if complex prompts (like X and Y in Location plus hassles) spread out over a lot of long plotty poems that don't combine well. Prompts that get seconded by more people are more likely to get written.

Brief generic prompts (like "traumatic stress" or "touch aversion") are easy to stack with other prompts and may get used repeatedly. If you're stuck for ideas, grab any of the prompts off the list of suggestions above, or use either of the emotion lists from the Bingo Card Generator to produce a single prompt. This is a good option for anyone who feels overwhelmed by information or choices.


Characters:
Drafting new characters takes time. The more of that I need to do, the slower the writing goes. So if you want to make it go faster, focusing on established characters is one way to do that.  I already have a lot of characters statted up for Blues Moon and related environs.


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 "Polychrome Heroics: Shiv: the Christmas Thread."  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 feature in conjunction with fishbowl sponsorship is this progress meter showing the amount donated.



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, 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.


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.


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 "Polychrome Heroics: Shiv: the Christmas Thread."  I'll be soliciting ideas for Shiv and company, superheroes, supervillains, gray capes, blue-plate specials, naries, first responders, citizen responders, hapless victims, traveling, taking cover, counseling, troubleshooting, discovering problems, finding creative solutions, asking questions, learning what you can do, upstanding, Blues Moon, Simon and Tolli's home, the Finn house in California, Soup to Nuts, the Omaha Personal Repair Center, inner space, the subconscious, sex crimes, touch aversion, attachment damage, unforseen circumstances, emergency tools and supplies, physical first aid, emotional first aid, self-help, personal growth, different schools of therapy, therapeutic tools, trauma, fear, grief, horror, helplessness, traumatic stress, platonic relationships, 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.) The rest of the poems will go into my archive for later use.