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Messages - Buttersfly

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I agree with earlier posts from Paynesgray and Neurovore--it's good to have a place to come that's thick with friends who will, as P. G. Wodehouse put it, cluster round when you have a problem, whether that's a sick pet or homework or depression or a musty book to deodorize.  No, that's not directly related to Jim's books, but since Harry is someone who lives to help others, help and advice are certainly in the spirit of the oeuvre.

Also, I was on hiatus when Touchy Topics melted down, and I've missed whatever prompted this reorganization of the cat herding system, but I can hardly think of a truly unkind or offensive post that I've read myself.  Maybe I was on the wrong threads, but I've always thought  of this site as a home.

Cheers to Iago & Co.

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Author Craft / Re: Writing a poem
« on: February 09, 2010, 02:34:20 PM »
Okay, as I've posted elsewhere, I'm mean, but that can be helpful.

Traditionally the sun sets on a day, not a night.
I think the rulers should have horses, not just one horse.
The sun shone with all "its" not "it's" might.

Aside from these petty comments, I'd say that I sense you're forcing your rhymes.  That is, going for the rhyme drags you places that you might prefer not to go, forces you to set up phrases and sentences that aren't what you really want to say or the most effective way to say them or the things you could say or do with words if you weren't lining up a rhyme instead of just using your ear.

For example, maybe:

What they got was something different.
Who they got was a not a warrior but a true gent. 

Relaxes into:

They did not get the warrior they wanted.
They got a gentle man gentle to other men.
And that was marvelous.

I'd look over the first draft and think about the words and images and the sounds and rhythms that are most important to you and build a revision around them and more you like that didn't make it into the first draft.

Hope this helps. :)





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Author Craft / Re: Poetry?
« on: February 06, 2010, 10:01:33 PM »



I admit that I am beautiful
I admit that I am smart
I admit that I have something to offer you
No more I love you's...they have made me weep

I weep for the lies I believed
I weep for the truth I did not see
I weep for me and the life I lead
I weep in hopes of my tomorrow

No more I love you's
No more can I take of this
No more I love you's
No more of this fear I have to hide
No more I love you's
No more of this pain I have to let go
No more I love you's
No more of the despair deep inside


One of the most venerable structuring devices in free verse is anaphora, which is the repetition of the same words at the beginning of multiple lines.  You've got three sets here.  Nice.

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Author Craft / Re: Poetry?
« on: February 03, 2010, 04:30:25 PM »
I used to teach prosody.  I am plenty mean.  I write bad poetry.  I love good poetry.

As for line breaks, and punctuation, they're like everything else in poetry: every technical decision justifies itself by delivering meaning.  This goes for free verse as much as for non-metrical verse. Free verse just doesn't have meter and rhyme in the mix.  In all poetry, you're looking for the maximum consonance between meaning and form.  That's the real trick. 

And free verse does have some conventions concerning line breaks.  Heavily enjambed lines, which run sense and syntax over the line endings into the next line, are associated with content that is meditative, private, deeply thoughtful.  This is the kind of line Starbeam suggests.  Lines, especially relatively long lines, that allow a complete through to end with the end of the line tend to come across as public, certain, or oracular.  And Berrylovely strikes a middle ground in "Lonely Moment."  I'd say Berrylovely's choice is fine for her content.  She's talking about a limited time: one moment. And she describes separate thoughts and feelings within the moment, each moment-within-the-moment gets encapsulated in its own line, it's own tick or tock of the duration of the moment.

Example of heavily enjambed:

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
the were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

For the oracular, public kind of verse, take a look at Walt Whitman.

There are other ways, of course, to structure lines, but I've been boring long enough.

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Site Suggestions & Support / Re: Photobucket Phailure
« on: January 23, 2010, 04:21:53 PM »
Thank you both for the suggestions, but when I went to the site and asked for the "share" options, it timed out on me.  (I have dial-up.)  I'll try again.

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Site Suggestions & Support / Photobucket Phailure
« on: January 22, 2010, 08:02:36 PM »
I uploaded a little avatar to Photobucket.  I tried to get its URL and put it in the URL box, but I couldn't get it here.

Any advice?  Instructions?

Thank you.

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Author Craft / Re: Looking for thoughts to break a stalemate
« on: July 29, 2008, 04:32:52 PM »
I like your premise; it sounds like a book I'd want to read.

I'd go with the whole world instead of just the US.  Current events make it hard to project US global dominance lasting in its present form through the next few weeks, much less the next few centuries.  Global power seems to be shifting to China and India, which would make an interesting alternative to the US, but might necessitate getting an M.A. in Asian Studies.  My advice, again:  go with Planet of the A--holes.  Things change.

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Author Craft / Re: Women, start your...er, I mean...question....
« on: July 10, 2007, 02:21:29 PM »
If I read "fastener" in a bra description, I'd get a visual of the hooks and eyes in the back, so that's potentially confusing.

How about "right between the cups" (though this may be an inch low for you) or "just above the tiny satin ribbon" (even though most bras don't have these anymore) or "right above the center of my bra" (KIS)? 
You could conduct a study in a lingerie department and possibly use "just above the LaPerla [or other brand] logo." 

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Heartily seconded. Two parties alone simply can't adequately represent the diversity of this nation.

Heartily waffling.  While, on the one hand, I'm almost as frustrated with my own party as I am with the other bunch, I would hate to see the US fall into the kind of mess they have in Italy and Israel, where there are numerous parties, so numerous that none can gain a majority on its own.  Every election, they have to form multi-party co-alitions just to come up with a government.  The coalition members all demand concessions and compromises.  Whether they get them or not, the coalitions are always falling apart or threatening to fall apart.  It's not very stable or efficient. 

On the other hand, we've seen ourselves how dramatically both parties can change.  Clinton dragged the Democrats to the center.  Bush II adopted the neo-con agenda.  Neither party is what it was twenty years ago. 

The problem for us is to take control of our parties back to the grass roots and make them what we want them to be, not what they think they have to be to get elected.  We have to stop them focusing on divisive fake problems and force them to address the elephants and donkeys in the living room: abiding by the Constitution, making our healthcare #1 instead of #37, eliminating the national debt, educating our children, recovering our productivity, preserving and improving our environment, and doing government business in real time and the light of day.  I refuse to accept that we cannot; I'm tired of accepting that our parties will not.

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What are you electing?
Before anyone shoots me, may I remind you that I'm English and have never really worked out what you do in the US with your elections or what/who exactly you are electing to what.

Right now we're working up to the party primaries and caucuses.  There are debates being televised as the hopefuls try to secure enough support for each party's nomination for the 2008 presidential election.  There are also the websites, television appearances, editorials, and talking heads vaporing endlessly.  Part of the heightened tension comes from a change in the scheduling of some of the more important votes:  they're having the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries earlier than ever before.  They make everyone nervous because historically they've been almost infallible predictors of the nominees and even the next president. 

I suppose the closest parallel to the UK experience would be having both parties electing new leaders at the same time.

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I come here for the discussion about "Jim Butcher and things his fans think are cool".

I'm sure that there are plenty of other places where people can go talk about religion & politics.

So did I to begin with, but it seems that religion and politics are cool to some people.  The religion thread got through 200+ postings without war breaking out, and I learned a lot.  The political threads so far have been models of thoughtful discussion and mutual respect--partly because we know we have something important in common (Jim's books & the series). 

And, yes, there are other places, but this feels like home or a great coffee shop, it's the best forum I've ever found, I like the other people here--all of them--and I don't want to screw it up.

On the other hand, if politics gets banned, it won't ruin my day.  But I need something meaty to think about while waiting for the renewal decision to come down.  A girl can only take so many Xanax in a day. ;)

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Author Craft / Re: Names help
« on: June 24, 2007, 01:45:07 PM »
Didn't Baal eat children?

That was Molech.  Children were sacrificed to Molech by being thrown alive into a sacrificial fire (Jeremiah 33:35). 

The Hebrew word for death/the underworld was Sheol, so Sheolech or Sheolek might work. 

A Hebrew-English dictionary might be helpful. There are several online.  I turned up the following for "deadly" at http://www.eliyah.com/lexicon.html

akzar ak-zawr' from an unused root (apparently meaning to act harshly); violent; by implication deadly; also (in a good sense) brave:--cruel, fierce.

harag haw-rag' a primitive root; to smite with deadly intent:--destroy, out of hand, kill, murder(-er), put to (death), make (slaughter), slay(-er), X surely.

chalal khaw-lawl' from pierced (especially to death); figuratively, polluted:--kill, profane, slain (man), X slew, (deadly) wounded.

And for "infant," I got:

uwl ool  a babe:--sucking child, infant.
owlel o-lale' or lolal {o-lawl'}; from 5763; a suckling:--babe, (young) child, infant, little one.

So....Azkarul, Haragul, Ulchalal...?

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Author Craft / Re: Creativelly dead inside
« on: May 11, 2007, 11:54:09 AM »
Do you guys get that feeling? I'm getting it again. For about a month now everytime I try to write it's like there's nothing there, and any thing I try to force just comes out awful. And the simple act of trying to write something requires me to nap.

I hate these periods.

Any suggestions on working past it?

Have you ever tried Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way?  It's for writers as much as any other creative type--her seminars are for writers--and is amazingly good at freeing things up and re-stocking the brain.  A creative writing MFA friend put me onto it and it worked--not only on writing but as a general mental-tidy as well.  Gave it to all my friends who were still writing dissertations.  Ardently recommended.

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