forum Virtual Creative Writing Club, anyone?

Started July 06, 2019 by @ninja_violinist

tune

aand prompts before I forget:

music: "Rounds" by The Oh Hellos (I promised myself I wouldn't keep putting their stuff here. but. here we are eh)

image: "Abandoned in the Mojave" by (??? ok so I found it here and it was very unclear if that's the photographer or?? so yeah idk sorry for the ambiguity)

word prompt:
it's from Samuel Rogers' Italy, a Poem which is an entire book

Death, when we meet the spectre in our walks,
As we did yesterday and shall to-morrow
Soon grows familiar—like most other things,
Seen, not observed; but in a foreign clime,
Changing his shape to something new and strange….
Knocks at the heart. His form and fashion here
To me, I do confess, reflect a gloom,
A sadness round; yet one I would not lose;
Being in unison with all things else
In this, this land of shadows, where we live
More in past time than present, where the ground,
League beyond league, like one great cemetery,
Is covered o'er with mouldering monuments;
And let the living wander where they will,
They cannot leave the footsteps of the dead.

ahh I see what you mean!! that does make a lot of sense!
my empty head can only think of "oversized" but that's pretty basic? or perhaps you could go the roundabout way and pick out a negative description that applies to both swords and pens to kinda connect that a) pen is like sword and b) kid should not be holding either. if that makes sense?
(so this is a bad example, but something like "sharpened pens like swords in their hands"? or something like "hefty" or "clunky"? idk it sounded cooler in my head haha)

and yeah, I'd love to get the name if she can find it! thank you so much!

i actually liked the sharpened bit! thank you!

her name is franny choi, and you can find a list of poems from her published book here. though, you can't read any of them there, so i haven't been able to find the graph one specifically

!!!!! whoa I love her other stuff too though!!! she has a few ones up on the poetry foundation site and I'm really liking what I see. Thanks so much for sharing!!

Did I just rewrite an old Thing I did for the club? Yes. Did I recycle some of the old stuff because I liked it? Also yes. Did a steal my own quality speech from a random and completely unrelated roleplay? Triple yes.

Voila
I'm not responsible for any feels

i'll just drop this here with no context but hey i just wrote this on the spot

And she'd said she wasn't deserving of love. For she tried so hard to make everyone around her happy, and yet still, she had failed once more. And in her wake, she left behind the last remaining threads of her mental health.

"Don't cry," she told herself. "Don't be weak. You're so close, I promise. Just don't let the tears out."

And yet, though she tried so hard to keep the tears from overflowing, she was powerless. "Cry," she was told. "Let your feelings out. It'll be good for you."

So cry she did. She cried for hours on end, even as she still tried to be productive. She cried through her homework– and if I may go on a small rant here,

It's not fair how school teaches us that above all, no matter what happened, schoolwork is most important and should always be top priority. She was suffering, and had to tell herself that she'd fail the class to even get started on it.

But I digress– and she cried her way through a short, but very much needed self-care routine.

And when she was done, "Thank you," she said. "Thank you to my friends who helped me o see reason when I could not."

…… once again, so sorry for the month-long, apparently, yikes delay!! I've been, as the youth say, straight-up not having a good time recently and haven't been able to think about writing on any other level than vague essays about Shakespearean tragicomedy
so thank you for your patience!! I definitely read and enjoyed the stuff you've been posting as it came!!!

@motivational-penguin
hey, I remember reading the previous version of this!! that's so cool!! you can definitely see that you've come along in your writing since then! it feels a lot more focused and structured than before, I think, and the character dynamics have gotten even more intense and feel-y than before (I know you abdicated responsibility for all feels but I've elected to ignore that because this is painful. that speech???? I???? how am I supposed to function???)
just noticed a few small things this time, nothing very major. I vaguely remember having this conversation last time so feel free to ignore this haha, but there were some points where it briefly switched into present tense for part of the sentence but then had a past tense verb in there as well? "he has always loved the stars", "remembering who he's supposed to be", "when he's already lost so much". one effect I think this could have is drawing attention to the tenses and the contrast, kind of separating the concept of Alexis and his character out from the rest of the scene, if that makes any sense at all. so it's not necessarily wrong, but it does call attention to itself so I'd recommend making sure it's doing what you want it to.
on page 5, I'm not sure that "piled" is the right word for what tears do to chests?
very small things, nothing really big that I can think of. so. thanks so much for sharing!! sorry this took so long ooof

@izzy-might-be-back
ooof that one hits like a punch to the gut (especially the rant about school, yikes, very very true). Really glad the ending was hopeful though!!
I'm not sure how much stylistic feedback you're looking for since it seems to be something quite personal? I think? but in case you wanted some, I noticed that you start quite a few sentences with "And", which is totally fine, but something to be keeping an eye out for in longer texts. but yeah. small thing, not a problem here as far as I can tell.
thanks so much for sharing!!

and prompts!

music: "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen, performed by the Vancouver Men's Chorus

image: "Cloud Factory" by Wesley Chambers, brought to you by @croc-for-president

word prompt: from "In Memoriam A.H.H." by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

@motivational-penguin
hey, I remember reading the previous version of this!! that's so cool!! you can definitely see that you've come along in your writing since then! it feels a lot more focused and structured than before, I think, and the character dynamics have gotten even more intense and feel-y than before (I know you abdicated responsibility for all feels but I've elected to ignore that because this is painful. that speech???? I???? how am I supposed to function???)
just noticed a few small things this time, nothing very major. I vaguely remember having this conversation last time so feel free to ignore this haha, but there were some points where it briefly switched into present tense for part of the sentence but then had a past tense verb in there as well? "he has always loved the stars", "remembering who he's supposed to be", "when he's already lost so much". one effect I think this could have is drawing attention to the tenses and the contrast, kind of separating the concept of Alexis and his character out from the rest of the scene, if that makes any sense at all. so it's not necessarily wrong, but it does call attention to itself so I'd recommend making sure it's doing what you want it to.
on page 5, I'm not sure that "piled" is the right word for what tears do to chests?
very small things, nothing really big that I can think of. so. thanks so much for sharing!! sorry this took so long ooof

i said i take no responsibility

goddammit, i hate tenses. i always seem to struggle with those. but thank you!! and it's perfectly fine dude, life is life

blegh, something i threw up on the spot
like always
i put no thought into character backgrounds whatsoever bc it was on the spot
kinda edited it
not really
just some last minute additions in the third paragraph
~
And she lay there, her back to the ground, staring at the empty abyss that was the night sky. “I hope I did justice,” her robotic voice whispered. “I hope I was able to bring some good to the world, while I was still able to.”

Her body was completely still, in an attempt to conserve what little energy she had left. It wasn’t like movement would be easy at this point anyways, for her joints were a mess and her legs might as well not been there. Her left eye was just barely attached, the vision fuzzy, and there were wires spilling out everywhere.

The sentient android, model ATK-582, laid in the open battlefield, vulnerable, weak, and harmless. Other bodies lay strewn haphazardly across the ground, all of the same model as her. She was dying and she knew it. “I hope the newer models do better,” she whispered. “Be stronger than I was, if you so should have to face battle like I did. Preferably, you’ll be able to live life like any other human. Never have to see battle or war in your lifespan. Good luck, young ones.”

And with that, she took her last ‘breath’ as her system began to shut down. It was an ‘automatic decision made to conserve battery’ but she knew that even then, it wouldn’t be long before her battery ran out and she was gone forever.

aaa i guess some of yalls words resonated with me
and uh
inspiration
so
i kinda threw this up
it's not great but
i suppose it works

tw for mentions of suicide
~
>> You were found, but will remain lost. <<

The small girl, who couldn't be older than seven years, hugged her knees to her chest, her face hidden away in her legs. An orphan she was no more, but she was still lost. Lost and confused. She broke down crying occasionally, she couldn't help it. She just… missed him so much. Now don't get it wrong, the two of them had just been friends, nothing more than that. No romantic feelings towards the other. But he'd been the one who'd found her that fateful day. Hidden away in the furls of the playground, crying her heart out.

That day was the day she'd been kicked out, thrown away from anything and everything familiar. That day, four years ago. The older boy, with his messy black hair and kind blue eyes offered up his warm peach-ish coloured hand to her, saying, "Are you okay? Come stay with me for awhile, you don't look like you have a place to stay."

And so she'd followed him without question, relief filling her small body. So naive, she believed him when he said he would take care of her for as long as needed. And he wasn't lying when he'd told her this. Though the two of them both had school, him being only 16, he knew what it was like to be abandoned on the street. For there was a reason he'd lived alone since 13. He'd been kicked out by his homophobic mother for being gay, and so he set to work. Stole some money from his father (who, quite honestly, didn't give a shit about him either) and managed to buy a car with his fake as fuck driver's license. At 5"10', he was quite tall, and easily passed as his father.

So he had lived in his car for the last two years, and had only managed to buy himself an apartment just five months ago. She'd come with him, of course, but then he'd… just disappeared. And the next week, the news came. Suicide, was the word the police had used. She turned to her right, about to ask him what the word meant when she remembered he wasn't there anymore. She knew his passwords to everything. So she ran away from the station, back to his apartment where she tried to quickly search up the word. The results on Google were full of words she didn't know. But one thing she did know– death.

It appeared that he was dead, was he, now? She laughed softly. It couldn't be. He didn't die. He would never try to die on purpose, leaving her behind, would he? He couldn't. He'd never let himself die like that. It was impossible. When she was interrupted by a young police officer who came into the room after her, she laughed again. "Jokes aside, where is he?" she demanded. "I know he's not dead. He can't be, so tell me where he is."

Even now, it still seemed like a cruel, cruel joke. Even after she'd learned what the word meant. It was just… impossible. The lingering words of the older people she'd been forced to speak with. …you'll feel lost and alone for awhile. You're in pain, I know. I promise you, things get easier as time goes on, alright? Stay strong for me, alright?

Once more, the tears flowed. They flowed so freely, spilling out of her eyes and down her cheeks. People don't die, she thought to herself. That's not how life works. They aren't supposed to take the people who mean the world to you away. That's not how death works, she thought bitterly.

(heyyy it's been a while since anyone posted, and I have a poem?? Idk, here you go. Also let's see who can spot the Hobbit reference ;)

Time
kills.

We say "give it
time". We comfort with
"Time
heals all ills".
This is a
lie.

Time does not heal.
Time
kills.
Time smooths over life with
death, heals by killing
feelings,
people,
experiences,
memory.
Time does not heal.

Time is a
killer. Time tears apart
everything you have ever built,
everything you have ever
loved, everything you have
hated.

Time devours all, it
is a ravenous mouth and
a bloodthirsty killer with hands stained
in the blood of our lives, and lips
that smile and smile and smile, and yet
destroy. Time destroys while we tell ourselves
"time heals all". Time takes that which we
want to forget, and devours.

But time is never
sated, never. No matter how much
it is fed, it is always
hungry.
Time
kills.

(Yes inspiration for this came from a tiktok and yes I spewed this out in under ten minutes and yes I wrote it in a frenzy without editing it but I kind of love it and wanted to put it somewhere)
I don’t know what it was about that moment but the simple experience of seeing her eyes reflect my face and knowing that a breath of hers could carry over to me and I could feel the warmth of her fingertips if I took but a step closer.
It was a world of sensual reflex I had never known before. I had never been able to bear coming close to anyone at all, never been able to stand the touch of a dirty rotting soul that couldn't carry the same emotions that I knew to be different than my own. I know I feel differently and I know how bad it seems to come across when I push people and their love away but it isn’t love to me, it isn't love if it doesn't equate to the magnitude of what I could grow to harbour in myself for them.
Until that day, though. Until that day happened I had never been able to step past that wall of separation. Seeing her eyes glitter with an emotion I could understand every inch of was an experience that will never be paralleled by anything or anyone or anything this earth could fathom to give me. A person containing the same things I know to contain in me provides the satisfaction of lifetimes of introspection and research and a simple look from this person was enough to provide the happiness of hundreds upon thousands upon millions of lifetimes perfectly lived.
I needed to tell her with a look that I loved her but I couldn't find the right angle of my eyebrow or the right twitch of my lip to express the depth of what could never even be contained with the word love. Love will never be enough to express the hurricane of this thing beyond emotion that lives its own sentient life in my own heart. It lives a richer life than I could ever, beating with my heart for this human that I never thought possible in my deepest darkest wildest fantasies of of life; it was almost an illusion in the sheer glowing fairy tale that was meeting her in that place and stopping in my tracks and her stopping in her tracks and us staring until we were able to collide and seize each other in an embrace that never, in any scenario the world could muster in all its churning burning darkness, could be torn apart.

……… so real life and I have been battling it out in an Epic Action Film Showdown (and it looks like we'll be fighting for a while yet) so I haven't been on notebook in a while. so sorry for the delay!! thank you for continuing to post your stuff, I did really enjoy all of it once I got a chance to sit down and read it!

@acute-myeloid-lukemia
so I'm actually super invested in the first one? I know you said there wasn't much context but there's so much going on already that I love! the concept of accepting her system shutdown while hoping that the future will be kinder to those who come after her is super cool and really well executed! I like how you build up to what exactly is happening to reveal the 'sentient android' twist in the third paragraph, it adds just a dash of mystery that I think works really well to draw the reader in.
didn't notice much in the way of critique here? so really good job with this one!

the second one is quite intense, I'd say, which considering the subject matter is fair enough. I think you've set the tone really well!
there's a lot going on, quite a lot of detail, so if you'd want to seriously come back and edit this I'd recommend going through and deciding if some detail might be worth drawing out and focusing on for a bit longer? and I also noticed a bit in the first paragraph where the narrator directly addresses the reader ("Now don't get it wrong") which doesn't necessarily blend with the rest of the narration? but that's pretty minor, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
either way, thanks so much for sharing!! hope you're doing alright!

@Icicle
oooh, I really enjoyed this one!! the imagery, especially in the latter bit, is top tier, and you know I'm going to be yelling about that enjambment lol. also enjoy the repetition of the first and last lines that draws it all together!
favourite line(s): "Time takes that which we/ want to forget, and devours."
I honestly can't think of much to critique here? I may just be out of practice, or this may honestly be That Good. either way, thanks so much for sharing!!
kinda bummed I didn't find the Hobbit ref tho

@amber_is_a_starchild
ok so I love this?? like??? it's so well-described and such a detailed look at a moment that feels like stream-of-consciousness except the stream is headed somewhere and I can keep up with it. it's about being very dramatic and the limits of language and the "!!! same hat" moment (? I think haha) and all of those are already right up my alley so. super, super well done!
I think you've pretty much got it covered since the tone and general vibe means a lot of the stuff I'd usually point out (long, windy sentence structures, mainly) actually works really well. I haven't specifically noticed anything wrong, per se, just a heads up that the tenses switch back and forth quite regularly so I'd keep a lookout for any shenanigans there, if you wanted to go back and edit it. thank you so much for sharing!

and prompts!! I'll (hopefully, our viral overlord willing) be out of commission with surgery + recovery soon, so I might very likely disappear again. so you're all welcome to post your own prompts and do critiques for each other coming up, or if someone wants to formally take over we could also set that up. though I get the impression that there's a general lull in activity these days? idk either way, let me know what works for you!

music prompt: Where No One Goes, by Jónsi

image: Continuation of the Dream by Artem Chebokha

word prompt: from "Now That We Have Tasted Hope" by Khaled Mattawa

Having dreamed the same dream,
Having found the water behind a thousand mirages,
Why would we hide from the sun again
Or fear the night sky after we’ve reached the ends of
darkness,
Live in death again after all the life our dead have given us?

yo i just did a couple day long poetry camp so i have STUFF

this one was prompted by talking about setting a scene in poetry and things important to you! it's been edited once over but feel free to offer any other critiques, so i can make it Best!

alanis morissette sings about love
and I listen to you talk about it.
if we're quiet, the raindrops outside
intermingle with the music just faintly
and the sound,
only broken by a curse in the next room over,
somehow feels fuzzy.

sometimes I can't remember where home is,
sometimes home is a yellow-lit kitchen,
and the cracking of eggs.

I wonder here and there,
if asking for my help is your way of spending time with me.

even lost, im convinced,
that nowhere will ever be home more than a kitchen,
that all of my dreams and goals chase food
because the making of it
holds my childhood in place.

something smells like garlic–
always–
and I take my place against the counter,
hands in my pockets while you sing along
to head over feet.

home, I think,
might be you and I and whatever recipe
you made up in five minutes
for the rest of my life.

@Icicle
oooh, I really enjoyed this one!! the imagery, especially in the latter bit, is top tier, and you know I'm going to be yelling about that enjambment lol. also enjoy the repetition of the first and last lines that draws it all together!
favourite line(s): "Time takes that which we/ want to forget, and devours."
I honestly can't think of much to critique here? I may just be out of practice, or this may honestly be That Good. either way, thanks so much for sharing!!
kinda bummed I didn't find the Hobbit ref tho

Thanks!! I love that line too
Hobbit ref is very small, but it's this line: "Time devours all" from riddles in the dark. One line of one riddle is "all things it devours" and the answer was time, so there's the reference

Heyo, I was poppin' around in forums and got somewhat inspired by the image prompt. I hope you don't mind a kinda short poem.

Press your Mickey Mouse band-aid to my lips,
help me forget that words are weapons.
Words hurt.
I don't want to bleed from the ones stuck in my throat.

Lock my eyes onto the dream; throw away the key.
Paper planes and a cup of tea, I've never felt
so sad happy.
Childhood bliss, 13 years later.

@ninja_violinist I hope the surgery goes well & wish you a good recovery!!

@croccin-champagne I love the mood you set up in this–kind of fuzzy and inbetween nostalgia and the present! You imagery is really strong, and the way the whole poem built up to that last line really makes it hit even more. I tried picking out favorite lines and realized the entire 4th stanza is amazing, like I thought the line 'even lost, im convinced,/that nowhere will ever be home more than a kitchen' was amazing, but then you had to go and follow it up with 'that all of my dreams and goals chase food/because the making of it/holds my childhood in place.' and I love it!! I honestly can't think of anything to critique, so I guess there will be no help from me in that regard :)

@redwood your poem also has some crazy strong imagery-and in so few lines??? 'lock my eyes onto the dream; throw away the key' just seems so defiant & hopeful but also sad happy and I really like that!! Also short poems really have the potential to be nice & poignant & I'd say that's something you 100% achieved :) If I had one critique it would be to somehow make it more apparent where the childhood bliss comes into all of this? I love the line 'childhood bliss, 13 years later' and it really does bring out a lot of emotion, but I feel like it could be even more impactful if it was more imbedded into the context of the rest of the poem? I hope that makes sense…

Hey, thanks for taking over, @cue-nervous-humming!
I am, in fact, in hospital with spotty internet for the foreseeable future, so if anyone has some prompts you want to share I'd be really grateful!

It's me, with two poems that leapt into my mind half-formed after watching 1917 and also making a potential story/RP character for a WW1 thing

The forgotten war is what
we call it now. The war that time
forgot. The war that we pass over
in favor of World War Two, the
return of the germans, repeating
the same tactics that lost the first
war. So we ignore that first war, and
the stories are lost to time.

The War to End All Wars was
bloodier, harder, longer, and
far worse than any now remember it. There
is a reason it was given that
name.

France bears raw and deep scars of
trenches, shells, bombs, and
bodies. Some areas are still
uninhabitable. But we
forget about it, in favor of
the Second. Newer, shinier,
more exciting.

There's a man, little more than a boy, who stands
with a medal on his chest and a faraway look
in his eyes.
There's a man, little more than a boy, who
is far too young for the experience that wars
in his eyes.

There's a man, little more than a boy, who has
PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, that they
called shellshock.
There's a man, little more than a boy, who wakes
screaming from dreams he can hardly remember, and they
call him spineless.

They point to a medal and say
"what a hero", but
when it comes down to it, all he did
was survive a battle he hardly remembers, his
mind protecting him as best as it can from
memories that would destroy him.

The war was supposed
to be over by Christmas, and
instead it has dragged on for
long years and weary nights, laying
waste to a generation of young
men.

There is a man, little more than a boy, who has
barely survived with his sanity intact, and for that
he was given a medal.

OH BOY

? that a good oh boy or a bad oh boy?