Workshop Wednesday II: we're back!
Hey everyone, thanks to you who posted in the original Workshop Wednesday; I think it went really well! Here we are for week 2 (sorry it took me til noon, I was busy this morning!)
Some questions:
- do we need a new topic every week? Or will one be enough?
- any other comments/suggestions?
Please begin your comment with [META] to discuss these. Otherwise, I'll copy and paste the guidelines from last week.
What's a workshop?
Basically, a workshop is when you have a bunch of people with poems or stories they've written, and everyone gets together, reads everyone's work, and comments on it, sharing what they got out of it and what the author could do to improve the work for publication. I used to do a lot of them in college, and I've missed the dynamic since graduating. I thought others might also be interested, so here goes nothing.
How this'll work (for now, anyway)
Each week, I'll post a "Workshop Wednesday" post. If you have a poem or (short) story you'd like workshopped, post that as a top comment. Then, read others' top comments and reply with what works/doesn't work/questions you have/ideas you have for the piece that could make it better. If you post some writing, try to comment on at least two other people's pieces as well -- we're here to help each other improve.
Posted in last weeks thread first
A few from the vault, excerpted from a Day of Observance and Unconventional Haikus a couple years back:
Joints crack
Muscles torn
Stand up
Gargling
Tight abdomen
Poop
Water surge
Beat of drum
Snowy peaks
Unroll mat
Open heart
Listen
Striped feathers
Sings love song
Blue throat
Fresh and clean
A throne fit for a king
Splatter
Hey, I'm sure you can read my previous comment on your poem, so I won't copy-paste that here, but I want to add that I just noticed this is for the "Day of Observance and Unconventional Haikus" (which I'm assuming is some project?). Anyway, reading these as semi-autonomous haikus changes the feel a little, to almost scenes within a larger work. They're like little micro-vignettes into someone's morning, I think, which I like!
Is that meant to be "throne"?
Paying attention, thank you
I don't know if non-English is accepted, so I included both Dutch and English. The latter is quite wobbly since I didn't translate it too well (it's not easy). In any case: something small I wrote after an unlucky encounter with a girl by whom I was enchanted at first sight.
Zuhal, zuhal, wat doe je mij toch zwoegen!
Zuhal, zuhal, wat doe je mij toch aan!
Lukt het me, je toch nog te bekoren?
Zal ooit mijn leed en kwel worden gestopt?
Of loop je weg, omdat ik verkeerd heb aangeklopt...
Roep je nog jouw naam?
Zuhal, zuhal, how you make me work!
Zuhal, zuhal, how you make me suffer!
Will I charm you in the end?
Will my suffering and torment ever stop?
Or will you walk away because I had a wrong start...
Please, can you at least tell me your name?
I don't read Dutch, myself, but thanks for posting in it! I'm sure I'm pronouncing it wrongly in my head, but from what I can gather it sounds really interesting, with the little rhymes and repetitions.
In the English translation, I'm interested in how the speaker asks at the end for her to "tell me your name," but I thought Zuhal was her name? And what was the "wrong start" the speaker had -- that'd be interesting to read in the poem.
As always, I'll start us off: a poem I wrote the other day that maybe flashes through too many images to make sense.
Popcorn
There is a code that only takes deciphering
to elucidate the meaning of the world.
What if, inside each of our lonely brains,
another world waited, breath abated, to open
into a field of peonies, brandished by sunlight,
ringed by oak trees dripping with honey, men
and women dancing on the hills? What if
there is a world woven through us all,
threading us together like popcorn for Christmas?
Let’s hop the string to run along the branches
to peer in others’ minds, teeming arks
with their own alien fauna. Let’s explore ourselves
like foreign countries’ tourists with their packs,
searching for Nirvana through their view-finders
off a greasy side-street where a pick-pocket waits
for them. Let’s peel ourselves back to each
other, like oranges, juices running down our chins.
My first creative submission to tildes. It's only truly interesting to me personally, but I wanted to mark the occasion.
This was pretty funny! Thanks for the screenplay submission.
I'm not completely aware of all the tropes of anime, so some of the jokes were lost on me. However, I thought the scene was pretty well-written, especially the timing. I think the characters could've been a little more differentiated (I had a hard time remembering who was who), but the fourth-wall breakages were really pretty funny. I'd definitely watch this and read/watch future episodes, were they to be produced.
[META]
I do "what are you reading currently" topics biweekly, and find it is a nice "rhythm". If it was only once, most people would only make a single submission, ever, and not return with new stuff (IMO). So recurring is better. But we need to find a good rhythm. Maybe biweekly or monthly would work better for this too, if you think weekly is too frequent?
I'm thinking about biweekly -- this topic, as I'm sure you can see, got only 3 submissions. So thank you for the suggestion! I guess I'll wait til next week to post the next one up (head's up to anyone else looking for it!). I'm open to other suggestions, as well!