“compression of a written or spoken work into a more concise form.” Merriam-Webster

The water cycle wherein moisture in the atmosphere condenses into droplets of rain, dew, or fairy frost flowers on a cold window is known as condensation.

An analog of the water cycle exists in poetry where we condense a line by removing words that are unnecessary or redundant to the meaning and theme of the poem is also knows as Condensation.

How does that work, exactly? Let me use the previous statements in examples.

The Water Cycle

By M. Frank Darbe

Atmospheric moisture condenses

Rain’s drops,

Morning’s dew,

Winter’s steamy breath,

Fairy’s frosted windows

Nature’s Artworks

See what I did there? I condensed a somewhat dry sentence explaining the Water Cycle into a poem.

Water Cycle’s Analog

By M. Frank Darbe

Poet’s passion condenses

Word drop lines,

Morning’s passion,

Lover’s steamy breath,

Lipstick on wineglass

Emotion’s artistry.

Condensation is a poet’s tool used to create crisp images. We could fatten these brief poems with conjunctions. Using determiners like the, I, she, and others, I could expand the poem’s waistline and stretch out its seams. If I were to convert those poems into a line of prose, those words would be necessary. The strict rules of grammar are not needed for a poem.

Poetry, in most cases, is not prose. If you can make the images created by your work sing without unnecessary words, then exile them to Webster’s darkest realms.

Success as a writer means finishing and publishing documents. Selling a few books would be nice, but marketing is another thing altogether. Now, my thoughts are turned full on to the production process. My process is slow because I have developed bad habits. It is time to examine those habits holding me back and rid myself of them.

Write Don’t Edit

I’ve heard this for years, acknowledged it, and ignored it. Editing the story, tinkering with the text, correcting misspelled words, cleaning up your copy, and any other Euphemism a writer cares to throw up in defense is pointless. MIND YOU: I DON”T PRACTICE WHAT I PREACH HERE.

Yesterday as part of the Writer’s Boot camp, were performed a ten minute exercise using the prompt, “At noon, the last camel died.” The point of the exercise is to get a clear idea of the narrative your want to write in the mind, and sit down for ten minutes and write. No editing. No going back. No agonizing over the perfect word.
Work with the premise that all first drafts are shit, and get the shit on the page fast as possible so you can begin the real work.

I have a habit over the years of constantly tickering with text as I write. If I get the dreaded read underline that tells me I misspelled a word, I go back and fix it. If i knonw tha tI did not capatlize “i” fix it. Constant tinkering does not allow your narrative to flow, and it slows the writing down to a crawl.

I have caught myself doing that here in this post. I should be writing, getting the words on the page, not hitting the wrong key and backspacing to clear the word. If I just get it down, I can edit later.

ITS SO DAMN HARD!

Learning an Unlearning Habits is Difficult

So here I find myself working to unlearn bad habits. Whetinger I am pantsing, plantsing, or planning I should just sit and touches those keys to bring out that sigh of a shitty story. If I can beat this, I willl overcome my lack of output.

Changing my life begins now.

I am not a member of alliteration anonymous. Just thought I would write that.

I have discovered that the phrase, Old Habits Die Hard, is, at best, inaccurate. For some weeks, I kept my daily blog for weeks—weeks I tell you — and then ran into articles that told me I did it wrong. I’ve discovered Blogging daily had become a part of my discipline, and without it, I faltered.

I did not stop writing, but I have found it more difficult without this daily habit. Today, this afternoon actually, I chose to dump the way I am supposed to do this and move back to a daily post.

Twilight’s Child Progress

I have slammed up against one of my lousy habits with Twilight’s Child (the name may change). I now finish novels; now I need to learn to edit them. I am having trouble. Other than a few ongoing projects, I intend to bull my way through. If I can’t read through it who will, after all?

Writer’s Boot Camp

The Boot Camp goes well. Having done it before, these early phases are a bit of a chore, but it changes a bit from run to run and we will soon be over this phase.

A Cat by Any Other Name

I began a short story, A Cat by Any Other Name, and wrote 504 words. I expect it to hit 2000. Oddly, it started as a Fan Fiction for Forgotten Realms. One thing led to another. I am gong to start writing Fan Fiction and posting things on Fan Fiction sites to get people to know my name.

The Paradise Snare by A.C. Crispin




A. C. Crispins The Paradise Snare (1997) came with a high recommendation from a friend who read it as a teenager shortly after its first publication. With Disney’s acquisition of the Star Wars franchise, the new owners demoted “The Paradise Snare” from Cannon to Legend. After seeing the somewhat disappointing Solo: A Star Wars Story, I caught up on the Star Wars universe, and the book fun but something of a disappointment.
After a brief glimpse of a semi-derelict Troop Carrier, the Author stops the story to tell the reader the history of Garris Shrike. Had I picked up the book in a bookstore and read the first few pages, I would not have bought it. I persevered through what writers call a data dump. The story picks up speed, for, as  with the troop carrier, “it was still capable of hyperspace travel, even though it was slow by modern standards.”
Crispin’s Hahn Solo differs from the cocky, arrogant and confident smuggler and crook. As I followed him through his first grand love affair and loss, I found the romance element unsatisfying. His work with drug smugglers and the use of religion as an addictive substance is the highlight of the book. It made a better beginning to the amoral smuggler happy to shoot first when threatened
This is not a book that will change your life. The brightest point of the novel is its entertainment value. I recommend it to readers of Star Wars Novels, everywhere.



View all my reviews

Writing will always surprise you. Even with a degree, when you decide to push it to the level of a 9to5 job, things change. There can be no Artistic Angst attack, you have to get up every day and do it.

You have to think strategically about what work to put first and where to take your career. I have one book published. (Thank you JaCol Publising and Randall Andrews.) That is where I find myself.

I am close to finishing a “Walking Shadow,” five or six scenes. I have four other novels written and in need of editing. I am choosing to change my writing schedule to put more emphasis on getting the novels ready for publishing and writing a few short stories and novellas to get stuff out faster. We will see how this works out.

Red Sofa Salon and 10
Ways to Use Scrivener for Poetry Manuscripts

Often when I need a resource, I find it simply does not exist or is not in a form useful to me, and I end up cobbling together the resource from various sources.
Red Sofa Salon’s 10 Ways to Use Scrivener for Poetry is a very welcome exception.

Scrivener is well known for being a great writing tool for novelists, screenwriters, and long-form non-fiction writers, but when my friend mentioned she used Scrivener for poetry manuscripts, I was intrigued. As a poet, I’d always used Microsoft Word, with quite a bit of frustration. I usually write first drafts by hand in a notebook, then type them in Word, and save multiple files of subsequent drafts. The biggest problem was putting together a poetry manuscript. I would copy and paste each poem into one big file, which became unwieldy. It was especially tricky to keep track of subsequent versions of poems once the big file was created; each time I edited a poem in a single file I’d have to remember to update the main manuscript doc as well. I’d also have to save multiple versions of that main file with different types of front matter depending on where I was sending the manuscript (some places want acknowledgements, some don’t; some want a title page with contact info, some without; etc.). And worst of all, it was really annoying in Word to try to mess around with the order of poems in a manuscript––cutting and pasting them throughout the main doc, and then manually updating the TOC.

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10 Ways to Use Scrivener for Poetry,” Red Sofa Salon, redsofasalon.com/10-ways-to-use-scrivener-for-poetry-manuscripts/, Friday February 20th 2015 at 11:39 pm, 02/13/2019, http://www.redsofasalon.com/10-ways-to-use-scrivener-for-poetry-manuscripts/trackback/

Started building the manuscript for a Poetry Chapbook using Scrivener. I kind of have a vision of what I want, but I expect this to be a learning experience that will teach me the ropes of putting together a self published book.

Mood is a big thing. For a while, I had a period of time when I felt happy. Not sure what hapened, whether this is just normal, or if I am depressed more than usual. Just have to keep on keeping on. Tired tired, tired.