The Write Focus

Our poem for the Christmas holidays has two lessons for all writers. It comes from T.S. Eliot.

My introduction to TSE came in college, either a survey course in modern poetry or as part of a literature survey. Professor C. Hines Edwards, dry and erudite, was one of two that I admired for his knowledge of poetry classical and structure-less.

He introduced TSE’s “The Wasteland” to us, a long poem known for its allusions. The literary device allusions has its place in writing. In a few brief words, it opens doors to additional meaning … much as Christina Rossetti’s “From Sunrise to Starshine” did, with our realization that she’s a sleeping beauty, briefly awakened, now in her thorn-guarded tower.

The allusion is the first of our two lessons, but it leads into the second, a contradictory lesson and our final one for this series.

In January, The Write Focus starts a new series called Writers on Writing, active writers who share their knowledge of tech tools, productivity, and process, with a few snippets on the craft.

Here’s Eliot’s poem, perfect for the holiday season.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:40 Introduction

01:17 Allusions / Easter Eggs

03:11 First Lesson

04:40 Symbolic Motifs

05:17 Re-Connecting with TSE

07:45 Second Lesson: Two-Sided

10:13 “The Journey of the Magi”

16:40 Closing

Total Run Time = 17:38

#TSEliot #JourneyoftheMagi #Wasteland #HollowMen #allusion #discoverability #symbolicmotifs #motif #writingadvice

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

LINKS

TSEliot bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot

“The Wasteland” https://genius.it/www.bartleby.com/201/1.html

“The Hollow Men” https://poets.org/poem/hollow-men

“Journey of the Magi” https://allpoetry.com/The-Journey-Of-The-Magi

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

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Content copyright is 2020 to 2024, Writers Ink Books.

5:48 / Celebrate Thanksgiving

The Write Focus wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving week ~ full of rich holiday food, joyous time with people we love, awkward encounters with other people, and a money blast on Black Friday—which usually extends to Cyber Monday.

This episode doesn’t fit with our Fall into Poetry series ~ although it does gift you with poems stuffed with thanks—and not so stuffed. No analysis or advice to writers, just poetry.

It’s a Cornucopeia of Poems to share for Thanksgiving.

TIMINGS

00:00 Introduction

00:40 “There’s Nothing like the Sun”

2:00 “November Night”, a cinquain

2:23 “I went to thank her”

3:10 Two called “November”

4:30 “Winter”

Total Run Time = 5:37

Listen to the Audio

Fall into Poetry / Prepare for 6 Lessons

We’re a week to Thanksgiving here in the USofA, and we have not one or two but three poems of gratitude to examine, giving us 6 lessons of Advice for All Writers.

These three poems have quirky ways of matching to the holiday, thanks-giving and gratitude.

The gratitude doesn’t take the gushing that usually fills most writings about thankfulness. The individual poets present their heartfelt emotion in a realistic manner. They’ve lived real lives and experienced pain and heartbreak, and they share this reality in the hopes that we can gain from their experiences.

Reality rather than gushy platitudes? I’m in for that, every time.

Like writing strong, rational characters with strong counterparts, allies and antagonists rather than weak straw-men which doesn’t prove anything about strength and intelligence and logic.

Oops, preaching again. Herewith, our six lessons and three poems for this episode.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome
00:40 Introduction / Lessons 1 & 2
03:40 Lessons 3 & 4
06:22 Cowper “Gratitude”
08:45 Sandburg “Our Prayer of Thanks”
13:20 Lesson 5
14:45 Nesbit “Gratitude”
16:15 Lesson 6
17:25 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 19:31

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

LINKS

William Cowper bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cowper

Cowper’s poem https://allpoetry.com/Gratitude-And-Love-To-God

Carl Sandburg bio https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/american-literature-biographies/carl-sandburg

Sandburg’s poem http://carl-sandburg.com/our_prayer_of_thanks.htm

Edith Nesbit bio https://www.britannica.com/biography/E-Nesbit

Nesbit’s poem https://www.poetry.com/poem/8831/gratitude

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73Pe3yKV5HixAUjBNOg47A

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

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Content copyright is 2020 to 2024, Writers Ink Books.

Fall into Poetry / Writing Dark and Bright

When we live our life in the present, being in the moment, we can develop a love-hate relationship with people and things we encounter daily.

We don’t “love to hate” these; we love them at some times while at other times we hate them. We may happily encounter and deal with them, then on a day not too far away, we groan and say, “Not today, please, not today.”

That contradiction, that contrariness, is engrained in our human nature. We aren’t changing our minds. Five days from now, love will re-emerge. When someone reminds us “You said you hated thus-and-so,” we retort “When did I ever?”, conveniently forgotten.

As writers, we work to keep the predominant mood of a work. We don’t wish to confuse a reader. In longer works, we can gradually shirt the mood, dark to bright, Shorter works are better with one mood.

We have strong tools to create mood and manipulate our audience with that mood. Our words are influencers upon the world.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:40 Introduction / Mood / Lesson 1

2:53 Tools to Influence Mood / Lessons 2 and 3

5:35 Frost and Clare

6:19 Frost’s “My November Guest” / Lesson 4

9:57 Clare’s “November”

13:00 Writer as Influencer

14:00 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 16:07

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

Bio of Frost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost

Bio of Clare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clare

“My November Guest” https://poets.org/poem/my-november-guest

“November” https://pickmeuppoetry.org/november-by-john-clare/

#johnclare #robertfrost #novemberpoems #mood #connotation #imagery #tone #atmosphere #poetaslegislator

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73Pe3yKV5HixAUjBNOg47A

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

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ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

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Content copyright is 2020 to 2024, Writers Ink Books.

Fall into Poetry / Writing Public vs. Private

“Share your innermost life,” marketing gurus advise writers, “with your readers, your newsletter folks, with everyone. Make it all public Make it pop-ular.”

That’s a certain way to burn out most of your audience, who just want the knowledge you have or just want to be entertained.

“Open the window. Let them see into part of your life.” That’s reasonable and rational marketing advice.

A window doesn’t give access to every room of your home, and it certainly doesn’t give access to what you’ve stored in closets or tucked deep in drawers or hidden in old boxes in the attic.

We writers have a constant push-pull dynamic of revealing ourselves. Heartfelt emotion is one of the four requirements of song, applicable to all writing. It speaks to us, touches us soul-deep, and leaves us weeping because we have a similar wound.

In this segment we have two poems by a man who wrote for public consumption but also purged his private anguish in a poem meant only to be published posthumously.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome

00:40 Introduction / Public vs. Private

2:20 Deceit with Reader / Heartfelt Emotion

4:23 Longfellow / Long Rant

7:05 HWL Public vs. Private Poems

8:53 Lessons 1, 2, and 3

9:50 “The Harvest Moon”

11:00 Lessons 4 and 5

12:30 “Mezzo Cammin”

14:45 Lesson 6

15:50 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 17:58

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

#henrywadsworthlongfellow #marketingadviceforwriters #harvestmoonpoem #mezzocamminsonnet #sonnet

LINKS

Bio on Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow

“Harvest Moon” https://poets.org/poem/harvest-moon

“Mezzo Cammin” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50629/mezzo-cammin

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73Pe3yKV5HixAUjBNOg47A

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

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ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163

Fall into Poetry / Deceptive Monsters

Monsters of all sorts inhabit literature, for they crowd into people’s consciousness whenever we face trials and tribulations.

The unnatural monsters, goy and terrifying, gorging themselves without mercy or conscience, these are our nightmares, rarely encountered.

The deceptive monsters, the ones that camouflage who and what they are, still gorging themselves, relishing each victim, these inhabit our everyday lives. We should be wary of them, but we still find ourselves caught in their devastating traps, even after we finally recognize them. Only when we are burned enough or wounded enough do we manage to escape, scarred for all future encounters with people who aren’t monsters.

These deceptive monsters are alluring, beautiful enticements that we can’t quite let go. And that unwillingness to escape is truly the monstrous behavior.

Join The Write Focus as we offer 6 Lessons for all Writers as we examine the famous deceptive monster of the wild fairy in two poems by John Keats and e.e.cummings.

TIMINGS

00:00 Welcome
00:40 Introduction / Deceptive Monsters
02:40 Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans Merci”
4:00 Lessons 1 2, and 3 for All Writers
11:26 Lessons 4 and 5
14:00 e.e.cummings’ Wild Fairy
17:00 Lesson 6
18:45 Last Words / Closing

Total Run Time = 20:51

#wildfairy #labelledamesansmerci #johnkeats #eecummings #allingreenwentmyloveriding #dreams #writingtips #artasinspiration #4requirementsofsong #writingtheseasons

Analysis is All Original Content / No AI Used

LINKS

Keats’ bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats

“La Belle Dame” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44475/la-belle-dame-sans-merci-a-ballad

The Artwork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Belle_Dame_sans_Merci

e.e.cummings bio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings

[all in green went my love riding] https://allpoetry.com/all-in-green

https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/

Our current focus is Fall into Poetry. Here’s a link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7K1x02UAlihWKKom_5keJrg

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

· You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Available is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook and templates from the Discovering Characters series.

· Available Now: worksheet templates and a video trailer script for Discovering Your Author Brand.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Here are the easiest. Make us a favorite, and follow along easy-peasy, once a week, while you fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.

My favorite podcast is Podbean. https://eden5695.podbean.com/

YouTube direct link to Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73Pe3yKV5HixAUjBNOg47A

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=ffeb71ed17c3409d

Amazon/Audible https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/062ecc60-d61c-432a-ad99-8234c1044ef1

ListenNotes https://lnns.co/y_Jg5rpaMNo

Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZGJlYW4uY29tL2VkZW41Njk1L2ZlZWQueG1s

Tune-In https://tunein.com/podcasts/p1608565/

IHeart Radio https://iheart.com/podcast/90647163