Apologies, Announcements, and Alliteration

I'm sorry that it's been quite a while since the last post. I could make up a list of excuses as to why, but I'm pretty confident that most of you wouldn't find such a list all that interesting. So I'll refrain.

We've been preparing for some awesome things on The Danger of Dreams beginning in March, but routine things have fallen by the wayside in the meantime. Well, here's to picking up the pieces and carrying on.

Thus, feast your eyes on two exciting guest post announcements for the upcoming months!

1. March--Anna Groover of Girl with the Binder! (link here: http://girlwiththebinder.blogspot.com/)
Anna is an amazing writer and a great friend of mine. She's always willing to listen to my rants and talk about anything and everything, imagined or otherwise :) She'll be addressing the topic of Inspiration and taking her own unique spin on what it means and how we as writers harness it. I'm definitely looking forward to her posts!

2.August--Yovela Ng of Matcha Melodies! (link here : http://matchamelodies.wordpress.com/)
Yovela is an equally amazing friend and writer. As an Indonesian-American who has had experience living in both the States and, presently, in Indonesia; she's got a unique perspective on life that she'll be sharing over the month of August. With Indonesian Independence Day happening on August 17, August will be an 
especially fun month on The Danger of Dreams.

I'm looking forward to our journey throughout 2017 on The Danger of Dreams; and I hope you'll join me for these fantabulous guest posts! 

 

 

Calling All Writers! Looking for some method in your madness?

.........

Then look no further! A new opportunity awaits on The Danger of Dreams for you especially; whether you wish to

(1) start the writing process, 

(2)start blogging, 

(3)refine your written work, 

(4) find opportunities to publish your work online for free, and/or 

(5)Exchange ideas, inspiration, and guest posts with other bloggers!

Our theme for 2017 is inspiration. I am working with some friends who are writers to provide you with inspiration,advice,editing; and maybe even a mini-series on copyrights and publishing over the summer.

In September and October, we'll shift our focus slightly to poetry (September) and song-writing (October). These will help us to understand writing far better and to sharpen our skills.It takes a different sort of skill to write these, a kind of condensed language that's difficult for prose writers to convey sometimes. 

Throughout November, we'll shift again to the topic of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), applying our new skills and gauging our progress; as well as reading other writers' NaNoWriMo works.

And finally in December, we'll take a break from new content to take some surveys and evaluate how this series has helped each of us. There'll be polls and surveys where you can provide feedback for future improvements; and finally, a virtual Christmas Party at Writer's Cafe to culminate the year and promote all of our blogs.

By the end of 2017, my goal is that you will gain the confidence and resources you need as a writer to get your finished manuscripts published!

And the name of this helpful series is...

Method in My Madness: Writers' Perspective on Our Craft

Method in My Madness debuts in March with a post on Inspiration & Organization by a blogger friend of mine who will be introduced shortly...Till then, stay tuned.

 

If you'd like to contribute or would like to be updated as this series progresses; please email me at clak717@gmail.com so we can work something out.

 .........

Happy Writing!

--Clara

A Resource for Writers

Hello again, you fabulous people! Well, well, well, what a productive blogging weekend this is turning out to be for me.

I have a gift for you people out there in internet-land, from an aspiring writer to other writers....

If you're already a super-organized writer, then this gift is a little less useful; but I suspect that many of you, like me, need a way to map the contents of our messy minds so that our writing can make sense to ourselves throughout its various stages of completion. A useful combination of a bookkeeping method, a map, and a set of guidelines--preferably concise, attractive, and versatile.

This gift is a way.

Note that just before "way" in the previous sentence is "a", not "the", or heaven forbid, "the only". Every writer has their own best way of processing and organizing information. For some of you, it may even work best to purposefully disorganize your information and scatter pieces of it in many different places, if this helps you make creative connections between the pieces that you wouldn't have otherwise realized. And that's okay. And this gift is still for you anyway, just in case you want to try something new.

And here it comes: The gift is...

.....A Writer's Organizing Page!

Using it enables you to generally organize an entire work of writing on one page! That's right, one page. Only one page. 

However, here's the second disclaimer: the Writer's Organizing Page is not magic. If it were, I would sell it and make a fortune to pay for college, while instead I sit here giving it away for free.

It does not automatically organize and micromanage every little detail of your work. It is not an instant solution to a draft that is little more than a brainstormed list of phrases. It is not a solution to an essay that is little more than a few disconnected sentences with quotes in between. It will not do the thankless tasks of thinking and writing for you, as much as I wish it could.Using the page might even make you work harder as a writer, but in the process it will also make you work smarter.

A good general guideline is that the longer and more complicated your work of writing is, the less help the Writer's Organizing Page will be to organize your own thoughts, although it will still be a great help in making you look more organized to people with whom you're sharing your work. Ideally, you would use it during your pre-writing planning process, to make your future work clearer and more productive. Additionally, I find in my own writing that one planning page can effectively organize about 20 pages at most, so feel free to expand beyond one page if you need the space.

Below is the Writer's Organizing Page! If you copy-paste it with its original formatting into a word doc, omitting either section 1. or 2. as applicable, it should be one page long, in a slightly more readable size of font.If you encounter glitches, please let me know so that I can fix them.

If you'd like a pre-formatted blank version of the Writer's Organizing Page instead, fancy heading included, please email me and I'd be happy to send it to you for free as an attachment.

Thank you, and happy writing!

--Clara
.............................................................

Writer’s Organizing Page

                                                                                                    

Working Title:

Author/s:

Genre:

Date Started - Date Last Revised:             -                         

Estimated Word Count (If you are unsure about the estimated word count of your work, enter an estimated number of pages instead, designated by a “P” following the number):

Author of Original Work (For Fanfiction/Direct Response to another Source):

For a work of fiction, please complete this section only.

Intended Audience and Purpose:

Blurb (Do not exceed 50 words):

Main Character/s:

Major/ Recurring Character/s (if applicable):

Minor Character/s (if applicable):

Setting/s:

Works cited (if applicable):

Additional Notes:

 

For nonfiction, please complete this section only.

Intended Audience and Purpose:

Thesis Statement/Blurb (Do not exceed 50 words):

Topic Sentence/s (if applicable):

Works cited (if applicable):

Additional Notes:

                                                                                 ©2017 by Danger of Dreams 

All rights reserved. Please email the author at clak717@gmail.com to request publication permission.

Poem Sunday

I hope you all are having a great weekend!

My first series of posts on this blog is called "Poem Sunday", and it consists of my sharing at least one original poem every Sunday afternoon or evening for the month of February. If you enjoy the upcoming poetry and would like to read more, feel free to say so in the comments below.I'd be happy to extend "Poem Sunday" over March, and even April, if enough of you are interested.

To introduce it, I'll answer the obvious question many of you might have: Why is Clara writing the poem series, "Poem Sunday"?

I feel like our weekends have become so busy and cluttered sometimes that it gets hard just to breathe, relax, and enjoy the quiet for a little while; just to pause in the hectic busyness that is life. To let our hearts make new connections, to daydream and reflect without overtaxing our minds, to rest for a few minutes...

...And then to face reality again, discovering as we return that this little time wasted was time well-spent.

I hope that reading and reflecting on these first three poems gives you all some well-wasted time :)

I.

Possibility

Is not bottled up in dark,murky glass

To be carefully unstoppered and measured out

In little drips and dots called possibilities

One by one

One after another

One at a time

To be drained dry

In some mischievous hour

To the sounds of keening

And lament

No

It is not so

Not like that will the possible turn impossible

Never

Possibility

is the tide of a boundless ocean 

whose shores none living have seen

Ebbing and flowing

Chasing and fleeing

Crashing, retreating

Never close enough to grasp

And never truly gone for good

Endless and ever-changing

Never to grow dull
Never to run dry
Never to vanish for good
Or for ill 

And it bows to the impossible
Never

II.

The dream is the reality

The story is the truth

Our castles in the air

Are far more than dreams of youth 

We see our own tomorrow

Which no midnight can occlude

And even though the daylight fades
And even as the night brings storm

And even as the thunder scoffs

We listen, yet our hearts are glad
We hear and still we falter not
 Tomorrow is of silver hewn
Tomorrow comes in golden clad
Tomorrow never comes too soon
Tomorrow will arrive at last 
  And in Tomorrow from Today 
We see what will be, and what may
And in its gleaming, glinting, glow 

We see our dreams made flesh and know
Far more than ever minds can know

They beckon--and we know

III.

Where the shouting of waves fades into a whisper

 At pale forgotten shores that rim the sea

Will we strike and chip a cavern as a foundation

 To ground our castle in the air

From the mountains shall we quarry marble

Dove-white and silver-veined and strong

To raise into her towers and her ramparts

To raise our castle in the air

From moonlight shall we weave her drapes and tapestries

From diamond shall we cut her window-glass

From starlight and from pearls we fashion lanterns

To light our castle in the air

A fortress strong and certain shall this palace be

But there shall stand no grim and heavy gate

To guard against the murmur of the seashore

Outside our castle in the air

The  warm and blue-green waters shall caress the crags

And shall through many years smooth rocky shores

Till they both night and day reflect the gleam

Cast by our castle in the air