Start With Certainty in Darkness

I found this quote in Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg that I felt I should share:

So when we write and begin with an empty page and a heart unsure, a famine of thoughts, a fear of no feeling -- just begin from there, from that electricity.  This kind of writing is uncontrolled, is not sure where the outcome is, and it begins in ignorance and darkness.

Natalie Goldberg has some crazy mental powers, because it feels like every other page she's reaching into my mind and plucking out my exact thoughts.

(Not) Writing in Brilliant Weather

Poem: If I Were A Pirate

If I Were A Pirate

by Amelia Robinson

July 2013

Description: This is more focused on character rather than plot. Right away, this girl's voice was clear and all I had to do, as a writer, was make sure I chose the right words. She'd take care of the rest.

Writing for You vs. Writing for the Readers

So I got a new issue of Writer's Digest in the mail today -- happy day!  The first article I read was in the Inkwell section, an advice short called "One in a Million."  The one sentence teaser read:

Here's why you should be crafting your book with one specific reader in mind--and that reader isn't you.

Poem: Empty Halls

Empty Halls

by Amelia Robinson

July 8, 2013
Ink Haiku Contest, Figment.com

Prompt: Write a haiku about loneliness.

Description: Submitted to Figment's Ink Haiku contest. Haiku is not a form I'm overly familiar with, and at first I wanted to bypass this contest because of it's unfamiliarity, but then I figured that I should be pushing myself as a writer. After multiple drafts, this is what came of my efforts.

Poem: Where Summer is Captured in a Globe

Where Summer is Captured in a Globe

by Amelia Robinson

July 2013

Description: I recently watched a fantastic TED talk by Sara Kay, who is a great lover and advocate for spoken wordpoetry. While I have written poems, I have never considered them "my thing," but I cannot deny the power behind the punch the first line of this poem gave me just before I fell asleep last night. I knew without being told that I should write it down, and after fumbling for some medium to record it with, it flowed into me unlike anything I'd ever felt. After a bit of editing, I am here to share it.

Poem: A Quiet, Fragmented Thought

A Quiet, Fragmented Thought

by Amelia Robinson

June 2013

Description:  In her TED talk, Elizabeth Gilbert told a brief story about American poet Ruth Stone and how she could feel a poem coming at her over the landscape like rolling thunder and how she would "run like hell" into the house and capture it on paper as it passed through her. This was like that for me. It came suddenly, like thunder, and passed by just as quickly, and I managed to write it down before laziness got the better of me.