Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 at
2:42 pm
I’m not talking about Kashmir here, which just has to be all kinds of nervous these days, but about the rest of the border.
Is it fixed or fluid? Patrolled or heavily garrisoned? Are there “Checkpoint Charlies” like in Cold War Berlin or do traders schlep across the border anywhere they want leading donkey teams on centuries old uncharted paths? What about all that countryside all along the border between the two countries? Are there, like, WWI trenches in strategic places? Sandbags surrounding mortar and sniper and machine gun emplacements all over the place? Heavy artillery a few miles back all along the border? Minefields? Observation towers with spotlights illuminating razor wire all night? What? Is it more like North / South Korea or more like the US / Mexico border?
This kind of info has eluded me both in News Search and Wikipedia. Forget the CIA World Fact Book. Nada! I wasted a couple of friggin’ days on this red herring! I don’t want to learn any secrets. Secrets, I can make up. I just want to know what the place looks and feels like.
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Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at
2:28 pm
This is pretty much a creative exercise to write a poem pretending to be George W. Bush.
Saturday, September 18th, 2010 at
2:27 pm
These are some guidelines for aspiring poets. Forget cliches. If something is commonly used to describe or compare it to another, it has no business in a poem. Rhyming common words like rain with pain, love with above, heart with start is all trite. You do not want your poem to read like a greeting card unless you are working for Hallmark. Use fresh imagery that you can see in your mind’s eye. Show, don’t tell. Use all of your senses. Try not to focus only on the overused theme of lost love, or if you must, create your original description of it. Get a dictionary and thesaurus and make sure the words you use are spelled right and mean what you actually want them to say. Dictionary.com can help you with this. Expand your vocabulary in your poetry. Never use somebody else’s words or phrases in your original work. At worst, it’s plagiarism; at best, you are guilty of unoriginal thinking. Reach beyond your linguistic grasp and discover new ways to describe common things. Practice sensory exercises to teach you how to find new ways to describe common objects or scenes. Proofread.
Perhaps, Ben, I should have added that I give poetry workshops for at-risk junior and senior high school students in the Orleans Parish public schools in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ergo, I am a Creative Writing teacher.
Calm down, people. My goodness! Some here seem to have anger issues. I didn’t mean to offend anyone, but I see many young poets asking for feedback and thought I would offer not rules, but some very, very generic guidelines that would help them avoid common poetry pitfalls. I’m not trying to tell anybody how to write or what to write, and don’t care whether or not anyone follows my suggestions. Originality in poetry and prose is always preferable over hackneyed phrases; I don’t care what you may have published in a vanity press. If you write, you should already know this. And Peter, of course I think your poem is good. You know it’s good. I won’t publish any of my work online due to copyright issues, so sorry, no examples. I wish everybody continued luck in all their writing endeavors.
Irise
Saturday, September 18th, 2010 at
2:17 pm
I was assigned to write an essay about a chosen topic, but first I have to write a proposal(Letter of Intent) in Business Letter format.. could you give me an example?
Friday, September 10th, 2010 at
3:13 pm
I know a video game script is different than a novel or movie script, I am about 25 pages in and I would like to know if I am writing the script correctly. Here’s the format of how I am writing each part of the story.
Example:
-MC1(Main Character) suddenly wakes up in a cold sweat.
-MC1 gets up out of his bed and change clothes and exit his apartment.
-MC1 is walking through the city and suddenly sees three thiefs robbing an old lady in the alley.
-MC1 rush to the location and engage in battle with the three…
-MC1 defeats the three…
-The older lady thanks MC1 and gives him a dollar for thanking him…
So forth and so on…
The above example is how I am writing the story…
Once it is complete, I plan to add more dialog to each scene,( like the old lady and MC1 would say much more in detail after the battle). Is this the proper way to write a RPG story script???
Friday, August 27th, 2010 at
2:42 pm
She placed the pink drink by the sink, and _______________ .
Have fun with more “ink” rhymes, or color rhymes. Okay to do a short paragraph or short short story.
This is NOT homework. I am in my 30s. It’s a creative writing exercise. Thanks.
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at
2:27 pm
I am writing a book of survival as a victim of domestic violence within a community and class of people who never suspected such horror in my home. I typically am at one of 3 different computers and would like to write the draft, edit and final manuscripts online on a secure site which is free of charge. I am hoping to find templates and tools to assist me as I try to get all of this out of my head and on to ‘paper’, helping to keep things organized, easily edited and secure.
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at
2:23 pm
Believe it or not, there are many people who are asking the question “what does a resume look like?” While it might seem like a silly question to some people, there really are some people out there who haven’t seen a resume and don’t know what one looks like. They may be people who have been working factory jobs and have never needed a resume before, or kids just out of school with no clue where to start on their job search with new degree in hand.
If you are asking “what does a resume look like”, the standard answer we can give you is that it can look like nearly anything you want it to look like. There is no one way to craft and create a resume, so when wondering what does a resume look like, there is no cut and dried answer. Your resume can look however you want it to look, but there are some general guidelines that you will want to follow.
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Friday, June 4th, 2010 at
3:34 pm
This story (which i wrote in a script format, at least for now) is a spin on a semi famous japanese legend. There were two famous swordsmiths back when samurais existed, one was Muramasa and the others name was Masamune. Muramasas blades were flawless, but he had a certain bloodlust and a sick and insane mind. It became somewhat of a rule, that once a muramasa blade is drawn, it cannot be put back into the scabbard unless and until it draws blood, even if it has to be its owners own. Its because of this reason it was said that his swords would cause the wielder to go insane and blind with rage, causing people to believe his swords were cursed. Masamune on the other hand was calm. Tranquil. and everything of a stereotype of discipline. His swords were said to rival that of the Muramasa. The legend ended around the late 1500s. I place this story around the 1800s where a man has started murdering with a sword that was made by Muramasa. He has killed hundreds. An imperialist samurai named Hayate barely survived. He learned about the legend and went to a shrine where the last known Masamune blade was kept (since it is said in the legend that the two blades would rival). This is where the excerpt starts as he starts talking to the shrines priest.
ps: For those who don’t know, a diasho is a double sword set, a long and a short.
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