Dear Writer

This week on our culturing creativity episode, we explored Sestina Poems and discussed how they can contribute to inspiring creativity. For this exercise, we used the instructions on the masterclass website linked below to come up with the Sestina Poem. Adhering to the strict structure was a challenge, but an enjoyable one! Click on the link if you are interested in creating a sestina poem yourself.

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/sestina-poem-form

Below, you can find our poems.

Sarah's Poem: A Sestina for Julia

Nothing more fun than play

with your favourite person. A toothless grin,

your face an open book.

Between your gums, pools milk,

overflowing down your chin. As we sing

your eyes flutter closed.

The parks are closed.

Mummy, where can we play?

At home, my sweet. Coo and sing

to me, with those unpracticed lips. Grin

when you make a sound. Bottled milk

makes wet rings, resting on your book.

Too tired for a book.

Slumbering with the door closed,

you won’t stir for milk.

Tickling your toes, your nose. I play

with your hands. A sleepy grin.

But then you wake, and furiously sing.

Beep, beep, beep. The bottle warmer will sing

for us. Have patience. Maybe a story? A book?

Your frustrated pout is an upside-down grin.

Little fists clenched tightly closed,

I cannot persuade you to play.

You wail, demanding milk.

Now satiated, I watch you snooze. Creamy milk-

colored skin. How your beauty does sing!

Eyelashes longer than mine, they play

across rosy cheeks. So many things my book

never told me. I press it closed,

my chest swelling. If only hearts could grin.

Sometimes it grows, your grin.

Mouth full with a bottle of milk.

Dimples denting, and lips barely closed

around the nipple. Just wait until you can sing—

why waste a moment with a book,

when the world is ready to play?

You make my world sing,

and I could fill a book

about how prettily you play.

Ashley's Poem: Reconnection

These days, old friends are a memory.

Of a time we once connected.

Cried together, and laughed.

A relic of the past,

Where days last only a moment.

Gone in no time.

Other days, old friends are frozen in time.

A picture of a memory.

A moment.

Two souls connected

By a shared history, past.

One where we laughed.

Like that day we laughed

In the bar, that one time.

Sharing stories past,

And present. A memory,

Where we connected,

For only a moment.

Yesterday, I remembered you for a moment.

And I laughed,

Like we used to when we connected.

I thought back in time

To a memory

Of our past.

Perhaps I should reach into the past

And take a moment.

To pull out a memory,

Of us when we laughed.

Together. Bring back a time

When we could be connected.

Today, again, we connected.

And it was like the past

Never faded with time.

We talked for a moment,

Reminisced, and laughed.

To make a new memory.

Tomorrow I will remember that moment.

That time we laughed.

The memory.

This week we discuss the importance of having a diverse cast of characters in your novel. We chat about how we feel diversity in fiction has changed over the past ten years, how we feel we have changed as writers during this time, and some tips for creating authentic characters.

In this month's Talking Shop episode, Sarah reviewed Episode 7 and 8 from the lecture series Writing Great Fiction - The Mechanics of Dialogue and Integrating Dialogue into Narrative. Ashley reviewed chapter four of The Writing Experiment – Strategies for Innovative Creative Writing By Hazel Smith which was about using already existing texts to inspire new literature.

This week we talked to Melissa Guyan about her writing journey. Melissa is a New Zealand based indie author. Her work spans a number of subgenres in romantic fiction, with a different penname for each. In YA romance, she goes by Jordan Ford, in romantic suspense she is Melissa Pearl, and in romantic comedy she is Melody Sweet. She also cowrites Christian small town romance under the penname Sophia Quinn. Melissa has published over 80 novels and owns a small press company, Forever Love Publishing.

At the end of the show, Melissa discussed her reading challenge. If you would like to take part in this, follow the link here: www.foreverlovepublishing.com/reading-challenge

On this culturing creativity episode, we discussed the power of saying 'no'. Saying no can be a difficult feat to master, yet without appropriate boundaries it can be easy to fall victim to burnout. We talked about whether we find it hard to say no, and some tips and thoughts on how to ease the guilt and free up writing time.

This week, we discuss how to edit the first draft of your novel. Should you let your manuscript rest or start editing immediately? Then, we share our editing checklists and some tips about dealing with Beta Reader feedback.

In this month's Talking Shop episode, Sarah reviewed the second chapter of The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maas which explained the nuances of showing vs telling. Ashley reviewed chapter two of a book called The Writing Experiment – Strategies for Innovative Creative Writing By Hazel Smith which demonstrated a writing technique based on experimenting with different genres.

On our Author Spotlight segment this month, we chatted with Beth D. Carter. Beth is a US based author who writes romance novels about ordinary girls in extraordinary situations. She has been published for thirteen years and released 100+ books in that time. We had a really interesting conversation about the twists and turns in her publishing journey, and she shared some invaluable writing advice and editing tips.

On this Culturing Creativity episode, we try our hand at making mood boards for some of the books in our Black Skies Series and discuss how these mood board can help inspire creative thinking.

If you would like to create your own mood board, we suggest using milanote at https://milanote.com for an easy online platform.

On this craft episode of Dear Writer, we discussed the importance of story structure when writing your novel, and explored some of the common elements found in different types of narrative structure.