The Epic Pencil

I’ve never been much of one for writing memoir as I’ve always been more of a fiction writer. When my wife and I decided to adopt a little girl, then things got interesting. 

A neighbor asked me how far along we were in the process, to which I remarked “well, if there are one hundred and fifty steps, we’re currently on number six. And so my adoption blog, 150 Steps, was born. It wasn’t so much memoir as an almost real-time, long form public journal of the excitement, the frustration, the heartbreak, and finally, the life-changing result.

Tonight’s piece, Disruption, was inspired by those events and triggered by a recent writing prompt, which read “If some things were different, other things would be otherwise,” from the "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" by Frank R. Stockton, published in 1885.

If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about adoption, there are many great resources out there. A few to start with include:

The National Council For Adoption: https://www.adoptioncouncil.org/

Adoption Learning Partners: http://www.adoptionlearningpartners.org/

Adoptive Families: www.adoptivefamilies.com

Creating A Family: https://creatingafamily.org/adoption/resources/

I'm pleased to welcome Kirsten DiChiaparri for this week's episode. By day, Kirsten heads US Customer Success for a global software company. But nights, weekends, and every sliver in between, she's squeezing in the rest of her life. Kirsten has taken the stage to co-produce and perform original work in the Providence productions of Listen to Your Mother, while her writing has also been featured on Scary Mommy and on Medium. 

During this week's episode, we touched on what it was like growing up with parents who took an interest in our writing, the benefits of having an accountability squad, along with the need to remember to breathe. She also shared one of her recent pieces, a reminiscence of a particular summer’s day, the perfect piece as we approach the end of this long, hot, and very odd summer.

This week's episode looks at writing prompts and what can result.

To be honest, I was never a huge fan of writing prompts. I always felt like I should be writing around big ideas, novel length plots, and concepts that I’d considered in depth.

That’s no longer the case. Sure, I still have those big plans, but I’m finding that writing prompts, especially when given as part of a group, add a level of accountability and a sense of variety, while exercising those writing muscles. They also force you to work quickly as the writing groups I’ve participated in have set a 30- to 40-minute limit on the writing done in response to a prompt. Sometimes, as I discussed in a previous episode, it can also add a note of panic but that’s manageable.

Two of the three pieces shared on this episode were inspired not by words or phrases per se but rather visual prompts. The first prompt is a painting of Anne Hutchinson by Valerie Debrule. The second is a photo from the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA. Both of them are posted on https://www.facebook.com/pretendtowrite so you can see what inspired the pieces. I also invite you share your favorite writing prompts there. I'll be posting prompts from time to time for those who want to play along.

“The wonderful thing about writing is that there is always a blank page waiting. The terrifying thing about writing is that there is always a blank page waiting.” ― J.K. Rowling

In the end, I guess Charles Bukowski had it right when he said, “Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all.

Alayne White is a lover of all things beauty, business, lifestyle and a typewriter enthusiast, collecting them and sharing them at events, street fairs, and children’s events. She writes because it feels good and loves to get other people writing. She publishes her almost daily writings on Medium and her own blog. www.alaynewhite.com.

I enjoyed the opportunity to chat with Alayne recently about her writing, where she finds inspiration, and her collecting habit.

Women in fantasy and sci-fi literature have not had, shall we say, the most representative and positive of histories. Slave girls and chain mail clad buxom warriors populated your pulpy Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard books. They are largely non-existent in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and even in a longtime favorite of mine, the Chronicles of Prydain, Princess Eilonwy plays second fiddle to Taran of Caer Dalben as a to-be-mooned-over love interest and scold much of the time.

Thankfully, a lot has changed over the years.

Tonight’s excerpt, A Death in Mummer’s Court, introduces us to a new principal character, nineteen year old Lady Melsera. It is Melsera, more than anyone, who became the focal point for Circle’s Call as I was writing it. That wasn’t the original plan but, to be honest, she didn’t give me a whole lot of choice.

Where do we find inspiration? What sequence of events or ideas sets us off on a creative journey.

For me, Circle’s Call and the other planned books in the quartet, owe their existence in part to a trip to the South Dakota badlands that I took with my father and sister years ago. We spent time spelunking by lantern light in Jewel Cave National Monument and camped in the Sage Creek wilderness area of Badlands National Park. While in the tent, I found myself sitting up in the middle of the night with my flashlight, jotting down some ideas that I didn’t want to lose. Many later, the inspiration from that trip resulted in my first hopefully-eventually-to-be-published novel (excluding the sci-fi novel I wrote in college that will NEVER see the light of day).

In tonight's episode, the sack of Selmar begins and we meet the first of our lead characters.

A noblewoman, a soldier, and a teenage boy pursue justice for a devastated city and investigate the murder of a mysterious woman. In doing so, they uncover ties to a war four hundred years past and face an ancient enemy. 

Welcome to the world of Amastria as we begin another piece of original fiction, Circle's Call.

Regardless of whether a poem is written with multilayered meaning or simply relates an aspect of real life, I hold poets in very high esteem because I can appreciate, after many failed attempts, just how hard it can be to write a really good poem.

That’s why I’m so delighted to have Esme Devault on The Epic Pencil this week as my guest. Esme is an attorney and poet living in Rhode Island with her husband, son, and dog Charlie. She was previously an English teacher and an academic reference librarian. She’s had poems published in Motherscope, Jonah Magazine, The Big Windows Review, and forthcoming in Inkling Literary Magazine and Kissing Dynamite: A Journal of Poetry.

In tonight’s episode, Phantasmagoria comes to a close. Hattie has another discovery or two ahead of him plus a choice to make between his youthful illusions and taking a step forward into a more realistic but more exciting world. 

So let’s put pencil to paper and read on.