HOW TO PICK A TOPIC FOR CREATIVE WRITING

How To Pick A Topic for Creative Writing

By Rosalinda Flores-Martinez

Being creative is a gift to all. You have to feel in what aspect you could be special and doing it with fun.

A creative topic for an essay is just writing something special or unique. Of course, there are literary canons, and Shakespeare, and James Joyce, and more, but then, you have to find your own voice. Don't fake it or be clichéd. Everyday events can help, and the more it comes original, the better.

Creative Writing is never easy. It will mangle your brain and cut your heart piece by piece. Creative writers, wouldn't announce that laurel on their heads because can you imagine what kind of person is the one who hallucinates, make-up stories, and talk in paper? That is half-awake and half-dreaming, and besides writing is subjective.

Sometimes writing is a thankless job, too, however noble. But then again, no one can stop the creative writer, he/she will write, and no one can stop him at a gun point or lacerating his neck vein by vein. Not being able to write is death for a writer.

Practice on these activities:

1. You can try journal writing, free writing, brainstorming, clustering, or listing, among others, to fish for ideas. Your everyday experiences and activities could be writing prompts.

2. Write a poem or a story as a writing exercise like exploring about your house or your travel. Use metaphors. Don't worry about the thought, yet. Have fun while doing it.

3. Interview someone or yourself. Figure out surprises.

4. Introduce some people. Make pictures of them in words.

5. Of course, remember the unforgettable experiences carved in your memory.

6. Ponder on meanings: Life and Death

7. How To Cook the Best Recipe in Town

8. Get some new words, maybe 10-20, string them all into a short essay. Develop.

9. Change point of views.

10. Enumerate: What's fascinating and What's Growls

All topics can be topics for creative writing. Everything is free. In fact, it is a feast of ideas. You only have to know how to write them freely. Creative nonfiction, though, is a mix of reportage (objectivity) and the art of fiction (fiction story), that is from the original writer's voice and style.

Way back, years ago, part of a writing exam I flanked was about rewriting the letters of one Philippine National hero in my own voice.

I didn't get it. I remember I tried to fake it because I just couldn't be so intimate with my topic. I didn't know much about him. I crammed. And my language was still inadequate. I just couldn't feel I'm into writing something creative because I just didn't like to do it, but just forced myself.

Looking back, I have learned what creativity means. It is a gift, and nothing should be in between (merit or no merit) you and what you write. Yes, it could even be scary or harrowing, but nirvana.

Thank you, God for letting us write.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rosalinda_Flores-Martinez

Iwrotefiction:rosevoc2

GETTING WATER

January 26, 2013

GETTING WATER

(For A Maid)

It was an experiment of a well

where you get water, pail by pail or drop by drop

Rain fills that well, dug, layers down

So she and I would scoop our pails,

carry them meters’ going back house.

The pail was not heavy for us, for

we were both young and arduous.

We filled drums, as saving water for our home

It was easy, yet her hands mottled red

while she gripped the sleek handle,

carrying on a task to please me -

my eyes swelled of her devotion…

I said to myself, “My hands must never be tired.

They must carry more than her hands.”

Perhaps, seven times her courage -

I am sorry, for what they did.

I am sorry, for what I did not do.

Thank you for getting water for us.

/rosalinda flores martniez

LET US WRITE AND TELL STORIES

Let us write and tell stories. Her are words that matter in fiction stories. Know the vocabulary and try a short fiction story.

The short story is a fiction story.

Normally the short story is between 1000-5000 words. A selling length is 3000 words. It is concerned with a single episode only. There must be brevity of time, characters, description, characterization, dialogue, incident, yet its content must be vivid with life.

The short story differs from the "short kiddie story." Its treatment must be intense and characterization should be sharp.

According to Guy De Maupassant, "The serious writer's goal is not only to entertain but to move us, to make us understand the deep and hidden meaning of events."

Here are the elements of a short story:

1. Plot

The plot is a sequence of events. It begins with an exposition, then rising action (dramatization of events), climax (breaks off dramatically at this point), then falling action proceeding to resolution, and then the conclusion. Plot shows: Then what happened? Story must involve a conflict of opposing forces.

2. Characters

Characters are the people that make something happen. It is based on real people. However, fictional characters make different demand on the reader.

3. Setting

The setting is the place and time of the story, the world in which the story takes place; a world of feeling.

4. Point of View

This will be the authors choice of narration.

- first person narration - I
- second person narration - You
- third person narration - (narrator in not a participant in the story) It is like the omniscient author seeing into the minds of all the characters.

6. Style and Voice

The voice is an essential element to all good fiction. It is how the author uses language to create fiction (rhetoric)

7. Symbolism and allegory

Symbols are not always interpreted the same way by different readers. The story becomes an allegory when all characters, places, things, and events represent symbolic qualities. Their interactions are meant to reveal a moral truth.

8. Theme

It is the main idea of anything. The generalization about the meaning of a story. Good fiction examines the truth.

Leo Tolstoy tells a friend:

"The most important thing in the work of art is that it should have a kind of focus, there should be some place where all the rays meet of form which they issue. And this focus must not be able to be explained in world. This indeed is one of the significant fact about true word of art - that its content in it entirety can be expressed only by itself."

Rose Flores - Martinez
IShallWrite

TRAIL

Trail

To the library, I go, station by station.  

You,  peak of my dreams.  

Those pigeons come to gather around my terrors, and for a time, say hello, daring on my palm, swift, ascending for a next flight.

I sit in the park, waiting for your call.  My phone is dead, as your voice far and away.

“I’ve tried to hitch, Baby –“   become a flowering shrub like althea – but that isn’t just me; because I rake fire, kneel side by side with the sun or just stay a plain blade of grass.

A monument of mountains, St. Jude in my pouch, that winter, facing all the seasons of the earth, I face empty graves, most beautiful to make love.  I mine every corner of katakana and kanji.

“So where are you?”

Sparkling shops of wedding gowns in front of dull pavements glazed with ice - an elegant silk for a dress razing my guts, a crow burrowing a steeple, posts lighting one by one - 

Wither our promise?

“Never stop,” my footsteps tell me.

“Just don’t  stop…”

Shadows start to peep, night burns the afternoon, sinuous wind blowing from the ground,

I run -

My socks seem just so heavy.

I run; I run - for the next ride -

My heart has, yet, to catch on the subway.

/rosevoc on iwrotefiction.jan 20.2013

The Mystery of Moths

What is it with moths, insects and flies?

Why in their minute bodies or heads, they threaten humans?

Why in their strangeness, they symbolize wrath, fun, seasons, danger or calm?

I'm fond of fireflies. When I was younger I thought they were sent by fairies from deep dark forests. I asked my grandfather (father of my Dad) when we crossed thick forests in the night, "Are there really fairies in the forest?"

And he answered, "Yes."

I was into it. I adored his stories, even those horses with human heads. Up the sky, we looked, and it was so beautiful! Truly, the sky in blue was vast, the stars brightly smiled to us, and to all those who looked above.

I was not afraid of the forest then. I was thinking, if we didn't find the way out, we would reverse our shirts to find the way out. My grandfather laughed. He was so brave, a real man! Like an Indian chief he can roar with command, and those who would see him would bow with respect.

There were clusters of fireflies in the forest. Their lights blinked like party lights, but they were brighter, yellow and happy. They were more than fireworks dancing. Their lights never faded and never ended in the dark. When I tried to get one firefly, my grandfather told me "You shouldn't do that because the fairies might punish us." So I didn't catch them. When I came in the house and there were still some fireflies, I got one and put it in a bottle. But soon, the firefly died.

As I traced back, the issue was not the punishment from the fairies, but the right thing to do.

I can also remember another famous story on the moths. It was told by (mother of Filipino national hero Dr. Jose Rizal)) Teodora Alonso. The story shares the idea that when the moths come near the flame they will burn. So stay away from the flame.

Another story is William Golding's (awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature) Lord of the Flies. See what boys are like in the challenge of various situations. The title shows a terrifying boar's (beast) head with flies buzzing around. What are the effects of environment to the children?

How about Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis? In the story, the insect cannot be depicted clearly because the door is always locked. When the door opens, there is darkness. What can you say about the cinema of the blind?

The Moths by Helena Maria Viramontes comes stark with a woman's anguish. The story gives emphasis when Abuelita (grandmother) died. It says, "Then the moths came. Small and gray ones that came from her soul and out through her mouth fluttering to light..."

/rosevoc2

DO NOT WASTE TIME

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Arts and Entertainment:Movies TV

In Time: Don't Waste My Time

By Rosalinda Flores-Martinez

The concept of the movie "In Time" is done with sheer style, updated with today's modern technology. 

The idea of codes is dynamic. See how science-fiction opens conduits to discovery and innovation.

Imagine arms with life codes like the candies and stuff you buy from the supermarkets. Imagine your arms scanned to get the things you need. Your payment is the time that's left for you to live by (the time you need to live). Time, as the basic resource is well portrayed in the movie to be so prized, but never paid well for the poor.

Those that control the system can't run anymore, their faces a false sophistication melting like wax.

In another aspect, it shows us thoughts about life, profusely. There is a vivid picture of capitalism, where only a few groups or individuals own lands, businesses, and means of production.

It also shows mayhem by chance in the ghettos, where those who have got more are robbed by bad guys. With social implications, the ghettos are a minority group (check history).

A contemporary scene becomes evident, in the supply of commodities (coffee and food in stores) restricted to a few, though demand is high because of the high cost of living brought about by rising costs in all the time zones (only the rich can afford).

In the end, two young advocates Will Salas and Sylvia Weis (from divergent zones), collaborate and work together to find solutions to uphold the living conditions of the people and to correct the systems, like what Robin Hood does (but no arrows now, only guns). Also, kids of hope shine in their innocence to bring forth more life time to their degenerating zones and one generous senior (victim) offers his centuries (life), for the hope of change and progress believing in the kind heart and blood of Will Salas. The old man wrote in the glass window, "Don't waste my time."

Moreover, 25 years old establishes an age of responsibility in every form and any form of life. One is supposed to start earning trust from elders, parents and community from the good work lived and served, especially for the under privileged.

But then, the impossibilities! No time; no future can alter man's death or creation, except God who gives and takes life.

But maybe, if fiction.

All in all, "In Time" is thumbs up!

Among others, Justin Timberlake (Will Salas), Amanda Seyfried (Sylvia Weis), and Cillian Murphy (Raymond Leon) star in this film. It is directed and written by Andrew Niccol.

On January 9, 2013

I have nothingnew to tell you, except of hopes Hope for children Hope for students Hope for good workers of the Lord I cant come up with any fiction yet, nor poems But only faith- faith and faith in Jesus in all that we do I sometimes hate it, when I could not write. I think I am a barren field with dry leaves broken twigs and dead boars. There is nothing more exciting, than charity and faith And you next to me ... iwrotefiction, rose

The Black Nazarene Listened

The Black Nazarene Listened

How did you die? They told us, you were holding the Holy Family, in the gasworks, until you slept peacefully.

In James Joyce "The Dead" I remember the death of Michael Furrey, who worked in the gasworks.

The gasworks and its toiled laborers are unsung heroes - young, daring and honest. They will light a candle for you.

If you were here now, you would be proud of me.
You would see how, you trained one little girl tug ducts of these brave eyes.
Your bloody shirt and the stain, folded with your empty wallet and your Hamilton watch were the last pieces of your relics.

I couldn't forget you were slain, like a lamb, in firing guns.
That bullet near your heart,
Is an earth of grief for me,
A mountain on my mothers back
Drought fields for the young brothers and sister.


In the rosaries of my nights, I lament - every shot when you crawled, and reached for an image of holiness -
And raised it up, like a martyr -
But it was complicated
For a tax man, like Matthew.

Lights at the funeral
A room full of flowers from rich friends
A parade to the cemetery with poor friends
Your pretty face in the coffin
Couldn't smile;
Your red lips were bruised
Your forehead was stitched
Your dislocated limbs
Palpable in your black coat.

You, a standing rock at 38 died.
And what we could do, is forgive -
May all the faithful departed rest in peace.

So "The Black Nazarene, " listened, Father,
And Jesus so close now - Yes, God bows down -
And takes care of the orphans. 

rose flores rosevoc2