Category: work

A Crapsey … What??


Cinquain. A Crapsey cinquain. Remeber it’s one of the syllabic poetry forms I mentioned in last week’s post.

The Crapsey cinquain was developed by a woman named Adelaide Crapsey, an American poet. As per its name, the cinquain has five lines. The Crapsey cinquain follows a strict syllabic form:

Line 1 – 2 syllables
Line 2 – 4 syllables
Line 3 – 6 syllables
Line 4 – 8 syllables
Line 5 – 2 syllables.

A single siquain can stand on its own or it can be used along with additional cinquains as a stanza of a longer poem.

For one example, you can see “American Princess” in my own poetry collection, Windsong and Other Poems.

Additionally, here is an example just for this. (This is a rough draft and not finished in any way.)

Facebook,
Instagram, and
more social media.
Good or bad, we live our lives
online.

Give it a try. If you feel brave, share yours in the comments below.

Are You a Poet? Do You Know It?

There’s an old joke that says, “I’m a poet and didn’t know it. You can tell by my feet. They’re Longfellows.”

I got started on my writing journey with poetry. I wrote my first poem in high school. In tenth grade English, we had to keep a journal. I wrote my first poem there. I got brave and showed it to my 11th grade English teacher. She said I had a “great talent” and shouldn’t let it go to waste.

It took too many years before I gave myself permission to say I was a writer. But that’s not the point here.

My poems don’t usually rhyme. I don’t use iambic pentameter or any other formal poetic form or meter.

Some time ago, I was introduced to syllabic poetry. I took a poetry-writing class at through the public education program at the local college. Since then, I’ve used several syllabic forms in my poems.

What is syllabic poetry?

Syllabic poetry has a set number of syllables per line. It can be set by the writer or by a specific form.

Some syllabic poetry forms include:

  • Crapsey cinquain
  • Rondelle
  • Haiku/senryu
  • Tanka

There are many more.

I’ve decided I want to get back to my roots, so to speak, and write more poems again.

I’m going to share some of what I learn here and on my YouTube channel.

What is one of your favorite types of poems?

Happy Anniversary to Me 🎉

I don’t usually post on weekends, but I remembered something today. I signed up on WordPress seven years ago. Before that, I had a sporadic blog on Blogger. I haven’t always been consistent, but I’m learning and improving. I hope I’ve provided some value and, maybe, useful information along the way.

Video: Let’s Talk about Writing Crochet, and Creativity

Don’t you just love the frames YouTube decides to use as your video cover? that will change once I do he thumbnail and upload it, too, but until then, I’m obvioulsy in mid-word and look like I’m making a goofy face.

I’m restarting my YouTube channel. Last Friday, I uploaded a reintroduction video, so here it is.

I would love it if you would go over to YouTube and leave me a comment or a like. Or subscribe. That would be very appreciated!

I’ll be talking about writing, creativity, and crochet. So if there is anthing specific you would like to hear about, let me know. This week’s video will be about some aspect of writing. Exactly what isn’t decided yet, but it will prolbably be about one of my favorite poetic forms, mainly because I have a catchy hook in my head and if I don’t use it, it will drive me bonkers.

Well… More bonkers. How’s that?

Mojo Revisited


If you remember, back in June, I mentioned I had lost my mojo for writing. Since that time, I’ve tried a few things to get it back, but my usual tips and tricks didn’t really work that well this time.

So what did I do?

I can tell you what I didn’t do. I didn’t push it. I was nice to myself. I didn’t say I had writer’s block. I didn’t say I was in a rut. I didn’t do or say anything that might indicate I was embarassed or ashamed of not writing.

So I crocheted.

A lot, actually. And I started a mailing list. And I wrote blog posts about crochet.And I decided I’m going to restart my YouTube channel.

You get the idea.

I was still being creative, I just wasn’t focused on writing. And that actually brings me to my point. (Yes, I do have one other than the fact that my mojo is coming back.)

I think it is important to have more than one creative outlet. If I didn’t crochet or do anything else, I would have obsessed over not writing. That would have made it worse for me, I’m sure. Having more than one creative outlet allows you to keep your creative well filled when it could otherwise become drained. It helps you prevent burnout when one outlet seems to run dry. 

Depending on what your creative outlets are, they can even inform and feed off of each other. Although I had lost my writing mojo, I still wrote, but I wrote about crochet. So you could say that crochet both informed and fed my writing. That’s a good thiung.

I stsill say I am primarily a writer, but I’m also fairly confident in saying I’m an avid crocheter/crochet artisan too.

What about you? What are your creative interests? Do you find they influence each other in any way?

Leave a comment and let’s talk.

Cluck, Cluck, Baby!

If you do any kind of yarn crafts at all, you might know about two odd-sounding phrases.

Frogging
Yarn chicken

For those who don’t know, or if you’re new to yarn crafts, let me explain a little bit.

Frogging

Frogs, toads, and the like make a ribbit sound. When you make a mistake or the pattern isn’t working or the yarn isn’t right for that pattern, you rip it. It sounds a lot like the sound a frog makes, rip-it. Pulling back/unraveling a project is said to be frogging it.

Yarn Chicken

This one is sometimes scary. I experienced it just two days ago. Yarn chicken is not a chicken made out of yarn. (Though there are some cute amigurumi chicken patterns available.) No. Yarn chicken is when you think you might not have enough arn left to finish your project without buying more, but you keep going. Sometimes you win. Simetimes you lose. Two days ago, I lost. But the project was large enough that I can call it done and it’s fine.

A Few Other Terms

HOTH/HOTN: Hot off the hook/hot off the needles – a project you just finished

WIP – work in progress

UFO – unfinished object

CAL/KAL/MAL/SAL – crochet-along, knit-along, make-along, stitch-along

I’m sure there are other terms that I’m not remembering at the moment, so if there’s something you don’t know, leave a question in the comments.

Do You Need a Writing Coach?

I’ve been talking a lot about what I’m doing as far as crochet is concerned, but let’s not forget that I’m also a writer. There are some things going on with that, too. For starters: