Morgan Marie

This last time I was dabbling in the writing of Poetry.

Let me tell you easily that it was nothing. Before I begin, I want to make it clear that this is MY experience with writing poetry, and that doesn't mean it's the same for all writers. Personally, I was never interested in this genre, neither as a writer nor as a reader. It may be -and I am almost certain- that my difficulties had to do with a lack of knowledge, both in theory and in reading. With that said, let's get started.

The first thing I realized, when writing poetry, was the amount of PREJUDICES I had regarding gender.

How many verses does a stanza have to have? How long do those verses have to be? Do they have to row, yes or yes? Or do they not have to row at all?

Talking with other people, I discovered that these questions were not only asked by me. And the answer to all these questions is the following: poetry is freer than you think.

There are poems, great poems, that do not follow any metric (remember, the metric is the number of syllables in each line), and other poems, beautiful poems, that are 100% metric. There are poems that are separated into stanzas, others that are not; There are poems that rhyme, others that don't.

In poetry, there is nothing you have to do. It is not a matter of separating into stanzas, or rowing, or syllables, or anything.

Writing goes through another place, and the advice I can give you is that when writing poetry, don't stop thinking about what you are doing wrong. Wait, and see what happens. You will say: How can I write poetry if I don't know how to write poetry? My answer: read more. Look for poets you like, read non-stop until you find someone, or something, that makes you say "Wow! I want to write something like that", or even better, find something that makes you say "'I want to do something different". And look, from that poem, what did you not like.

And do that. That's how it works. Without thinking about verses, without thinking about stanzas, meter, sound, syllables, rhyme, musicality, etc.

A poet who helped me to make my position on structures more flexible (and that will be very useful if you are Argentine), was Mariano Blatt.

Secondly, another issue that was problematic for me was mixing narrative with poetry.

My personal perception of poetry is this: poems tell a story, but not in the same way that narrative does.

The narrative follows a certain horizontal structure: A - B - C - D…

(Flexible structure, of course: we all know a story that starts in the past, returns to the present; or stories that start with the conflict, and then go to the past, etc).

Poetry is about telling a story with feelings. Of purely sensitive images: smells, colors, flavors.

Some other thought.

I think that writing poetry is precisely taking a scene, an image, and breaking it down. It's opening it, it's seeing what's there. But it's just that.

It is not a scene that stretches; It is not a camera that shows us what the rooms are like, what the characters are like.

Sometimes there are not even characters, in the poems, in the images we see.

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Those are the difficulties I encountered on my way: ignorance, and mixing narrative with poetry.

Este último tiempo estuve incursionando en la escritura de Poesía.

Déjenme decirles que no fue nada fácil.

Antes de empezar, quiero dejar en claro que esta es MI experiencia con la escritura de poesía, y eso no significa que para todos los escritores sea igual. En lo personal, nunca fui de interesarme por dicho género, ni como escritora, ni como lectora. Puede ser -y estoy casi segura-, que mis dificultades tuvieron que ver con la falta de conocimiento, tanto en teoría como en lectura. Dicho esto, comencemos.

Lo primero que me di cuenta, a la hora de escribir poesía, fue la cantidad de PREJUICIOS que tenía respecto al género.

¿Cuántos versos tiene que tener una estrofa? ¿Qué tan largos tienen que ser esos versos? ¿Tienen que rimar, sí o sí? ¿O no tienen que rimar en lo absoluto?

Hablando con otras personas, descubrí que estas preguntas no solo me las hacía yo. Y la respuesta a todos estos interrogantes es la siguiente: la poesía es más libre de lo que ustedes creen.

Hay poesías, grandes poesías, que no siguen métrica alguna (recordemos, la métrica es la cantidad de sílabas que tiene cada verso), y otras poesías, hermosas poesías, que son 100% métricas.

Hay poesías que se separar en estrofas, otras que no; existen poesías que riman, otras que no.

En la poesía, no "hay que" nada. No es una cuestión de separar en estrofas, ni de rimar, ni de sílabas, ni nada. La escritura pasa por otro lugar, y el consejo que puedo darles es que a la hora de escribir poesía, no se frenen a pensar qué están haciendo las cosas mal. Esperen, y vean que pasa.

Ustedes dirán: ¿Cómo puedo escribir poesía si no sé escribir poesía?

Mi respuesta: lean más.

Busquen poetas que les gusten, lean sin parar hasta que encuentren a alguien, o algo, que les haga decir " ¡Uy! Yo quiero escribir algo así", o todavía mejor, encuentren algo que les haga decir "'Yo quiero hacer algo distinto" Y fijense, de ese poema, qué es lo que no les gustó.

Y hagan eso. Así funciona. Sin pensar en versos, sin pensar en estrofas, métrica, sonido, sílabas, rima, musicalidad, etc.

Un poeta que me sirvió para flexibilizar mi postura sobre estructuras (y que les va a servir mucho si son argentinos), fue Mariano Blatt.

En segundo lugar, otra cuestión que me resultó problemática fue el mezclar la narrativa con la poesía.

Mi percepción personal de la poesía es la siguiente: los poemas cuentan una historia, pero no de la misma manera en que lo hace la narrativa.

La narrativa sigue cierta estructura horizontal: A - B - C - D...

(Estructura flexible, por supuesto: todos conocemos alguna historia que arranca en el pasado, vuelve al presente; o historias que arrancan con el conflicto, y después van hacia el pasado, etc).

La poesía se trata de contar una historia con sentimientos. De imágenes puramente sensitivas: olores, colores, sabores.

Algún que otro pensamiento.

Creo que escribir poesía es, justamente, agarrar una escena, una imagen, y desmenuzarla. Es abrirla, es ver que hay. Pero es solo eso.

No es una escena que se extiende; no es una cámara que nos muestra cómo son las habitaciones, cómo son los personajes.

A veces ni siquiera hay personajes, en las poesías, en las imágenes que vemos.

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Esas son las dificultades que encontré en mi camino: la ignorancia, y el mezclar la narrativa con la poesía.

I write in multiple notebooks. I write in different papers on depends my humor, on depends of what I'm writing, on depends where I am.

I realized the stories that I like the most are those stories which I write on a notebook that, casualty, I don't share with anybody.

And this «not sharing my notebook» thing made me asked me why I never shared that notebook. And after a few seconds I realized that I never share that notebook because that's the only notebook which makes me feel... Comfortable?

That's not the word I want to use.

Is the only notebook where I write which somewhere somehow does not make me feel judged. Judged from others, and judged from even my own eyes, who sometimes are the worst...

Did you know that not all books are divided into chapters?

And that not all books start in the present tense?

And that not all books with open endings have a sequel?

Yes that's how it is. Just as you read it.

One of the best and worst things about being a writer at work is that you can literally write how you want. We are free in our work, and sometimes one does not know what to do with such freedom.

Do you want to write a text whose beginning is located in the future, the conflict and the development of the story are in the past and the solution, somehow, in the current present? You can do it.

Do you want to write a story where everyone in the world denies the existence of magic, but at the same time no one ever gets old? you can do it

Write a story with a sad ending, with no solution? You can do it.

Write a story with a happy ending? You can do it.

Write a story without dialogue? You can do it.

Write a story without description and tell things only through dialogue? You can do it.

There are no rules other than the grammatical rules of the language... Which not all writers decide to respect.

There are some who even create new languages ​​for their books!

Our inner voice is why we choose to tell things from a certain point of view. Why they happen like this and like that, why the characters feel a certain way and not another. That is our decision.

But our decisions do not end there.

We also choose at what pace the story progresses. We choose where everything starts, and what is the origin story of our people that implies that before a certain stimulus they have a certain reaction.

We choose how fast to narrate the text, regardless of whether the commas are well placed or not. We do not care. We care less when we're in the writer's bubble.

Personally, I think one of the hardest things a writer has to deal with is that they can't always access that "bubble" whenever they want.

Sometimes it's a matter of having a quiet place to write, a place where no one bothers us.

Sometimes it happens that when there is room there is no imagination.

Sometimes it's complicated.

But all writers know that adrenaline that runs through our blood when we sit down to write and our fingers do not stop moving on the computer keyboard. Or forcing the pen on the paper. Hands that don't move fast enough and we're terrified of losing ideas if we don't write them down, but we're not able to say them out loud, because who is going to understand us if it's not another writer?

An incredibly strange adrenaline rush, because our hands are the only part of the physical body that moves, and yet it is never fast enough. It never reaches the speed of our mind. It never coordinates.

It is an impressive adrenaline, unique in its class.

Sitting down to write is more difficult than it sounds.

The people around us don't always seem to understand it. Editors, friends, family, it doesn't matter who they are.

Somebody: "What happens? You haven't written something for a long time"

Writer: "I'm not a coin machine, Harold, thank you very much.

Sitting down to write is difficult. I would adventure to say that starting to write - and I mean, starting chapter 1 - is even more difficult.

Sometimes our mind fills with thoughts.

<< No, I don't want to start with that word, I should start with this one >> << I want to use a shorter phrase > << Should I use a shorter phrase? >> << I don't know if this word or this phrase it's engaging enough to start my book >>.

And sometimes our head doesn't have a single thought, word, phrase, or a fucking grammar sign to use to get started.

As an amateur and independent writer, I can tell you that in moments like these, in moments where you sit in front of the paper or in front of the computer, wanting, feeling the physical need to have to take something out of yourself and write, in that moment, in that damn moment, all the energy that it´s accumulated in our body has to be used to write.

Write what? Whatever.

And that, in this instance of my writing career, I think that's one of the secrets. Sit down to write, concentrate, and let the words flow without thinking.

If you don't know how to start, if you don't know what to do, try and erase. I would say, try, save, and keep trying. And when you think you're done, that all your ideas have been emptied, keep writing. Even if what you are writing seems like shit, even if it does not fill you at all. Write that.

Take out the standing water so that the clean water can flow out.

And when you're done writing, when you've got everything out, then close your eyes, wait five minutes, and I read what you wrote.

Read it with different eyes, with new eyes, as if you had not written it. And then think, ask yourself:

<< That phrase, that word: How does that word make me feel? >>

And you probably hate almost everything you've ever written.

AHA!

<<Almost>>.

That is where we are going to concentrate.

Sometimes our stories are not going to have the same beginning that we imagine in our heads; They may not have the same ending either.

But, hey, let me ask you: is it really necessary for them to have that ending that we imagened? Or the origin story to be what we thought?

Could it be that we have written something better than what we had?

One of the writer' secrets are that sometimes we don't have the slightest idea of ​​what we're writing about. Sometimes, at the same time we write, we also read the story for the first time. And we do not know the characters, neither their angels nor their demons. We do not know anything. But we keep writing, because there is something inside us that makes us want to write.

We know what we are doing or not.

And the process may be, yes, I admit it, shit.

But the end result?

Phew. It can be so much better than we ever imagine.

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Remember:

1) Don't let anyone steal your voice.

Our inner voice is the reason we decide to tell a story one way or another. Our points of view, our eyes. Our voice. Don't let anyone steal your voice.

2) Don't compare your work.

Each writer has his own particular and original way of writing. There's a reason we like to read certain writers, right? Find out why other people should read to you. Read and learn from other jobs; do not read and compare; don't read and steal.

3) Write from your personal experiences.

Don't write about things you don't know; write about how you would like to know those things, or how you think they are.

4) Write for yourself, not for others.

Stop thinking that your ideas are not good.

As Stan Lee said: << I consider myself an ordinary person. And if I was able to think of a story that I liked, then there must be another ordinary person who likes it. >>

It doesn't matter if you are ordinary or extraordinary, human or alien. You will find many people who will love your story, but the ESSENTIAL thing is that YOU BE THE PERSON WHO LOVES IT THE MOST.

5) Start writing.

You are the one who is driving the car. Don't expect other people to start writing for you.

6) Write even when you think what you're writing is bad.

As Rad Bradbury said, << Write a short story every week. You can't write 52 bad stories in a row >>.

7) Read a lot. Read more than you write.

As simple and complicated as it sounds, a writer improves his work through hours and hours of reading. Stop reading as a reader, start reading as a writer. It is time to pay attention to the rhythm of the paragraphs, the evolution of the characters, etc.

8) Find a guide.

It doesn't matter if you are a writer, photographer, painter or whatever. Find someone who knows more than you and try to learn from him / her / them. Don't underestimate help, getting help doesn't mean you're not good enough, but rather that you are working to be better.

9) Accept that not everyone is going to like your stories.

Be self-critical, accept that not everyone is going to like what you write, and that sometimes that has nothing to do with your story. But with the taste of others. You cannot please everyone.

I´m a Writer.

I don´t usually specific this because when people start reading my posts, is kinda obvious. I mean the tags I use, the things I talk about all the time, the pictures I upload. My biography. Etc.

I don´t know why I´m making this clear today.

I´m a writer. A writer in progress to be a famous artist. I´m working on every day to get my goals done. Nethertheless, besides my work and the books I read, and besides everything, there are things that I still don´t know and I try to learn by myself.

As a writer in progress I´m use to push my feelings into the paper. Into the stories I write. It´s something like: I have this problem and I can´t solve it, so I´m going to write a fictional solution for the main character that represent me.

And now I´m thinking how good is that.

Talking about the words of the Wise Master of my last post, Writing, as any other arts and sports, is a muscle that I have to excercise everyday. So, my question is: Should I have to learn to write random stories without involving personal emotions?

My short, on the spot answer was: No.

Writing something that means nothing to me seems absourd. What´s the point of writing if the things you write are meaningless? If they don´t make a difference to anybody, what´s the point of writing in first place?

Maybe, this idea about writing things void of emotions make me improve my writing in a gramatical way... But can´t a text be so emotional and not having a great writing at the same time?

Little things are emotional, too.

And, talking about emotions, a text void of personal feelings is a emotional-less one?

What is the point of having a good writing if there is no message to communicate?

I believe that we writers are writers for a reason...

Let me correct that.

I believe that we writers, between all the things that we can be, we choose to be writers for a reason.

And esencially we all might have the same reason: We have something to say and, even more important, we want to be heared.

So, talking about writing text lacking of personal feelings is not kinda forgot the reason why we are writing in first place?

I believe it is. Tell me what you think.

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In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Writer: I write to vent, and sometimes it happens to me that I don't write on purpose to avoid talking about certain things. And that kills me.

Wise Master: Well, then more creation and less relief. Sublimating through art is a double-edged sword. Art is not just a discharge of emotions, it is a creative and intellectual exercise. And like any other exercise, it requires practice and discipline.

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Writers, my advice for you today is looking for a master who could guide you. No One knows better than I that we writers are most of all self-taught-people. We can learn a lot of things by our selves, and probably, that is what we have been doing until this moment. But we don´t have to.

Working by our selves is not going to make us better. Is just going to make us harder and harder the way to our future. As the other arts, even as sports, we writers need a person who could teach us how to be better.

Our Inner Essence is the reason why we are, why we do things. Everyone has a different reason. And it´s not about the way we have been raise or educated..., Or maybe it is. But I believe we all born with certain essence, which is going to keep us alive until the thay of our days. Like the firt fire that turns on the phoenix.

As writers, is important for us having knowledge about this, because our job is more than just a release of the shitty things of our day. Writing is creating people from ashes. Is more than give characters a face, cute eyes and big life problems. Writing is create a hole identity. A few, and sometimes a lot, of human (or not) identities.

Identities with a reason why they make things. Identities with inner essences.

Have you ever felt the world keeps moving but you can't keep go with it? Like, a really specific thought (or feeling), about that if you would decide to stand up and literally left the world, none would notice it.

I´m meaning a situacion where it could be possible get out of the world and spend the rest of our lives watching everything that happen since an outside point of view.

People just would move on with their lives.

They would continue living and having success in their respective futures. Some will have families -beautiful kids. Another people, will become excellent at their work.

All that at the same time that you watch them since a third position you didn´t know it exist.

Big industries will not stop doing their stuff just for you. In this situation, they don´t even know you. So scared of failure, you never tried to make it. So, big industries never met you. The world never did, either. They are not going to miss someone that they don't know, but in some way you will. You will miss them and also the possibility of having success.

I don't know what I'm trying to say, honestly. Where I want to go with all this words. I don't even know where these feeling came from, because I just arrived home after my English classes and I was fine. I swear I was. I had a good day. I went to classes and at the last moment, just a minute before ending the class my professor comes to me and says: «You are sad today. Be careful».

And now I'm in my phone writing this, asking me if it's possible that I had felt sad all the fucking day and I haven´t noticed it.

Because certainly I'm kinda sad now.

We talk about regrets, at the class. About the things we would like to know how to do, but we don't. For a reason or for another.

I don't know if that theme could have started a train of thoughts like «I didn't learnt to play the piano when I was a child, but hey, the world didn't stop for that reason, did it?».

And I guess now I'm kind of scared about never achieving what I want for my life. Never being able to write a hole story. Never be able to make my parents feel proud (God, I really thouth I was so over the proud-parents situation. Shit.) Never being able well known in this thing of writing.

The world is not going to stop it course just for me, no matter how much I wish it would do.

But...

.

.

.

What would if exist the possibility?

I want to believe that part of the way to success is risk everything you got just for uncertain possibilities, but, having the certain that it does exist a possibility.

And that we are able and strong enough to go to there. Even when we have bad days, too.

Because as exist bad days, it also exist the good ones.

Part of our travel as artist people is finding another people who like what we do. People who would want to read what I write, people who would like to hear what you sing, or who would like to see your dance coreographies, or your theater play.

Sometimes we artist people are scared of the possibility of not finding that another people who want to read, see, hear us.

I remember feeling like that when I started writing. I didn´t know if the texts that I writ were actually interesting or if they were just things that only I found fascinating.

Let me tell you a secret.

Do you know what makes << classic >> classic book? Why a book which was written thousand years ago is still present between us?

Classic books talks about questions that people is always going to ask themself. And I´m not talking about questions like: Where we came from and were are we going? What happen after death? Does is even exist a God?

Even when these questions are also important, right now I´m talking about things like: Do you remember when you started thinking and acting by yourself and not guided by other people´s thoughts? (Don Quijote de la Mancha, by Miguel Cervantes). Do you remember how did feel when you were a child and other kids did not want to talk to you? Do you remember how you felt when you thoght you didn´t belong anywhere?

Or even...

Do you remember the day when your parents fall off of the pedestal where you have put them on?

I´m talking about that questions.

And, please. Don´t take this post as an "Oh-I-should-write-about-this-and-I-will-be-famous" because is not.

What I´m traing to say is that you don´t have to be worry about if another people read you or not.

You are not the first person on feeling in some-kind-of-way and you are not going to be the last. And this not meaning that your feelings are not important. Your feelings ARE important, but at the same way you don´t believe they are, other people feel exactly the same. And you writing about your problems and the things that buthers you or about the things that you love and like, it´s helpful to show to other people that they are not alone.

So, if you want to write a story about a little girl that was bullied because she didn´t have her first kiss and one day as a revenge she decides to encharm every one who had been kissed, do it. Write about how good she felt until she realize her parents where under the encharmingt, too. Write about how mad was her because of the bullyness, and write about how she realize she wasn´t mad but sad because she tought she wasn´t pretty enough to been kissed.

Don´t be afraid of not being readed, because as the same way you feel in certain way, another people felt -or will feel- like that, too.

Motivate yourself to upload that chapter you wrote on Wattpad or Archive of our own (or etc), motivate yourself to upload that video that you record of yourself singing, motivate to create your own ig profile and start uploading the pictures you draw.

Some people are not goint to like it.

But some others, they would love it.

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<< If you have an idea that you genuily think is good, don´t let some idiot talk you out of it >> Stan Lee.

Something that happens to me with this of being a writer is that I constantly feel unproductive.

I mean.

There are many ways to be productive. But no matter what I do, after so much reading and writing, there is something in my head that makes me think that I am wasting my time, that I could do much better. And it has nothing to do with <<changing my career decision>> or whatever. No. It has to do with having the bad habit of comparing my work with that of others.

One of the most dangerous things a writer can do is compare his work with that of others.

Learning to write is a long road. I don't know if it's difficult, but it does take time. Time that we writers usually decide to use to read. New books, old books, authors that we like, authors that we do not know, national, international, genres that we like, genres that we do not like but for some reason we continue to insist on reading.

All we writers learnt to write in the same place: Books.

It is true what they say: <<The more books you read, the better writer you will be>>. It's true. By reading we not only realize what things we like and what we don't, but indirectly we learn techniques that we will use to write our own texts later.

You don´t believe me? Let's see.

Think about the books you like the most: What was it that prompted you to keep reading? Was it the Narrative (how the story is told)? Was it the unexpected plot twist? The way the writer describes the scenarios a lot, or the way he describes them very little?

The same thing happens with books you don't like: Why didn't you like it? Is it the way it is written? The way the writer describe the settings a lot or the fact that the description isn´t enough?

These and more questions are questions to ask yourself after each reading. Turn off the reader's mind, I turn on the writer's mind.

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Fighting with uselessness.

For a writer there is nothing more dangerous than comparing his work with that of others. We learn by reading and writing. As simple and complicated as it sounds. Reading and writing. Reading and writing. Talking about what we read, researching what we read, talking (WITH TRUSTWORTHY PEOPLE) about what we write. That's how we writers are.

And for me, that´s difficult to accept. Because I see how all the people around me have classes of their respective talents. Theater classes, dance classes, singing classes, painting classes. Classes that consume them a lot of time each week but that at the end of the day are worth it because those same classes help them to form for their future.

And then, it´s me, who read and write, because the writing classes that I can access do not demand enough of me. Writing classes where the teacher is afraid of offending so he/she is not as critical as he/she should be. Writing classes that, to the country where I come from, mean absolutely nothing.

We are all productive in our own way. Each one works and studies to shape their own future. Some will take longer, others less. Some will learn easier and for others it will be more difficult.

No matter what group you are in, there is only one thing that should matter to you: You are working to reach the future you want to have, and you are doing everything possible for it. Sometimes the family is an impediment. Sometimes friends are a impediment. Sometimes our own mind is an impediment. But, hey. You don't owe explanations to anybody. You're doing your best, and one day, all that work will pay off. And it will be worth it.

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Turn off the reader´s minds, turn on the writer´s minds.