leigh ann

working on imagery – strong, concrete imagery – can help my writing a lot, i think. i enjoy what people refer to as “purple prose” or prose that is a bit too wordy and elaborate but i also agree that it can get tedious to read and often can distract from what the author is trying to convey. sometimes an image that’s stated plainly can convey a much stronger image than a long paragraph of fancily worded sentences. sometimes a duck is a duck and it’ll always be a duck. a good mix of fantastical and straight forward writing can contribute a lot to somebody’s (my own) writing and i think I should practice this in theory and see how it goes. maybe even blend them together or swap in and out.

i’d have to get better with metaphors first. stay away from like and as, the metaphorically crutches. of course, i run the risk of using is too much. a girl is like a flower versus a girl is a flower. same trap. how do I word this cliche metaphor into something concrete without running the risk of word vomit or over the top language?

when the sun peeks the window, she raises, turns toward the light in bloom.

still sounds a bit gaudy. not sure. maybe invoke the senses like the textbook suggests?

when the sun peeks the window, impossibly bright rays on her face, she raises. the bed is warm. sandwiched between the holders of her body heat she stretches sleep from her limps with cracks and pops. when her neck clicks into place she reaches, fingers branching above her head. the shadowy rays pas through, as though she’s invisible. she wonders, briefly, if she can absorb the rays. if the cells rushing to her hands can collect the warmth needed to face the day.

i have made the girl a tree instead of a flower. maybe that works better. maybe we should just toss the old cliches away. actually I think I like the piece I wrote in class:

it sounds like a hurricane. the movement of water like the gales of the storm. there are splashes somewhere but it’s all thunder before the big boom. it smells like headache. burning nostrils take salt water to the brain. a hit of liquid cocaine that smells like rubbed raw insides. the salt is in the mouth. gallons of it, sliding down the throat. the cleanest, clearest, saltiest refreshment. the water is velvet under fingertips. so much power, so much force, yet hands can cut into the surface like softened butter to a hot knife. cold on the hands, hot splattering on the face. it looks like the jungle gym tunnel but better. the hole of light leading not to the slide prize but the barrel’s exit – free air. surrounded by colour, one side see-through blue, the other frothy white. the end, full of white light. the board, hard and coarse and slippery underfoot, the only thing between soft body and hard ocean. pounds of ocean overhead.

i think this needs work but i think i like it a lot.

aug 5, 2024

working on description is important for any good writing but i think i made some good points here – purple prose can be distracting, a duck can only be a duck, and like and as are the metaphors of the past

some of my samples SUCK because idk i was still in a poetry mindset i guess maybe, jkjk i actually think the surfing one is kinda fire

the line between saying too much and saying too little is thin and it’s my job to straddle that line carefully

also if you think you’ve seen this post before you haven’t (you have, i decided to reformat and repost)

full disclosure, i’m supposed to be writing 750 words a day as a part of my personal goals for 75 soft so i’m hoping that i can keep consistently posting. if i don’t do it in writing i’m trying to at least journal so here i am

i failed the first day, i had a coke which my friends say count as sweets and didn’t exercise because i didn’t in the morning and i was so tired after i came back from work. i predicted this would happen tho. only messing up two is really good imo. i didn’t expect to achieve the water one so i’m really happy about that. i don’t usually drink a whole half a gallon a day.

other than that, i let someone other than a close friend in my reading/writing discord that i’ve been trying to build for actual months because we both want to read gideon the ninth and we’re probably going to go at different speeds. discords scare me??