Courage.

Today I was supposed to write about some of my most personal "writing secrets." However, after our Writer's Smock meeting, I've decided that writing about something personal would step out of the realms of well.....the writing tip arena. Clearly motivated by Ralph's post below, I've decided to post "Regretting Me." A short story/memoir influenced by my daydreams of what could've/should have been. The piece came across like one of my journal entries and I feared that my audience would be bewildered by it. I feared they'd ask, "Who is this emotional and insecure girl? Where is the confident and sarcastic one we're used to." I feared they might not relate.

Group member Thierry conveyed that a "journal entry" such as this one might be exactly the VERY thing they could relate to. I never viewed letting down my vulnerability as wearing my heart on my sleeve, but as exposing my dirty laundry. But my laundry isn't dirty at all. In fact, laundry day happened to be on Sunday sitting alongside three of my favorite dudes; who never judge, listen to all (no matter how crazy) intently, always smile, and make my burdens (laundry) feel lighter than usual.

Without any further ado, here's "Regretting Me":

I’m terrible at speaking. Often when I say this, friends fling their arms up in accusation. I am suddenly a liar because my profession is the oasis of oral communication. However, the truth is I’m only truly prolific within the written word. This is my confession.

At sixteen I was a queen of the good kind of manipulation and conversation. Kept men and boys, who swore they weren’t conversationalists, up until sunrise with banter of old shows, ideology, and the book jackets I’d lingered too long on. I remember that girl: Long hair, braces, and a size six; she wore her intelligence on the inside. Only those who prodded past the surface knew of the hundreds of journals, the categorized library, and obsession with fantasy.

I witnessed myself flip inside out. After spending too many months guarding my heart after a first heartbreak I’d lost the ability to communicate.

“Busy yourself.”

This is what my mother said when she saw I was on the verge of tears. The mechanism of multiplying your to-do list to forget your troubles had always seemed to work for her. So that’s exactly what I did. I immersed myself into five novels a week, fingered finger foods nearby, wrote like my fingers didn’t cramp, and considered myself a Salinger anti-socialist.

My first slam poem dripped with the anger of puppy love. As hard as it is to admit, he is the reason for the force I am today. When the notoriety started to pile on, I realized how much I’d pushed myself away from my own reality. When I looked up, the boys who used to find me funny were turned off by my incessant rambling of my latest read, my home girls—content with cruising the mall for a man—were annoyed by reiteration on how they deserved the love that Paulo Coelho had embedded into my psyche, and lost my uncanny ability to connect.

After forty extra pounds, braces that didn’t quite work, and the ability to mesmerize and intimidate all at the same time; I’ve failed to bring back the lass I once was. During those few months, my confidence seeped into the pages of those journals and only seems to flood me when I’m reading from them.

“Busy yourself” followed me through undergrad, grad school, and sits with me today. A show a week, five books every two, killing packs of pens within a month; time slips through my hourglass fingers like a goddess waiting to die.

Now I stutter in conversation, pull hard for words I write everyday, smile less, cry more, dance only in the mirror, and sing only in the shower.

I often regret me. Wonder how my life would’ve been different if I’d catcalled cuties at Roosevelt, continued rocking lunchroom ciphers, gave my best friend the chance he asked for, got on my knees and told God I needed him, kept pretending I didn’t know Langston and Zora back and forth and falling in love wasn’t my favorite pastime. Wonder if I’d paid more attention to my body, lingered less between the shelves, and kissed more eager boys; who I might’ve been.

I regret the bitter, the broken, the surreal me. The aggressive, non-submissive, I-got-my-own-shit-so-eff-you me.

I gaze at Briana, my high yellow light brown-eyed best friend, and watch her twirl men into a samba through the draw of a finger. I am amazed at her effortless pull of awe. She doesn’t care about cultural cuisine, could care less about the NY Times Bestseller list and doesn’t know who Basquiat is; but the world wants to paint her.

That’s jealous me speaking.

But I love her. Love her like late night Jill Scott concerts, Brandon in my arms while she sings and me running up to cook dinner for us afterwards.

“I’ll be right up. I’ve got to make a call.” he says.

Love her like sitting at a table with cold chicken Parmesan, your man on the phone with his ex two hours outside the door of your apartment. Love her like when I didn’t have those words, those good manipulative words, she flew down the steps pushed his ass in the vehicle and demanded he never come back.

Those words.

Those hold-on-right-quick-I-got-to-pee, wake-up-to-you-snoring-on-the-receiver, girl you make me feel likkkkeeeeeee words.

I miss those words. Miss them like a book that I didn’t have to analyze, the kind that sinks to your stomach like warm tea and glows like melanin. A good book with a girl who loved, lost, and found herself again. I’ve been reading every one I come across, hoping those words will find their way home.

-Riv

Smocker Duece

Messy Monday's - The Smock Meeting that was.

Another productive meeting was held Sunday at Panera Bread! Each of the Smocker’s read their respective pieces on regret. Riva wrote a hybrid of a poem and a short story called “Regretting me,” that was too personal to ever post. Jeff read a poem called “Never again,” and Theirry shared with us a short story as well.

After reading each piece, we had a deep discussion on emotions and how humans throw out their intelligent when dealing with heavy ones. It also brought on the topic of how us as people immortalize people we don’t even know, such as celebrities.

Theirry s deep into working on his comic book while both Jeff is working hard on his poetry collection and Erica and I are still steadily working on our individual manuscripts.

Our topic for next week is Change.

Here is my short story based on regret called Houston:

A picture’s worth thousand’s in a word count of an email draft. His charm, his vision had me the least bit enthralled. It was him and I, enjoying the sun go down with purple mountain’ majesty. But that was then, and through time, my alacrity has severely waned, like the ambition he said he had, but never did.

And some people want it all, but I want nothing at all – AND HE CAN’T EVEN GIVE ME THAT. He’s so shallow but I’m into deep. He’s pulling away; I’m rushing to stay, leaving us next to humpty dumpty wall of broken dreams. I’m in a catch 22, and I don’t know what to do. Suppose I stay, and he produces all the grandiose plans he says, ill be, in short, the luckiest girl in the world.

Conversely, I can call his bluff, walk away with regret, and miss all the shit I put up with, including the way he made me wet, and everything in between.

Perhaps I do imbibe in a stay, a landfill full of Sugarland, tasteful in bliss. And then he’ll confirm my own what-if’s and fears. I’m bruised and battered, and one abortion away from the holy trinity of kids that never were. They say pro-life, but what about me? No one wants damaged goods from a woman’s broken engagement.

And so I stay in indecisiveness, complacent in limbo with a mercurial fiancé; an unreliable significant other – damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I fret to report that I’d regret a decision either way. It’s his whim, and my weakness – the combination that unlocks emptiness.

I have a decision to make, in both cases I lose. I never hit send, and stowe away words I want to say in auto draft. The cursor is blinking, right after my name. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have the balls to delete our pictures, erase my memories of us in his head, and hit send. But something tells me that doing nothing we’ll be the biggest regret of all.

Until tomorrow.
Ralph, the rambunctious smocker.

My 6th Grade Speech-The Power of Belief

Many of my most important lessons in life were learned very early in my development. I learned perhaps my most important one at the age of 12. On the verge of making the jump from elementary school to junior high, I was called upon to write a speech. If my teacher, deemed my speech to be better than the speeches written by some of my classmates, I would then be given the honor of reading it in front of an audience at graduation. This Idea mortified me!!! I couldn't get up there and read in front of people! Surely, they would laugh at me!! Long story short, I wrote the speech, but made sure to not do my best. My friend, Devaughn won the right to read his speech and I sat in the audience.

Last time I posted, I spoke of fear and it's consequences for me as a writer. Today, we should focus on what belief can do for you as a writer and in life. This week I take a right of passage that many before have taken. I strike out on my own to live by myself and I also strike out on my own to create a comic character that answers the question "what can one person accomplish if they just believe it to be possible?"

The majority of my life has been an exercise in doubt. It's never too late to start the process of change though. I hope that you stick around too see how I grow as an artist in the medium I love. I'm looking forward to sharing the experience with you.

Until next time,

Don't get Smocked!

Thierry

Poetry In Motion: Take A Walk Through Memory Lane

I have undergone on a new project that has involved myself running through my poetic anthology selecting my personal favorites and best. As I surfed through a few of them, each piece evoked partial emotions once felt in the past, locked away in my notepad just to revisit me like the ghost of Christmas past.

“Now Let me take a trip down memory lane” ~ BizMarkie

I have embarked on a journey through memory lane by which involved the intricate dissections of metaphors once comprehended (not all, but a few). Travelling within my formerly past emotions, some joyful and ecstatic, some sad and glum, reignited sparked memories and feelings. It’s a trip but the beauty behind such a walk longed traveled is that they stick like self-inscribed concrete memories that will forever be etched and imprinted in cement, never to be forgotten as they lay on my shelf over a long time span.

“A moment lasts all of a second, but the memory lives on forever” ~ Unknown

Looking back, my growth as a poet has evolved gradually through the process of consistently writing everyday and reading by which we all know enhances our imagination and vocabulary as well. Thanks to these contributors, I have become the poet of today, still growing like the lane yet seen from a distance, with more brick paved memories waiting ahead.

“I’m looking forward to the memories of right now” ~ Drake

Jeff L.

Smock Salute

Messy Monday's - The Smock Meeting that was, #4

First off, if you ever decide to have some sort of meeting group for anything, I’m not sure if Barnes and Noble is the ideal destination. At this point, everyone knows about its legendary atmosphere, but it’s now saturated and the Smocks succumbed to sitting in the middle of the religion aisle, sans a table. We need a new venue, but that’s another post.

This week had us read our pieces on infidelity. Jeff read his poem of the same title, which was again excellent, filled with great uses of similes and metaphors. Poetry is definitely his strong suit, but the Smock panel encouraged him to try to thematically use one metaphor, to keep the reader guessing as to what the subject matter really was. I’m sure will see that challenge come to fruition in the coming weeks.

I read a short story that I’ll probably post on my blog, and Erica had a great piece on how she is but a temporary fixture in men’s live, entitled “Ketchup.” (Please post that piece Erica!)

Theirry’s big news is that he got well into fleshing out the character of his comic book who has the superpowers of super-human strength and flight but is dependent on his belief of himself. Post on that coming up this week. And our theme for our individual piece for next week is on regret.

Until tomorrow!

Ralph

When is the Best Time To Write?

As a full time-writer, I find myself getting probed frequently on the following question: “When is the best time to write?” The only thing I can postulate from that aforementioned statement is quite simple. Tackling writing full-time is no easy task – it takes a bit of discipline to sit in front of a computer for a good 4 hours, or be productive with a pen and paper in your hand. Nonetheless, the best time to write for me is as follows:

EVERYDAY, NO MATTER WHAT.

There is no such thing is writer’s block, at least to me. How could there? If your working on one manuscript, that might not be the best strategy to combat the block. Why? To concentrate your forces on one project, chances are you need another muse of scribe, so you can redirect and gather your thoughts. I propose working on multiple projects so that you don’t lose footing by doing nothing.

WRITE A JOURNAL.

Journals are great, period. With it, you can have limitless material, because instead of worrying about quality, you keep it moving with the quantity. In other words, each day you can be responsible for writing what happens. The benefit of that? If you keep it up daily, you’ll have endless stories and anecdotes already written down.

Ok enough. I’ll be writing for the rest of the night!

Until next time.

Numero Uno Mother Smocker,

Ralph

Poetry In Motion: My First Sonnet

As a few would already know, I am a poet that has accumulated numerous amounts of poems in my short writing career. As a novice, I still possess room for growth and improvement in the craft, not just poetry alone. Last week, I was challenged by fellow Smock member “RIVAFLOWZ” to write a sonnet by which was my first structured writing activity that possessed great difficulty, at first.

My thought process when it comes to writing is free flowing like water poured into a glass cup. Usually, when I begin inscribing my thoughts and feelings on paper, well, my Iphone rather, my poetry is birthed like ALAKAZAM! Writing a sonnet was a new challenge that I had to face. Maintaining the same analogy, I would compare it to pouring honey into a glass cup. Honey is more viscous than H₂O meaning that it wasn’t as free flowing as I thought.

Albeit I couldn’t complete my original sonnet in the presence of my fellow Smock member, I chose not to falter. I took my time later that night to construct a new sonnet and VOILA! Below, I present to you my first sonnet; I hope you like. YOU BE THE JUDGE!

“My Songstress”

Beauty is revered in my line of sight.

My gaze peers through your transparent figure.

The sounds and melodies light up my night.

My reflections are sung like a mirror.

Muse is the name that I bestow on you.

A godly figure you are to all men.

Your harmonizing song captures my view.

I gravitate towards your vibe like a friend.

We evolve beyond this relationship.

You pierced through my heart with a love arrow.

Forever, we remain a partnership.

Your love serum flows through my bone marrow.

Your voluptuous warmth is like a mink.

The marriage of our union keeps us linked.

Inspired by my Ipod Classic.

What have I learned?

Ø How to write a sonnet.

Ø Never give up on the challenges that await you, whether in writing or life in general.

Jeff L.

Smock Salute