Kindle formatting for poetry

Yes, it is possible!

I'm a Nook girl, but having the opportunity of turning my poetry book into a Kindle book (via KDP), I decided to make my book available for at least one e-reader brand.  A couple of days later, I have just finished the rough draft, which works on every conceivable Kindle there is (except maybe Paperwhite?  I guess we'll find out.).

Rather than ramble on about the process (which I may do later), here are some key points I learned:

1. Each line of poetry constitutes a paragraph.  I investigated the possible solutions for widows and orphans that I could find (incl. div's around the stanzas, with page-break-inside: avoid;), but because of this fact (and also, perhaps, limited CSS compatibility), it is impossible to eliminate widows and orphans.  The spacing/margins/font-size flexibility on e-readers results in drastic changes on your pages' length/appearance, and the safest thing to do is to do nothing.
2. Universally-accepted hanging indentations are possible.
3. E-books just aren't very fancy.  You get bold, italics, font size, and that's just about it.  Even the Twilight Kindle book looks boring inside.

Most of my techniques follow this tutorial, by Charles Walley.  He provides you with a really clean template and takes you pretty much step-by-step through the process, including Table of Contents and EASY hanging indents.  I was going to give up before I stumbled across his tutorial, so (needless to say) I'm really grateful for it.

I believe I have also figured out how to properly save/publish the e-book file so that Table of Contents shows up in Kindle Previewer...more on that in a future post. 

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Proof, proof, proof

A number of people, including my sister and the good people at Createspace, are probably beginning to feel I'll never publish this poetry book. Today I resubmitted it, for the third time.  "It's the last time, I promise!"

Apart from page numbers, general formatting was pretty easy.  Things got unpleasant when I had to deal with the finer aspects of formatting style.  I'm happy to get free classic literature on my beloved Nook STR, and as long as there are no typos I could care less about format details.  Alas, as most people don't feel the same way, I'm trying to abide by the majority of formatting rules...

Widows and Orphans

You can imagine the surprise when my mom pointed out something called Widows and Orphans.  I must have met hundreds of these on the Nook; I am immune to them.  And logically, to me widows and orphans are preferable, as opposed to pages that aren't nice and square-looking.

Nevertheless, not to appear illiterate/unaware, I eliminated all of them, except one widow that was hard to avoid and doesn't look very offensive.  I dream of a day when square pages will become in vogue, and, indeed, if I publish a novel I may do just that.  (The negative effects are definitely more noticeable in a poem, though.)

Hyphens and Hanging Indentations

Hyphens, hyphens, more hyphens.   

Hanging Indentations are supposed to occur when a line(s) of a poem is too long.  It goes to the next line and is slightly indented.  For example, in Wordsworth's "Star-Gazers":

What crowd is this? what have we here! we must
       not pass it by;
A Telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky:
Long is it as a Barber's Poll, or Mast of little Boat,
Some little Pleasure-Skiff, that doth on Thames's
       waters float.

I thought hanging indentations were an e-book error--I didn't know they were the rule (is that funny or sad?).  So I added them.

Then I went back later and thought...you know, as my mom also pointed out, some of these hanging indents only contain one word.  And that does bug me, more than widows and orphans.  So I changed that, too (except for one, in which it would have looked worse for there to be two words).    

It's the last proof, really!  I believe it this time.  :)

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My obsession...

While (still) proofing my poetry-book, I have stumbled-across an unpleasant-trend. 

-

I absolutely adore hyphens.  Yes, I'll get rid of a bunch of them, but I love them so.  =(

What is your writing trend (or error) that you hate to part with?

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Things are happening.

Just submitted my poetry book to Createspace for review.  Within 48-72 hours (if all goes well), I'll order a proof copy.  Two weeks later, a new book may make its appearance on Amazon.

SO KEYED UP.

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Update on my poetry book

By Hrald (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
 I've blogged about it here and there, but for those of you who missed it: my goal is to self-publish a short collection (111 pages) of poetry this summer via Amazon's CreateSpace.  The corollary is that I want to do as much of the work as possible (and save $$$), including formatting and design.  I finished the interior formatting (and my love/hate relationship with page numbers), but the cover art is threatening to put me behind schedule.  In fact, as of tomorrow, I am decidedly behind schedule.

After some research and debate, my criteria for the cover are as follows:

• It must be classy and something between classic and contemporary.
• It must appeal to both genders and preferably a wide age range (within the intended audience, poetry readers).
• It must be relatively eye-catching at full-size and thumbnail-size.  
• The title must be readable at thumbnail size.  
• I would like it to wrap around the whole book, especially since I'll likely leave the back cover blank.  Thankfully, CreateSpace provides an awesome template for the cover art, so I can design my wrap-around cover without too much anxiety.  <3
• Last and greatest, it must reflect the book's contents, at least adequately.

Now, if I were to begin all over again on a new project, I would definitely start with a blank canvas and figure out the text first.  It was irritating to not have that set-in-stone from the start.  In the last day or two, I've finally designed the title text to my happy approval, with the help of the lovely font Raleway. I'm suddenly tempted to use it for some of the interior formatting, too (but we'll see if my ambition lasts).

The artwork...I had a new idea today that I will look into tomorrow or Monday; it has to do with a photo on a different computer, though.  Up till now, I've come up with some "ok" art--clouds and such--but nothing quite right for my picky tastes.  

What are some of your favorite book covers?  What are some of your LEAST favorite book covers?

Matthew Pearl's books have splendid covers.  Vintage Classics covers are (most of them) works of art.  This set of The Lord of the Rings is beautiful (and based on Tolkien's own cover art!).  I'm afraid cover art is more important to me than it should be, but mostly because I know how unpleasant it is to get a library book with boring, embarrassing, or just horrible cover art.  Or, looking at a book and feeling like the cover is misleading.  Books with cheerful-looking cover art and depressing back cover blurbs--I feel instantly suspicious.

July 8 UPDATE:  ¡Cover art completed!  ^_^   I'm back on schedule.

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Monday

Spent most of today outdoors studying.  It's easy to forget how nice it is to be outside, and now I've mostly outgrown my spring allergies.  It's really the only place where you can find total concentration--indoors, I feel too distracted by other thoughts, and the internet, of course!

I have three tests this week, Tuesday through Thursday afternoon.  Sometime this week I want to really make a dent in my reading list.  I'm a couple of chapters into South, by Ernest Shackleton--first-hand narrative of his attempted crossing of Antarctica.  So far, they have not made it to the continent yet, and it's unbelievable how slow and tedious and careful they had to be, navigating the ship through the ice. Sometimes they would have to go the wrong way for miles and see the same ice berg again.  Oh, and sometimes he mentions more human aspects of the voyage, like the crew playing soccer on the ice, or naming the sledge dogs.  It's those things that make a hundred years seem not so long ago.

Writing-wise, I have added several more poems to my collection--at this rate, it will have to wait a while before getting published.  But that's all right.  I had entered some of them in a contest, and now that that's over, I realise I could be as overly kind to my poems as I am overly harsh to my novel WIP's.  But that's all right, too.  I admire artists who have confidence in their art; this is one exception in which I am (or try to be), too.  I actually love my poems, and maybe they're the best thing I've written so far (for what it's worth).

And here I'd better stop and study for that first test...  Typical me, I forgot Poli Sci was tomorrow and wrote the essay outlines for US History instead!

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Exeunt!

Thus the Club would not receive a man simply because he chose to pass his days collecting broken sardine tins, unless he could drive a roaring trade in them. Professor Chick made that quite clear. And when one remembers what Professor Chick's own new trade was, one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. - The Club of Queer Trades / G. K. Chesterton

I tried my utmost to listen to an audiobook of The Club of Queer Trades, but, as with most books absorbed at bedtime, it lasted about twenty minutes before I started falling hopelessly asleep. Oh well...I'll keep trying.

In other news...my poetry book is finally finished.  Words don't describe (haha, no pun intended) how happy this makes me feel.  It's the kind of happiness that eclipses emotion.  Because I've been ready for it to be finished for so long--the last poem to be finished was begun in August 2011, which feels ridiculously recent even though it isn't.  The book as a whole was started in 2008 or 2009.  It's high time for it to exit the 'work-in-progress' stage... 

Now I've just got to finish up the title, cover, and format details before submitting it to FastPencil.  I'm taking a good deal of time with this, but hey, if I've waited this long, I can wait a little longer to do it right!  Also, I can move on to finishing up my other projects.  And more poetry, of course.

Poetry is so point-blank.  It go straight to the heart of the matter, delves right into the message of the words, no stopping or detours.  I remember meeting a violin teacher who said that the "Tchaikovsky (violin concerto) goes straight to the heart.  But Brahms (violin concerto) takes a detour to your heart."  It's an apt illustration, and I find the same applies to novels and poems.  My biggest failure as a novel-writer (and greatest attribute as a math student?) is an impatience to get to the root of the problem.  Actually, impatience is one of my faults, period...


copyright: Jason Mrachina

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Rain

After the snow and ice, rain and clouds has suddenly become "good" weather.  Well, I always liked it.  :) 

And now that the power is back, I can work on my poem, which might be finished this weekend.  I have a couple of short research papers I could write, too, but we'll see...

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Patience!

I am this close to self-publishing a book.  And by this, I mean--in terms of linear measurement--half an inch.  Or a quarter of an inch, as it seems to me, in my enthusiasm.

At an approximate length of 100 pages, it's not a long book, by any means.  Just a short "debut" book--a collection of poems, most of which are 1-2 pages long, along with two very long poems that have a little more gravitas than the others.  One of these is finished, the other is half-finished.  And that's what I'm waiting for, with some attempts at patience.

Orpheus is allowed to rescue his wife from death, on one condition--that he never looks back at her.

This last poem is a re-telling of Orpheus and the Underworld...perhaps a big mistake.  There are, of course, numerous renditions of this story, including poems by Robert Browning and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and operas by Gluck and Offenbach.  To name a few examples.  I probably should feel as presumptuous as if I were rewriting Hamlet, or Beowulf, or Paradise Lost; and frankly, anybody writing about the same subjects as great poets like Browning should think twice.

But to my defense, I have not read any of those Orpheus poems, nor have I watched any complete Orpheus opera.  I'm approaching the subject with my own set of ideas, and have gone so far as to change some names and create some new characters.  The setting is a combination of a fantasy world, 21st-century technology, and rugged, Pacific Northwest terrain.  I've nearly stopped associating Orpheus and Eurydice with Greek mythology/heroes, and I've given them each more individuality, to add to their other attributes.  I suppose a lot of people will dislike these changes; it won't appeal to those looking for a lot of "gritty realism", romance, or even mythology.  Personally, though, I think the beauty of Orpheus and the Underworld is all found in the fundamental plot/themes, and, as with all epic fairytales, the plot is more poignant when it speaks for itself. 


My poem is divided into four parts.  Part I--begun in August 2011--was finished relatively quickly, but I only just finished Part II.  It doesn't quite help that I chose some difficult rhyming/stanza/metric schemes (I'm using a different scheme for each part).  Because of this, and because I write so very slowly, it might be anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months before the poem is finished.

I'm hoping for a happy medium...like 2 weeks.  Now, if I can only muster up enough patience.

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The power of poetry

credit: timmalone45 | license

Ten years ago, I'd have never expected to be blogging this.  I didn't like poetry.  In fact, I cordially disliked it and never went out of my way to read it.  Today, however, I'm not just an eager poetry reader, but an avid poetry writer.  Who'd have thought.

The only poem from my childhood that I somewhat liked is the famous "The Road Not Taken."  The imagery and the flowing, 'musical' stanzas intrigued me.  I couldn't find a message in it, but even my childish self thought it was a sad poem and that there was something behind it.


Still, it was years later that I began to love poetry; and even then, it took a 1000-page book to make me understand the power of poetry.  The Lord of the Rings is well-known for its songs, poems, and mottos in verse.  Poems about life, death, humor, and irony--my blog's name comes from one of them. The poetry has purpose in the story: the characters turn to poetry when soliloquies and speeches fail.  By the end of the book, it made me realize something I'd thought impossible: that, sometimes, prose is inadequate.

Or is it even replaceable?  This spring I read Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, which I've raved about more than once and am currently re-reading.  Onegin is written in chapters of poetic stanzas, whose particular scheme is called the 'Onegin stanza.'  Nevertheless, this doesn't detract from the story--quite the opposite.  Pushkin's ability to propel the story through verse is remarkable: flexible pacing and emotional range bring as much story into this novella as you might find in a much longer book.

Writing it in poetry made that possible.

As I mentioned above, I write poetry, too.  At first, it was just for school, but within the last year or two, I've been writing poems because I actually want to--or perhaps I should say need to.

I wrote my first 'real' poem a year or two (or three) ago.  For this post, it doesn't signify what the topic was; but suffice it to say that it had been banging on the walls of my mind for months. It disturbed and fascinated me.  So, I sat down and wrote a poem, "The Masquerade"...non-rhythmical and somewhat short.  The meaning is buried behind the words, the topic itself makes no visible appearance; but in that tangle of broken lines, I had driven the figurative dragon away. I suddenly felt I could move on.

I've written about 30-something pages of poetry now, in the same way.  The first words often spring into my mind like fireworks; the other words and the rhyming scheme, whatever it may be, often just come naturally.  This not to say I'm a good poet, not at all.  Rather, the force of combined perspective, emotion, and poetry's flexible form all act as a catalyst to the writing process. It's not even a process--it's a thunderstorm of words, which you drive into the paper until you're worn-out.  You don't have to worry about paragraphs, fragments, and punctuation.  There aren't any rules to choke inspiration, and the pacing is whatever you want it to be.  There's no need for characters, because you're all of them, if you want to be.

You don't even have to hide your emotion; you can bring it to the forefront and cloak it in cryptic words.  Happiness is then tempered by the satisfaction of having adequately expressed it, and sadness is diluted with the presence of words.  The problem doesn't go away, but each poem is like a piece you've chipped off of it--a real set of words that can be put onto a page, folded up, and put away.

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Poems I love

Today is National Poetry Day--found this out at Libby's blog, Catching the Stars.  :)

I've only started reading poetry (as in, seriously reading it) this year.  But already I have many favorites.  Here are some of them, in no exact order:

1. The Sea-Bell - Tolkien.  Surreal and melancholy.  Tolkien actually recorded this one, which is worth checking out--he reads in the old, beautiful style that we don't hear these days.
2. Eugene Onegin - Pushkin.  
3. Jabberwocky - Carroll.
4. Star-gazers - Wordsworth.  Short, but full of interesting sentiments.  'Is nothing of that radiant pomp so good as we have here? / Or gives a thing but small delight that never can be dear?'
5. Resolution and Independence - Wordsworth.
6. Memories - Longfellow.
7. The Raven - Poe.  Basil Rathbone's recording is the best.
8. EDIT:  She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways - Wordsworth.  Very bittersweet.
   
9. Still Round the Corner - Tolkien.  
10. The Road Not Taken - Frost.  My favorite poem from before I actually appreciated poetry. 

What are your faves?  Any recommendations?  (I like more contemporary styles, too.)

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Poetry without words

I never listened to Debussy, until earlier this year.  But I found his was just the music to listen to, when homework got unpleasant (i.e. often).  In fact, if I had a theme song, I would say it's a tie between this Arabesque and Brahm's Rain Sonata (mvt 1).  My other Debussy favorites are Valse Romantique, the violin sonata (mvt 1), and Reverie.

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The admirable life

I can't write.

Not at the moment, anyway.  I've had this writer's block for two weeks now--or maybe longer?  When it's this bad, there's isn't much to be done about it...I'm not one of those people who, in this state of things, can sit down and hammer out words. 



With mild writer's block, maybe.  Even then, it's not the best.  Forcing yourself to write doesn't work too nicely for me.  It's too mathematical, ends up sounding dry and heartless, like "plugging in values for x and y". 

Last year, on recollection, I think I did pretty well.  From around December '09 through around May or June '10, I worked consistently, nearly every week, on my first real novel (Calantha).  I got about 2/3 through, which wasn't bad for someone more experienced in short stories.  It was only a first draft, and not terribly good; but the mere consistency of my writing habits was encouraging (as was the page count, I'll admit).   

And then what?  Well, I don't know what went wrong, but ever since then, my writing's been pretty much sporadic.  Within the same amount of time--from December '10 to now--I haven't accomplished anything much.  Some new ideas, yes...but that's all. You'd think that, with such a long break, I'd be ready to write again, by now...  Apparently not.

It gets to the point where you start imagining what it would be like to give up writing and just stick to your school-year studies.  Just worry about your grades and nothing else.  Just get one, normal job and nothing else.

Scary thought, to me...but why should it be?  That's what most people do.  Open your quarterly magazine from the local center of academia, and you'll find all sorts of men and women who have earned status and honor in all sorts of professional fields--most of which, if you can pronounce them, you still couldn't begin to understand.  Fields as intricate as studies of particular shellfish and the purpose of their existence, which required the individual to spend an enormous amount of time just gathering data.  Latin drifts smoothly through their speech; they know what they are talking about and they are respected for it.  They gain experience, exalted careers, recognition from the government.  Their work does good in some area of life, of public life.  They will have reasons to retire with a sense of having done that good...and all in that normal job that they stuck to most dedicatedly.

It's a genuinely admirable life, and it's not for me.  But why not?  I couldn't say exactly.  I do know that the idea of it--applied to me--makes writing, however hopeless it often seems, to appear more and more worth the effort, even as a side-career.  Strange that writing in obscurity, and all the extra work it entails, should sound somehow comforting and worthwhile, but so it does.

I don't even know if I ought to post this, as it sounds like one long, silly complaint/rant/wail from a very pretentious young person who ought to be doing something useful instead.  However, just to prove that I'm not entirely silly, here's a good poem--not entirely off topic--that's well-worth the five minutes to read.  It's called "Resolution and Independence", by Wordsworth:


I

There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

II

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;
The grass is bright with rain-drops;--on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

III

I was a Traveller then upon the moor,
I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar;
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:
The pleasant season did my heart employ:
My old remembrances went from me wholly;
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

IV

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;
To me that morning did it happen so;
And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
Dim sadness--and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

V

I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky;
And I bethought me of the playful hare:
Even such a happy Child of earth am I;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me--
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

VI

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can He expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

VII

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;
Of Him who walked in glory and in joy
Following his plough, along the mountain-side:
By our own spirits are we deified:
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

VIII

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given,
Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place,
When I with these untoward thoughts had striven,
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven
I saw a Man before me unawares:
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

IX

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence;
Wonder to all who do the same espy,
By what means it could thither come, and whence;
So that it seems a thing endued with sense:
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

X

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,
Nor all asleep--in his extreme old age:
His body was bent double, feet and head
Coming together in life's pilgrimage;
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
Of sickness felt by him in times long past,
A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

XI

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood:
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
Upon the margin of that moorish flood
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they call
And moveth all together, if it move at all.

XII

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look
Upon the muddy water, which he conned,
As if he had been reading in a book:
And now a stranger's privilege I took;
And, drawing to his side, to him did say,
"This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

XIII

A gentle answer did the old Man make,
In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew:
And him with further words I thus bespake,
"What occupation do you there pursue?
This is a lonesome place for one like you."
Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes,

XIV

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,
But each in solemn order followed each,
With something of a lofty utterance drest--
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach
Of ordinary men; a stately speech;
Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use,
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.

XV

He told, that to these waters he had come
To gather leeches, being old and poor:
Employment hazardous and wearisome!
And he had many hardships to endure:
From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor;
Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance,
And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.

XVI

The old Man still stood talking by my side;
But now his voice to me was like a stream
Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;
And the whole body of the Man did seem
Like one whom I had met with in a dream;
Or like a man from some far region sent,
To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.

XVII

My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills;
And hope that is unwilling to be fed;
Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills;
And mighty Poets in their misery dead.
--Perplexed, and longing to be comforted,
My question eagerly did I renew,
How is it that you live, and what is it you do?"

XVIII

He with a smile did then his words repeat;
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide
He travelled; stirring thus about his feet
The waters of the pools where they abide.
"Once I could meet with them on every side;
But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."

XIX

While he was talking thus, the lonely place,
The old Man's shape, and speech--all troubled me:
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
About the weary moors continually,
Wandering about alone and silently.
While I these thoughts within myself pursued,
He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.

XX

And soon with this he other matter blended,
Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,
But stately in the main; and when he ended,
I could have laughed myself to scorn to find
In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.
"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!"

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So today...

I did math homework for two hours, whilst listening to Owl City, Placido Domingo, and Poe's "The Raven" & "Annabel Lee".  (Not all at the same time.)  Believe it or not, I found Poe's poetry to be somewhat conducive to studying.

Perhaps their creepiness's cancel each other out. 

One thing is for sure, and that is that no one reads poetry like Basil Rathbone. He doesn't just act--he brings the words to life.  Anyone who likes, loves, studies, writes, reads, or even hates poetry, needs to get a copy of The Edgar Allan Poe Collection.  Then prepare to run around (like me), reciting "Once, upon a midnight dreary / While I pondered, weak, and weary"...

Speaking of writing, I started writing that Victorian sci-fi novel, which I was lamenting didn't exist.  I don't have a solid outline, but I have some ideas and I'm pretty keyed up about it.  :)  So far, I've written the prologue, but I can't wait to start Chapter 1.  Also, I went looking for a historical figure, that might help me write one of my protagonists; and I found a historical figure who was already extremely similar to my character!  It was quite a surprise (like this post).  So, it either means that I'm highly unoriginal when it comes to characters, or that I have good intuition.  I'd like to humbly think it's the latter, lol.  ;)

But before I can start working on it again, I have to complete a test, two presentations, and more math homework (it's as plentiful as weeds)...all within the next few days.  Oh, well...the sooner it's over with, the sooner I can resume the novel-writing.  :) 

Oh, and reading.  Checked out Conrad's The Mirror of the Sea, Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps & Huntingtower.  (Like I have nothing else to do.)  But they're short and look like great reads.   

Ok, I'll stop rambling now...

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Chaconne, by Vitali

Epic.

 

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Lovely Photo Wednesday

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"I want to see mountains again...."

What do you like best--forests, oceans, or mountains?  I've thought about that many times.  For me, I'd always say "the ocean", but I do love our good old fir trees, and Mount Rainier...  On a very cloudy day, it's perfectly invisible; and you couldn't discern the slightest hint that it ever existed.  On a less cloudy day, when just its summit can be seen, it looks like a faraway mountain floating in the clouds themselves.  At sunset, it's a painting in the sky, a painting in purple, blue, and pink.  And on a bright, clear, summer day...well, as Sam would say, "Now there's an eye opener and no mistake!"












Another mountain in the distance (truth be told, I couldn't say for sure which one it is...)










"The road goes ever on and on...."
















{Note:  I own the copyright to all the above photos.} 

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A poem by me

Something I wrote yesterday.  It's still a first draft, and I'm no poet at all, but I like writing "poetry" for fun.  :)  I have an idea of someday studying the major different meters and learning to write a proper rhyming poem, but for now I just try to follow a general pattern.  The main thing I dislike about this poem is the ending...it doesn't seem quite right.  Also, the title is one of the most unoriginal I've ever come up with, but it will do for now, I guess. 







(This was LOTR-inspired, and is supposed to be from Pippin's point of view.)

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Poetry is everywhere...

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