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Literally Challenged

Observations On My Recent Writing

By Mike Singleton - MikeydredPublished 4 months ago 3 min read
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Image by Mike Singleton from Pixabay

Introduction

Ten of my recent Vocal Stories have been Vocal or Non-Vocal Challenge related. I see Challenges as great for prompts and that is it, but I am looking at the current ones and the only one of the five that may get more response from me is the Inverse poem and I already have three pieces in there.

I do like this because however short a poem is, you still have to really stretch your mind to create it.

My last entry wasn't meant as an entry but was inspired by a Vocal Social Society Challenge and the fact that Sandra Matos introduced me to the Triolet form. Then Dharrsheena suggested that it fitted the "Inverse" format, so on her advice, I entered it there as well. This is it if you want to check it out.

So Where Am I Finding Inspiration?

I am now in the 1900s for my Stories and what that means is that the number of each published story may coincide with a significant event.

This is story number 1933 so I missed The Wall Street Crash, but hopefully, I can find some positive events as I dray towards my birthdate.

I have already taken 1914 and 1914 with Pantoums which you can read here.

I will almost certainly repeat the exercise for 1939 and 1945 (with music from Public Service Broadcasting's "War Room"), plus the Korean and Vietnam Wars, but apart from that I will try and stay away from conflict.

Public Service Broadcasting provides my writing with inspiration, ideas, and music.

After I publish this I have three more pieces to work on, so I am not short of subjects and I won't until I am past post 2024.

I don't see the number of my stories as targets but as milestones. If I reach them I will let people know and if I don't it doesn't matter.

Believe it or not, I am not the most prolific writer on Vocal, and I am certainly not the most disciplined. Any shiny new thing can set my words off on a totally unexpected tangent.

I have written at least one story in every Vocal Community, and if any new ones appear, they will give me a new subject to write about.

I was going to drop this story in the Writers Vocal Community, as you are allowed three-hundred-word pieces there, but I do feel that this is more confessional, and has wandered on to hit the six-hundred-word requirement for the Confession Community.

There is no doubt going forward that I will write more articles similar to this. I can't remember the last day I didn't publish a story, but have some long weekends away planned and they mean I don't publish, because I do not write on my phone or Kindle and do not take my laptop with me.

Conclusion

This has just been a stopping point to let my audience and friends know where I am up to at the moment in my literary journey. I have had some ideas for stories and was trawling my catalog for a particular story and was a little shocked as I had already covered several subjects that I had ideas for, I do try to not repeat myself, but If I do redo a subject it is highly likely to be different that my first foray into that area.

The music is "Forward" by Beyoncé and James Blake because I am always trying to keep going forward.

Thank you so much for reading, I really appreciate your support and hope you have taken some ideas from this and the related stories.

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About the Creator

Mike Singleton - Mikeydred

Weaver of Tales, Poems, Music & Love

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Comments (4)

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  • Dharrsheena Raja Segarran4 months ago

    Yayyyyy I'm sooo happy you entered that poem into the Inverse challenge! Looking forward to read more of your year based pieces!

  • Forward ho, my friend!

  • John Cox4 months ago

    I love your thoughts on your process, especially the concept of attempting something outside of our comfort zone, like the reverse poem, as a stretching exercise. Although utterly intimidated by the reverse poem, I have started considering ideas for the attempt. I appreciate the courage of your example.

  • Mariann Carroll4 months ago

    Congratulations 🎉🎉🥳🥰⭐️You are definitely a star in my book. I like the song Forward. You definitely represent the true sense of the word

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