Masyn

Oh good! You’re almost done. Good stuff, huh? One of my favorite poems is the one that starts ‘Roads go ever, ever on, over rock and under tree, by caves where never sun has shone, by streams that never find the sea…’ etc.

Yes please do post a sestina— I tried to make sense of the pattern and I think I got it… heh-heh… maybe… sorta……[Read more]

Just a line of color— a stripe running down the left side, maybe with a few understated feathery looking designs on it, like a picture frame. It probably should be no wider than the width from the left edge of the page to the edge of the white box that says ‘Home: Welcome to the Scratching Quill’.

Does that make sense?

@writefury— thank you! That helps. I see what you’re saying, definitely.

@Daeus… um… that’s a beautiful poem there, Daeus. 😛 😉 I… think I may see what you’re saying. I’ll take your word for it that it’s easy… it certainly doesn’t sound easy! 🙂
Yes! That’s one of the great things about Middle-earth. There’s poetry everywhere, and it…[Read more]

Okay Daeus, thanks! Would you mind pointing out exactly where the lines were wrong?

No, I’ve not heard of a sestina. How does it work?
And I certainly know what you mean about working too hard on the rhyme. I used to think the only good poems were ones that rhymed properly, but now I know better. 😀

By the way, how are you liking all the poetry…[Read more]

Hm… you might try using a more visually appealing font for the text. Also you might consider designing yourself a logo (maybe just a cute little curly quill pen) that goes with the title.

Another thing that might be good is maybe you could make a light border on the left hand side of the page— very understated, not flashy or even really…[Read more]

That’s good— I like that. Hm… shall we polish it now? 😛

‘Upon the things that I have seen; things of beauty, joy, and wonder’

@Emma. That’s certainly a valid concern. I don’t like unrealistic, unhealthy, just peachy love stories either. However— keep in mind that you don’t have to have a ton of personal experience to write about something. Remember, Jane Austen wrote some of the most beautiful and popular love stories ever written, and she never married.
In reading…[Read more]

@Rosey—yes, I agree. There should probably be in most cases a long prior acquaintance before anything gets serious. We covered this on the unrealistic romance topic, but I’ll say it again— we established that there is no such thing as love at first sight, only love and first acquaintance, and that is rare. It only happens when the two people…[Read more]

Good idea— you start. 😛

Oops… I must have missed the ‘only four times’ rule. Sorry about that. Are there even enough poets on here to make that work, anyway?

But moving on.

‘Shall find their way through night and day’

Wow, exciting for you, Daeus! I’ll definitely be keeping up with you. I’ve already glanced over several of the works you have up, and I was impressed.

The one thing I would consider adding to your blog, if it’s possible, is a comments option.

As it is, there are two things I noticed that I wanted to point out to you. My inner spelling Nazi is…[Read more]

There you go, Daues. That’s better.

‘Our questions and our empty words’

Hey… Daeus is starting to use LotR references… must be a good sign… 😉

Good topic, Hope. Daeus got a lot of it, but one thing I would mention is that a quick, very effective way to make someone’s speech sound old fashioned is to play with the sentence structure. Reverse it. It’ll still make sense, but it’ll have a very distinct flavor. For…[Read more]

Personally I prefer both reading and writing 3rd person. I like to develop all the characters on an intimate level, and you can’t get that level of character development with 1st person.

You can get good development with 1st person, it’s just you need a LOT more material to do it. You can’t show a simple scene through each character’s POV.…[Read more]