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“Reasonable action, beats thoughtless reaction”

As a writing prompt, the opposite idea is true, I suppose, because taking reasonable actions is likely to lead to sensible results, no drama, no conflict, all calm … But of course this will lead to a quiet and sensible piece of writing (even boring), and without dramatic things going on, where’s the excitement, where’s the possibility for action packed climactic scenes at the end of the poem or story?

But when you’re writing something more philosophical, and meaningful, reasonable action is the way to go, rather than lashing out, jumping straight in, taking a shot without knowing where the target is!

These thoughts are useful to think about in terms of character development, if writing fiction, and trying to think on what kinds of characters you have to work with, always remembering that characters are generally held to need to change, by the end of a book, or story, in some way.

Of course, generally held truths are always there to be twisted and shaped in ‘other ways’ if the writer wants to, but bear on mind publishers may hold to more traditional views! A character acting in a different way, but lashing out suddenly can be an exciting way to get a story going, and you can then explore in the story what led to that unusual action …

People aren’t robots, and they don’t always do the expected thing. This is what makes life, and writing interesting, exploring those moments when things suddenly get very, very exciting, dangerous, interesting …

If one is a follower of the Stoics, reasonable action is likely to be your way to go for everything. Considered thought, doing the best thing for self, family, friends, community, and the world, whenever possible, is the way to go. Can that attitude always be the way a person, living by Stoic principles, always goes? Well, people, as I wrote previously, aren’t robots, so maybe not.

No-one is born with a Stoic attitude, far from it. Babies are born with a give it to me, don’t care about you, give, give, give attitude, but they quickly learn to love the one who gives them what they want (need), and become more nuanced in the way they may make their demands … Some anyway. And as we get older, we gain more understanding about those nuances that are there, and that need to be thought about.

What might cause such a diversion from the thoughtful wisdom of the Stoic person? Therein lies the interest in a story with such a character … In the weighing up of options, ideas, emotions, and actions, there are many gaps and tweaks that have to happen, all of which add interest. Whether Stoic or not, people are people, and have motivations, sometimes conflicting ones, and so comes the interest in examining people and their actions …

As the John Lennon song goes, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans …”

I hope these ideas might be helpful to writers when thinking about characters, story development, poetry themes, articles …

Inklings – much in small hints, and intuition

Inklings

Writers and poets tend to be people who may see little things, and readily imagine more …  They can make much from little, and can take stories all over the place, adding little bits of this and that, to end up with a great deal story.

Writing poetry can involve concentrating on one tiny aspect of a thing, and delve deeper and deeper into what that ‘thing’ is. I am interested in trees, and have been thinking about how the Australian native – Eucalyptus tree, with imported trees like the pine tree and fir tree. The Eucalyptus is a tree that seems flexible, bending and moving with the wind, like a dancer moving with the flow of music. The non natives seem much more staid and unmoving, standing tall and still in the face of the wind.

These small ideas have lead to the beginnings of a poem, and I am certainly happy with the way my small inklings of thought about trees have taken me on the way toward another new poem. Another thought I’ve had is about ants, and I’m thinking about taking my ant thoughts from a slight interest to a possible obsession …

I’ve always considered ants to be steady workers, who follow in regimented lines, to and from their ant nest. But I’ve been watching ants, recently, and though I’ve certainly found them trooping along in lines, from and back to the nest, there is also a lot of heading off in one direction, turning around, heading somewhere else, then turning again, and again, and again.

I’m going to film the comings and goings at some ant nests in a particular place in my yard. I stood and watched the ants there this morning, and was very interested to watch one ant, carrying something, dark, I don’t know what it was. It seemed to be wanting to take it back to the nest, via one of the five or so holes there, but most of them had ants leaving the nest, and he ant seemed to be waiting for clear passage to offload its burden.

Eventually, it happened, the ant had a clear chance and in it went. I hope the ant got some kid of reward for its patient waiting … Then I saw another ant leave a different hole, carrying a small white pebble, I say ‘small’ but it was almost as big as the ant’s torso … Anyway the ant walked around and around, obviously looking for the best place to put down its burden, and then, there it was, the perfect spot, and the pebble/burden was unloaded, and the ant disappeared again, into the milling masses of other ants.

I can easily see a story happening from these ant ‘inklings’, and others thoughts I’ve been having about ants …

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Intuition

And according to Wikipedia,

“Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.^[2][3] Different writers give the word “intuition” a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.^[4][5]

The word intuition comes from the Latin verb intueri translated as “consider” or from the late middle English word intuit, “to contemplate”.”

Do you ever get feelings about things, like if you do this, that will happen, even though you have no proof, or teachings, that it will be so. Gut feelings, these are often called, where you just get a feeling, and act on it, and it turns out that your gut feeling was correct.

The subconscious mind has access to all of our brain, where there is much more there, awaiting for us if we ever need to access it consciously … the brain is putting together all of the tiny bits and pieces of information being taken in, and putting them together to try to make some kind of sense of things …

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So for today, the two, matched writing prompts are inklings and intuition, have fun with it!

Vision – looks can be deceiving! Visions can be true, or not true. What you see isn’t always what you get …

Adelaide Plains Poets runs a national poetry every year, and this year, the theme is the same as this writing prompt – Vision. So if you’re interested in having your poem considered for a national competition, check out these guidelines, and send in your entry, in accordance with the guidelines.

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 Entry form and guidelines are available here: http://carolyn-poeticpause.blogspot.com/2020/02/adelaide-plains-poets-competition-2020.html

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This writing prompt/competition theme could cover how you see your life going, or it could be about eyes, eyesight, beautiful things, seeing things, dreams. Visions can be imaginary things, or big dreams for great things.

I have a vision of this month of writing prompts bringing me many amazing new and wonderful new poems to put in my next poetry collection!

So, seeing, dreaming, imagining, ‘a vision of beauty’, eyesight, perception, view, and so on. A leader with vision, what a fine thing that is, they will look into the future, and work hard to make their vision come into being.

Do you have a vision of some fine thing happening in the future? Is there something you imagine that you’d like to write about, a vision of loveliness – that could be a person, a car, a landscape, or many other things.

Some people may have visions if they have some kind of mind altering drug … Pink Elephants anyone? Visions might be frightening too, of course, seeing things that aren’t really there … Heat hazes can seem real, visions in the desert …

I hope you will find this writing theme inspires you, and inspired to write interesting things about – ‘VISION‘.

Writing prompt for today – Philosophy, finding meaning for being

Looking into what life is all about, could there ever be a bigger and more important subject than that one to write about? But writing about ‘big’ things, can be done in looking at the small things in life. 

For instance, I have some photos of ants, taken at various times, in various places at my place. And when I have sat on my back veranda, at times, I watch the ants going about their business, steadily going from here, to there, around in circles and back the other way, all over the place. 

I can’t say what they’re doing, but would imagine each ant has a task they’re performing, finding food to take back to ‘base camp’, that would be a main task. I’ve seen ants carrying dead insects at times, and those little ants sure can handle a mighty weight, comparatively speaking.

When I see the ants working, I think about burdens taken on, and worked at, and about resoluteness, keeping on keeping on. I think about humans versus insects like these ants, and ponder the possible options if ever a creative ant came along, wanting to do something different …

Maybe that already happen, and there are ant colonies, where those who go their own way in life, can live and work in more individual ways? Perhaps those ants I see who go in circles, or head off in a different direction than the other ants, are those more individual ants, but, being human, I can’t really know …

Assumptions, ideas, imagining, playing with weird and way out notions, these can lead to interesting ways to be. Do all philosophies in life come from wondering about ways to be, and how things could, or should be to make for ‘the best way’ to live.

Do ants have the philosophy that the ant nest is the most important thing in life? I would think that philosophy is one that many humans would believe in. I personally am quite taken by the philosophy of Stoicism, 2000 years old, and still going strong … I write about it a little on another of my blogs – My Stoic Life

So the writing prompt is – Philosophy, finding meaning for being.