“A Day at the Beach” by Constance Brewer Whiteline Woodblock print 11 x 12.5 inches Stonehenge paper Daniel Smith watercolors
The summer issue of Gyroscope Review is out! A perfect lazy-summer-day read. You can pick up a copy on Amazon. Please leave us a review after you’ve read through the awesome work by our summer poets.
Submissions for the Fall Issue open today also. Last fall’s Crone Issue was so well-received that Gyroscope Review has decided
to do it again.
The Crone
Power Issue.
This time, there will not be regular submissions alongside
the themed submissions. All submissions must be dedicated to the theme of what
it is to identify as a woman over the age of 50 – the power, the satisfaction,
the intricacies of being a woman over 50 in today’s society.
Women poets over 50 remain an underrepresented group and we are here to say that must change. Those who identify as Women over 50, we want to hear from you. This is your issue.
( We will return to regular poetry submissions for our Winter 2020 issue. )
Clouds in the Big Horn Mountains close enough to touch. Welcome to Thermopolis. Thermopolis hot springs. Yes I had to touch. A return trip to soak is in order.Wind River Canyon waterfall hidden in a crevice.Wind River fishing below the Boysen Reservoir Dam.Red Canyon, the camera doesn’t do it justice. Oregon Trail ruts. I swear they’re there. I just wasn’t tall enough to photograph them over the sagebrush.Storm coming in over the Rockies.Historical gold mine at South Pass.
Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where my story is?
There I was, skipping merrily down the path, sun shining, the
birds maniacally tweeting, and my brand new sneakers soft and bouncy. The path
ended abruptly. I smacked face first into a brick wall, bending my nose 20
degrees out of joint. Where did this brick wall come from, you ask? Why, I put
it there myself. 2/3rds of the way through the Newest Fantasy Novel, my little
happy boat ‘o progress sank like a concrete mafia block with my characters tied
to the sides.
I was stuck.
And not even at a hard part. I was stuck on something that I had
written in the rough draft that sounded fine at the time, but now needed
tweaking. My tweaker wasn’t working. I made four attempts at
cleaning/scrubbing/spackling over the problem area. Nothing took. Me being me, I
went back to the beginning of the novel and read it all again, 35 chapters.
Along the way I went Oh. Hmm. I didn’t realize I did that. Wow, so that’s where
that section derails.
I found my lost thread hidden several chapters back from the
problem. I gave it a yank and it flopped out of the novel to hit me in the face
like a wet fish. Here, dummy, this is where you need to be to get unstuck up
the creek. I had been trying to write past the end point of the issue. Right
there, in my problem paragraph, was the end of the chapter. I was just too
caught up in making it conflict-y, lean and spare that I failed to take the
idea to its logical conclusion. So I went back to the inciting thread, expanded
that part a bit more, so that what comes later makes more sense. I expanded
problem paragraph past its anorexic roots, and it worked. The paragraph was
happy, I was happy. All is right in my imaginary world. Onward!
Moral of my story, it works for novels, and for poems.
Lately I’ve been editing my poems with a chainsaw, when maybe some pruning
shears would have been better. Seed, water, let it grow, then prune. Or if
necessary, add fertilizer and let it expand. Within reason, because man, if you
add too much, or the wrong kind, that stuff can stink. Don’t let your writing
stink. Be a good gardener. Oh, and planting a flower or two along the way for
later enjoyment never hurts.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. George Bernard Shaw
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. Seneca
Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was. Jackson Pollock
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through. Wislawa Szymborska
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae. Kurt Vonnegut
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. Franklin P Jones
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. Anais Nin
Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed. Michael Pritchard
People ask for criticism, but they only want praise. W Somerset Maugham
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. A. A. Milne
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us. Herman Hesse
The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust
Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me. Sigmund Freud
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited. Plutarch
A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to
communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to
share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he
wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different
from others. Leo Rosten
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving
of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found
anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. Buddha
Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something. Thomas A. Edison
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. G.K. Chesterton
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work. Kahlil Gibran
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. Douglas Adams
Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing. Robert Benchley
Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there. Thomas Berger
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. Albert Camus
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. Sir Barnett Cocks
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite. Paul Dirac
The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. Terry Pratchett
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou
If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. Stephen King
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. Toni Morrison
I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged. Erica Jong
