BORING HICCUPS
Between the dark matter of nothing
and the supreme light of God
a pile of dishes must be washed

One soul cries from a pit of despair
another soul cries from the glory of heaven
and I fold a pile of laundry

I wish to be neither and I wish to be everything
I wish to merge into the sublime bliss of love
but a hiccup brings me to now and I sweep the floor

Wondering why enlightenment requires the mundane

Why my journey requires toothaches and dust bunnies

I'm an odd kind of spiritual soldier who battles toothpaste spray on mirrors
Who travels to exotic places like grocery stores
Slaying the beasts with ironing boards of justice
Dousing the evil with Pinesol
Victorious in the daily battles, struggling in the nightly meditations between the sublime and the ridiculous
- Cronin Detzz

POEM: STRING & WING THEORY

Particles and strings
and crow's flapping wings
Create all the illusion of which we sing
Sunsets and golden oak trees ...
Crying babies and war and disease

Wake up and see we are all One
Wake up to the reality that ascension has begun
-Cronin Detzz

Poem: Possessions

An egg timer set to detonate in three minutes
Aromatic roses decaying in the sunshine
Pearls and flowery teacups and pinky fingers

Black and white photo of a vibrant husband
The American flag folded into a crisp triangle
Silver urn on the mantle holds what remains

Mahjong tiles and a ceramic rooster Kitchen gadgets from QVC that she never uses
A recipe card holder hermetically seals her coffee cake instructions
Tupperware lids and gravy boats set sail

Memories crocheted into afghans
Carefully
A mantra for every seam in her cross stitches, "She's going to love this"
Denying her possessions could define her
- Cronin Detzz

ALICE DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Down the rabbit hole
So dark, so dark
Cobwebs and enticements
"Drink this"
"Eat this"

And no amount of anything will fill the void
And no amount of solitude will reconnect her
She knows this, yet she goes anyway

It's all lost, she's all lost
Chasing the rabbit
He is just so damn fast
If he can sew up her shredded soul
If he can stir her up and make her whole
Then yes, she'll keep chasing him down the rabbit hole

All she really wants is to feel normal
To wrap her arms around everything that means home
And never never never let go
-Cronin Detzz

EDIT REDUNDANCIES: YOU HAVE MY WORD

Do you have favorite words that appear repeatedly in your work? There is nothing wrong with that unless it becomes a distraction to your readers.

There 211 appearances of the word "atop" in the "Game of Thrones" series. Granted, I am a fond student of words so I may be hypersensitive to word choices - but I don't believe I'm alone in this. Several occurrences of "atop" within one novel wouldn't be worthy of a blog article, but hundreds of times is a bit irritating to see in a great author's work. Why don't editors point this out?

In Dan Brown's "Lost Symbol," the word "atop" occurs 26 times. Items can certainly be perched atop objects, but Brown even uses it to explain that a character's name is "atop the letterhead" on some business stationery. In his novel "Inferno," atop appears a more respectable 11 times. I really enjoy his books so it surprises me that these redundancies exist.

More annoying was the frequent use of the expletive "My God" in Brown's "Lost Symbol." The phrase was used 29 times: 10 times in dialogue and 19 times as a character's thought. If this phrase were connected with only one character, then it could be argued that it was his catch-phrase, similar to a modern teenager's incessant use of the word "like." ("Like, son, that's like annoying.")

I did like Brown's adjective "elegant" to describe an erudite, well-groomed supporting character, but he used this word 24 times in "Lost Symbol." Hey - he also used it 24 times in "Inferno" - I've decoded Dan Brown's hidden mystical symbolism! There are 24 hours in a day, too. I'm seeing a noble pattern...

One of my favorite authors, Gregory Maguire of the word-famous Wicked series, seems to like the word "fury." He only uses it 4 times in "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" (a great book - please read it). He sprinkles some fury here and there in "Mirror Mirror," a revamping of Snow White's tale set in Italy. Lucretia Borzia is the wicked stepmother - it's a splendid read.

By the way, George R.R. Martin uses "fury" 116 times in his "Game of Thrones" series. That's 5 books and it was well-placed and not overly used. It's a great word and I plan on using it in my work in progress.

I'm trying to be cognizant of word redundancies. In my last book, as yet unpublished, my Achilles heel was "wonderful" and I have done a wonderful job obliterating its use. Well, mostly.

What words have repeatedly slipped through your work? How did you catch it? Please leave a comment below, I'd love to hear from you.

Keep writing & keep sharing! - Cronin Detzz

HAVE YOU WRITTEN YOUR EPITAPH?

As a writer, you may have given thought to your epitaph. If you are a poet, why don’t you write a little something to encapsulate what you are all about? Even if you don’t want a headstone, you could still write a poem and seal it in an envelope, with instructions to a trusted love one to open the mysterious envelope upon your “graduation day” to the afterlife.

Here is mine:

Life is brief and fairly fleeting
at the end, there should be no grieving
Moving on to learn all that can be known
open eyes see all that can be shown

Beautiful bliss, basking in the blue
Unstruck chord plays just for you
Sunshine bright below and above
There lies everything
in nothing but love

Please leave a comment below and share your epitaph. This poem was published in “Poetry for Our Time.” You can peek inside at Amazon: "Poetry for Our Time"

Keep writing & keep sharing – Cronin Detzz

PLOT TWISTS

PLOT TWISTS: WHAT EVERY WRITER NEEDS TO KNOW

After struggling for some time with writer’s block on my current work in progress about an uprising, I jumped ahead to playing with plot twists. Yes! It’s okay to jump ahead and write what you can.  See more about fragmented writing here.

I’m not going to reveal my twists, but I will say that I implanted a red herring. My goal is to have the reader be very angry at the corrupt villain. This particular villain deserves to be detested, but the real villain – the powerful deceiver who is pulling all the strings – is not revealed until well after the mid-point.

Think about some of your favorite movies, and you will surely get some ideas for plot twists and surprise endings. “Book of Eli,” starring Denzel Washington, has a fabulous surprise ending. My husband and I pride ourselves in picking out Hollywood’s plot twists, so we watched the movie again. We wondered how we could have missed such a vital clue about Eli. You may have felt the same sense of wonder after M. Night Shyamalan’s “Sixth Sense.”

“HOW DID I MISS THAT?”

K. M. Weiland writes a fantastic blog. I admire her because she shares my vision of helping other writers. In her post about writing killer plot twists, she states that plot twists not only need to be unique and executed cleverly, they “must also not take away from re-readability.” This is sound advice for anyone who may want to re-read your book.  Your readers should be asking themselves, “Wow, how did I miss that? I need to go back and re-read the clues. A link to Weiland’s blog is below.

You can click on a blue button to create a random plot twist by visiting pantomimepony (link below). It offers ideas like, “The sister marries the vicar,” or “The social worker unintentionally burns the note, believing it to be cursed.”

A link to an infographic can be seen by clicking the “Awesomer” link below. Many of these twists have been done before, and I wouldn’t advise literally using them, but they are definitely worth a glance because these pictures can get your brain moving in creative directions. For instance, one fun twist is the “robot reveal,” (think Schwarzenegger’s “Terminator”) but a twist you’ll want to avoid is “it was all a dream.”

As a matter of fact, if you are concerned that your twist is trite, read Huffington Post’s blog (link below). Here, you’ll find taboos such as: don’t tell us the aunt is really the mother or that Darth is Luke’s father. I cannot comment on some of this blogger’s pet peeves because I haven’t read some of the books listed, but I do agree that a twist/surprise ending should not be, “oh, never mind, that guy’s just crazy.” This kind of ending is in danger of punching all the teeth out of a story. I do offer this counterpoint: “Fight Club” pulls it off brilliantly. Read the book.

Writers should especially remember to structure the twist so that readers do not feel cheated. Sprinkle a bit of foreshadowing, water it with a few subtle clues, and have fun.

What are some of your favorite plot twists?

Keep writing & keep sharing! – Cronin Detzz

See the link to K. M. Weiland’s plot twist blog at:http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/2013/07/5-ways-to-write-killer-plot-twist.html

Random plot twist generator:  http://writers-den.pantomimepony.co.uk/writers-plot-twists.php

The awesomer infographic:  http://theawesomer.com/42-essential-plot-twists/21034/

Huffington Post’s 7 awful plot twists:   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/14/7-awful-plot-twists-were-_n_1148717.html