NaBlPoMo and away we go

Well here we are, November, time of Thanksgiving and good intentioned blog posting for NaBloPoMo aka National Blog Posting Month. I want prizes!

The tickler for today is "What is your favorite part about writing?"

I have not written fiction in a very long time, probably about 3 years. I write a lot of non fiction in the form of acedemic papers. I miss writing fiction. One of the things I am looking forward to if I ever finish school is writing for pleasure. My favorite part of writing for pleasure is creating characters. I enjoy inventing interesting people and breathing life into them. I also enjoy finding the perfect word, the word that conveys exactly what I want to say no more, no less.

I often have a hard time paring down my writing. I read an excellent book on concise writing called "Writing Down the Bones" By Natalie Goldberg and it has helped me make my writing more spare. My natural resting place, however, is verbose. I like the idea of making my writing be the minimum most clean it can be, practice however, eh.

I like writing metered poetry, I like the constraint and the creativity it encourages.

I will leave you with one of my favorite poems of all time, not mine but Pablo Neruda's

I love it not just for the beauty of the words but also the perfect way it speaks to a love I have experienced, simply elegently perfectly described:

Sonnet 17

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be
loved,in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

The above is a salt rose