avatarKaren Madej

Summary

Karen, a writer on ILLUMINATION, shares her reflections on a collection of poems and articles by new writers, highlighting pieces that resonated with her emotionally and offering advice on finding writing inspiration.

Abstract

In her weekly column, Karen spotlights a selection of works from emerging writers on the ILLUMINATION platform. She expresses a deep connection with Gloria D. Gonsalves' poem "She Asked the Trees," which evoked a strong emotional response. Karen also appreciates the old-world charm in J. P. Moriarty's "Anthem o’ the Shattered Heart" and the vivid imagery in Saurabh's poem "Apollo 11." She recounts Alex Garrett's transformative experience in phone banking for Bernie Saunders, which led him to change his major to Political Science and pen an insightful article on persuasion. Karen admires Julian Outram's creative process and the effectiveness of using questions to generate ideas. She shares her own strategies for capturing inspiration, emphasizing the importance of recording ideas and sometimes writing in a stream-of-consciousness style. Karen suggests that writers struggling with ideas should engage with other people's work and offers Dr. Mehmet Yildiz's article on writing challenges and prompts as a resource. She also promotes her own writing prompt and Tree Langdon's project as avenues for creative engagement.

Opinions

  • Karen views old trees as sentient beings capable of feeling and possibly possessing wisdom.
  • She was emotionally moved by Gloria D. Gonsalves' poem, which led to tears.
  • J. P. Moriarty's poem stood out for its classic feel and powerful opening verse.
  • Saurabh's poem is praised for its striking imagery of the birth and death of ideas.
  • Alex Garrett's experience demonstrates the power of persuasion and the importance of selling to the audience's needs.
  • Julian Outram's simile and advice on generating ideas through questioning are highly regarded by Karen.
  • Karen emphasizes the importance of recording ideas promptly and the occasional necessity of stream-of-consciousness writing.
  • She encourages reading others' work and using writing prompts, such as those provided by Dr. Mehmet Yildiz and herself, to overcome writer's block.
  • Karen promotes engagement with the ILLUMINATION community and participation in Tree Langdon's project as means to foster creativity and passion in writing.

Weekly Wisdom from Karen

A collection of stories from new writers on ILLUMINATION.

Photo by Alberto Bigoni on Unsplash

This week some excellent poems have caught my eye and caused either goosebumps or tears.

Gloria D. Gonsalves’ piece, She Asked the Trees, spoke to me. I’ve always thought of trees — the really old ones — as sentient — I’m convinced they feel the wind in their leaves and truffles growing between their roots.

Perhaps they are wise too. Gloria’s poem grabbed my emotions. Tears flowed.

J. P. Moriarty’s poem has an olde worlde feel to it. I particularly liked the opening verse. Ouch.

Just collect what you need and get Yourself gone from here, I know you didn’t come to talk But take back the spear — That you left in my heart

Saurabh’s poem creates stunning imagery of poems being killed and others being born!

While phone banking for Bernie Saunders, Alex Garrett discovered he enjoyed changing people’s minds so much he changed his major to Political Science! Alex’s article is an informative, upbeat and entertaining piece. His words of wisdom could be applied to anything you want to sell.

Figure out what is important to your audience, and sell to that need.

Now for some wisdom from a new writer on ILLUMINATION, Julian Outram. I adore his simile:

I’ve spent hours in front of my screen, fingers crawling across the keyboard like a pair of half-dead crabs.

Another wise quote from Julian:

When you discover interesting angles and unexplored avenues of enquiry, you can begin to grow a readership that is curious about what you’ll post next.

Personally, I have — and I hope I’m not nixing or jinxing this — no problems finding topics to write about everywhere!

I make sure my ideas are recorded on my phone voice recorder, or in one of my many notebooks, my desk diary or I’ll just add a title to my drafts online to wait for more inspiration. Sometimes, though, I write stream of consciousness because the words are screaming to get out of my head.

Image Author’s Own

If you struggle to find ideas, as well as asking questions you can also read other people’s work. We all feed off of each other’s creativity here at ILLUMINATION. Plus, you can find all kinds of prompts in Dr Mehmet Yildiz’s article.

One of my own prompts is here.

There’s also Tree Langdon’s project, which you might like to get involved with.

Illumination
Wisdom
Life
Persuasion
Poetry
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