The time has come to vote for the winner of Crandall’s story contest.  Please click here and read the two stories (one of which is mine), and comment saying which story you think is the best.  I am sincerely hoping you will vote for me (please?).  You have until August 10^th to vote. 

Oh, and I should tell you that you will be able to comment only if you are logged in to your HSB account.  (That could be important.)

Blessings!

~The Poetic Poetess (Oh, so you think it’s redundant.  Let me tell you, you should see me on my un-poetic days…)

Copyright 2008 by Cherise A. M. You must ask me before using any of my stuff, and my name must appear along with the poem or post if you reproduce it.

I did it!  I finally got the new sidebar up!  The only downside is that I had to remove my quizes and most of my fun stuff.  Here are the results of the quizes:

What is your favorite fantasy books(s)?

36 people voted, and these are the books they picked:

• The Lord of the Rings -- 47.2%, or 17 votes
• The Chronicles of Narnia -- 25%, or 9 votes
• Eragon (Inheritance Trilogy) -- 16.7%, or 6 votes
• 11.1%, or 4 people, said that their favority fantasy book was not one of the above.

What do you think of the Inheritance Trilogy? 

19 people voted, and here is what they thought:

• I hate it, don't read it  -- 10.5%, or 2 votes
• Not great, but not horrible -- 15.8%, or 3 votes
• I mostly enjoyed it, with exceptions  --  21.1%, or 4 votes
• I liked it, but don't recommend it to others  -- 5.3%, or 1 vote
• I love it, but it's not my favorite -- 31.6%, or 6 votes
• It's my absolute favorite book!  -- 15.8%, or 3 votes

I now have a little chatbox on my sidebar, for those of you who have nothing relevant to say about my posts but still want to talk to me.  (Just kidding!)    Feel free to leave a message on there!  I have really enjoyed the ones that my friends have, and I hope you like it too. 

~PoeticMaiden

Ok, so I didn't do A'Muse' Me Monday, but I couldn't because the Four Fabulous Females are all sick and couldn't post the prompts.  The other reason I didn't take part in it was because I was just too wiped out from that weekend trip to Nebraska.  (Nebraska is really ugly in the spring - well, actually, most of the time.) 

But I was not entirely without occupation yesterday.  No indeed, I was busy making a story blog for me to use as I take part in the Reach for the Stars Writing Workshop, which is taught by Mrs. Marlow.  The link to my story blog is HERE.  My username for that blog is Storymaiden, in case any of you wanted to know.  I am really excited to take part in this workshop.  I think it will really help to improve my writing skills.

So that's what I have been busy doing since I got back.  Be sure to check out my story blog, and I would be most pleased if you would read the poem about spring that I have posted below.   God bless you all!

I am afraid I feel terribly behind and I keep forgetting stuff.  This post is just to inform all of you who read my blog regularly about what is going on and will be going on in the next few days. 

Booklover has graciously awarded me the Blogging Excellence Award; thank you so much Amy!

I am going to be out of town Saturday and Sunday, and at the moment I am terribly busy, but I will post about who I am going to award this to after I get back.

I also just remembered that I haven't awarded the 'You make my day' award to anybody!  I will also do that when I get back.

Fuzzy Joy is still alive!  A big thank you to everyone who prayed!  She now has enough energy to show her stubborn and willfull nature.  (Just like her mama!)  If you didn't read about this new addition to my life, click HERE.   I will give you the full update soon!  (With pictures, hopefully).

I just started reading Shakespeare and love it!  I am going to probably read a lot of it during my weekend and post about it when I get back.

Be sure to check out the new poll down on my sidebar!  I'm sure all of you fantasy lovers will want to give your opinion.  Also, if you want to elaborate on what you think, you can comment on the poll!  Just scroll down a little and you will see where.   And whoever voted 'other' in the last poll, would you please comment and say what that 'other' choice is?  Thank you.

If any of you scroll down all the way to the bottom of my sidebar you will see a little button that looks like this:

http://fff.thesilvas.com/?page_id=54

This is a fun new meme I discovered that I plan to take part in next Monday!  Click on the link to check it out!

Well, that is about it for now!  I will post a poem or something else tomorrow, and then that will be it until Monday!  God bless you all, and I hope you have a great weekend!

~Poetic Maiden

I now have 101 comments!  Thank you to everyone who commented here on my blog; it has been so fun reading your feedback! 

I finally made it to triple digits!  Hooray!

Hello.  My posting has not been terribly good this week, so I am sorry.  I fear I have acquired a backblog of things that I have wanted to post about but haven't had the time to.  Hence the title of this post.

Writer4him has awarded me the all-new Encouraging Comment award!  Thank you so much, Beth.  I don't exactly know yet how to put the award in this post, but I'm sure you can find it for yourself on the sidebar.  I am awarding it back to her.  She has read my blog regularly and commented on almost every post, and that has really encouraged me.  I want to say, though, that all of you who comment on my blog have so encouraged me to keep going, and I love reading your feedback!  Thank you for reading!  It was really hard deciding who to award the award to, and if I could I would award it to all of you.  But the rule is that you have to pass the award out to only one person, so I can't.   

I want to take the rest of this post to answer some questions that some of you have asked about my poetry.  The first and most common question is:

Do I always write freeverse?

The answer is both yes and no.  Most of my poetry does not have rhyming lines, but a lot of it has a regular meter and lines that are about the same  length.  I am capable of writing regular rhyming poetry, but it does not turn out quite as good.  Rhyming poetry does not come quickly to me, and usually I am trying to get my idea down before the inspiration leaves.

Which leads me to question #2:  How long does it take me to write my poetry? 

Typically between 10 and 15 minutes, although I can spend as short as 3 minutes and as long as an hour on one poem.  When I was writing my sonnet (one and only sonnet, and I hope I don't have to do that again any time soon) I spent a long time on it, probably 2 hours for the initial writing, and that does not count all the corrections that needed to be made over the course of the next several days.  (Hmm...maybe I should post it to see what you guys think?) 

Um, that's all the questions I can remember being asked for the moment.  If you have any others, please comment with your queries and I will try to answer as soon as I can. 

Oh, happy Leap Day tomorrow!  I am afraid I will be running around like a chicken with my head cut off tomorrow, but I will make an effort to post the poem I wrote about February.  (Since it will be the last day of February, an extra-long February.)

Have a good day! (evening? morning? I don't know.  This just goes to show what happens when you try to post with only half a brain awake.  *laughs*)  

The Poetess

I have gotten used to posting every day, and if you read me regularly, then that is what you have come to expect.  Unfortunately, that pattern is going to be broken.  I am going to a retreat in Estes Park for three days, and I don’t think I will have access to a computer.  So I won’t be posting.  As soon as I get back, things will return to the way they have been going.  Hopefully, I will return renewed and with fresh inspiration for poetry (or maybe some other type of composition!). 

Since this blog is titled Poetic Voice, I don’t suppose I could overdo it on the poetry.  But I feel that I could.  I want to also say things of value, such as insights in to life, etc.  I guess I am just in a poetry mood for the moment.

I don’t want to hint at something I want to do in case I never do it, but I have felt that my main line of writing is fantasy fiction.  It just turns out that I am better at poetry.  Despite that, I still feel that I could really do Christian fantasy, if I worked hard at it.  I have stories that I need to get out, so I probably will never completely abandon my effort in that direction. 

Big intro, but what I wanted to say is this: I have seen other bloggers posting their fantasy stories on their blogs, and I figure that I can, too.  I may not have an actual story started yet, but I have the beginnings of one.  If anything significant develops, I will probably post it.  And I have entertained the idea of starting a story just for the blog, with no real intention of publishing it.  I don’t know, what do you think?  Would a story belonging only to the blog be a good idea?  Or should I just start on something serious that I hope to turn into a book, and post bits of that?

I am asking this question based on the presumption that you all would enjoy reading a story written by me, posted in regular installments.  If you think that would make my blog really boring, please say so.  I appreciate anything you have to say.

So, I guess this is farewell!  Blog to you later! 

The Poetess

Hooray!  I have my new template, which writer4him has made especially for me, on her template blog doodlestemplates.  I am absolutely delighted with it!  Thank you, writer4him!  Please comment and tell me what you think of it, and if you need a personalized template, I think she would be more than happy to make one for you.    I breathe a contented sight, for now the look of my blog conveys the feel that I want it too! 

Blogging to you in all joy and happiness,

The Poetess

Oops!  I reread my first post and found an error in the poem.  Where it should say, "A bird up before the dawn starting to sing," it instead says "I bird up before the dawn starting to sing."   lol.  Well, it couldn't be talking about me because I'm never up before dawn.  (chuckle).

Well, writer4him has posted the fourth chapter of her wonderful story here.  You must read it, it is truly fabulous.  You can find the first three chapters on her blog also.

Until the next post then! 

The Poetess