Annie Neugebauer

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Prosers: How do you decide when to listen to critique feedback, and when to let it wash over you? Have you ever had an experience that made you question your own judgment?

Sonneteers: Thanks so much for joining me! Writing a sonnet is no easy feat, and I really admire your courage in giving it a try. Hopefully it was a positive experience for you, even if you didn’t come out with quite what you expected. I wish you the best of luck in your future poetry endeavors.

In case you’ve missed it, here’s the whole series:

Intro to Sonnet Building 101
Sonnet Building Step 1: “Gathering DNA”
Sonnet Building Step 2: “Structuring a Skeleton”
Sonnet Building Step 3: “Filling out the Flesh”
Sonnet Building Step 4: “Muscle Sculpting”
Sonnet Building Step 5: “Final Dress” (above)

I hope you’ve all had a great National Poetry Month!

Posted in Advice for Poets | Tagged Poetry, Sonnet building series | 6 Comments

Sonnet Building Step 4: “Muscle Sculpting”

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

[Just here for the prose talk? Click here to skip down.]

Hello sonneteers!

How are you guys? Doing okay? Where is everybody in the process? Judging from both the crickets in the comments and a few of you that I’ve spoken to personally, I’m sensing some anxiety, hesitation, and general malaise. That’s no good!

I’d planned on today’s post being about editing and revising on your own, so I will hit on that below, but first I’d like to get a read on your individual processes and how I can help. If you’d like to contact me privately, you can email me at annie_07@alumni.utexas.net and I’ll do my best to help. Others likely have the same question, though, so feel free to ask in the comments. And on top of that, I thought I’d take a look at some of the various things that might be giving you trouble, and offer some possible solutions in advance. Here we go.

You’re afraid your sonnet will suck.

Okay, I get this. And here’s the truth: it might suck. (What? It’s true! There are a lot of really crappy sonnets out there.) But the answer to that is…. So what? Who gives a flip if it sucks? Not me. And you shouldn’t, either. No one has to read it if you aren’t happy in the end. And to very loosely paraphrase Alfred Lord Tennyson: It is better to have tried and failed than to never try at all.

In other words, take a risk. We can’t broaden ourselves or our abilities unless we’re willing to try new things and risk failure.

You’re afraid you’re doing it wrong.

But that’s an easy one because… there is no way to do it wrong! I once wrote a sonnet in trochaic tetrameter, and I absolutely love it! You can write sonnets in blank verse (meaning there is no rhyme), break meter, change the line lengths, and even change the rhyme scheme. And don’t count on getting one of these accepted to a traditional sonnet contest, but if you want to, you can even delete entire lines or stanzas!

My point here is that you don’t need to be aiming for a “perfect” sonnet. What you might aim for instead is a sonnet that you can make your own. Don’t like your opening stanza but can’t figure out how to fix it? Cut it. Need a triplet instead of a couplet at the end? Add it. Love your concept but hate your rhyme? Try turning it into blank verse, free verse, or even a prose poem. Always remember this: the form works for you; you don’t work for the form.

This isn’t fun anymore.

Okay, there are two likely sources for this problem. 1) You feel like you’re doing homework, and if you don’t have time that week, you feel like I’ll be mad at you. Solution: That’s just not true. Please don’t feel guilty or like you need to apologize if you get behind the weekly post. This is for you all, remember? Just do it when you can.

Or… 2) You chose subject matter about as interesting as Hugh Heffner’s insoles. (I don’t know.) Solution: Start over, using an idea that makes you excited.

You’re intimidated by other sonnets you’ve read.

This is just human nature. We naturally compare ourselves to others. But in this case, that does no good. Once you’ve written a dozen sonnets and gotten some published, etc., maybe then comparison can have value. But now? Knock it off. You don’t need to compete. This is just for you.

You’re embarrassed by what you have so far.

Again: no one has to read this but you.

You can’t come up with your ending.

The cause of this problem is likely rooted in your initial DNA. Remember? If you really can’t find a closing, try brainstorming new ideas. Alternatively, try a softer couplet. I know I stressed the punch-line, but there are subtle versions of that, too.

You can’t come up with your beginning.

So you came up with your ending first, like I suggested. The problem now is that you can’t figure out how to open it! Solution: ask yourself questions. Who? When? Where? Why? How? What? If you start answering these, you’ll find details to set up your close pretty quickly.

You’re getting all tripped up on meter.

This is where the fast draft comes in handy. Don’t worry about meter right now; just write the content. You can go back with your rhymer and thesaurus later to help smooth out the meter.

And for those of you who aren’t having those problems, let’s move right along with Step 4: Edit and Revise On Your Own (aka “Muscle Sculpting”). *This is a great time for you to catch up if you stalled at step 3!

You know how I was a meanie and wouldn’t let you edit as you drafted? Now’s your chance to address those parts that you knew were crap even as you wrote them.

The best way to self-edit is to release your natural defensiveness. Maybe a mantra will help, like, “The need to make a change doesn’t mean I’ve failed.” Now read your poem, and as you read, put a mark next to every word or phrase or line that feels off. Don’t overanalyze why just yet. Just allow yourself to read and be honest: what needs work?

Then you can go in try to polish things up. This is where your thesaurus and rhymer come in handy. Give yourself time, and try out different things. Think of it as a slow-motion puzzle. If you get frustrated, take a break.

And if you find yourself feeling a lot of anxiety about changing a line, try pasting it to the bottom of the page. That always helps me. That way if I can’t come up with something better, I always have the old version to fall back on. Experimenting is a lot easier if you have a safety net.

Posts in the Sonnet Building series:

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Prosers: Today’s topic is short one: doing everything you can on your own before you ask for outside help. I think it’s a must. What do you think?

Sonneteers: This week’s task is to play with your poem. Revise, edit, tweak, and mess with it until you feel relatively satisfied that you’ve done all you can on your own.

And by all means, if you need help with any step in the process – ask!

Posted in Advice for Poets | Tagged Poetry, Sonnet building series | 2 Comments

Fear, Pain, and Writing

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

I am so honored today to be hosted at Fear of Writing by the lovely Milli Thornton. The post, “Facing My Fear of Writing Through Pain,” is a follow-up to the post “Writing Through Pain” that I wrote last year for Beyond the Margins (another great honor). In it, I talk about what happened when I finally did sit down and write out that grief. It’s a very emotional and (hopefully) uplifting post. I hope you’ll visit me there.

Posted in The Art | 2 Comments

Sonnet Building Step 3: “Filling out the Flesh”

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

[Prosers, click here if you want to skip down to the prose part.]

Fellow sonneteers! So far we have come up with our ideas, jotted down our thoughts, and given our poems a framework. Now comes the inevitable. It is time to pound out that first draft.

So this might be a good time to review the basics. You already have your rhyme-scheme framework (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG). And I briefly mentioned iambic pentameter, which means that each of those 14 lines will consist of ten syllables alternating unstressed-stressed (duh-DUH, duh-DUH, duh-DUH, duh-DUH, duh-DUH).

How important are these “rules”? Not very. Especially not if this is your first sonnet. Even Shakespeare broke meter in his sonnets, and if he can do it, we can too. Besides that, a lot of professional poets will tell you that they think irregular meter can make a poem more interesting anyway. So unless you’re a fixed-form purist or entering a sonnet contest that specifies a strict adherence to meter, don’t sweat the small stuff, baby. It’s all good.

Writing the rough draft is a scary stage for many people. And like so many scary things in life, sometimes the best way to face it is by diving in head-first. The most important thing, for me, is to write it quickly. Just like with prose: you are not allowed to edit as you write. Editing is what you do after you write. What does this mean for poetry? It means that you out-write your fear.

This is not the time to get hung up over imperfect meter or stuck because you can’t make a word fit where you want it. This is the time to stick “wond’ring” in because “wondering” doesn’t have the right number of syllables. It’s the time to allow weak phrases or even weak lines knowing that you can fix them later. Power through. No excuses.

A few things that might help you as you draft:

Your lines do not have to end where your clauses or sentences end (in other words, the ends of your lines don’t have to be periods or commas). There is a practice called enjambment that means the end of a line runs right into the beginning of the next with no break, and it’s not only acceptable but often time desired and/or advanced. So if your thought isn’t finished at the end of your line, no problem: just keep on going.

Remember, your lines don’t have to be perfect iambic pentameter. This means you can break meter as well as have some lines that are 9 or 11 syllables long, if need be. John Milton was a great user of what are called truncated lines – where the first unstressed syllable is missing – and if he can do it, you can too.

Can’t figure out what rhymes with a word? Try this free online rhyming dictionary.

Still can’t find a rhyme? No worries! There is such a thing as slant rhyme (also known as near or impure rhyme), and it can be a useful tool. This, again, might not fly in a traditional sonnet contest, but is a perfectly acceptable practice among modern sonneteers. Near rhymes are words like “set” and “trek” or “slither” and “lather” that don’t perfectly rhyme but still have sounds that ring similarly to the ear. So if you get stuck on finding a perfect rhyme, try out a near rhyme and see what you think.

Need help with terminology? Ask below, or see if this post about poetry basics answers some of your questions.

Feeling down? Thinking about giving up? Here’s a word from my own poetry mentor about the value he’s found in learning to write fixed-form poetry.

And remember, this is supposed to be fun. If it stops being fun and starts being frustrating, take a break. Come back to it the next day. You have a whole week, so go easy on yourself. Everything is tricky the first time you try it. Best of luck!

Posts in the Sonnet Building series:

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Prosers: What’d I love to hear about today is your opinion on the value of a speedy first draft. Most fiction writers are familiar with this due to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but it doesn’t have to be done only in November. Not to mention that 50,000 words is quite a bit too short for most publishable novel genres, so do the people who do this slow down in December or continue to power through?

I have long been a believer in the power of a quick rough draft. As I said above with the sonnet writing, I think there is something to be said for out-writing your fear. And there is a surprising amount of fear in drafting a new project: Is it good enough? Will I find time to finish it? Will anyone ever read it? Am I messing it up with this scene? The list is endless, and sometimes the best way to ignore those nagging questions is to drown them out with the endless clatter of a keyboard.

Here are a few tips that might help when a quick first draft is the goal:

I love Natalia Sylvester’s idea to write blindfolded.
Keep a “Thoughts” document separate from your draft. Whenever you have an idea (Hey! I could make her have blue eyes instead and it would symbolize…), a doubt (Is this character too whiny?), or a revision note (Remember to go back and check for consistency with this wound), just jot them down and close the document. That way you won’t be tempted to make those changes during your drafting instead of after you’re finished.
Turn off your internet while you’re writing. Most keyboards have a button for this so you don’t have to actually unhook your router or anything; it looks like a tower with waves coming out of the top.
Don’t research while you draft. Not sure if you character’s gun holds 6 bullets or 8? Instead of getting online to look it up right now, make use of your “comments” feature (under “review” in Microsoft Word) and make a note to check this later. Use your best guess now, confirm later. This way you don’t get lost in Internet Land instead of typing. (Do those little bubbles bother you? Go to “Final” –> unclick “Show Markup.” Voilà. Hidden until you want them.)
Keep your hands on the keyboard. This might be a little extreme, but if you really need to crank out some words, refraining from using your mouse can help ensure you do nothing but write.

I do think, however, that there are times to slow down and think things out. But how do you know when those times are?

What are your experiences with fast drafting? Do you like it? Hate it? And how do you know when to say “slow”? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Sonneteers: This week’s “assignment” is to write the rough draft of your sonnet.

How are you all doing so far? Need a word of encouragement? Have questions? Share below!

Posted in Advice for Poets | Tagged Poetry, Sonnet building series | 5 Comments

Sonnet Building Step 2: “Structuring a Skeleton”

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Annie Neugebauer

[Not feeling the sonnet stuff? Skip to the prose discussion. ]

Now that you have gathered the DNA for your sonnet, it’s time to connect the knee bone to the thigh bone, so to speak. But before you get all overwhelmed: we aren’t writing yet. Don’t forget to breathe. =) Also, your skeleton will have gaps. That’s okay. Preferable, even. Too much structure can make it hard to go where your creativity takes you.

Now I am going to assume that most of you are more comfortable with prose than with verse. Given that assumption, jotting down your idea in paragraph form doesn’t sound so scary, does it?

Open up a Word document (or get out a notepad). Using the idea that you’ve chosen to write about as the seed, start writing. It doesn’t have to be in order, and it doesn’t have to be concise, well-worded, or perfectly logical. It can be in fragmented sentences if you want. Just get all of the thoughts you have down in text. Do keep in mind what we talked about last time: working toward the “punch-line” (couplet). Once again, no one is going to see this part of your process, so don’t censor yourself and don’t worry about quality or making it sound just right.

At this point, I search my paragraph for potentially rhyme-able words that carry enough significance to be used in the poem. I bold and highlight them for easy reference. I usually don’t end up using all of these, and I use several that I didn’t find at first. (If you’re interested, you can watch me build this sonnet snippet below to completion in my archives of last year’s NaPoMo series.)

A note about rhyming words: due to the fact that sonnet lines are in iambic pentameter (meaning they consists of a series of unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables – another word for stressed here is emphasized), your end rhyme words must be stressed. In other words, they need to be “sharp” notes, like door, stand, or the last syllable in convey – not “weak” notes like the 2nd syllables in running, silent, or happy. If you pick a rhyming word that’s unstressed, you’ve set yourself up for imperfect meter. So go for stressed words that lots of things rhyme with. It might look something like this:

I don’t realize there’s a man in my car until I’m almost to the door. He is shadowy and sitting in the driver’s seat. I stare at him in shock from only a few feet away and he smiles. Panicked, I use my car remote to lock the door. The mechanical click rings through the dark, empty parking lot. He reaches up with long thin fingers and unlocks it—the sound is muted. I begin to back away as I thumb the “lock” button again. He unlocks it again from inside the car. I am speeding backwards now, stumbling on my feet. He is laughing through the silence of the car window. This is a game to him. I lock the door. He unlocks it. I lock it. He unlocks it. I lock it—but this time there is no mechanized click. I realize that I am too far away now; the battery can’t reach anymore. I glance around me. The parking lot is empty and the store is closed. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to run. With that sickening grin, he pulls up the manual lock from the inside and opens the car door.

You’re almost finished with step 2! Hang in there.

Next I make my template. I usually take a couple of lines from another sonnet to get my mind into the meter of the form. (In your head, iambic pentameter sounds like: “duh-DUH, duh-DUH, duh-DUH, duh-DUH, duh-DUH.”) I put these at the top for reference. It just helps my rhythm.

Then I lay out the rhyme scheme. In poetry, rhyme scheme is traditionally signified by letters. Thus “A” lines would rhyme with other “A” lines, “B” lines would rhyme with each other, etc. I have the rhyme scheme laid out for you below. (The G’s are indented because couplets on Shakespearean sonnets often are. It’s just stylistic. You can ignore that, if you want.)

Finally, I fill in some of the highlighted words from above where I think they might be useful. (This always changes though.) Here’s what it looks like now:

sample lines for rhythm:

My brother had a frog with four webbed feet—
a gift. My mother wouldn’t touch the thing,

Title

A    door
B    dark
A    store
B    park

C
D smile
C
D while

E
F
E
F

G car
G far

Posts in the Sonnet Building series: