A recent challenge at the Golden Pen Writers Guild was to write something in a style or genre that you’re not used to. For me, that’s rhyming poetry — I just can’t get onboard with it. The particular form I used (not sure what it’s formally called; leave me a comment if you know) was something I found in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, believe it or not, and it seemed interesting to me. I guess it would be AAbbA? Whatever. I guess I don’t feel too bad about how it turned out either …

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Another writing assignment at the Golden Pen Writers Guild. The assignment started with going around the room and each person beginning “I was once ….” The second half was filled in by the person sitting to the right. I’ve been reading a lot of ancient Greek and Roman classics lately, so I sorta went with that flavor. My writing prompt is revealed at the very end of this post … Continue reading →

As one goes through life,
unexpected, unconnected experiences
serve to trigger later behaviors.

As a child, I thought one way:
something’s dull beyond belief, or
“This is the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
Maybe “If I can’t do x I’ll just die,” or
“If y got something, why not me?”

But life has a habit
of throwing curves that bend one’s thoughts
onto pathways formerly unseen.
Experiencing things that never occurred to you
in your hazy past.

And then one day you’re someplace
and something deep inside comes back.
You look around and realize
what once was “wrong” now seems so “right”—
and you have come full circle.

© 2014 Douglas P. Kendrick, all rights reserved.