Protected: Metaphor in the Making Unit 2 Blackboard Post
Protected: Metaphor in the Making Unit 1 Blackboard Post
The Inlet’s “Metaphor in the Making” Salon Bio Page
Share a little about yourself. And take some time to settle in and read each other’s bios.
Who’s in the salon? Our group is a mix of writers currently in the Inlet’s Novel Salon, and writers who signed up specifically for “Metaphor in the Making.”
If you want to setup an image so it’s associated with your post, or subscribe to this post (or another), check out the extras page here.
Use these prompts when you write your bio:
- Include the name you’d like us to use, and if you’d like, your chosen pronoun (he/him or she/her or they/them).
- Tell us where you’re from, and if you’d like, include something unique or distinctive about that region (i.e., it may be the home of the largest pancake in the world, or the site of a famous battle, etc).
- Share what you plan on working on while you’re in salon. For example, maybe you’re working on a 2nd draft of a novel, or a book proposal for nonfiction, or a poetry collection. Or maybe you’re just working on a handful of short stories. And if you’re working on a novel or memoir, include genre, title, and (optional!) a short one-to-three sentence logline (no more than 50 words).
- Describe one metaphor that characterizes your writing process.
- And if you’d like, share your own personal “writer’s inlet.” Was there an entry point into your writing practice, one that that helped you come to understand that you not only wanted to write but that it was important and maybe even necessary to write–and possible? Maybe a friend or teacher or other writer said something to you or inspired you in some way? Or maybe your Inlet was something written: a passage in a book that made you think, I can do this! Perhaps you read or heard a story about a writer you loved, or a quote you read or heard that sparked you to enter more deeply into writing as a practice, and inspired you to keep moving forward.
How do you post your bio? Put it in the “Leave A Reply” box as if it were a blog comment.
And if you’re having a hard time seeing the box for the bio, it’s at the bottom of the page. So scroll allll the way down (and read your peers’ posts as you go).
Moving metaphors, sea changes, and confident crafting
As summer winds down, it’s hard not to notice the change in the air—and I’m not just talking about content cat days butting in between sweltering dog days.
I’m talking about the elephants and the donkeys in the room, carrying us someplace new.
Perhaps, like me, you’ve felt moved by the sea change in the zeitgeist? And had a hankering to bottle it. Turn it into ink. Pick up your quill, dip into the well, and write out the shift on the page?
Ah, but how to make sense of it all? Turn being moved by the moment into a piece of writing. Or slip it into an essay, novel, poem, memoir already in the works? Or will it marinate within and find its way over time regardless?
As a writer and creative writing instructor asking herself the same questions, my best answer comes down to this: tune your ear to metaphor, and see where it takes you.
Okay, yes, metaphor is my favorite craft element. So I admit I’m partial. But stay with me and you may become a convert too.
Take “sea change.” Peel back the layers held within and you find a clunky hunk of waterlogged trunk transformed into buoyant driftwood. Changes, once made, that cannot be undone.
Metaphors often resist explanation of whatever we’re trying to get our minds around, such as the big picture “political zeitgeist.” Instead they point to something seemingly unrelated, often concrete and better known, like “changes in the sea.”
They encourage us to compare the two things through detail and relationship—to ponder the transformation of wood into driftwood and how it relates to the change in the political climate.
They work as guides to help us see one thing in terms of another, to illuminate new understanding.
Contrary to popular belief, metaphors are not the province of poets. They’re the kingdom we all live in.
Better yet, you could say metaphors work like the democracy we all have a stake in. Sure, even if we don’t pay much attention to them, they can keep working for us for quite some time.
But if we get lazy, if we don’t shape their usage, don’t recognize how they shape the very world we live in, let alone write about, all we have worked for is at risk of losing its integrity.
Protected: Recommendation Room: Salon Spotlights for 2nd Semester
Protected: Recommendation Room: Salon Spotlights for Unit 3
Protected: Recommendation Room: Salon Spotlights for Unit 2
Protected: Recommendation Room: Salon Spotlights for Unit 1