4th Halloween Poem Contest – 1st Group Of Submitted Poems —

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/

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Please respect each authors’ and poets’ copyright. The rights remain with the writers. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from each of the poems author’s is strictly prohibited and violates copyright laws in the country you are reading this work in as well as in the country you are trying to re-publish this work in. – Aurora Jean Alexander

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Punkie Night – by Kyt Wright

They’d wander round with spectral light, dressed with intent to cause a fright and once did call it Punkie night,

You modern tricksters ready to receive sweet treats upon All Hallows Eve are mere erzatz witches, no spells to weave.

You go from house to house and door to door with no respect for pagan lore.

Days gone lantern-light there to protect with costumes hiding poor souls from fear that darkness might resurrect some goblin or fiend of foul aspect.

The bravest ventured into the night to banish spectre, ghoul or fearsome wight.

Yes Halloween has a darker mien, our old world had things best left unseen.

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A Prelude to Trick-or-Treat – by Ellen L. Buikema 

Running up and down the aisle
Pulling clothing off the rack
I find the Ninja Princess

Pushing metal cart on wheels
Singing loud at all who shop
People raise their eyes amused

Grabbing bags of mini bars
Paying at the register
Coins jingle in my pocket

Staring at bike and basket
Wishing for a vacuum pump
I should don the costume now

Smooshing poofs of fabric down
Flowing over handlebars
Luscious candy calls my name

Lightning bursts above my head
Stuffing goodies in my shirt
Chocolate melts at what degree?

Rushing home to beat the rain
Cascading water drenches
I look down and shake my head

Tearing off wet clothes inside
Trying to hold back my tears
I look about my closet

Hiding on a lower shelf
Smiling unexpected find
Eye patch and matching parrot

Gliding ‘cross the bedroom floor
Winking at the mirror bright
I am the ninja pirate

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Halloween – by “AllThingsUncanny“

It’s finally Halloween
It’s that time to either cry or scream
It’s when scary creatures reign supreme
Monsters and goblins gobbling up ice cream
Mischievous witches holding their magic beans
On the black carpet glides the headless queen
Leprechauns dancing they call them the thirteen
The ghosts dance too but remain always unseen
Here comes the ghoul tapping on the tambourine
Look there little clowns jumping on the trampoline
It’s the time when vampires come out to scheme
Beasts, ogres, and humans mingling or so it seems
Someone threatens the wolverine with shaving cream
It’s finally Halloween
Make time to be part of a villain’s regime

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Samhain’s Song – Etheree, Double Etheree, Etheree – by Colleen M. Chesebro

Glad
children
prepare for
Trick-or-Treat fun,
never really
knowing the truth behind
the festival of Samhain—
where the ancestors arrive home
while we wear costumes to avoid harm
confounding the good souls from the evil.

As
the Veil
thins, we see
remnants of long
lost ancestors and
the good neighbors who sing
hauntingly sweet songs of old.
For those who hear the fairies chant
countless men will agonize and wail,
all for the love of those dulcet sweet sounds.
The Samhain sun descends into the realm
of the underworld where death’s dark lord
no longer controlled by the sun,
walks on the earth unfettered.
Spirits of the long dead
saunter forth, searching
for weary souls
to possess.
Stay safe
now.

Our
bonfires,
lit ablaze,
as red flames leap—
blessing a new year
for all pagans to keep.
While the sun’s journey across
the skies swallow up the bright light,
The lord of darkness reigns unsurpassed
until Beltane’s soft warmth brings back the sun.

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4th Halloween Poem Contest – Start!

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/

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It’s

October 10, 2018

1st Day of the 4th Halloween Poem Contest, here on ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’.

It has started!

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Every author and poet are invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture and a link to their website and/or blog.

There are a few rules to follow:

1. Your poem needs a Halloween theme.
2. Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.
3. Your poem has to be delivered to my email address between October 10 and Halloween, October 31, 2018, 9 pm Central Standard Time.
4. Your poem has to be delivered together with your picture and a link to your blog/page.
5. Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture and link.

The contest starts October 10, 2018 06.00 am and ends October 31, 2018 09.00 pm Central Standard Time!!

Please, deliver your poem and your picture to my email address within this time frame, neither earlier, nor later. Poems arriving outside these 3 weeks will be disqualified.

aurorajean.alexander@aol.com

We’re looking forward to your poems! Write away, ladies and gentlemen, we are ready!

A. J. Alexander

Murder In My Book

“There are two kinds of people who sit around all day thinking about killing people…mystery writers and serial killers. I’m the kind that pays better.”

― Richard Castle ―

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I’m not a mystery writer, and I keep hoping not too many of my characters in my book will end up dead. Let’s say, the one or other tragic death is barely to avoid, but I’m working on it. Now, by thinking about it: as a fantasy writer I do have the chance to kill as many of the bad guys as I want; does that count too?

Above I purposely used the term “too many of MY characters…”. When I started to write my series I knew one main character. The more I worked on this woman, and with her, the more I got a liking of her. She is someone special. At first, I didn’t know exactly where she came from and who she is. By now I know her inside and out, and her complexity, stubbornness and unique good heart made me love her like a very, very good friend.

As I continued writing more and more characters showed up. I had the chance to work with them as well, develop them, know them better with each book and each one of them grew on me. I’m currently working on book seven and eight in the series, and unfortunately, I know one of the characters I love so much will have to die. I knew it two books ago already, but I tried to ‘sneak’ around it, well knowing that I’m trying to defer the inevitable death of one of my favorite characters. The question isn’t “who needs to die?” The question now is: “How is this character going to die?”

What am I supposed to do? Yes, of course, I can write about an unthinkable ferocity to kill my character. Would this be a nice thing to do to one of my favorites? Of course not. But I’m a writer, and I’m afraid death isn’t a nice and pretty issue, to begin with. I guess, the main thing at this moment will be that it matches the book and fits the story! In a moment like this I’m not supposed to be the protector of my characters but the writer who paints a story with words; a writer who works with the characters, the situations, the opponents, the protagonists and antagonists she created!

Does that make me feel any better? I’m afraid not. It’s heartbreaking to even think of my character gone. No matter how I’m going to manage it – wait… I should say, how the antagonist is going to kill my character, I’ll be heartbroken. I had so many plans with this particular character, and that’s how it will end? The answer is yes. Unfortunately, that’s how it is going to end. I have a pretty good idea of how the killing will happen.

But there is one thought I can barely get right of. It won’t be the cruelness of the antagonist, the torture, the pain, the sweat and blood, the hope to be saved in the last minutes; it won’t be the eerie laughter of the opponent, the sharply metal forged blade that will turn my character’s death into a horrible murder. No matter how horrifying and inhuman I create the antagonist, how cruel, how sadistic and incredibly gruesome it will be, the murderer of my character is going to be me.

Am I going to drown in guilt, cry in my pillow and drink my tears? We shouldn’t get overly dramatic here. I’m a writer, not a ten-year-old girl who accidentally broke her Barbie doll. I create worlds, existences, characters, protagonists, and antagonists, but most of all, I create gripping and exciting stories. And once in a while death goes with it.

I think that’s the only parallel from my stories to real life: death belongs to life. And sometimes, if we don’t get ‘rid’ of old stuff, how can we make room for something new?
It took me a while to decide which one of my characters will have to go. But I won’t sink into depression. I know, there’s room now for someone new.

How do you handle the killing of one of your characters? Do you feel like you lost someone you know? Or do you even belong to those who create the antagonist as your ex-partner and feel somehow a slight malicious glee to do what you couldn’t when you were still angry in real life? Let me hear your thoughts, I’m curious.

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4th Halloween-Poem Contest – Jury introduction – and Start Up

Picture courtesy of: http://preventioncdnndg.org/

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JURY:

I am honored to announce that the following authors have agreed to participate as judges in the jury who will decide on the winners of the contest:

Author Kathryn Jenkins
Author Jan Marie
Author A. J. Alexander

Thank you, authors, for your effort to be part of this contest!

There will be three winners in the 4th Halloween poem contest. Each of them is free to choose from the following prizes:

E-Books-set of “A Father’s Protection” and “An Elf, A Dragon And a God’s Intervention“, written by K. M. Jenkins
E-book of “Angelic Confessions” written by Jan Marie
E-books-set of “Journey to Aviad” and “Ancient Voices: Into The Depths” written by Allison D.  Reid

I’m very grateful for these excellent authors to offer one or two of their books as a prize in this contest. Thank you!

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START UP!! OCTOBER 10, 2018

Every author and poet are invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture and a link to their website and/or blog.

There are a few rules to follow:

1. Your poem needs a Halloween theme.
2. Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.
3. Your poem has to be delivered to my email address between October 10 and Halloween, October 31, 2018, 9 pm Central Standard Time.
4. Your poem has to be delivered together with your picture and a link to your blog/page.
5. Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture and link.

The contest starts October 10, 2018 06.00 am and ends October 31, 2018 09.00 pm Central Standard Time!!

Please, deliver your poem and your picture to my email address within this time frame, neither earlier, nor later. Poems arriving outside these 3 weeks will be disqualified.

aurorajean.alexander@aol.com

We’re looking forward to your poems! Write away, ladies and gentlemen, we are ready!

A. J. Alexander

Fall Colors

I wake up one day the world’s still bright
but the sun’s got weak when it shines its light.
I want to feel the warmth, but still it seems
there is that milky veil around the beams
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I go outside, I see the pearls of dew
on flowers, grass, even on the bird that flew
just up while quavering its beguiling song,
His wings are brown as he flies along.
**
When I get up the streets are still
cloaked by fog, the air is chill.
Humidity turns streets all black
when will their light gray be back?
**
The leaves are turning red and brown
some yellow ones look like a crown.
It’s colorful, with ‘rust’ and ‘sunshine’,
with ‘umbra’, ‘burgundy’ and ‘red wine’.
**
Beige and chocolate, light charcoal
bushes, hedges, trees change whole.
Orange, teal and pumpkin pie
are the warm new colors under sky.
**
Sienna, mango and dark peach
everything changes within reach.
Sienna, calico and antique gold
things that were new now seem to be old.
**
Wind whirls around the now dry leaves
we humans changed into long sleeves.
Fall is here, we’re sighing deep
Nature prepares to fall asleep.
*****
(Copyright Aurora Jean Alexander, September 2018)

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Picture courtesy of USA Today

4th Halloween-Poem Contest

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It is a great pleasure for me to announce the
4th Halloween-Poem Contest
on ‘Writer’s Treasure Chest’.
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Every author and poet are invited to participate and deliver a “Halloween-Poem” to my email address: aurorajean.alexander@aol.com, together with their picture and a link to their blog/page.

There are a few rules to follow:

1. Your poem needs a Halloween theme.
2. Your poem needs a minimum of 99 words.
3. Your poem has to be delivered to my email address between October 10 and Halloween, October 31, 2018, 9 pm Central Standard Time.
4. Your poem has to be delivered together with your picture and a link to your blog/page.
5. Please avoid violence, bad language, and sexual content within the poems. It would be disqualified.

 

Every poem that meets the rules and is delivered within the deadline will be published here on “Writer’s Treasure Chest” together with the provided picture.

End of this month I will introduce this years jury members to you. I am very proud that these authors agreed to be part of our contest.

The contest starts October 10, 2018 06.00 am and ends October 31, 2018 09.00 pm Central Standard Time!!

Please, deliver your poem and your picture to my email address within this time frame, neither earlier, nor later. Poems arriving outside these 3 weeks will be disqualified.

aurorajean.alexander@aol.com

We’re looking forward to your poems!

A. J. Alexander

Why Do Writers Make Such Great Listeners

Picture courtesy of http://www.success.com

Let’s start at the very beginning. What are the things a great listener is doing differently than “normal” listeners?

One of the things is the focus. It seems many people are concentrated on what they will say, they forget to listen to what the other person says. Thinking during listening isn’t very helpful. Writers know how to focus. They know how to concentrate on the most important things, and they recognize a story and its thread.

But what do great listeners differently? They keep their mouth shut, they listen without judging, their entire body language is turned to the speaker, their facial expression is interested and open, only to name a few. Of course, now the important part starts, listening and taking in. By asking questions in our own words, to make sure we are interpreting the speaker’s words correctly, we are showing we absorbed the given information. Additionally, there’s one more thing: consciously memorizing.

Let’s say: we are listening to someone who tells us a story and we’d like to repeat it at some other occasion, we will memorize it. If the speaker is our friend and entrusts us with a problem or secret and asks for help and support, we will memorize it to give it some thought and come back later with a solution.

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” Ernest Hemingway

I think it’s significant these words were spoken by a writer.

I’ve always been a very helpful person. It came naturally to me to listen to my friends’ problems, support them, help them. I was trained in memorizing what bugged them to be of the most effective help I could be. The best listener cares.

But being a writer taught me to listen to more. I’m taking in as much sound and noise as all the other people around me. But instead of blanking out some of the ‘noise’ I start concentrating on it. Occasionally I ‘threw a look’ over to the speaker who waved me over and included me into the story as an additional listener. And that’s what I do. I listen, I take in, I separate ‘nonsense’ from ‘maybe useful’ and I memorize.

I’m not only talking about ‘conversations,’ or ‘secrets’ I pick up. I’m as well listening to descriptions, of people, of landscapes, of personalities, even of cars. I never know when it comes in handy. Imagine one of my characters driving in some sports car; I might be using the description I heard of how the driving feels like.

I’m listening because I’m interested. I’m interested in people; I’m interested in helping. I will never use what I hear to expose someone. Not all experiences I hear are of interest to me. I’m writing fantasy and paranormal romance. Maybe an author of love stories or thrillers can use more of what he listens to. You might tell us below in the comments.

Sometimes Empaths can experience one of the ‘hard sides’ of listening. The emotional toll it takes on them. I was going through that before. Occasionally it still happens to me, even though with age I became more and more able to shield myself from that painful side effect of being helpful. So, good listeners might be aware that listening isn’t always about hearing secrets, problems, good stories or jokes. Sometimes listening needs guts!

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Winston Churchill

picture courtesy of: http://www.google.com