My Dip Toward the Dark Side
While working on the precursor to FALLING TO NORMAL, I developed a character who was totally into the goth scene even though she was entirely too cheerful to fit the trope of "goth." To better understand her, I began buying goth compilation CDs a lot. Around this time, my going out clothes and makeup turned a little more gothish as well. There's more than one photo of me in standard black with red accent color plus the way-too-pale-almost-dead foundation.
Turns out, I really like goth music and going all black. Even though I liked these elements of the goth scene, I found a lot of goths take themselves way too seriously. My character fortunately, wasn't one of them. It became a bit of a game for me to see how dark my music could get before I'd end up in a laughing fit.*
The summer of 2007 was the summer of awful gothic poetry for me. The deeper I delved into reading what I found online, the more amused I became from the enterprise. Most of the poetry was poorly written, resplendent with spelling mistakes and the words "death," "blood," "moon," and/or "howl" appeared in about 95% of them. No doubt all were written by angsty teens who thought poetry was the only outlet for the world to understand how tortured they were.**
Little did they know it was my turn.
Replicating what came naturally to these poets was a challenge because I so suck at poetry.*** But I'm pretty good at haiku, and that's what I wrote. The practice of writing intentionally bad dark poetry was great, especially since haiku is a pretty strict form. It was freeing and sent me on much needed laughing jags.
Try your hand at some bad poetry in the comments. And if you're wanting to do the goth way, you can find inspiration here and here.
* The answer to that is pretty dark. I have a warped sense of humor.
** I've been there and all my poetic attempts are bad enough that the dead will never rise again.
*** Hubby's the poet laureate in our family.
_______
Last.fm hit of the day: Just the Same for You by Dope Stars, Inc.
Turns out, I really like goth music and going all black. Even though I liked these elements of the goth scene, I found a lot of goths take themselves way too seriously. My character fortunately, wasn't one of them. It became a bit of a game for me to see how dark my music could get before I'd end up in a laughing fit.*
The summer of 2007 was the summer of awful gothic poetry for me. The deeper I delved into reading what I found online, the more amused I became from the enterprise. Most of the poetry was poorly written, resplendent with spelling mistakes and the words "death," "blood," "moon," and/or "howl" appeared in about 95% of them. No doubt all were written by angsty teens who thought poetry was the only outlet for the world to understand how tortured they were.**
Little did they know it was my turn.
Bad gothic haiku #1
Despair embraces me
White cold thoughts dance on my grave
A bitter winter
Replicating what came naturally to these poets was a challenge because I so suck at poetry.*** But I'm pretty good at haiku, and that's what I wrote. The practice of writing intentionally bad dark poetry was great, especially since haiku is a pretty strict form. It was freeing and sent me on much needed laughing jags.
Try your hand at some bad poetry in the comments. And if you're wanting to do the goth way, you can find inspiration here and here.
* The answer to that is pretty dark. I have a warped sense of humor.
** I've been there and all my poetic attempts are bad enough that the dead will never rise again.
*** Hubby's the poet laureate in our family.
_______
Last.fm hit of the day: Just the Same for You by Dope Stars, Inc.