In the Rough

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Yesterday I talked about writing the Tin Man poem in my hot tub.  Today I showed Forgottenman my originals, scrawled in the drink. He urges that I should show y’all and although at first it seemed pretentious, it occurred to me that I loved looking at original drafts, with corrections, back when we all wrote by hand. So, I’m showing them to you, water drips and all.  It actually shows my process pretty well.  Line-by-line, making lists of rhyming words, choosing one and working toward it in the next line. Crossing out, moving lines. If you enjoy this, why not show me yours?  You can see the finished poem HERE.

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21 thoughts on “In the Rough”

  1. Pingback: The Tin Man Talks to His Creator | lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

  5. Fandango's avatarFandango

    “If you enjoy this, why not show me yours?” First, thanks for sharing your rough, handwritten draft. It’s fascinating. Someday, once you become famous, those handwritten pages may be worth a lot of money. Second, I can’t show you mine because everything I compose (none of it poetic in any way) I create on my iPhone’s virtual keypad. Besides, no one, including me, can decipher my handwriting.

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      What is a virtual keypad? Do you speak into it? Can’t imagine composing on a phone. Now that is miraculous to me. I also can’t compose aloud. When I think, it translates best to a computer keypad, second best to the hand written word. Also can’t memorize well.

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      1. Fandango's avatarFandango

        You don’t speak into it. It appears at the bottom third of the phone’s screen and you tap the keys to enter text. (See image.) I call it a virtual keypad because they aren’t physical keys like the old BlackBerry smartphones use to have.

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        1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

          Do you use your fingers to do this? I can never type on anything smaller than a keyboard. I swear that future generations are going to be born with pointy little fingers capable of typing on their phones, or by then you’ll just think and it will type it for you. Now that could be dangerous.

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          1. Fandango's avatarFandango

            I use my thumbs if I’m holding the phone with two hands or my index finger on my right hand when holding it with my left hand. I have an iPhone 8 Plus model, so it’s not that bad typing on it, although I admit I can type faster, with fewer typos, on my laptop’s keyboard.

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            1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

              Given the difficulty of typing on some of these devices combined with typos, I imagine in time we’ll just go back to the medieval custom of everyone spelling the way they want to so long as others understand.

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      I have a friend who writes longhand during writing exercises and it’s a beauty to behold. When writing poems or stories, mine always looks like this. For notes and letters, I can write much more legibly.

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  7. Colleen's avatarColleen

    I love seeing this. I couldn’t do it, however, because I now to almost all of my writing on my computer. My typing skills (speed) now far exceed my handwriting skills. I feel so much freer to make changes, etc. as I type then when I was writing in longhand. Maybe I should have taken shorthand in high school. Does anyone do that any more?

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