Follow the pen...
Follow the pen...
Follow the pen...
Follow the pen...
...it'll lead you through the journals.
If you got here from my blog
just scroll past the instructions to get to
Please Show Me Your Wings
the first writing in Follow the Pen...
...it'll lead you through the journals.
If you got here from my blog
just scroll past the instructions to get to
Please Show Me Your Wings
the first writing in Follow the Pen...
Following the Pen...
Following the pen is the best way I have found to describe what I love about writing.
I come up with an idea, a concept, but not necessarily have an end state in mind. I just start with that concept and build from there following the pen to see where it takes me. I enjoy letting the pen lead and I make sure I don't hinder its path to let its most creative ink flow.
I wanted to come up with a fast and easy way for someone to read a selection and provide their thoughts and feedback. I value your, the reader's, time so have made it fast and easy, please review the 5 minute process below...
- Scroll down to read each brief story behind the story. (less than a minute)
- Click the accompanying image to read the digital short (opens in a separate window and takes 3 minutes tops to read)
- Back at the website's window, click the Rate Your Read button and fill out the completely optional and short form. If you are in a hurry, ignore all input fields and simply select your rating in the corresponding drop-down and submit...(less than a minute)
If you have a minute, share your thoughts, questions and/or ideas on what you read.
Best Regards,
rAveNswAn
Escaping Dante's Hell-evator...click image to read digital story!
Please show me your wings
Two thought threads were sewn together to come up with this one. First, the concept of someone being "saved" by another, thus assuming the other to be an angel, then longing for proof.
The second thread, the cable downing Hell's elevator, manned by none other than Dante Alighieri.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Fortuitous for two of us
Inspired by just another play on words...similar to "...'til ravens wane." and "'...til rAveNswAn," "Forlorn for Lauren" or "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...Fill'd with death, ya pens'll hang ya."
I like finding words you can almost lay over each other and in a twisted and muffled way, they sound the same.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Adaeda
In my thus far pathetic efforts to learn to play guitar, I came across a series of guitar chords, A, D, A, E, D and A, that form a basic blues guitar riff.
To me, it sounded like a woman's name, Adaeda, and naturally, she has the blues.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Journal
Scroll to the next series of Follow the Pen, or...Click your heels three times...or just click this once to go home.
Journal
Scroll to the next series of Follow the Pen, or...Click your heels three times...or just click this once to go home.
In time you will find me
Started off with some George Carlin-like fun ended with words within words.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Ms. led now mrs. home
The downside of living up to your name.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Tryin' to shake the devil outta me
I had recently heard a then new Dave Matthews Band song, Snow Outside. It was too new of a song to know the lyrics yet, but I had the main guitar riff playing in my head as I drove to the mall to pick up my son.
While waiting at a stop light to enter the mall lot, I had subconsciously come up with my own lyrics to sync with the riff, Tryin' To Shake The Devil Outta Me. I realized this as I had been singing it in my head to the riff.
I pulled up to the mall to wait for my son, pulled a journal out of the glove box and decided I would write my own lyrics. Within ten minutes this is what I had come up with...
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
it's in the cards
I have always liked playing cards.
Reading up on the history of playing cards, I learned that the King of Hearts is said to have been designed to represent King Charlemagne.
As for the rest of the story...it's in the cards.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
keep your promise
“Wrapped by your mother, given on your birthday, you are a gift to the world...
keep your promise.”
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Two seeds
What can grow apart, can grow together.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
through the kindness of ravens
While eating at a Hardees, I noticed a poster on the wall that listed what to call groups of various animals. For example, a gaggle of geese, a flock of seagulls, a pride of lions, etc.
I recognized most on the list, but two that I had not recognized stood out to me, a parliament of owls and an unkindness of ravens. Parliament sounded regally apropos for the bird considered wise. But when you think about it, we say owls are wise because they ask the question, "Who?" In reality, they merely make the sound, hoo, and are not comparatively the smartest of birds.
The raven, however, is considered possibly the most intelligent. Perhaps its Poe-etic stigma is its more prominent characteristic, thus the centuries old group reference as an 'unkindness.'
I wrote the lyrical poem Through the Kindness of Ravens to try to look past the stigma. Testament to my considering writing as "following the pen," my initial intention was to write something stupid funny. Needless to say, the pen had other ideas...
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
crickets and cowbells
Crickets and Cowbells is the closest I will probably ever get to writing lyrics for a country song.
I intended a dark Stephen King-like play on twisting perspectives. The first half of which would have you believe it were lyrics to a country song about young love...two young lovers enjoying a sunny summer day in the country.
The chorus gives the first hint of the reality of the scene portrayed.
They may have been two young lovers, but in the second half of the song, you learn they would only wish they were enjoying a sunny summer day in the country.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
two love bugs flying into the light
You should read this, you might be pleasantly surprised.
In a way, Two Love Bugs Flying Into The Light could be described as an opposing bookend to Crickets and Cowbells.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Ride the Wave
…and the Meeko shall inherit the earth.
Ride the Wave
…and the Meeko shall inherit the earth.
need a little space
I like playing with words, but this time I wanted to see what I could do with a space between words. It's amazing what a little space can do for you.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Just one touch
I have loved music all my life.
There was a song I remembered from my childhood, but with time and a twisted memory I had the lyrics totally wrong in my head. I did not realize how badly until connecting back with the song and listening with adult ears. At the same time I realized how wrong I was, I also realized I liked the lyrics I had come up with.
Read page one...while listening to the chorus of Neil Diamond's Holly Holy.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
no bread for bread
This story has two people that indirectly do the right things.
It also has a yin and yang kind of thing going on that brings the story around full circle.
"The right thing is rarely the easiest to do, but is always the right thing to do." - rAveNswAn
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Write-ning
Write-ning
Write-ning
Write-ning
When Write-ning Strikes
Tools of the writer's trade...
When Write-ning Strikes
Tools of the writer's trade...
at first whistle blow
At First Whistle Blow was written as an ode to one of the many antics my friends and I did in high school.
It is based on the song, Fool In The Rain, by Led Zeppelin. More specifically on the point in the song when the whistle blows and the piano kicks the tempo in the a$$. The music is deserving of a good dance, at least that is what my friends and I decided.
The idea was that whenever we heard the song and it reached that first whistle, we had to stop whatever we were doing and dance. When the whistle blows the final time and the original song sneaks back in, we would stop dancing, and act like nothing happened.
We had some hilarious opportunities to put on our dancing shoes and I'll never forget them.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
Pixel dust
This one is more a Follow My Imagination, than a Follow The Pen, but I made an executive decision to put it here anyway. : )
Back in February of 2015, I put together and submitted Pixel Dust to Disney. It is a technological enhancement that could be applied at every Disney Park.
To be honest, I would just love to experience it.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.
'Til they pull earth's blanket over me
Appreciate what you have in life while you have it.
And when it is time to say goodbye, look back on your life and face death with a smile.
Click the image to read the story in a separate window, close window when completed, then click button below to Rate Your Read.