Tag: creative writing

14 literary (wordpress based) journals worth following and submitting your work

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Write, create, innovate!

As my previous list of journals was very well received by you, my dear readers, I thought to do a similar, follow up list, but this time looking at some great magazines here at wordpress.com.

These sites I follow and read as regularly as I can and I hope you’ll find them interesting.

  1. Smoking glue gun: is my absolute favorite. Here I have discovered many new authors I adore like Kelly Boyker. As they say:

we look for the flashy, fresh, feminist, grotesque, avant-garde, minimalist, startling, etc. We accept original unpublished art in all forms: text, sound, video, image, hybrid, etc. we welcome simultaneous submissions.

2. Eunoiareview: I’ve been also following for some time. I like reading their poetry as it is very inspirational. In their own words:

It‘s an online literary journal committed to sharing the fruits of ‘beautiful thinking’. Each day, we publish two new pieces of writing for your reading pleasure. We believe that Eunoia Review can and should be a home for all sorts of writing, and we welcome submissions from writers of all ages and backgrounds.

3. Oddball magazine: If you like something different, odd (like me) that this is the place for you. Check it out here.

4. Algebra of owls: They have published some great stuff from our fellow bloggers/poets and it is becoming a place where I frequently stop by to see what’s new. Really like it.

5. Odd magazine: it’s all about exploring and fulfilling your mind with different experiences:

Odd is a place where people are coming for their weekly slice of happiness.”

definitely worth following and reading on a regular basis.

6. Red wolf journal: has usually a defined topic and you should submit your poems accordingly. More about it you can learn here.

7. Clear poetry is a fairly new magazine – focusing on and encouraging contemporary poetry. I liked many of the poems I read there and I highly recommended for regular visit as a sort of inspiration or for submitting your own work.

8.The Rising Phoenix Review is a monthly online zine dedicated to publishing poetry focused on the working class and other marginalized groups:

We believe in the transformative power of poetry, and our mission is to publish writing that actively engages the social issues of our time.

The Review was created by Rising Phoenix Press, an independent publisher located in Boston, Massachusetts.

9. Subsynchronous Press – Small Press Publisher of High-Caliber Poetry, they offer opportunities for two magazines to publish your work. My preference goes to Veil: Journal of Darker musings, dealing with more humorous and darker themes. Nevertheless, check them out as you might find something suitable for you.

  1. The Stare’s net:

 We are open to submissions of poems in many styles, with a general theme of political issues, social justice, equality and diversity. We don’t want to be a platform for entrenched positions or a place where people play out tired political scripts; the poems we relish:

– surprise us

– make us think in new ways

– strive to reconnect politics in its broadest sense with people

– challenge our understandings of left and right

– engage with the difficulty of mass society

– imagine how society should run and be run

– offer hope

11. A swift exit is something completely new to me. At the moment they are open and accepting poems for their first volume of poetry.

12. Sicklitmagazine is also fairly new, not afraid to dig into different taboo topics. They accept poetry, fiction and flash fiction. Check here their guidelines.

13. Silver birch press is not a journal, but rather a blog of a small press publisher, based in LA. They publish some great stuff and occasionally there will be a call for submissions for anthologies and ext.

14. The Fem is more dealing with feminist writing and issues. They are oriented towards writing that speaks to experience (as they state it). Often you will come across themes like sex, gender, race, ability, and sexuality. I’ve enjoyed many good poems here, so give them a visit if you interested in mentioned topics.

I hope you’ll enjoy browsing these blogs/journals just as I do 🙂

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A lesson

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

I can touch you.

I can kiss you

or

I can scratch your face.

 

I can punch you in the stomach

or

I can swing you in my arms

like a little baby.

You won’t feel it.

You are not here.

Numbed, you drift, float.

Just pale flesh sits across me, trapped in a body

without attention, goal, motivation, idea

in temptation to give up.

 

I can see through you.

I see a desert, deserted of anything human.

Just yellow sand and auburn sky, in vast emptiness

that merge in distance

without horizon, just one dot where time and space collapse.

 

There are winds, your thoughts, constantly try to

build a new landscape, sand dunes, your new realities.

Still, nothing changes. The form might be different, the essence is the same.

You throw sand into my eyes to blur my vision, yet I manage to see.

 

I see through you.

I learned from you.

However we try,

we can be surrounded by thousand people and still be lonely.

And it hurts like hell.

Afterwards.. you are just stoned.

 

Maja S.. Todorovic

Need a steady ‘stream of creativity’? Practice being proactively creative

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Write, create, innovate!

Visit allwallpapersfree.blogspot.com

I have often written here about the unpredictability of creative outlets, the inspiration that comes in the most strangest time and situations, but can we really do something about it and take just a little bit control over it?

What I observed in my years of research and work is that we as humans tend to be reactively creative. It means that we search for creative solutions and answers mostly when we are challenged to do so.

For example:

  1. A problem or difficult situation appears in our lives;
  2. The situation makes us feel really constrained to the point it provokes us to ‘take the things into our hands’ and solve it;
  3. The problem is out of range of our typical solving problem skills – it requires of us to think differently and come up with a creative, non-standard solution.

When these 3 things happen, then we are prompted to react to a problem and get creative.

What if we take a stand to be proactive about our creativity? Actually, can we practice creativity regularly? Some experts claim you need to be proactive about your creativity to discover and manifest your true potential as a person.

We are creatures of habits and conformity. Most of us are dreaded by the thought of any change in our lives. But if we do make a little challenges for us every day, we are actually practicing our creativity, being proactive about it.

As Brian Eno puts it in this interview:

The point about working is not to produce great stuff all the time, but to remain ready for when you can.There’s no point in saying, ‘I don’t have an idea today, so I’ll just smoke some drugs.’ You should stay alert for the moment when a number of things are just ready to collide with one another… The reason to keep working is almost to build a certain mental tone, like people talk about body tone.

So what can you do to practice proactive creativity? For example: take participation in the activities in your community, take an art class, invent new recipes – learn to cook new dishes, travel and learn new language, try new sports or dance, eat with chopsticks instead of using fork all the time, change your usual route to work/school.

Try and experience something different form your current skill sets  –  you may be pleasantly surprised by the fresh creativity that will start to pour in. It’s a kind of preparation phase as B. Eno says, when unpredictable good ideas appear – you are ready to make the most of them.

We can design our lives in such way we invite creativity every day- it’s up to us.

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Conjunction

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

She slowly travels towards destined ninth house

where Mercury peacefully waits for Jupiter to arrive

in peregrine flight, exalted in graceful detriment

of opposing stone monolith in the third,

(wanting to return in second)

strong, but humble in the waiting room

of offspring stars breast-fed by the ever-giving moon

 

Maja S. Todorovic

Have we met?

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Yes, I know you, Fear.

 

I know…how my mother’s body

screamed when she couldn’t get out of bed.

Her eyes would darken,

swallowing my childhood smile.

 

I know how my older sister hid her head

among pages, pretending to be an astronaut

and I was a suitcase she rolled over the moon.

 

I know how my father duct-taped his voice,

washing for hours his hands in a bathroom sink

each time he would crush the car.

 

I know, you are that lump in my throat

too large even for this poem to hold.

 

Maja S. Todorovic

Poetry improves lives:a guest post by Cherish Tiana

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Poetry improves lives: guest post series

This is a guest post, a courtesy of a fellow poet and writer Cherish Tiana where she shares her heartwarming story on how poetry gives voice when nobody listens:

The only way to explain why I write is to explore the time in my life when I did not and could not. The only way to explain my creativity, my inspiration is to return to the point where I was devoid of either.

I have discovered several things that are necessary for me to be able to produce creatively: self awareness, self acceptance, and self satisfaction.

These things had been lost to me a few months after the premature birth of my son. I would like to say they were violently stolen, but the correct phrase would really be freely given. At every stage of my pregnancy, of my birthing process, and of my early stages of motherhood, I was criticized, doubted, questioned, ridiculed, ostracized and ignored; I internalized it.

I was ignored when I told the doctor my son is large for a 31 weeker, she denied that possibility and proceeded to make an incision he would later become stuck and nearly die in. I was ridiculed when I did not want to vaccinate my son before taking him home from the NICU because I had read the drug insert for the hepatitis B vaccine, which (if I can let you in on a secret) doctors never do.

I was ostracized from the pediatric medical field because I did not want to add additional risk for my son who had not even reached his due date by the time he was released from the hospital (born at 31 weeks gestation, released at 34).

I was questioned when, two weeks after finally giving into the vaccine because we would go without a pediatrician otherwise, my sons vaccine injected leg was inexplicably broken. Horrified, fearful of this unknown source of attack and constant threat of misfortune, my fear was magnified by the blame that I had caused the break by abuse. Abuse that not only did not occur, but did not even reveal itself upon medical examination of my son.

I gave my voice away and I pimped my convictions for the sake of being accepted but when I searched out a deeper level of satisfaction, awareness, and acceptance of myself, I found that not only was I liberated, but I was free to flow creatively once again.

In my poetry, I express my liberty. My voice is no longer silenced and most importantly, I am unapologetic about it.

The Apology

I apologized for not fitting into the mold that society laid out for me.

The “Land of the Free”
but only if my thoughts and vision fall into alignment;
if not you place limits on my creativity, chains to maintain the course of my liberty.

I apologized when my opinions
offended your sensibilities and the fragility of your insecurities.

You gave me the label of opinionated, a scarlet letter in our society.
“Quiet your noise”, you said, “because opinions are unbecoming”.
“Just fall in line with the status quo”.
You would rather live what you know than expand your thinking and take the opportunity
to grow.

So I apologized.

I apologized for the truth
because the truth made you uncomfortable.

I apologized.
Many times, I apologized.
When it was a lie, even still,
I apologized.

So excuse me if I don’t offer you an apology.

Pardon me, I’m just no longer sorry.

Cherish is a writer, poetess, Greek/Hebrew enthusiast, and a follower of Christ. You can find her writings at reignoffaith.wordpress.com

If you would like to contribute with your guest post visit this link for further information. And, if you are interested in getting more inspiration for your creativity, sign up for our free bimonthly newsletter.

Evolution

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

It’s in the deepest darkness,

where folded life emerges only with the

raging tempest

or when silence occupies rustling shore.

 

Untouched they eat flickering moonlight

catch laser sunbeams and jump over foaming waves

 

yet, don’t recognize our white secretions

we are so proud of, cheap surrogate

of every ounce of coaled milk we suck out

of the earth’s mouth

 

It’s the new plankton,

It’s the new algae,

It’s the new jellyfish

 

and the liver transplant in that whale

over there,

they never asked for.

 

Maja S. Todorovic

One simple, foolproof tactic that improves your writing dramatically

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Writer's creative bites

Sholem_Asch

There are many ways we can approach our writing. And if you are reading this, you are probably a writer who knows how writing is important: it’s how you communicate, how you record your ideas, memories, feelings, – you share who you are, and your knowledge.

But even more important it is how you build your world, your reality and the most deepest connection with your true self. It helps you sort out through the piles of information you absorb each day and you learn what you want and don’t want. It can be a remarkable foundation for our business and work as it gives us confidence and power to make an impact in a bigger, better, and more meaningful way.

Often in my posts you will recognize that I emphasize all these traits of writing and encourage you to just write – no matter what, how, where… These are free writing forms with only one goal in mind: tap into your own inspiration and creativity.

But today I will offer you a bit different approach that helped me immensely. Next time when you sit to write, bring intentionality to your writing. By that I mean to have more clear focus and understanding of what you want to write and why you want to write it.

When I’m writing, I always have three questions in the back of my mind:

  • Is what I want to say clear and understandable enough? My writing, for me to be satisfied with it, has to reflects who I truly am and transcend my message to the world in the right way. Some other questions regarding to this that can help you is to ask yourself: does it have the impact I want to create? Is this conveying the right drama, or humor? Is it thought provoking and what kind of value does it bring to my readers?
  • This second question turned out to be huge for me: Did I structure this for the best possible impact? When I was working on my PhD proposal, I remember I had an informal meeting with my mentor  and I came with a lot of papers, notes, ideas I collected somewhere during initial research..But the best advice she gave me then, is to make an outline, a backbone of my thesis which will guide me along the way of my writing. Why that became so important? Because it helps you set the boundaries in your research and writing – if you ‘spill yourself’ all over the place, without focus what information is important and what’s not – you will just get lost. It helps you to stay focused and on track. This is especially applicable to longer forms of writing –  no matter fiction or non-fiction.  Of course, you can edit and improve your initial outline as your work progresses and new ideas come into play, but it enables for your writing to get aligned with your values and contribution you want to achieve.
  • How can I improve this? With all my current knowledge and view on the subject I try to improve what I wrote, usually by simplifying it. I reread what I wrote for several times – not looking so much for punctuation errors or typos, but to make sure I’m satisfied with everything I’ve written.  I need to distance myself for a couple of hours or I leave it ‘marinate’ over night and that gives me the best perspective on my writing.

You become a better writer by focusing on the task at hand and recognizing what’s not working for you.  You are not satisfied with your descriptions or narrations? Well, dive into those and only by practice and persistence you will improve your weak points in writing.

These three questions enable me to strategize my writing, stay true to my self, my core values and share my knowledge in such way  that it has a valuable impact. So next time, in your writing try to answer those questions and observe how that influences your writing. You might be surprised with the results 🙂

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Senseless

by Maja Todorovic, posted in My personal rhyme - from time to time

My friend calls it ‘tabula rasa’.

My mother says it’s when

young bull silently bleats

at a colorful display.

 

For me, it’s when every reason

bleeds with frustration –

senseless and unmoving,

your lonely parts

seek validation.

Purpose is given or found?

 

You say I’m a slave to a detail,

yet your ‘big picture’ falls apart

each time you look at it.

 

You say I roam in confusion

yet you don’t know which

holographic dress you will wear tonight.

 

And I tell you, you would squeeze

your own guts in one hand,

pierce your eye with swordfish

and walk barefoot in the mouth

of a raging volcano:

just to feel one more time,

just to cry one more time.

 

Maja S. Todorovic