Where the Mind Sprocket staff writes about inspiration, communication, culture, storytelling, and more.

The Back Page is where the feet go up on the desk at the end of the day. It’s that good book with a mug of hot cocoa just before bed. It’s where we goof off after a hard day’s work. The Back Page is our blog.

All posts filed in Writing inspiration

Where we tell you about the things that have inspired us. We hope they’ll inspire you too!

How to Write a Pantoum

by Lindsey Anderson on May 21, 2008

Looking for a little structure for your poetry? Try a pantoum, a poem consisting of 16 lines and four stanzas. There is no rhyming requirement for a pantoum, but there is a certain order that the lines go in:
Stanza 1         Line 1
                        Line 2
                        Line 3
                        Line 4
 Stanza 2        Use Line 2 above as Line 5 here
                        […]

A Mother Feeds

by Jacqueline on May 11, 2008

My creativity
comes in
a direct flow
from my mother.
Her blood feeds
my body with
oxygen to breathe
and her words,
like breadth for my ears.
An umbilical cord once
attached us
before I was
strong enough
to be my own.
Now our
thoughts and
hearts
align
because I am borrowed
from her clay.
It seems that we are
always attached to
the other end of
our life support.

The World is Just Awesome

by Edward Atkinson on April 26, 2008

This is the Discovery Channel’s new commercial. It makes me smile, and it also made me hit Replay a couple of times.

Perspectives

by Lindsey Anderson on April 25, 2008

First, go visit your Great Grandmother, or someone else who will tell you fascinating stories about your family history, or life as it was eighty or one hundred years ago.
Then, go home and watch Everything is Illuminated.
And realize that the world as you know it right now is nothing like the world that others know.
And […]

Do, Don’t Be.

by Jacqueline on April 18, 2008

We don’t become known for being; we become known for doing.

On trust: publish your ideas now and don’t stop

by Edward Atkinson on April 16, 2008

The best time to look for a job next year is right now. The best time to plan for a sale in three years is right now. The mistake so many marketers make is that they conjoin the urgency of making another sale with the timing to earn the right to make that sale. In […]

Slam Poetry

by Lindsey Anderson on April 10, 2008

Buddy Wakefield - Flockprinter
I belong to a poetry community on LiveJournal, and this video was posted there a while ago. I had never heard of slam poetry, had no idea what it was, but have since then sought out opportunities to see it. This guy is supposed to be pretty awesome, and I know there […]

Edward the Rein-octo-con-monarch butterfly

by Edward Atkinson on April 3, 2008

This rocks. Build Your Wild Self is a website promoting New York Zoos.

I’ve never enjoyed wasting time on the web so much before!

Remembrance, Joy, and Drinking!

by Edward Atkinson on April 3, 2008

Mind Sprocket brings you two new authors this month in a series themed by remembrance.
Liam Davenport hails from London with a lucid depiction of a night most would not recall, and Lyn Lifshin, the multi-award winning author, composes two gems of leaping joy and a sober remembrance.
Drink, Drink Up, My friends! (by Liam Davenport)
Cove Point […]

On Getting Ideas

by Lindsey Anderson on March 20, 2008

“How can you go on talking so quietly, head down-wards?” Alice asked, as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank.
The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working […]

Sometimes the truth is
Not what you want it to be.
Is it ever what you expected?
No, probably not.
Are you okay with that?
Are we meant to create truth or
Are we meant to find it?

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