Kisses, laughter, goofy grins

When you're in love everyone wins.

Sobbing, screaming, tearing at hair

When your heart is broken nobody's there.

Nobody's there to hold you tight

Nobody's there to kiss you good night.

But when gauze is plastered against the wound

And new love for someone has already bloomed

You haven't realized what you should have before

What you should have when you were loved no more

It's the subject that you have debated and debated

That, sadly, love is overrated.

I need to preface this post with the following disclaimer:

I am not a lawyer. I do not have a law degree, nor have I studied for one. These are my personal opinions and interpretations of what I have learned in my time as an author. All of the following applies solely to the Copyright of works produced in the U.S. by U.S. citizens. If you use only my advice, without doing further research for yourself, you do so at your own risk.

Copyright law effects writers. It is what protects us from intellectual property theft. The more we understand what a copyright is (it’s actually a bundle of rights), the better prepared we are for submitting for publication and dealing with infringers.

The moment you create a unique collection of words, whether it is any good or not, you possess the right to publish it in any format currently available or that may become available in the future. You have the right to publish it:

-In Print

-Digitally

-As Audio

-As a Movie

-As a Video Game

-Any Other Form of Media

Within each of these categories is a sub-bundle of rights. For instance, in the Print category there is:

-1st Publication

-Hardcover

-Mass market paperback

-As part of an anthology

-2nd Publication

Confused yet? And these are not all the rights involved with publishing in print. What’s more, each country where the work will be printed and/or sold has their own set of rights.

The good news is you do not need to know about every single variation of copyright in existence, just those that apply to your work. With that in mind, let’s do a little exploring.

...

Stay tuned for the complete post by indie author and Prose. blogger, Kendall Bailey (@KBaileyWriter) later today on The Official Prose. Blog at: blog.theprose.com/blog.

“For the first time I felt a kind of entitlement—I am entitled to tell this particular story in a way no one else can—which is a kind of power.”

- Amy Hempel

Like end of summer flowers, time be the wave that washes through days of concentrated effort. If a writer is fortunate, work is assembled—a jumble of first-passes; a collection of notions which presented themselves somewhere along the initial flush of creative vision. Combine these with gorgeous, beautifully complete snippets of text which arrived fully formed, dictated from a complex source which dares reveals itself in fragments—all of this and so much more is forced into one folio and labelled “The First Draft.”

Progress of an emerging manuscript unfolds & we are certain to soon realize the essential function of editing. This initial cooked-up manifestation seems to breathe on its own and incubates until eventually tested to see whether or not there beats the pulse of a living novel. The same imagination which served-well to generate a framework for an emerging story is now elevated and required to distill raw material; to judge merit and utility. Sticky, liquid streams of words must be condensed and cleansed of repetition and redundancy. What has been recorded must now be amplified, but where to begin?

Is it clever and Zen to begin on the first page, with the all-important opening line, ready to pounce and carve anything which sounds out of place or fishy to where the novel is trying to reach? A random approach might work better— just dive in wherever the cursor stops and work out from there. Would the more intuitive method guarantee a fresh, objective pair of eyes? It might help to keep somewhere in mind that what is being re-read is never as brilliant or wasteful as we may suspect. The first pass through a baby novel is emotional territory– feelings of elation intercept waves of dread and a great deal can be deleted in a sudden panic of shame.

...

Read the full article, “Mysterious Distillation,” by returning guest writer Meredith Lorimar (@violetflamed) later today on The Official Prose. Blog at: blog.theprose.com/blog.

you said you'd be here

through the thick and the thin

but the thin hasn't even begun and you're gone with the wind

that's alright.

i've made it without you before

so don't think i can't do that now

don't get me wrong i'd love it if you stayed

i just don't want you to think you've crippled me beyond the point of coming back

no, i never left.

you're the one who did that.

i'll be waiting for your return.

if you come, great.

if you don't, even better.

i don't need you and don't you even for a second think i do.

there are cracks

in the foundation

where she stands.

crumbling and

consuming her

problems as she

she stares out

at the fading sunset

and imagines her life

is the same way:

it's changing and beautiful

but disappearing

all to soon. she can't

decide if the sun is

willing to disappear

or if it's forced to.

if the sun pleads and

implores to stay

but the moon

casts it away,

or if the sun is tired of

being the light

in our world

and wishes we'd

leave it alone

to burn out.

she's come to find

people are committing suicide

either when everything's dark

or when a new day

is on the rise.

she would rather

have one last taste

of the sun's rays

caressing her face

before she decided

to completely

fade away.

she didn't want to leave

while surrounded by

darkness; her life's

like that as it is.

now some say it's a

fitting time to die

when the sun is

returning. a sign of

a new beginning

and of new life,

but she couldn't say

there would be a life

to start after this one.

her life doesn't

give her much hope

for another one anyway.

she just wants peace.

she wants full breaths

that don't feel like

violent threats

and suppressed memories.

she inhales the

city air: it's still warm

from the sun's charity,

and she embraces

this newly found

warmth.

she knows it's now or never.

she wants the sun and her

to fall together. she wants

to hold the sun's hands

as she falls into

what could be.

the closest thing

to love and intimacy

she's ever been,

or ever will be.

maybe the sun will

pick up her spirit

and cradle it

until they burn out

and consume our neighboring

planets in a wisp

of white,

blinding heat.

maybe everyone else

is wrong: what about any of this

is defeat?

If I'm fortunate enough to become more wrinkled, gray-haired, and nostalgic, I still think in my later years I will identify first as a television news anchor. Almost twenty years after landing my first media job, the personal information sits on my tongue like a missile, ready to fire. Being an author is the "...oh, yeah...." section of my professional accomplishments. The "...oh yeah, and I also write books," component of interviews, articles, and--right now--this blog.

Why? Because of words, of course.

I believe the complex elegance of words and how they describe actions, events, and experiences within this human experience run beneath us like a current. Always there--always moving--always constant, yet never fixed. They are the vibrant link between what we see and how we are able to translate that vision to others. My two worlds intermingle with words.

Whether I'm interviewing a presidential candidate, the victim of a violent crime, or a child feeling her first rush of success, words are my common denominator, allowing the delivery of emotion in real time. I can take you there with me. The right words will pique the physical memories of real life. You will feel the subtleties within the hard clasp of a politician's handshake, the slight twinge in his eyebrow when asked a potent question about policy or scandal, or the spark that ignites deep within his ambitious heart. Words can make you see a crime scene, to view the vastness of a disaster as though you were close enough to smell the carnage.

...

Tune in to The Official Prose. Blog later today for the complete article by novelist and Emmy-nominated television news anchor, Jennifer Vaughn, at: blog.theprose.com/blog.

I've fallen for your eyes but they haven't even seen me

I've fallen for your ears but they haven't even heard me

I've fallen for your skin but it hasn't even felt me

I've fallen for your lips but they haven't even tasted me

Damn,

I guess I've got work to do.

I wish that when I smelled flowers my joy was pure

I wish that when I felt the sun on my skin I felt it through and through

I wish that when I smiled it was genuine

I wish that when I looked in the mirror I didn't feel pure disgust

I wish that after I showered I felt that I'd washed my sorrows away

I wish that...

Well, I guess I wish for a lot of things.