"the way is clear / the light is good / I have no fear / and no one should"

So there's a writers' meme going around LJ* of taking the opening (or any other) passage of a work in progress (or a published novel) and line-break it into poetry. This was started as a diagnostic tool, because lineation has a way of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of words and phrases -- weak prose makes for bad verse. I'd take part, but what I'm actively working on is already in verse.

So I'm doing the reverse-meme -- here's the opening passage reset as prose:

Already! -- here, another moon is gone, or will have slivered away from me come dawn, and I've not written as I promised to. I swear this term, which seemed so long, just flew -- classes transmute slow Time to something faster than thought. (Speaking of classes, Spellcraft Master insists we practice rhymes at every chance: even our letters home should chime and dance -- I know, Jem, you won't mind (much) these words' clothes, and for the Elders -- summarize in prose.)

Which, hmm, does highlight that the parenthetical part is indeed much more prosaic than the rest. I should probably do something about that,** even if the narrator says she's too unimaginative to write poetical.


* I caught it from dancinghorse.

** Not to mention: "chime" "dance" "clothes" bah -- pick one metaphor and stick with it.

---L.