Presenting Metaphors plus at our Writing Class in Pleasanton

On Tuesdays in Pleasanton, I'm teaching a writing class for dear writer friends of mine. Some of the members were in Nancy O'Connell's class and when she retired, we weren't pleased with the replacements. I wanted to keep as many members together as possible so several people joined me in meeting once a week to continue to read our work and learn new techniques.

Last week, under the influence of the workshops I attended at the Pleasanton Poetry, Prose, and Arts Festival, I presented the topic of Analogies, Twisted Cliches, Metaphors, and Similes.

One example I gave was Don Marquis' "Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo." I love that!

Here's a short one from Robert B. Parke in "Widow's Walk": "The sinking feeling bottomed."

We talked about the ineffective mixed metaphor and the example from a 2007 issue of the Chicago Tribune: "So now what we are dealing with is the rubber meeting the road, and instead of biting the bullet on these issues, we just want to punt."

This coming Tuesday's topic is Sprinkling Backstory.