The Coffee Writer

Tag: writing is hard

  • This week’s poetry entry

    I’ve noticed that a lot of my poetry efforts lately end up focused on helping myself understand and come to terms with where my society is in the current political moment. This was no exception, and it demanded to be written this morning. So I present it, without further comment.

    What I See

    What I see
    Is more than we just disagree.
    I see hate,
    Willful and arrogant.
    I see ignorance,
    Shameless and proud.
    I see fear,
    Controlling and winning.
    I see the death of empathy,
    A hard lack of care.
    What you do for the least of these
    Is slander and deface
    Their beauty in diversity.
    If necessity is the mother of invention,
    I see a culture in need
    Who refuses to create.
    I see the pain
    Felt by individuals
    Aimed at faceless masses.
    I see hypocrisy
    That drains the color
    From a flag
    You claim to love
    So much.
    I see we failed.
    I see we lost
    To demons we fought
    In our grandfathers’ time.
    I see a cycle
    In violence.
    And I see little hope
    As it goes on
    To see our colors again.

  • Quotables

    And this is why I write.  It’s a terrible addiction and a ruthless dragon to chase.

     

     

    MayaAngelou01

  • Word of the Day: Veneration

    veneration

    “The triumphant softball coach was treated with all the veneration of a movie star for days following the big game.”

     

    Veneration – noun

    1) to regard with reverential respect.

    2) adore, revere, reverence, worship.

     

    ~per Merriam-Webster

     

  • Word of the Day: Cadaver

    cadaver

    “The coroner’s assistant tripped over the cadaver in the darkness of the crime scene.”

    Cadaver – Noun

    : a dead body.

    ~per Merriam-Webster

  • Word of the Day: Kindred

    kindredspirits

    “Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
    ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

    Kindred – adj.

    : of a like nature or character.

    ~per Merriam-Webster

  • Word of the Day: Nook

    As it happens, I like my Nook and wish I had a nook to read it in! Although I generally do more writing on my Nook than reading.

     

    nook-hd

    “With a Nook for company, I curled up in the breakfast nook to read in the sunshine.”

     

    Nook – noun

    1) an interior angle or corner formed usually by two walls.
    2) a sheltered or hidden place.
    3) a usually recessed section of a larger room.

    ~per Merriam-Webster

  • Writerly things – Reference sources

    Lately I’ve been on a sci-fi/urban fantasy kick.  And by lately, I really mean the past few years.  It just sort of showed up and then decided to stay.  Accordingly, I’ve found a few sources to help me along as I’m plodding through my writing projects.  I’m sure they’re supposed to be for more intelligent, academic pursuits, but they certainly suit my purpose for chasing potential muse-rabbits down their plot-holes.

     

    The Medieval Bestiary is exactly what it says it is.  And it has some fun graphics.  The site itself is a bit out of date, but it’s dealing in old lore and folktales so the information isn’t terribly likely to have changed too much since it was put up.  Everything sources back and usually has neat quotes from ancient texts, just in case you don’t like their summaries.

     

    Encyclopedia Mythica is a bit more straightforward and less graphically-inclined than the Medieval Bestiary.  It’s set up like a wiki. In my poking around between the two, the Mythica seems to cover a broader range of topics.  It includes an option to check their references but it doesn’t have the same handy quotes right there on the entry page.

     

    And then there’s WolframAlpha, which is a cool little quick-fact generator.  Type in a topic and it will do a breakdown of the information for you.  For example, type in the name of a city and it will return with a page full of stats and demographic information and random facts useful toward the goal of writing about them.  Very user-friendly, rather like Google.

     

    A friendly warning:  All of these pages are rather easy to get lost in, just like tvtropes.org, tumblr, or urban dictionary.  One search leads to another which leads to another and before you know it you’ve lost an hour to looking up if bears really pee in the woods or if that’s just a fairy-inspired wives-tale.

     

  • Word of the Day: Nostrum

     

    “When Trina came down with the flu, Old Bill suggested the nostrum of an onion peel and honey.”

    Nostrum – noun

    : a questionable medicine or remedy.

    ~ per Merriam-Webster

     

  • Word of the Day: Godhead

    Our-Surrendered-Nature

    “I have no idea how to use godhead in a sentence.”

     

    Godhead – noun

    1) divine nature or essence
    2) the nature of God, especially as existing in three persons

    ~per Merriam-Webster

  • Word of the Day: Adjective

    Back to the tedious basics…

     

     

    “A noun does not always require a colorful adjective; sometimes they can be rather bland.”

     

     

    Adjective – noun

    : a word that typically serves as a modifier of a noun

    ~ per Merriam-Webster