The word my thesaurus gave me today is “measurement.” The following is pure stream of consciousness writing. Unedited. Enjoy.
The measurement of moo can vary. It might be simply moo, it may be moooo–I think it depends on the cow.
Or perhaps it relies on how hungry is the cow.
A cow who is famished may have a lengthy moooo, whereas a contented cow might have a moo. Does this mean an overstuffed cow gives out a mo?
Mo, the cow, lived in a meadow where the grass was very green. She was a lonely cow–all of her cow friends had gone off to less green pastures. Which meant they were shipped off to farms where they only served hay. Mo knew this because one of them, as she was going by in the back of a truck on her way from one hay-ish farm to another, yelled out, “YO! Mo! Thar’s hay in them thar hills!”
Mo was not a contented cow. She longed for a bull to call her own. She was fat from all the green, green grass she consumed on a daily basis, and she was very blue. Which was why she didn’t go with the other cows. No one wanted a blue cow named Mo.
The years passed, and Mo got fatter and fatter. Her only visitor was Flo, the lady farmer who looked after the farm. Every day Flo came to pat Mo on the head, and Mo would say “Mo,” and Flo would answer back, “Ho! Did you say ‘mo’? You’re supposed to say ‘moo,’ ya stupid blue cow!” and yes, Flo said this every day because she had no memory from one day to the next.
But then, one day, a bull showed up at the fence. It was a runaway bull from across the way, and he happened to be green.
“Mo,” said Mo when she saw him. She carefully approached the fence. She’d never seen a green bull before.
“Mooooo,” said the bull.
“Are you hungry?” asked Mo.
“I am,” replied the bull. “I’ve been walking up and down this road for days. My farmer doesn’t know I’m missing.”
“Oh dear,” said Mo. “Why don’t you hop over the fence and have some of my grass?”
So the bull did, and months later, they had a little brown calf whose name was Moo. And they all lived happily ever after. Except for Flo, who couldn’t figure out where the green bull came from and why all her cows were so stupid.
I was going to write this post before lunch, but my thesaurus had other ideas.
The temptation is great to take a picture of my thesaurus, to prove the word second from the bottom on the right-hand page is really “later.” And my quote above is not a lie. I procrastinated purely because of the word itself.
There aren’t very many synonyms in my book for “later.” There are seven: “after, afterwards, next, sequentially, subsequently, successively, thereafter.” Strangely enough, procrastination isn’t there. But “later” is certainly the word I use most when I’m putting something off.
And I put far too many things off lately. I have an excuse – I’m working. For money. Like, real money and everything. It’s my excuse for not publishing the book I was going to get out before this year, and then by the spring, and now, hopefully, before summer. And yes, it’s a good excuse, yet I’m getting angry at myself, because I really want to get my own book published. What I need is someone to kick my ass every time I say the word “later.” Yeah, that’s what I need.
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Don’t wait ’til later, buy it now! For only 99¢, you can get my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
Ironically, it’s easier to set a paperback alight.
The fact that the word “kindle” in my thesaurus says nothing about the Amazon company’s hardware for reading ebooks caused me to do a little research. First, the copyright in the front of my book is 1998. I thought, ah-ha! That must be why. It is and it isn’t. Well, technically it IS–Amazon released the first Kindle in 2007–but apparently it wasn’t the first ereader by a long shot.
According to Wikipedia, the first commercially available ereader was the Rocket Ebook, which came out the same year as my thesaurus. More interestingly, as per Google, the very first automated reader was invented in Spain in 1949. I think the thesaurus was invented long before that, however. Considering its name, it could even have been dug up like an old bone.
Anyhoo, getting away from all that boring history stuff, “kindle” has some of the most amazing synonyms: “arouse,” “brighten,” “ignite,” “incite,” “sharpen,” and my favourite, “inspire,” to name a few. It’s enough to make you want to write a book. Or read one.
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Hey, come to think of it, you know which book you should read? Mine! And you can get it on Kindle for only 99¢! Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
When life is chaotic, it’s good to know a cup of tea is as close as the kettle, even if my bed is hours away.
Yippieee! Today my thesaurus has given me a word to play with that’s both a noun and a verb! That means I can jumble my jumble, or confuse my gallimaufry (which makes sense, because I have no idea what a gallimaufry is). I can muddle my mishmash, scramble my potpourri… I can even tangle my rat’s nest! Wait… my pillow does that every night. That’s what my comb is for.
But you know what? I’m too tired to mix up my miscellany tonight. My house is a hodgepodge, a farrago (another one I have to look up), a mess. It’s disarranged. Yeah, let’s go with that one. And my mind is all higgledy-piggledy, so I think I’ll just tumble off to bed and start all over again tomorrow.
Goodnight, all!
***
For more humorous reading, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
I’m beginning to think my cretinous thesaurus is out to get me – I really don’t want to talk about politics, but where else are there idiots? 😉
Whether or not my thesaurus hates me this year, it sure is challenging me. So what can I say that’s idiotic? I’m sure I can come up with something. We all do idiotic things once in a while. I locked myself in my car the other day. Not that it was difficult to get out, but I set the alarm off, causing everyone in the parking lot to turn around to see who was breaking into a car. No one, as it turned out. I was breaking out. It was the second time it’s happened to me. I may have already blogged about the first… That would be a birdbrained thing to do, wouldn’t it?
I’m more likely to do stupid things when I’m tired. Trying to take shortcuts in the kitchen is a classic example of when I’m prone to breaking or spilling things. Walking into rooms and having no idea why – that’s pretty daft.
But being an idiot isn’t all bad. I often act like an idiot with my kids, dancing with them in public and just being generally loony. That they’re embarrassed to be seen with me is their problem…
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It’s nutty, a bit sappy, it’s definitely funny, and it’s only 99¢! Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
The difference between erotica and pornography is not love. It is word choice.
Yes, my thesaurus stuck me with the word “horny” for the letter H. I cheated on the letter G – I couldn’t cheat twice in a row.
Yet I’ve found something to talk about on the subject, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about writing on for a week or so anyway. I’ve come across the question a few times in the last few months: “What is the difference between erotica and porn?” The answers given on the various platforms have ranged from porn is dirty and erotica isn’t, to erotica is when you have a real relationship and porn is just for one night stands. Neither of these is correct, nor is it true that erotica only includes clean words, though word choice has a lot to do with it.
The short scene I’ve included below is one I wrote about three years ago. It is erotica, it is a bit messy, there are no swear words, and there is no sex. I think I may have linked to it a couple of years ago (it was on another site), so you might be familiar with it if you’ve been following me for a long time.
Enjoy.
“If you want to be a healthy young woman, you need to eat more fruit,” he said as he placed on the kitchen table before me a peach and a bowl of blueberries.
When our relationship was new, he explained that he wanted to wait until at least the third month before we slept together. He enjoyed the anticipation, he told me on our first date. The concept was new to me, but so far I had to agree. Now, as the second month was becoming the third, we both felt the tension of our abstinence.
He told me also that he wished to take care of me. Feeding me seemed a little extreme, but I decided to go along with it for the time being. To see where he was going with it. He hadn’t lead me astray yet, after all.
He turned his chair around and straddled it, sitting at the end of the table, to my right.
“Are you hungry?” He raised an eyebrow and I took in his smile, the roughness of his five o’clock shadow, his lean body all the way down to his belt, below which I could only imagine.
“Famished.” I clasped my hands together in my lap, not wanting to look down but hoping my shirt was unbuttoned enough at the collar to tempt him with a little cleavage.
He picked up a single small blueberry from the bowl and held it to my lips. I opened my mouth but he didn’t let go of the fruit. Instead he twirled it between his thumb and forefinger.
“I want to put it on your tongue,” he said. “Don’t bite it.”
I allowed him to place it in my mouth.
“Press it against your palate with your tongue … move it around … resist the temptation to eat it.”
I moved the little nub of fruit around inside my mouth as I was instructed. It was firm and round and I couldn’t … I shifted it with my tongue to my molars and gently closed them until the blueberry exploded in a tiny burst of bitterness.
I blushed. “Sorry,” I said.
“We’ll try again,” he said, patiently. The one he brought to my lips next was larger. Softer. I knew it would be sweeter and more difficult to resist. The skin of it was wrinkled and on my tongue it felt malleable. This time when I pressed it against the roof of my mouth it gushed, yielding easily to the pressure.
“You really are hungry, aren’t you?” He smiled at me and shifted in his chair to ease his discomfort. “Let’s try the peach then, shall we?”
He held it out to me and I took it. It smelled as ripe and luscious as it looked.
“Bite it,” he commanded, his eyes half-lidded. “Open wide and …”
My teeth penetrated the delicate skin of the fruit, and the juice cascaded past my lips in a great wash of fluid. I tilted my head back to guzzle as much of it as I could, but some of it dribbled down my chin as the flesh of the peach made contact with my tongue. I took as much down my throat as I could handle; the excess dripped from the edge of my lower lip. I felt it drop and then trickle down between my breasts and I moaned.
Licking his own lips in sympathy, or perhaps it was lust, he stared at me, hard.
“Do you want some?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he whispered hoarsely.
***
If you’d like to read some more of my fiction, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob. There’s even a touch of erotica in it.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
Give me a glass of wine, and I’ll show you one light-headed lady.
I admit it – I cheated. I said I was going to write a post on whatever word showed up on the right-hand page, second from the bottom in my thesaurus, no matter what, but the word I found today was “genocide.” I’m not going to apologize for turning the page. So what did I get instead? “Giddiness.” Couldn’t be more opposite.
Anyway, welcome to the Stream of Consciousness version of the A to Z Challenge, where nothing is deleted and nothing is planned. Also, nothing but typos are edited. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I go back and fix the punctuation. But that’s mostly for your sake. If I didn’t, you might not be able to figure out what I’m trying to say. …or maybe you can’t anyway…
It’s been a less-than-giddy-inspiring day today. My darling son is up to his antics, whining over a game he’s been playing all day. Oh, he’s as good as gold for ten minutes if I threaten to take it away. But every time I walk away, he’s at it again. He’s sitting beside me now, leaning on me, “singing” in his own way – he’s Deaf, so it’s more like a one-note elongated scream – knowing there’s nothing I’m going to do about it because I’m typing. If I don’t do it (post this) now, it’s going to be so late that I won’t feel like doing it. All freakin’ day it’s been like this.
So after he goes to bed, I think I may open a bottle of wine and get… let’s look in the thesaurus… (I’ll take all the “-ness”es off the words, since the original has it.) Dizzy, faint, light-headed, nauseous, vertigo, wobbly, or woozy. I see a few there I definitely don’t want to become. Wobbly sounds good. I remember when I was younger someone calling beer “wobbly-pop” on a regular basis. It fits.
Okay, the kid’s getting overwhelming again. Wish me luck. And wine.
I opened my thesaurus to find my random word of the day, and lo and behold, I’ve learned something new! A “fen” is, apparently, a “bog, marsh, morass, muskeg quagmire, slough, swamp.” And I can’t for the life of me figure out why I would want to call any of those things a “fen.” Or at least I couldn’t, until I looked up the definition. According to Google, a fen is not only characterized as marshy land that’s frequently flooded and has an “alkaline, neutral, or only slightly acid peaty soil,” but it’s also a particular area, described as, “flat low-lying areas of eastern England, formerly marshland but largely drained for agriculture since the 17th century,” known as the Fens.
Giggidy, as Quagmire would say.
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Wanna read a fen-tastic book? Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
My thesaurus was bound to give me at least one difficult word to deal with. The definition of “emissary,” according to Google, is “a person sent on a special mission, usually as a diplomatic representative.” This screams of politics of course, and I really don’t want to talk about politics.
Let’s see what I can pull out of the synonyms to talk about instead: “agent,” “messenger,” oooh “spy,” and what’s this? “Plenipotentiary” – what’s one of those? Damn. “A person, especially a diplomat, invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their government, typically in a foreign country.” Okay, so all those are out.
You know what I want an emissary to be? Me. I want to go on a mission to guide you, as a narrator, through my stories. I want to be the messenger for my characters. I want to be their representative. And in a way, that’s what an author is. The agent who relates the tale. The spy who knows all the players’ deepest, darkest secrets.
So there you have it. I hereby rename authors as emissaries. This is my plenipotentiary decree!
Yeah, I’m full of shit.
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Allow me to take you on a guided tour through the lives of my characters. It doesn’t cost much – only 99¢! Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
The first thing that springs to mind when I see the word “diversion” is magic. Which isn’t surprising, since I’ve been writing and editing a novel (or three) about a magician called “The Great Dagmaru” for the past five and a half years. Making someone look the other way is an art, whether it’s in order to perform a trick behind their back or whether it’s to cause them to pay more attention to you.
Yet some might say it’s easier now to create a diversion: our attention spans are shortening with so much going on around us and in our own living rooms, on our screens where everything is the next biggest or cutest spectacle. For as far as entertainment goes, it seems to me that those of us who still read novels are the last holdouts of the ability to concentrate. And still, so many books, so little time. A novel must capture the reader’s attention in the space of a few sentences or it will be passed over. And authors wonder why the blurb is so much harder to write than the book itself.
Oh look! It’s a chipmunk.
But I digress.
All this talk about diversions and how they entertain has led me to seek the difference between a diversion and a distraction. According to my trusty thesaurus, it seems diversions are happy things and distractions are less-than-desirable things. Somewhat. The synonyms for distraction range from “delirium” to “relief.”
One way or another, diversions and distractions add up to procrastination.
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Looking for a fun diversion? Look no further. Please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“Delightful, Light-hearted tale with great twists!” ~ Lori Carleson, 5 stars, Amazon review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
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