I invented “One-Liner Wednesday” mostly as an excuse to post something small – be it an inspirational quote or something humorous – that is equivalent to Facebook blather or a tweet. I often get more out of the comments on these sentence-long posts than other articles which take me minutes, or even hours, to write. It’s you, my amazing followers, who make it happen. Thank you.
And so I’d like to extend an invitation. Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here or on my weekly “One-Liner” post to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
1. Make it one sentence.
2. Make it either funny or inspirational.
That’s it.
I’d be delighted to make this a “thing,” so to speak. At the very least, I’d love to give back to my lovely audience by connecting you all to each other.
C’mon – give it a try, and find some new, interesting blogs!
I have decided to self-publish my A-Z novelette ahead of the major work, The Great Dagmaru, which I’m still editing. I’m going to do this for several reasons: one, to make any mistakes I’m bound to make on something that I haven’t spent years working on; two, to get my name “out there,” and three, for the experience.
The novelette comes out to 10,300 words and I’ll probably try to sell it for $0.99.
So I’m looking for beta-readers. Many of you read it in April as a series in 30 parts. I’ve made a few minor changes, but it’s pretty much as it sits in my fiction blog, only compiled for easier reading. What I’d like from my beta readers is no-holds-barred critique, for everything from typos and grammar flaws, to inconsistencies, redundancies, and general impressions on the story, structure, characters, readability, and whether it holds the interest all the way through.
I’d prefer to have five readers, at least two of whom haven’t read it before. Because it’s short, I’m hoping to get it back within two weeks.
It’s a fun little romance story with plenty of humour and even a little twist at the end. If you figure out the twist before you get there, let me know!
Anyone interested, please comment or write to me at bacamjoly at gmail dot com.
I just wanted to say thank you very much to all of you who made Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week the biggest ever! We had so many great posts from amazing bloggers, both regulars and new participants.
Just in case you missed some of the later blogs, here they are in the reverse order of when they posted:
If I take all the things I like, and all the things I dislike and put them all, say, into a box, my box will be filled and devoid of a unique number of things. Some people in the world would need really big boxes, and others would fit all the things they like into a shoebox. I tend to try to avoid both types.
The types of people who make me suspicious, however, are the ones who tell me they like everything I like and dislike everything I dislike. How can they? Our boxes, after all, are as unique as our fingerprints. And so when I come across someone I seem to have a lot in common with, I try not to tell them I like the same things they like – at least not too many – because it kind of freaks me out. I don’t want them to get suspicious of ME.
Sometimes I think we should have a sheet that we can check off things we like and don’t like and hang them around our necks for other people to see. No wait, that’s just stupid. Can you imagine how many people would look at your sheet and not want to associate with you because you, for instance, enjoy eating peanut butter with cheese? I’d never have spoken to my best friend if I’d known that up front.
The point is, I like what I like and you like what you like. If we all liked the same things, how boring would the world be? What would we have to argue about? We’d all be one big happy world without conflict and we’d all sit around smiling all day because the things we don’t like wouldn’t even exist. I don’t think I’d like that. Would you?
After my much-needed little rest, I’m back with this week’s SoCS prompt! During my couple of days off, not posting any articles myself, I found I had a little more time to wander around and read some of the blogs I enjoy. It was fun! I probably hit the “like” button more times in the past forty-eight hours than I usually do in four days. In celebration of that, I’m going to ask you bloggers out there to write your Stream of Consciousness Saturday posts based on that one word.
This week’s prompt word is “like.” Any way you want to interpret it, “like” always. 😉
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Don’t hesitate to join in!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and paste the following: This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-2114/ The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
I must remember this next time I’m writing a dream sequence.
Just before I woke up this morning, I dreamed I was ordering breakfast. I was in a bus station, standing at a tall counter looking up at a very sparse menu. Not knowing what else to have, I asked for toast and marmalade. The curious thing was, when I asked for the marmalade I knew the person behind the counter would have a hard time with the word and I remember having the time, as I was saying the sentence I used to order the food, to change my order to make it simpler for the clerk. All those thoughts went through my mind sequentially, much like they do when I’m awake only I was hyper aware of them and they were so fast! I decided what I wanted, thought I shouldn’t say it and why, all in the space of time it took me to say “toast with jam.”
It’s amazing what the human brain is capable of. I know I have the capacity while awake to have a thought, form a sentence in my head, and think to myself I shouldn’t say it, even as I’m either saying it or changing it mid-sentence. And yet while I’m awake the process seems so sluggish… perhaps why I sometimes say things I know I shouldn’t; I don’t have the mental capacity all the time to change once I’ve started, or stop in the first place.
I wonder if a study has ever been done to see if we’re more likely to put our collective foot in our mouth if we’re tired. Food for thought… preferably not toe jam…
This post isn’t about what I thought to write about today, but rather, something that has come up. It’s about reading, yes. But then again it’s about not reading. Not being able to read.
Every once in a while my vision goes wonky. It happened today and I’ve been having a hard time seeing my screen. Last night before bed I was squinting at my book. Today I’m seeing double – one image is above and to the right of the actual image. It’s very hard on the eyes.
I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t see to write, or to read. I know I wrote about losing one of my senses before (can’t think of the title of the post right now, but it was about losing either your sight or your hearing- which would you choose if you had to?) and at the time I said I didn’t know. Then again, I was sitting at the table with John this morning and he could hear a song playing in the other room and was able to name it – I couldn’t even hear a sound, let alone a recognizable song. So I suppose I’m losing both. I may not get to choose.
The things we take for granted – our senses if we were born with them being the most obvious. I sit here at the kitchen table looking out at the deck I plan to stain this summer and I wonder if I’ll always be able to see it. I wonder if we forget what colour is like when we go blind, or if we just assign another sense to it. I can imagine green would be warm to me, even though it’s not considered a warm colour (I don’t think). It represents summer, after all.
There are men outside chopping up the tree that fell in December. I can see them through the slats of the fence. It’s cold out today, so I imagine their work is comfortable.
Maybe I’ll stain the deck bright red. There goes a chainsaw – there goes my thought process.
I’m posting this without reading. I hope it makes sense.
It’s SoCS prompt time again! A great deal of time in a blogger’s life is spent reading, whether it’s books outside the blogosphere, other blogs, or even our own articles that we pore over time and time again to get them perfect before hitting the publish button. So with that in mind, what better to do with Stream of Consciousness Saturday than write something we’re not going to fix?
This week’s prompt will be slightly more of a challenge, should you choose to accept. Your prompt is to include the word read (present tense), read (past tense) or red. The extra challenge? Publish without reading. Just do your best while you write, then make a really squinty face and pluck up the courage to hit that button. If you’re brave enough to do it, make sure you tell us you’re going to at the end of your post.
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Don’t hesitate to join in – it’s fun and this week it tastes good too!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and paste the following: This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-1414/ The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
I’ve been having a hard time for the past few days getting into editing my novel. I’m able to force myself to work, but then I come up with any number of excuses to do something else, every other sentence I fix.
Candy Crush Saga is only the tip of the ice cream cone. (Make that a mint chocolate chip Klondike Bar.) How about those dishes in the sink? Or is that another email? And let’s not even mention WordPress stats. And if all else fails and I’ve done everything else I can do, or eaten everything in the house (damn, I just ate tomorrow night’s pork chops… and why do my teeth hurt? Must be the fact that they were still frozen…) I start to notice that my butt’s starting to hurt because I’ve been sitting on it too long.
It has to be time for a glass of wine.
You can see how it goes. I sit down to edit at times like this and I get SO MUCH ACCOMPLISHED! just not any editing. Is it really worth spending three hours just to slice the hell out of two paragraphs that I end up not happy with anyway because I wasn’t really concentrating?
How does anyone get this job done for goodness sakes?!?
lindaghill.com 