Oooh, brrrr. Here’s a chilly subject. Appropriate considering we’re getting freezing rain here. Tiny little glaciers falling from the sky. The kind of weather that lifts your shoulders to your earlobes.
Speaking of cold shoulders, (what a segue, eh?) the first synonym in my thesaurus for glacial is antagonistic. Along those lines are also inimical (I absolutely cannot pronounce that word. Can you?) and unfriendly. This immediately brings trolls to my mind; the glacial denizens of the internet.
We’re all waiting to cross that bridge, aren’t we? If we haven’t already of course. That icy, slippery causeway to misery – commentary’s dip into a hostile Arctic abyss.
Or.
Just ignore them and they’ll go away.
The word, “glacial” also brings to mind my childhood and my favourite pasttime back then – figure skating. Although I practiced for eight years, I never did perfect the art of the axel. For those of you not too familiar, it’s a jump that involves taking off from a forward facing direction, spinning one and a half rotations (for a single axel) in the air and landing on the opposite foot facing the other direction. I simply didn’t have the guts to really give it 100% of my effort. I did enjoy coaching, though. Figure skating is one of those things that fits well into the adage, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
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 to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), 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.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
And… this is the hardest word I’ve had to deal with yet. How ironic.
Actually, you know what? If you’re EVER looking for inspiration for something to write on your blog and you have an actual, physical thesaurus (because it’s not going to work with an online one), challenge yourself to write whatever you turn to. Even if you have to close your eyes, open the book and point. Whichever root word your finger lands on, write the first thing that comes into your head. Not good enough? Look at the synonyms! Everything you need to write a post is there.
Like this one – “easy.” The entry for this is full of not only words that mean the same thing, but there are phrases as well. For example: “easy as pie.” How easy is a pie? Have you ever made a pie from scratch? I haven’t. Why? It’s too damned hard! The phrase makes absolutely no sense to me. Or how about “like taking candy from a baby”? That’s not friggin’ easy! It’s cruel! Who the hell wants to take candy from a baby? If nothing else it disturbs the peace!
So what have I learned from this post? From this little exercise? That apparently the easiest thing of all to do today is get me into rant mode. Odd that some of the synonyms further down on the list are serene, tranquil, and untroubled. That’ll teach me to read the whole entry before I start typing next time, won’t it?
I’m doing a little happy dance. There are 26 left-hand pages in my thesaurus; only eleven of them have entries that start with “de.” I chose the eleventh, and so I’m able to combine the two posts (SoCS and A-Z) into one. Was it dexterity that allowed me to pick a good page? Nah. Blind luck.
Nimble-fingered – that’s me of late. With my shoulder problems (it’s now frozen, by the way. I’m waiting to get a call from the hospital to go for a combination ultrasound/steroid shot) I’ve had to learn ambidexterity. I can’t write with my left still, but I’m learning to eat with it. You think you can use your left hand to manoeuvre a fork but if you’re right handed it means you’ve got a knife in your right hand to help your left out. Without the knife, you use your right. Right? Try using your left hand next time you eat something like macaroni. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
I look to try to be dexterous in many aspects of my life. Some of its synonyms are clever, handy, neat and proficient. Proficiency is such a handy skill to have. (Is that redundant?) I attempt always to cut down on the steps it takes to do something. Tidiness depends on it. Never going up the stairs empty-handed is something I strive for.
And with writing too – less is more. Proficiency or dexterity in grammar makes the difference between something that’s easily readable and text that goes on forever, saying nothing or worse, repeating itself.
As you probably know, my words for this A-Z Challenge are coming at random from my thesaurus. I’m absolutely committed to sticking to the rule I set for myself to take whatever word I open the book to that is the second from the bottom on the left-hand page. This will not, by the way, apply to the letters X and Y and Z- there aren’t enough pages for those letters. But I digress. My main concern today for the letter C was one particular entry that just happens to be the second-last letter in the left hand column on page 104:
Yes, this could have been the word of the day. It was with a grimace and a prayer to the word gods of the planet Thesauri that I gingerly parted the pages of my big red book and believe me, it was with a sigh of relief that I discovered I wouldn’t have to talk about cocks. Luck was on my side; I landed instead on page 108 and the word “commit.”
I think to a certain extent we all have things that we’re compulsive over. One of my biggest compulsions is that I must stick to a commitment. I may even be worse–more determined–with the commitments I make to myself, though I’m pretty fierce when it comes to doing whatever I promised someone else I’d do. Which is why it just about kills me when I can’t keep up with these challenges I set for myself.
One of the synonyms for “commit” is “imprison.” I do, in a way, imprison myself when I dedicate myself to something. I box myself in but that’s really not all that bad. For an unemployed (at least in a 9-5 sense) woman, structure isn’t something my days are filled with. Yes, I have to get up when the rooster crows (see what I did there?) for my kids, and I have to be here when they come home, but what of the space in between when they’re at school? A commitment to something consigns me to a task. In the case of this particular commitment–blogging–you, my friends, are my overseers.
I wouldn’t let us down unless under duress.
What, apart from your family and your job are you committed to? And how far would you go to honour your commitment? I’d love to know.
Friday this week finds us in a long weekend for Stream of Consciousness Saturday! I can only imagine how busy you’ll all be with Easter, and families, and friends, and giant bunnies to deal with, not to mention those who are participating in NaNos and Blog Hops – it’s crazy! To potentially make it a bit easier on some of us, I can at least start with the correct letter for tomorrow’s A-Z Challenge. So, this is it:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: use a word, anywhere in your post, that begins with the prefix “de-.” Extra points if your word ends with “ed”! It’s all about the fun – have some!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions
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 can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. 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!
My best friend John bought a loaf of Dempster’s Supergrain bread and left it on my counter. I didn’t notice what kind it was until early the next morning. I usually buy Seed Lover’s bread and so that’s what I was expecting – therefore, what I read in my early morning stupor was “Superseed,” which made me wonder if I should eat it before I finished the old loaf…
(supersede)
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 to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), 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.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
Only five hours left, as I start writing this post, until April begins and I’m chomping at the bit to write my first A-Z. I don’t know if the fact that I have no idea what I’m going to write makes it harder – or easier for that matter – but a challenge is something I anticipate with glee pretty much all the time. I’m the same way as November 1st approaches when I’m getting ready to NaNo.
I’m so anxious to begin that I signed up my anonymous blog for the challenge too. I’ve assigned it an “Adult Content” classification and I’ve decided to write about controversial subjects in fiction. It will include articles on writing sex scenes, murder scenes, and the stuff that grosses people out among other things. If I’m brave enough I may even touch on topics like what is and isn’t considered child pornography, all with the greatest respect of course. Although I’ll have a set out theme, it may end up being more of a challenge than not knowing what I’m going to write at all.
So who’s with me? Are you ready? Are you dreading the next month? Are you anxious to read any particular A-Zs? Do you pronounce it “zee” or “zed”? There are quite a few April A-Zs I’m looking forward to. If you have one or two links to share, feel free. 🙂
I’m such an idiot. I mean, you’d think I’d think about what I might want to write before I come up with the prompts for SoCS, or at least when I do, but what really inspires me is the words themselves. I don’t think ahead past that until I actually sit down to write the post. This one, for instance.
Someone (sorry, I can’t remember who at the moment, but I’ll look it up when I’m finished writing this – J.L. Campbell (@JL_Campbell) – that’s who it was) said to me the other day on my A-Z reveal that they couldn’t write posts not knowing what they were going to write about ahead of time. I said I thrive on it. And I do. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this year’s A-Z, finding a word minutes before I sit down to write a post. I think I may end up writing many of the posts largely in Stream of Consciousness style, though I will probably edit them before I publish. For me, once I get on a roll with my writing I can’t stop. It’s like those conversations you have in your head when you finally figure out, sometimes hours later, what you should have said. That witticism that escaped you that makes you, later, slap yourself for not thinking of it sooner. Or the eloquent explanation of how you feel about something that sounds so good in your head, but once the confrontation is upon you, you trip over. THAT’s exactly how being on a roll feels like to me. It’s that speech that’s impossible to reproduce. And that’s the real beauty of not knowing.
Friday’s here again and time to get ready for Stream of Consciousness Saturday. I have a list which I keep adding to every time I get an idea for a prompt. Strangely, the list keeps getting longer – I never seem to use it. And you know what? This week is no exception. So I present to you once again, your unlisted prompt for SoCS!
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “naught/knot/not.” Use one, use ’em all… you know the drill! Have fun!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions
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 can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. 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!
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