Word Of The Day Story

Morning all

So here is the poem/short story I wrote using the word of the day this month!

It's been fun. And strange. Some great words that I didn't know before (marcescent, gynecocracy and thrasonical being some of my favorites) and some words I'm sure I'll never use again, such as Poikilotherm: An organism, such as a fish or reptile, having a body temperature that varies with the temperature of its surroundings. Doubt I'll ever need to use a term for that specific thing again!

It was funny how I would get four or five words in a row that made complete sense to lead on from each other, and then suddenly I would have a word that would take me somewhere completely different. Cowpooling was one of those words, which means 'the practice of two or more parties jointly purchasing all or part of a butchered cow and dividing the meat between them. God, it was SO frustrating having to put that in!

Of course, the result is a very odd piece of text which goes in several strange directions, not my best work, but I think it was definitely worth doing! In terms of improving my vocab, I actually think this is a useful exercise. Looking over what I have written, I know exactly what each word means because I've given it context. And it has given me a few ideas for some other pieces :)

Perhaps something to try when I'm stuck for ideas in the future would be to create a whole poem around one new word, or maybe even a small collection. Definitely worth trying!

New challenge tomorrow, until then, enjoy.

The men had turned marcescent

And were blown away at the hands dynamitards

Put to sleep with a dwale

Now stuck in a wheel with a pawl

Turned around by the fine upstanders

Every crank sends a quilisma through them

Invisible mitraille wedging between their vertebrae, paralyzing

Still they kept to their tapinage

Waiting. To bring down. The Gynecocracy.

The women’s thrasonical demeanour had begun to take its toll

Bunched together, botryoidal, they swelled with pride

But with this came niaserie

And a thrave of rebels were ready

Unsonsy to the victors soon to be victims

As if they were poikilotherms the sun seemed to boil their blood

They had hardened with their torture and not a single flebile man remained

Watching the women nurdle on about their current state

Living in this cacotopia they had created

The rebels met under the cromlech

Their numbers increased in chilliads until an army had gathered

It was the neomenia and the new moon stirred in them an animal

Their long oppressed gene pool had left them all with illiteracy and dyscalculia, their lack of 

                understanding of the world around them only adding to their rage

But their leader, strong and cool headed, spoke with such parrhesia you’d think he was a scholar

His henotheism had helped to heal; the knowing that there was always another way

And his plan to escape this ergosphere they had been placed in was coming to a head

They dined; meat and bread and stolen cymling

They filled their pockets with dittany, prepared for their wounds

And the ethnarch led the way

His team of close friends by his side, knowing they may never cowpool together again

Time to stop being dapifers. Time to take action.

Books I think Are Great

Hello!

So an update on the Vocabulary challenge... it has morphed. I'm still reading, I'm still compiling my lil word of the day poem... but I've given up on vocabulary.com. Mostly because it's actually a really bad website with a lot of errors and I didn't think it was doing much good. A shame, but there you go.

So mostly this challenge is now just reading every day, which isn't too challenging as I love reading! But it's good to force myself to do it. I am now on my third book in one month, which is about as many books as I think I've read in the last year, so there you go. It's amazing what you can do with a little bit of effort.

I thought I'd do a blog post today about some of my favorite books. I would like to number them in some kind of order, but it's too damn hard! So here, in no particular order, are five books that have struck with me and I think everyone should read.

Peter Pan

I love all things Peter Pan. I love the play, the ballet, the Disney cartoon. My favorite film of all time is 'Hook'. And all of that came from a beautiful children's book with a great background to it. (Watch Finding Neverland for that - it's also great like everything else Peter Pan related.) I've read it a few times, and it is just gorgeous. It's like someone took the perfect untainted imagination of a child, bottled it, mixed it with ink and then poured it onto paper. Children's books from this era are so much more eloquent than what we usually get today, and a delight to read!

Beloved

This is actually one I have just read this month! Maybe it's a bit soon to add it to my top five, but I really think it might be one of the best written books I've ever read. It centers around an escaped slave in America and her broken family. It's a heartbreaking, touching and haunting story, but what's really wonderful about it is how Toni Morrison weaves it. She is so clever with how she writes, knowing exactly how to captivate your attention and keep you wanting more. She captures thought brilliantly, and you really feel like you get under the skin of her characters. There's something quite challenging about it, in a good way. It is a pleasure to read because it makes you work a little. And her use of description is utterly utterly beautiful. I was blown away.

The ENTIRE Harry Potter Series

I know this is cheating a bit, it's seven books, but the whole series has had a huge impact on my life. I genuinely feel so lucky to have been a child in the time when this was written. The memories I have of getting the books on a Saturday morning, and the house being completely silent while my sister and I poured ourselves into them, will stay with me forever. For the last one we even queued up at waterstones in fancy dress at midnight. So many people!! I don't know if we'll ever see a fuss like that over a children's book again. It was so great to be a part of.

And these books were so important to us. I have never cared about any character as much as I did about Harry, Ron and Hermione. I was so invested in this story, and still am. I have read them all at least twice and I daresay I shall read them all again. AND watch all of the films repeatedly. And I really believe it's not just nostalgia (though that plays a large part) I think J.K.Rowling came up with a wonderful story that has great lessons in it, and she created a truly magical world. The work that went into all that detail is incredible, and has influenced an entire generation's imagination. She has defined what 'magic' means to so many, and I think she did a bloody good job too. I'm still waiting for my Hogwarts letter.

Northern Lights

Peter Pan... Harry Potter... bit of a theme for fantasy here. And I personally think that His Dark Materials is perfection as far as fantasy goes. I do have a particular fondness for Northern Lights over the others, I'm not even sure why. It's the one I always want to read again! Phillip Pullman establishes in it the most incredible fantasy world, and you feel when you read it that your own imagination is a part of it's creation (which is why I KNEW the film was going to be awful - some things are meant to just be on the page)

When I read it as a child I was engrossed in the beautiful storytelling, and as an adult I appreciated it's ideas and values. It also has one of the most kick ass heroines in all of literature, and I was genuinely sad when I finished the series that I would be leaving Lyra behind. She is all I wanted to be. Truly, I think this is the one book I would recommend to every single person on the planet. It's just.... I can't even... just read it.

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

THIS BOOK! It's been years now since I read it and as I began to type I realized how much I need to read it again. It's brilliant. It tells the story of the charismatic Randle Patrick McMurphy, who faked insanity so that he could serve his sentence in hospital and not prison. He's a fantastic character who stirs up a bit of a revolution amongst the oppressed patients he now resides with. But the truly excellent part of the book is the narration - you watch the rise and fall of our hero through the eyes of the strong, silent, gentle giant Chief. And through his eyes you fall a little bit in love with every patient, and your heart breaks for all of them. It is an amazing celebration of the beauty of the human mind, and it makes you FEEL THINGS INSIDE!!! And the film is brilliant too - Jack Nicholson at his finest. Oh I love this book I do. Another must read.

So those are some Books I Think Are Great!!! If you haven't read any of the ones I've listed, go and read them!! Hopefully they will effect you like they do me. And I hope to have a load more books to contend with these in the future.

Nine more days.

The Vocabulary Challenge

Greetings friends.

It's a new month, it's a new challenge.

In August I set myself the challenge of writing every day, and I was pretty happy with some of the stuff I came up with. Since then I have been doing a lot of performance poetry, which has been going really well. And I've rekindled my love for writing. I did attempt to write a novel in November, but I didn't quite pull it off. Still, I will not be deterred.

I wanted to do a challenge that would contribute to future writing adventures. As an actor, writer, and lover of good books, having a good vocabulary is pretty important to me, so I thought I'd do a challenge that would help me to expand mine.

So I present to you a challenge of my own design: The Vocabulary Challenge.

There are a few layers to The Vocabulary Challenge

1. They say the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read. I myself love reading, but don't make enough time for it. So I am going to commit half an hour a day to some reading.

2. I will also commit half an hour a day to playing on vocabulary.com which is a great website where you can test your vocabulary. It's kind of like a game you play in rounds to get points, and it keeps testing you on words until you solidly know them.

3. This is the fun one. I will use my word of the day app on my phone to get a new word, and I will use that word as a stimulus to write a paragraph, which of course has to contain the word. I'll be writing a new paragraph every day, and I'm going to do my best to make them link together so that at the end of the month I will have a short story, which I will post on here. I'm sure it will wind up being very silly in an effort to include all the words I'll be getting from my app!

So, as a starting point, the word of the day today is 'marcescent' - meaning 'withering but not falling off, as a blossom that persists after flowering'

And the paragraph is:

Forty two years of marriage had brought Peter and Judith, among other things, three children who had for a time consumed them completely. Their house had been full of noise and laughter, and their lives full of long working days and family filled evenings that then ended comfortably in each others company. Now their children had flown the nest to have seven more between them, and Peter and Judith had reached their long anticipated retirement. The house was empty, and their lives filled primarily of each other. Faced with the incessant ticking of the clock every day, their previous state comfort seemed to shift towards something they didn't quite have the words for. Soon, Peter and Judith began to realise that their marriage had become marcescent. Hanging by a thread that seemed determined not to break. 

I look forward to writing more :)

Day one of thirty down!