Writing

SoCS — Homophones

Fandango11 Comments

For this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has given us the words “peek,” “peak,” and “pique.”

BERJAYA

Before we go too far down this road, let me be clear that Homophones are not the types of smartphones, cellphones, or landlines telephones that are primarily used or preferred by members of the LGBTQIA+ communities. Now that we’ve got that straight, let’s move on.

Homophones are actually words in the English language that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have totally different meanings. Thus, they can really trip up the best of us when we are writing our blog posts.

Hey, I know even I sometimes get tripped up, too. Perhaps I type “your” when I mean “you’re,” “there” when I should use either “their” or “they’re,” or “to,” when “two” or “too” would be correct. But I admit that there are times, when I see people use a totally wrong word in a sentence, that drives me nuts.

Okay, you might think this discussion about the use of a wrong homophone is a bit much. But when I saw Linda’s prompt this week, it reminded me of a sentence that one of my coworkers (back before I retired) put in a formal email to me. That email read:

“I knew your email would peak her interest.”

OUCH! Hey, it’s not that I’m a grammar Nazi or anything, but seriously, one does not “peak” one’s interest or attention. The correct word in that sentence should have been “pique,” and not “peak.”

A “peak” is a topmost point, such as a mountain peak. And then there is the work “peek,” which is to take a glance or a quick look. “Pique” is to upset or excite someone or to stimulate someone’s interest. It’s not rocket surgery or brain science, folks.

Okay, I’m over my pique. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

RXC — Poem to Prose and Back Again

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BERJAYA

This post was written in response to Reena’s Xploration Challenge. This week’s RXC prompt number is 436, and Reena has given us two tasks. First, take a poem she gave us and reinterpret it into prose. Then, take a short prose paragraph and reinterpret it as a poem.

First, the poem:

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Leaves fall, yet roots endure,
snow buries, yet seeds dream,
winds scatter, yet paths return
time bends, but life remembers.

Now my lengthy prose story this four-line poem brought to mind.

A quiet truth lived beneath the forest floor, one most travelers never noticed. When autumn came and the leaves fell, the villagers whispered that the woods were dying. But Marianne knew better. She had grown up listening to the old trees breathe.

She would walk the winding path at dusk, boots brushing through drifts of gold. Every year the forest shed its memories, yet its roots endured, gripping the earth with a patience older than language. Snow would come soon, soft, heavy, smothering, but beneath it, the seeds dreamed. Maryanne could almost feel them humming.

One night, a wicked snowstorm rose without warning. Winds tore through the branches, scattering twigs, needles, and last scraps of autumn. Marianne lost the trail, spinning in the white roar, until she felt something tug at her feet. Not a force, but a familiarity. The path returned, guiding her home the way a memory guides a heartbeat.

Years later, Marianne would remember that night as the moment she finally understood the forest’s secret: time bends, loops, folds, but life, quietly, stubbornly, remembers. And so did she.

And now the prose paragraph:

BERJAYA

The seasons shift like unspoken truths — summer’s blaze softens into autumn’s hush, winter’s silence yields to spring’s renewal. In each turn, the human heart mirrors the cycle: burning with desire, retreating into reflection, and blossoming again with fragile hope.

Now my poem this paragraph brought to mind:

The seasons shift like unspoken truths
Summer’s blaze surrenders to autumn’s quiet breath
Winter keeps its long and patient silence
Spring answers with the courage to begin again
The heart follows every turn, through desire and reflection
Hope returns, delicate as the season that carries it

Images conjured using Copilot.

Sunday Poser — Film Noir

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BERJAYA

For this week’s Sunday Poser, Sadje asked:

What type of posts you like writing the best? 

If you have been reading my blog recently, you probably know that I have embraced a writing style known as the “film noir” style for a lot of my posts. This style of writing tends to feel shadowy and unsentimental. The language is often direct rather than poetic, but it can still use vivid imagery, especially for rain, darkness, smoke, bars, alleys, and nighttime city life.

Noir is characterized as hard-boiled, lean, and cynical. It often uses terse dialogue, a bleak mood, morally compromised characters, and a sense that trouble is unavoidable.

Most of my noir posts involve a private detective (private eye, gumshoe, dick) and a woman (dame) who is in some kind of trouble. I try to create an atmospheric scene (although some may call it formulaic), mostly at night when it’s raining and the raindrops are tapping out a symphony of despair on the PI’s office window. An alluring woman with emerald green — or deep ocean blue or muddy brown — eyes and Auburn — or blonde, brown, or black — hair steps into his office, wearing a low-cut red or black or blue or green silk dress. She’s smoking a cigarette, sits down, and engages in sharp, biting banter with the PI.

He pours her a drink — bourbon or scotch — from a bottle he keeps on his desk and asks her why she’s there. She leans in. He smells her perfume — the scents of lavender and regret — and she tells him her husband or lover or brother or sister is missing. She is worried about him/her and slips the detective an envelope full of money or a mysterious letter, still sealed.

He knows she is trouble with a capital T and her tale is as bogus as her bleach blonde hair, but he needs the money to pay the rent and keep the lights on, so he agrees to help.

This scenario can vary. Perhaps they meet at the local speakeasy near his office. He’s sitting at a booth and she walks into the smoky room that smells like spilled beer and false confessions. She slides into the booth across from him and recruits him to do something he is sure is based upon lies and innuendo, but he can not resist a dame like her.

This leads to the end if the story, which, for purposes of a 200-300 word post, is almost always unresolved. But our intrepid detective generally ends up feeling used or abused by these irresistible dames who step into his office or slide across from him in his booth. Alas, this is the life he has chosen.

I know this film-noir thing may be a phase for me, but I can’t express how much I enjoy writing these short, dark vignettes. And they serve as a very effective way for me to escape the bullshit that is constantly swirling around us in the real world these days.

For the image at the top of this post, I used Copilot to replace the dame in a noir image I created for a recent post with Sadje’s Sunday Poser question guy.

WDP — Daily Prompt Roulette

Fandango13 Comments

Before I answer “today’s” WordPress Daily Prompt, I need to point out that something weird is going on. When I opened up WordPress on my iPhone using the Jetpack app for iOS, this is the daily prompt that I saw:

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I was all set to answer this prompt by talking about my wedding ring, which I have had since 1978 and am still wearing every day 48 years later. I even took this photo:

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But then I opened up wordpress.com on Safari and this is what showed up as today’s daily prompt:

Daily writing prompt
What’s a book that completely surprised you?
View all responses

So then I was going to write about the Richard Adams’ novel, Watership Down. It was a surprisingly engaging adventure novel about a group of rabbits who flee the destruction of their home and search for a safe place to live. Along the way, they face predators, rival rabbit societies, and harsh the first natural dangers, while the story also works as an allegory about leadership, freedom, and survival. I even took a screenshot of the book’s cover:

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I started drafting my response about Watership Down in Safari on wordpress.com, but I am so used to writing my posts on my iPhone that I saved my draft on wordpress.com, closed the app, and went back to my iPhone to finish it up.

But when I opened up the Jetpack app on my iPhone and went to my home page, this is what I saw:

BERJAYA

WTF, WordPress? Is today’s daily prompt about the oldest thing I am wearing, the most surprising book I ever read, or whether I am a leader or a follower?

I am so confused now that I don’t know left from right or up from down, much less leader or follower. But there is one thing I am sure about. Whoever writes and posts these daily prompts needs a grammar lesson.

The first prompt asks “What’s the oldest things you are wearing today?” That wording is inexcusably ungrammatical and needs agreement between verb and noun. “What’s the oldest things you are wearing today?” mixes the singular contraction “What’s” (what is) with the plural “things,” so it should be corrected to one of these two sentences:

  • “What’s the oldest thing you are wearing today?” (contraction for “What is” + singular “thing”).
  • “What are the oldest things you are wearing today?” (plural verb “are” + plural “things”).

Hey, WordPress, get your act together!

WDP — Three Years Later

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Daily writing prompt
What are your favorite emojis?
View all responses

When I first responded to this question on April 30, 2023, I mentioned that I don’t use a wide variety of emojis. Mostly I use a smiley face, a winking face, a laughing (with tears) face, an angry face, a rolling eyes face, or a face palm emoji. I will occasionally use thumbs up or clapping hands emojis.

I was curious about what other emojis I used, so I opened up my emoji keyboard on my iPhone and took a look at “Frequently Used” emojis.

Here is what they were three years ago:

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I was surprised to find some emojis in this frequently used grouping. I honestly have no recollection of ever using some of them, like the live concert ticket, the avocado, the bone, or the swimmer emojis. But I guess I must have used them recently, although not frequently.

I thought it would be interesting — at least to me, probably not to you, though — to post what my iPhone indicates are my frequently used emojis three years later:

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Pretty similar, I guess. I have added a check mark, an X, a music symbol, a ghost, thanking (praying) hands, and an emoji with a halo to this year’s batch.

I am not sure if there is anything I can use to deduce an evolution or devolution in my emoji use in a three-year span. Maybe a little more anger or sadness since 2023.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Sunday Poser — Avoid Like The Plague

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BERJAYA

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know:

What do you always try to avoid?

Back in the day, I would never hesitate to get into a debate about politics or religion with people whose political affiliations and religious beliefs were different from mine. I found that a good healthy debate, even if it didn’t change minds or outlooks, was stimulating and I learned to appreciate other people’s perspectives even if I didn’t agree with or embrace them.

Over the years, though, I learned to temper my enthusiasm for such debates, especially since the companies I worked for were mostly conservative and my views were decidedly liberal. It was best for my career, that I avoided, at least publicly, getting into discussions about potential divisive topics with coworkers, bosses, and clients, and kept my personal opinions to myself.

That was one of the reasons I started my first blog in 2005. While it wasn’t a good idea to get into real world debates, blogging anonymously provided me with an outlet to express by deeply held beliefs, perspectives, opinions, and views without alienating people I worked for and with.

Fast forward to today. While I still post about politics and religion, I don’t do it that often anymore. It’s not that I have lost my passion, but people are so divided and so deeply and intractably stuck in their positions that debating ideas and beliefs has become too toxic and best avoided.

And so, to answer Sadje’s Sunday Poser, what I try to avoid is toxic debates about politics and religion. I still occasionally post about these topics, expressing my opinions and perspectives, but I don’t engage in debate.

In these divided times, it’s pointless.

Sunday Poser — Proofread, Edit, Repeat

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BERJAYA

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know:

How many times do you read and edit your posts before publishing them? Do you have to correct an error after you have posted a blog post?

I would say that I proofread and edit my posts at least two or three times — and more for longer posts — before I hit Publish. And yet I still occasionally end up with typos and misspellings on my published posts. Why? Because the eyes often see what the brain expects them to see, not necessarily what they are actually seeing.

I also try reading my drafts out loud to see how they sound and if the sentences as written make sense. That sometimes leads to major rewrites, including moving paragraphs around to improve the flow.

And yes, even with my best efforts to make my posts perfect — at least from a grammatical, spelling, and punctuation standpoint — some still get published with errors. When that happens, all I can do it is go in and fix whatever needs to be fixed.

And I hope that my fellow bloggers understand and forgive me. After all, unless you’re using some generative AI engine to write your posts for you, we are all only human — and to err is human .

Sunday Poser — What a Novel Idea!

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BERJAYA

For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje wants to know:

What are your thoughts/plans about writing a book/novel/ book of poems? 

While I was working, I wrote and had published about half a dozen industry-related article in various business and trade journals. They were generally short articles ranging from 500 words to a couple of thousand words. I wrote them and handed them over to someone in the company to get them published.

It was easy because the articles were essentially related to what I did for my job.

Okay, I’m back after my faux pas. To continue…

I admit, it was a bit of an ego boost to see my name in print in a trade journal that maybe a few hundred people might have read or to have someone come up to me at a seminar and say, “Hey, I enjoyed your article in such and such magazine.” But I had a job to do and writing journal articles was not a big part of it.

After I retired at the end of 2016, I had decided that I was going to publish the great American novel. I had several started, but unfinished attempts, the longest one of which was a mystery/detective story featuring my go-to detective character, Fred Morrisey, and his partner, Ron Hayden. I wrote about five chapters that included a gruesome murder, some mayhem, and some brilliant detective work.

But then it stalled. I didn’t know what to do with it, where to take it, or how to sustain a novel-length story. So I shelved it.

Then I started writing a “ripped from the headlines” story and I got excited about that because it was based upon real events that had already taken place so I knew where to take it. All I had to do was fictionalize it beyond recognition. But I got bored and shelved it after only three chapters.

I already had a blog at that time, so I decided to focus on that, including writing flash fiction. If I couldn’t complete a novel-length story, surely I could handle 300 to 500 word stories on my blog.

I have thought about taking sone of my flash fiction posts and maybe trying to flesh them out from a few hundred words to a few thousand and seeing if I could publish a book of such stories.

But I think I’m just a bit too lazy. Right now I am happy writing stories for my blog. It’s fun, there’s no pressure, no trying to write something to please a publisher or to go through the rigamarole of self-publishing.

So there is my answer to Sadje’s Sunday Poser. Yes, I have thought about it, but I have no plans to do anything about it.