Loved Ones Leaving

snow on the side
piled several feet high
wooden box
lowered under the rocks
a single tear
with her so near
i reach out my hand
to the overturned land
where your body will be
though your soul will be in heaven with glee
i turn away and sob
but i feel robbed
of joy
of life
of my future
but, ya know
Jesus sits on a throne
with her on his lap
as all the angels clap
for a life well lived

Ways to Get Story Inspiration

1. Play Role Playing Games online. 
I really have had fun with the Harry Potter (Role Play) community on Google+. It is great fun, and it gives me story ideas.



2. Read! 
Probably one of the simplest of these is reading. That can give you ideas: for fanfiction, stories of the same genre, or stories inspired by the same style.

3. Baby Name Generators
Baby name generators really generate some absurd names. For all we know, your next story could be about someone named Sugar Candy Stevens!

4. Random Word Generators
I have tried, a few times, generating six words and writing a story about them, as a word sprint! I think one of the words was... butter.

5. Writing Prompt Generators
Now these things are pretty straight forward. Generate a prompt, write about. And, if you want to be bold, go with the first prompt you get!

6. The classic 'Jar of Ideas'
The classic 'Jar of Ideas' takes a bit more effort. Whenever you have an idea, write it down and put it in the jar.

I also stick post-it notes to my mirror, which is where I often write.

7. Sleep 
Hey, sleep gives us ideas! (In our dreams)

Last night, I had a dream about cats being called 'mooks' and one was underneath the ice at our family cottage. That's story materials, eh?

8. Role Play with Friends
Tonight, my sister and I had a Harry Potter themed battle, including Dobby and silver spears and snatchers.

Yeah.

Why are Bad Words Bad?

I've been raised in a Christian home, and can't say some words that my friends can, even if they are just words. But what makes bad words so bad? They, too, are just words! My lunch table has had several good discussions on this, and it makes me curious to research how a normal word becomes a swear word. I found out some very interesting facts- both for and against swearing.

First off, what is profanity, or swearing? Merriman-Webster defines profanity as "an offensive word", but what if you say a swear word and are not insulting someone else? Years ago, profane words were words that were used in a way to disrespect God. And if you're being the devil's advocate, then you might say, "What if I'm not a religious person?"

And if you're being a clean person, you could say, "Well, if that was what profanity was described as in Bible times, what makes it any different now?" And the truth is, it shouldn't be any different. But society makes it different.  Sometimes society says that to be accepted, you have to swear. In my opinion, that's not the truth.

And, if you're not a religious person, that doesn't change much. Swear words are not pleasant to hear, and will physiologically affect you, causing your palms to sweat.

Swear words are used about the same amount as pronouns. Swear words make up .7% of our daily vocabulary while pronouns make up 1%. That's .3 % of a difference.

Steven Pinker has designated five different types of swearing, which I will describe briefly. The first, abusive swearing, are words used with the intent to hurt someone. Emphatic swearing is where you want to show that, to express your emotions, these words are necessary. Dysphemism is where you express your feelings in an unpleasant, unprofessional way.  Two words may have the same meaning, but different amounts of social acceptance. Idiomatic swearing is where you swear to express the casualty of the atmosphere. It's not said to hurt anyone, but instead to tell your peers that the worst of the worst is cool with us. Whether you want to hear that, it depends. Cathartic  swearing gives us 'lalochezia', the medical term for relief given to us by hearing or saying swear words when in pain.

Swearing isn't all that bad! Though the language isn't pleasant, swearing gives us a feeling of power (which can be good or bad), pain relief, and non-violent retribution.

At http://people.howstuffworks.com/swearing1.htm, they say that swearing is used to establish group identity, express trust, add humor, and hide fear or insecurity.

I'm just going to say it: Swearing is not mandatory to establish group identity.  But swearing definitely does make a point in a conversation. You could either infer that someone is opinionated after hearing their sailor's language, or that they are over-the-top.

Whether or not to trust someone who uses swear words is your own choice. Personally, I find it harder to trust someone who swears.

Swearing is also not the only way to add humor. I could crack a joke or make a pun in front of a crowd, and I'm sure I would get the same, if not more, of a laugh. But, as Psychology Today says, swearing among friends can be quite hilarious, making light of a situation.

But that last one shocks me. Does this mean, when I hear the buff guys in the grade swear, they are actually scared or insecure???

I'll leave that last one for you to answer. and hope that you learned something from reading this article. What are your opinions on swearing? Go ahead and leave them in the comments!

#Writing_Wednesdays Read Good Books- Write Good Books

Have you ever noticed that when you read a book for a while, you tend to think like the characters for a while afterwards? For instance, the book Ninth Ward is narrated in a very choppy, descriptive style. I really like it, but a few years ago I was reading it out loud a lot, and I realized that what I said and my thoughts were in that style. I would think choppy, descriptive things.

That is just one example of how books affect us. If I read Junie B. Jones for my entire life, I'm not going to be a very good writer because I haven't been exposed to good writing. Now, If I only read Harry Potter, then I will only be exposed to that genre, therefore not knowing how to write other genres and styles.

My point here is to vary what you are reading. Expose yourself to different genres. Now, I am not so good at that and make a point to read different books in between my Harry Potter loops, but it is definitely a good goal.

Time- A Poem

I think back

To two weeks ago

And my excitement

I was going on a trip

But today

I realized

That time is like a train

Going through

A never-ending world

The background keeps changing

And we change with it

And that's why I say

To enjoy what you have

While you have it

Life in Mill Halley- 1

**********Skyler**********

I turned from Linnette’s deathbed, silent from grief. Roslyn walked over.

“You can write, can’t you?”

I nodded. I was a poet. I turn and hug Roslyn. Linnette’s pale face haunted my mind, her blue blouse covering her chest and Stanley sitting on the edge of the bed. The cancer had fought Linnette for years, and Linnette didn’t have much strength left in her. She just stopped fighting a week ago and was offered Hospice.

Roslyn Royel Ibbit, Ginger Gillim Tattinham, and I grew up with Linnette Birdie Close in Mill Haley. It was amazing how close we were, living within a block of each other. We were always there for each other, but now Linnette was gone.

We couldn’t let it end. We had to write.

20 Telltale Signs That You're a Writer

Add any to this list that you would like!!!

1. You find yourself writing past your bedtime. 
2. You find yourself writing on the stairs. 
3. You find yourself writing in the bathtub (or bathroom) 
4. When you are supposed to write an 2-paragraph essay on the best form of government, you find yourself writing a 7-paragraph-essay about how much you love Harry Potter. 
5. You get up at five in the morning to write. 
6. You find yourself participating in NaNoWriMo. 
7. You find yourself participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. 
8. Instead of writing swear words on the bathroom stall walls, you write stories.
9. You find yourself slapping people who don't like writing. 
10. You have no friends because no one else likes to write as much as you do. 
11. You've never met any of your friends in person because you met them all at Virtual Write in's. 
12. Instead of counting sheep when you can't sleep, you come up with story ideas. 
13. You enjoy killing people. (in your stories, of course)
14. All of the people that you have killed died in different ways. 
15. The majority of your new years resolutions have to do with writing. 
16. You didn't write any new years resolutions because you were too busy writing for your blogs. 
17. You have more than one blog dedicated to writing. 
18. You have more than two blogs dedicated to writing. 
19. A whole corner of your room is dedicated to writing.
20. All of your stories are backed up 3 different ways because you've heard of the horror of losing a 50,000 word manuscript. FOREVER.

Gamboge Tael (The Erelarian version of Cinderella) part 2

The ball was gorgeous. Girls of all ages were dressed in dresses in all colors and styles, but none of their beauty could even compare to Tael and her gamboge hair and azure shawl. The prince saw her and knew that under her beauty there was, even more than on the outside, beauty.

They met, and danced until late. At the twelfth stroke of midnight, Tael saw her stepmother and two sisters step through a door to the carriage. She spun around and ran, as her life depended on it, through the woods next to the dirt road, only in her dress for her shoes and shawl had fallen off onto the steps of the palace.

She scampered up an oak tree at the front of the house and disappeared into the home through an open window and bounded into her bed just as her stepmother barged into the room, an angry scowl on her face. She saw Tael, still in bed, and huffed out.

The next day, Tael sat up in bed at the sound  of a knock on the door. Before she could even leave the room, it was locked. She peered out the window, to see the royal carriage. But Tael was trapped. She sighed and turned around, singing a sad song as she made up her bed.

From her room, Tael could hear fake laughs and real, muffled screams. But not after long, the house was quiet except for Tael's mournful singing and footsteps as the prince himself left the small home.

But the prince and his royal servants stopped dead in their tracks underneath Tael's window.

She, too, stopped to sing.

"Hello?" The prince called up. "Who is this, whom I hear, singing from the house?"

"It is only I," Tael shouted down. "The maid, Tael."

"Please come down!"

"I'm sorry, your highness, but I'm not allowed to. I work here, and only do what my stepmother and sisters tell me to do."

"This is an order, from the prince of this land. You see, last night, at the ball, I danced with a beautiful girl with gamboge hair and an azure shawl," the prince held up the shawl, "And I'd like to return the shawl to her. The girl also left her shoes, and it is an order that all of the girls in the kingdom try on the shoes, leaving me to marry the girl and return the shawl."

And so Tael climbed down the tree and presented her foot to the prince, who slipped a shoe on to the pale, slender foot. It fit perfectly, and Tael stood up in the heel and kissed the prince, and he kissed her back.

The tale goes on to say that Tael and her Prince got married the next day, and, instead of living in the castle, lived in a small cottage near a willow tree on a river, and every day, Tael would place an orange tulip in the creek to float down through the town.

Gamboge Tael (The Erelarian Cinderella) Part One

There once was a fair maiden, but her mother had died of illness and her father remarried to a woman so vain and selfish that she ordered Tael to work the second she set foot in the house. Tael was a young girl of such beauty that it pained her stepsisters to look even so much of a glance at her, for they were ugly and wretched, with no sign of beauty on their faces.

It came time for the annual ball, where the Prince of Erelaria would search for a bride. In previous years, Tael had been banned from going, but this year she begged and begged, still to no avail. Tael ran to the stream outside their manor, overwhelmed in grief, and sobbed countless tears. The tears merged with the water, and Tael, surrounded in grief, did not notice the silver dress wrapping around her.

The small girl looked up from the river bank and noticed the dress growing around her. A beautiful azure shawl draped upon her shoulders, and a white stallion stood behind her.



As a token of her gratitude, Tael gathered an orange tulip from the yard stretching around the river and watched it as it floated through the currents. She turned and mounted the stallion, where she rode off to the ball happily.

Compilation and Analyzation- Somerset Maugham

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1e/45/5e/1e455e90b39c04991178afa973ba1120.jpg

I totally agree with this quote. I started writing often in second grade. Though my stories may have been silly and childish, they were stories, and it was a start. I slowed down in fourth and fifth grade; I felt so silly and that I was so much worse than my sister. But the reality was that I was embarrassed to be second at something. I picked it back up in sixth grade and continued to where I am now. It's been a rocky road, but it has now turned smooth.



http://www.dailymayo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/tellstories.jpg

If you overlook the swear word in this Maugham quote, you'll see how epic it is. The main point is, the quality of your writing doesn't really matter to the quality of the story. Now, if a book is terribly written, yes, it probably won't thrive in the published world, but if you have amazing characters, passion in your writing, plot, then I'm sure a few mistakes can be overlooked.


https://www.google.com/urlsa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjAhtKvgbXKAhVCYyYKHWLQCJYQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymayo.com%2F2012%2F11%2F08%2Fquote-w-somerset-maugham-onwritingrules%2F&bvm=bv.112064104,d.eWE&psig=AFQj CNFawO4WNH4UGLv-3MK1JzG1BFI-Ug&ust=1453262648126183

I talked a lot bit about this quote on Monday- see this post.


Somerset Maugham has many other quotes, but these are my favorite writing quotes. Tell me what you think about compilation and analyzation in the comments below!

Pippa

#Writing_Wednesdays 1

Today's a Wednesday. And here at The Words are Flowing, Wednesday's are #Writing_Wednesdays. Here is the prompt:

What is your favorite writing music?

The Water Round

The day of the Family Olympics Water Division, I dressed in my blue swimsuit and trotted down to the lake, where Uncle Tom was stretching in his rippled speedo. His hairy chest wobbled up and down as he struggled to touch his toes. I look away, disgusted at the sight. The sky was as blue as a cerulean crayon, white clouds skimming the horizon liked stretched cotton balls. I uncapped the sunscreen and sprayed my bare arms before a stampede of cousins come dashing down, dressed in bikinis and floating rings. But there he was. Lucas. Lucas had trained, back in Colorado, to become an Olympic swimmer. He had been swimming, every morning, for about an hour. Practicing. I only practiced 30 minutes in the morning, and only took a conditioning class back home. We were the top competitors. The swimmers lined up in the shallow water. Though I was only covered up to my waist, younger family members were practically drowning in the chin-deep water. When Aunt Autumn blows her whistle, I kick off of the sandy lake floor and position my foot on a leg of the dock to push off. I spiral through the murky water. I feel so alive, as I see fish scattering below me through my purple goggles. When I am feet away from the far dock, I curl into the smallest ball possible and spin. My bare foot grips the dock's post as I push off. I streamline through the waves, 'squeezing the cheese' as Coach Geoff instructed me to back home. The flip turn was extremely over-rehearsed, but it all paid off as I streamed forward, pushing off the minuscule post. Lucas is ahead of me, but barely. I cycle my arms frantically as I perform the crawl stroke. I can see his knees. Then his hips. He, too, is swimming freestyle. It's the fastest stroke. I can see his shoulders. His head. I kick as hard as I can. Think of everything you love. Do this... For them. My legs become a kicking machine as I thrust one arm forward, feeling for one of the dock's legs. Everything around me goes dark, as if I've floated under a cloud. Where sunlight can't exist. I continue kicking, determined to win, and emerge on the other side of the dock, breathless. I stand up and see Lucas sitting on the other side of the dock with his face in a beach towel. Uncle Tom has just now reached the far dock, and 2-year-old Rebecca is not even there in her pink arm floaties. I laugh as I pull myself up onto the dock. I don't care if I won anymore. I had fun, isn't that all that matters? Aunt Autumn hands me a blue ribbon, and I step up onto a tree trunk. Lucas sulkily accepts a red one and takes his place next to me. "Well, Lucas," I smile. "I guess you need a bit more training before you become the new Michael Phelps."

How I Write

Somerset Maugham once said, "There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." I like to live by this quote. It really demonstrates that when you write, you are free, with no boundaries. I write in the corner of my bedroom, in about a 2-3 foot area. On my left are three pieces of scrapbook paper taped to the side of my desk- orange stars, yellow zig-zags, and green stripes. To my right is a gray wall. In front of me is a stack of a yellow and white pillow that I use as a mouse pad, a lamp, and the rest of my room. I sit, propped up by a beige body form pillow with a 10 by 6.5-inch netbook on my knees. I normally write at night. How do you write? Post your writing methods in the comments! 

I often write at night, with chocolate and a water bottle filled with ice water. Other times I write in bed with my pajama's on past my bedtime, when I can't sleep. I write through programs such as NaNoWriMo, or in contests for other blogs. 

I make a point to write every day- whether it's an essay, creative writing, for school, something like this, or an analysis of quotes, writing is like breathing. It's a necessity. 

A field of Snow

I slipped into thick socks and laced up the white skates, and stood up to face a field of snow. It lay like a sheet before me, so thin that the silver blades could reach the thick ice below. I stepped forward with my left foot and glided forward a little bit before stepping forward with my right. It took a bit, but before long I was gliding across the lake like a swan.

The sharp blades cut through the soft snow, leaving behind a trail of cut marks on the lake. In the summer, you could never see the lake like this. You could never look back and see the cabin from this view. In the summer, you would be drenched in water if you attempted something like this. But winter does something to the world. A white sheet has been laid upon the ground, and icy gusts are brought by the wind instead of relieving breezes. Water is frozen and turns into a substance as smooth as glass, so smooth that skates fly over it.

An icy stream of wind comes dashing by, nipping my nose and tugging on my ears. My fingertips turn white, and I massage them as I continue to skate across the lake.

I stop dead in my tracks as the ice lets out a hollow groan  Before I know it, CRACK and I'm under. I feel like I am being sucked into a vacuum, pulled by the metal on my skates. My heavy peacoat pulls me under, but I paddle. It seems endless as my lungs run out of air to breathe. I continue to paddle, determined not to drown.

My lungs gasp for air the second the water breaks above my head. Chunks of ice float around me, covered with snow. I scramble to the ice, but it breaks off. freezing to my arm. The bitter cold surrounds me as dusk begins to fall, but I still have not succeeded in reaching land. It seems like so long ago when I was skating across the ice that now I pull off, stuck in the water that used to be below me,

I can't take it much longer, I am freezing, my belongings are weighing me down and my eyelids are drooping. They close and I feel myself floating away. I see my body disappearing beneath the surface of the water after letting out a strangled cry. I feel so young, so sad, so vulnerable, but I'm warm. I'm wrapped in a blanket of angel wings and I just....

fall...

asleep...

Running at the Track

"Carmen." I stare into my friend's bright blue eyes. "What food do you love, more than any other food in the world. We were running the mile in gym class, and it had to be under 9 minutes to pass. I may have been a motivated runner, but Carmen wasn't so much. By the second lap I had looped her.

Her eyes sparkle. "Popcorn."

I laugh. "Popcorn it is!" We run around the corner, approaching the 100-meter sprint finish. I peek at my watch. 8.14.

I begin to sprint, bellowing "POPCORN!" at the top of my lungs. Carmen, engaged in the fantasy of a bag of freshly popped popcorn sitting at the end of the track, sprints like never before. Her shoulders rotate back and forth as she dashes past me. "POPCORN, CARMEN!" I scream, slowing to a jog. I walk to finish my 5th lap, and there she is, sitting on the ground with a wide grin on her face.

"8.58." She smiles. "Next time, it'll be 8.57. And maybe they'll be a bit more popcorn, too." We laugh Some stories are never forgotten.