Is it possible? I daresay it is!

I apologize for the long stretch between updates! There has been a lot going on. Mostly homework, but I have also been enjoying the last days of warm weather for the year. The autumn colors in Wisconsin are too gorgeous to not be outside.

Currently, I am sitting at my desk attempting to find some motivation for homework. Not working so well. The good news is that I don't have much that needs to get done tonight; the bad news is that there is definitely plenty I could be doing. Blahhhh.

Exactly.

So I was on Facebook (that's nothing new!) and I glimpsed an ad on the sidebar that was actually relevant to me. Shocking? I think so. It was an ad for aspiring writers. Naturally, I clicked on it.

http://www.onepageperday.com/

I will give my raving review in one word: EPIC!

Seriously, this website is perfect for people who want to be writing but need help remembering to actually do some writing. You sign up with your Google or Twitter account and then begin writing. As it says, you only have to write ONE PAGE. And it does truly mean one page. The page length is about what you would have on Microsoft Word, or a physical sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 printer paper. And then it will tell you that a page is completed and inquire if you wish to continue. I was quite enthralled immediately.

BUT.

What to write???????

I stared at the blank page in front of me, considering all the story ideas I've had crammed in my head for years now. (No joke, I think some of the characters are getting dusty....) None of them jumped out at me. Okay, so was there a new idea? Something I hadn't considered in the past?

Turns out there was. I love those novels that are written entirely in poetry, usually free verse form (or the lack thereof!). I began writing in this format, and suddenly realized it had turned into something that was befitting the genre of science fiction. Hmm. This is a new development. Are there any sci-fi free verse novels? Probably, but I haven't ever run across them. So I'm going to continue writing this story and see where it takes me. After all, I am a writer. And writing of any sort is my stress reliever.

Perhaps I will post an excerpt from the story on here once I have ten pages or so.

Shameless promotion!!

As you may have noticed, I reconfigured things on this blog o' mine. There are links and more links...yes, I like links. However, there are two links I would appreciate my dear followers to take close notice of. Under the heading My Other Blogs are two links. They are, as should be deduced from the heading, my other blogs!


Enthralled by the Written Word is my blog for the books I am reading and my thoughts on those. This one is quite new, as of I think last Friday. Updates will probably be few and far between simply because I'm a busy college student. The moral of this tale is that I should have started this blog in the summer when I was reading three books a week. Oh well.

Jaded Poetry is my blog for, you guessed it, my poetry! I have some poetry on my LiveJournal from awhile ago, and I should probably link to that on here, but my LJ became sadly neglected, so I moved everything to Blogger. This blog, also, will have rare updates. I will do my best.

nostalgia~ (a prose poem)

I want the days of hopscotch and blowing bubbles that went shining into the sun. I want to go back
to when going down the playground slide was like
an exhilarating fall to earth. Do you remember when the weather turning cool and the leaves
falling in cascades of color was as magical as a hot summer evening
 with fireflies lighting up the darkness? Why is it that we look back and childhood seems to be so rosy and
 beautiful? It's not like there weren't bad times along with the good.
Maybe we just remember the good more strongly because our brains
 are wired that way. Maybe we just remember the good more strongly because that's the way our society is.
Or maybe it's just that sense of protection, of love and joy that only a child
 untouched by the larger worries of the world can know.
Jesus said to have faith like a little child.
I think I know what He meant; we need to trust in those above us and allow them to shut out the world sometimes. Is this what heaven will be like? Maybe, but we won't know until we're there. Some days I'll think about my childhood, about the awe
and wonder that I knew as I discovered the world. And that it's beautiful, all around.
A touch of nostalgia comes to me when I see a chalk drawing on the sidewalk
and I smile as I remember the days of hopscotch and blowing bubbles that went shining into the sun.

Dante can go to Hell...oh wait, he already did!

Time for a personal post!

That's right, dear followers (of whom there aren't many...), I am updating. Mainly to avoid some of the mountain of homework that I really must complete sometime in the near future. The weather is absolutely beautiful outside, but I'm inside sitting at my desk. At least my window is open.

As for the title of this post, I want to explain that I have nothing against Dante Alighieri, nor against his Divine Comedy. It just seemed an appropriate title because I'm taking a class on the book; thus, a research paper is in the making (writing?), per the professor's requirements. Also, remembering the circles of Hell that Dante the Pilgrim sees in the Inferno is....hell.

Sorry, that's a rather hellish pun.

So was that.

And for proof that I truly am a literature nerd, this is what I'm currently reading as my not-schoolwork-book: The Dante Club, by Matthew Pearl. Literary murder mystery, starring Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and other major figures of literary fame. Did you know Longfellow was the first American to translate The Divine Comedy? I want a copy of his translation now. It's probably epic.

Before picking up this glorious novel by Matthew Pearl, I did not know much of the poetry of James Russell Lowell. Actually, I only really knew the poetry and writings of Longfellow. So, I decided to look up some writings by the other guys. I shall leave you with this poem, even though it is not yet April:

MAY IS A PIOUS FRAUD

by: James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

AY is a pious fraud of the almanac.

A ghastly parody of real Spring

Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind;

Or if, o'er-confident, she trust the date,

And, with her handful of anemones,

Herself as shivery, steal into the sun,

The season need but turn his hour-glass round,

And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear,

Reels back, and brings the dead May in his arms,

Her budding breasts and wan dislustred front

With frosty streaks and drifts of his white beard

All overblown. Then, warmly walled with books,

While my wood-fire supplies the sun's defect,

Whispering old forest-sagas in its dreams,

I take my May down from the happy shelf

Where perch the world's rare song-birds in a row,

Waiting my choice to upen with full breast,

And beg an alms of springtime, ne'er denied

Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods

Throb thick with merle and mavis all the years.

"May is a Pious Fraud" is reprinted from Under the Willows and Other Poems. James Russell Lowell. Boston: Fields Osgood & Co., 1869.