(Almost) A NaNoWriMo Kickoff!

I'm here at midnight to bring you an exclusive NaNoWriMo kickoff post! I've got my stockpile of candy and YouTube videos while I wait. This post is going to be a journal post. As I begin typing, it's 10:05 p.m. Central Standard Time. I've just eaten a piece of candy, and now I'll go surf the web for thirty minutes.

...

10:32 p.m. CST. Getting tired, actually. Do I still want to stay up until midnight? Gonna watch some more videos.

...

10:51 p.m. CST. Ugh, I want to go to sleep! I shouldn't have stayed up last night, then I'd be refreshed for NaNoWriMo. Oh well. But I'm only an hour away...

Okay, I'm going to bed. November is almost here, 'tis the season for writing like crazy. Night.
-JW

Poetry Thursdays - The Hunter

Greetings, readers! I come bringing poetry, and very bad poetry at that. Please try to enjoy my rhythmic fumblings below:

Deep in shadows of the nightly glade,

Where crawl the creatures of the night,

A silent hunter lone is laid,

Awaiting prey in his eyesight.

The hunter's arrow notched and primed,

His eyes do see the sudden shape

Of silhouetted doe well timed;

He crouches lower in his cape.

The string drawn back, he fires aloft,

And strikes the deer straight on at once;

The hunter springs, with feet so soft

And follows after the bleeding prey.

He finds her in a field afar,

And takes what's useful from her hide;

He sets off under nightly star,

To home, where he'll prepare the side.

Wednesdays: 25 Facts About the Human Brain

Welcome to Inkweb! Today, I have a compiled list of 25 facts about the human brain.

Concerning the schedule: tomorrow I will be posting a short poem I have composed, and then on Friday will be Cat Monologue #6! On Saturday, I will post HyperLinkzer's suggested short story.

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1. The human brain weighs about 3 lbs.
2. The human brain starts growing at birth and stops growing at approximately eighteen years old.
3. The human brain uses about 20% of the total oxygen in the body.
4. The reason that it doesn't tickle if you touch yourself is that the brain recognizes the difference between your own touch and unexpected external touch.
5. Memories triggered by scent have stronger emotional connections in the brain.
6. Einstein's brain is at a museum in Philadelphia.
7. Most people dream about 1-2 hours a night and have 4-7 dreams during that time period. Just because you can't remember dreams doesn't mean you don't have them.
8. Laughing requires activity in five different areas of the brain.
9. The human brain is 75% water.
10. The brain can feel no pain, in the rain, falling gently on the plain in Spain. :) The brain actually has no pain receptors.
11. Reading aloud and talking often with young children promotes their brain development.
12. While awake, the human brain generates enough power to turn on a lightbulb.
13. Physical illness is highly tied to psychological illness. 50-70% of visits to the doctor for physical ailments are estimated to be related to psychological factors.
14. Every time you recall a memory or have a new thought, you are creating a new pathway in your brain.
15. Brain waves are actually more active when you're dreaming that when you're awake. "When we're asleep, our mind can do almost anything...Now in a dream...we create and perceive our world simultaneously, and our mind does this so well that we don't even know what's happening. That allows us to get right in the middle of that process...by taking over the creating part." Haha, sorry for the Inception quote. It's my favorite movie, and I couldn't resist.
16. Harvard has a "brain bank" where human brains are stored for study.
17. Humans are estimated to think an average of 70,000 thoughts per day.
18. The word "brain" appears 66 times in the plays of William Shakespeare.
19. The hippocampus of a London taxi driver is much larger than the hippocampus of an average person, because London taxi drivers know the city streets by heart, and their brains have grown to accomodate this memorization.
20. 85% of the brain is the cerebrum.
21. Music increases brain organization (both playing and listening).
22. There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the human brain.
23. The hearing range the average young adult's brain can interpret ranges from 20 to 20,000 hertz.
24. The average human brain is 167 mm long, 140 mm wide, and 93 mm high.
25. Hmmm...don't have any more facts. Oh well.

Happy end of October and beginning of November! I would try to start growing a mustache for Movember, but I haven't got any facial hair yet. I'll just have to settle for endless noveling...ah, well...
-JW

Announcement: November Noveling

Okay, readers of Inkweb, I have, on the spur of the moment, at the flip of a coin, at the roll of a die, decided to participate in NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month is quite fun, and although I do not have the faintest inkling of an idea what to write, it will still be fun to try. I've completed it once before, and also Camp NaNoWriMo, which was the more successful time of the two.

However, readership, I will not abandon you! My schedule will remain largely the same, except for one small detail:

DURING THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER, I WILL NOT BE POSTING SHORT STORIES.

Well, that's the major change for the month. I will still post HyperLinkzer's suggested story this Saturday, November 2nd. I will still be posting cat monologues and fact lists and poems, and, of course, mad things (maybe even novel excerpts) on Mondays. But I will not be posting on Saturdays this month.

Toodles!

-JW

Poetry Tuesdays: "On A Play Twice Seen" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

So, I've decided to make a change to the poetry schedule here on the blog. Thursdays, I will still post my own compositions, but on Tuesdays, I will post other poems that I think noteworthy. This week I am posting one by a great author of the 20th century, F. Scott Fitzgerald, called "On a Play Twice Seen":

On A Play Twice Seen

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Here in the figured dark I watch once more;

There with the curtain rolls a year away,

A year of years--there was an idle day

Of ours, when happy endings didn't bore

Our unfermented souls, and rocks held ore:

Your little face beside me, wide-eyed, gay,

Smiled its own repertoire, while the poor play

Reached me as a faint ripple reaches shore.

Yawning and wondering an evening through

I watch alone--and chatterings of course

Spoil the one scene which somehow did have charms;

You wept a bit, and I grew sad for you

Right there, where Mr. X defends divorce

And What's-Her-Name falls fainting in her arms.

Mad Mondays: Where's the Postman?

Welcome, readers of Inkweb, to Mad Monday! Today I have a little scavenger hunt challenge for you guys. Basically, it is as follows:

1. I've hidden a small image of a postman somewhere on the blog.

2. It looks like this:


3. Whoever finds it first gets to give me a premise for a short story. It can be about anything of your choosing (within reason). Man goes diving and gets attacked by an octopus? Aliens attack a cheeseburger? Whatever you suggest.

Now, a disclaimer: this scavenger hunt won't require any serious slogging through every single post of the blog. It should be relatively simple, if you've got your wits about you. And no, the postman in this post does not count.

Have a good day, folks! Thanks for reading!

-JW

P.S. Whoever finds the postman also gets to name him, in case I do this again in the future.

Cat Monologue 5 - Curses!

Curses! My owners have succumbed to the vile force of idiocy that so many of the canine race presume! AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!! There is no worse thing that could be happening right now; my kibble supplies are running low from paying off Lenny; Max the dog is as stupid as ever; and now, the household is out to buy ANOTHER DOG!!!

Wednesday: 25 Facts About Bears

Hey readers, sorry for the lack of posting yesterday. Poetry is easy to write, but also easy to forget to write. So, here are 25 facts about bears!

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1. The easiest way to tell the age of a bear is to count the rings in a cross section of its tooth under a microscope.

2. Only the polar bear is a true carnivore. All other bears are omnivores.

3. Sun bears' tongues can be up to 10" long.

4. Koala bears are not bears; they are marsupials (like kangaroos, only less hoppy).

Mad Mondays: Creepy Dog Thingy

It's Mad Monday! I have to post something today, so here you go:





Disclaimer: THIS IMAGE DOES NOT BELONG TO ME.


I'll get something of substance to post for next time.
I'm underway with a short story for Saturday, I've got some poetry tomorrow and Thursday, and I will post 25 facts about bears on Wednesday. Cat Monologue #5 is coming up on Friday.

So that's our schedule for the week, guys! Toodles!

-JW

Short Story Saturdays: Bag the Catch

Hello and welcome to Inkweb! Here's my short story, as promised. Any suggestions for Mad Monday? Comment below, let me know. All right, here you go!

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The truck rumbled down the dusty dirt road, throwing up clouds and clods of pale brown smoke that adhered to the tires and spattered onto the red paintjob. It would need a car wash when it finally rolled back into town, but for now, Max didn’t really care.

He opened the door and stepped out, tilting his baseball cap slightly as he walked. The dirt path was a dead end, but there was a small brown house standing at the side of the road. Max could see the desert for miles around, stretching on for infinity with little hills and bigger ridges, getting farther and farther away until the skyline of the city rose up with the horizon behind.

Max came up onto the porch and knocked on the door.

“Password?”

“It’s Max, lemme in.”

The door swung open, the screen door quivering as it moved. Max stepped in.

Feline Fridays - Cat Monologue #4

Welcome to Inkweb! Here is the newest cat monologue, featuring Chester Felix. Any suggestions for Mad Monday? Comment below and let me know. I hope you enjoy this monologue, in which things get a little interesting around the house.
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Curses! How daft could my human owners possibly be? I've arranged a deal, and I've walked away worse than when I started out!
Sorry. I should probably fill you in, big wide world. So, you remember my plan, right? I was going to give Lenny an email account for his network of feline informants, and in return he'd get rid of Max for me?
Well, it didn't work out so well, after all. What a surprise. I should have known. Never hire someone to do a job that you can pull off yourself with a little effort.
Anyway, I made a deal with Lenny. I showed him how to create an email account, and I threw in some free kibble on the side, and he agreed to put a bounty on Max's head.
So, yeah. This was where it began to go wrong, you might say. Every other hour of the day, some puffed up kitten was jumping off a fence post trying to pounce on Max.

Poetry Thursdays: When Yarbull Slew the Strock

Hello, welcome to Inkweb! Today I'll be posting some nonsense poetry. Expect the next cat monologue tomorrow, and a new short story hopefully on Saturday (if I can manage to stop procrastinating and write one). All right, here goes!

"When Yarbull Slew the Strock"

It was a while ago indeed,

When in the flangen fields of whivering slogg,

Our hero Yarbull ventured forth aneed;

He traveled far and wide to seek Caerbrogg,

Where legend says he did his fimious deed.

Fact Wednesday: 25 Facts About Books

1. Books are amazing.
2. Books don't have a limited battery life.
3. Books are engaging.
4. Books are better than TV any day. And they cost less. If you leave the TV on, it can get expensive.
5. Books allow us to exercise with our minds.
6. Books give us joy.
7. Books give us sadness. And in the famed words of Sally Sparrow, "[Sadness is] happy for deep people."
8. Books are beautiful.

ul.

9. Books are the imaginations of authors, shared with the world at an incredibly low price. Compared to a movie or a TV show, a book is extremely easy to make.

Sorry! No Post Today

Sorry I wasn't able to post any poetry today. I have to take the PSAT tomorrow, so I've been busy studying. Anyway. Hopefully it won't happen again, but no promises.

Mad Mondays - Liebster Award

This week on Mad Mondays:

THE LIEBSTER AWARD TAG THINGY!!!!!!

Trumpet fanfare! To check out Hyperlinkzer's blog where he tagged/nominated me, click on the embedded link.

All right, let's go through the steps. Basically, an Award is like a tag, so this shouldn't be too complicated.

1. Post link back to blogger who tagged/nominated me. Already did that, go check out Hyper; leaving a link is a nice way to help out other blogs with extra pageviews and, hopefully, members.

2. Answer the ten questions I have been given. Hyperlinkzer's questions will be answered shortly. Hang tight.

3. Nominate ten others and create ten questions-to-be-asked-for-them-to-answer. I don't know very many blogs, but I'll try.

4. Inform said nominated others. I probably won't do ten. Maybe two or three.

Anyway, on to the questions!

Short Story Saturdays - The Gravestone

MAY, 1936

The phonograph fizzled out music in the corner. A grainy female voice bloomed from the brass flower of the machine. Hodges slumped in the smooth leather high-backed chair, tossing peanuts into the orange hearth.

The dark brown door quietly creaked open, and Hodges’ father poked his head into the spacious room, with a pleasant smile on his face.

“All right. Mother and I are leaving,” said his father. “Be good. Smith will be there if you need anything. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” Hodges replied, putting on a lethargically pleasant smile. Behind his back his hand clenched the leather of the chair in anxiety. He couldn’t wait for his parents to be gone.

Hodges’ father nodded and shut the door. Hodges sat up at once and looked to the fire. He got up and stopped the phonograph. He put out the fire and used the light of the moon to cross over toward the window.

The night was clouded but only partially, and the full moon shone down through the glass of the window like the radiance of the sun into the hidden ocean depths. Water droplets split and streamed down the pane. It was only lightly sprinkling, but it had been for the whole evening. The ground would be muddy, but there was no lightning tonight.

That was good.

Feline Fridays: Cat Monologue #3

Welcome to Inkweb! Have fun reading, comment with your thoughts, and stay tuned tomorrow for my short story "The Gravestone."

This is Cat Monologue #3. It's the third installment of a series of diary entries made by a housecat, Chester Felix.

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I jumped off the roof yesterday.

Nothing particularly eventful in itself; the landing is what mattered. I stood atop the roof in blazing glory, silhouetted against the sunset, my muscles primed for the leap, and I jumped.

Right down onto Little Timmy’s head.

Needless to say, the chaos that ensued was quite substantial, and during the course of events I was nearly killed by a flailing boy, a terrified mother, and a defensive dad.

But besides all that, and the obvious bruises it entailed, I had a relatively relaxing week.

Poetry Thursdays: My Grandfathers

There's a light on in the small room up the creaky stairs

Where my grandfathers work all night in their four chairs;

I never know what they are doing but I'm

Just certain they do it all of the time.

I've only peeked once into that little room

When I was only three years out of womb;

I don't seem to remember its every detail

I only remember the shiny fish scale.

I touched it and kept it as my little lift

And now I know they'd all planned that little gift;

A fish scale, so dark, I could see my own soul,

But in the end those caring men made me whole.

Announcement: No Posts Today

Hello, readers of Inkweb! I won't be posting today because I've already done a fact post this week, and those lists are harder to compile than one might think at first. Plus, this is my first week using my new schedule, so I'm going easy on myself.

Tomorrow will be another short poem, Friday I will post a cat monologue, and then Saturday I will post a short story entitled "The Gravestone." Please note that the short story is a first draft and is not polished nicely, so have mercy on my writing.

Thanks for reading!

-JW

P.S. I urge you to listen to "Explorers" from the Coraline soundtrack. It's quite beautiful.

Tuesday Poems - The Purple Man

There he goes, the purple man
He walks along the path
There he goes, the silent man
He passes without glance.

There he goes, the purple man
He's walking through the woods

Mad Mondays: 25 Facts About Dragons!

All right, our very first Mad Monday! I deliver, per request, 25 "facts" about dragons! Granted, they aren't actual facts because dragons have not been proven to exist (yet!), but still, it's a fun list.