Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Poetry Tuesdays: "Blackberries" by Yusef Komunyakaa

Welcome to Inkweb! Today is Poetry Tuesday, when I post cool poetry that I have not written myself. Disclaimer: this does not belong to me.
This week, I have chosen a work by Yusef Komunyakaa, called Blackberries. Enjoy.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Mad Mondays: 15 Books You Should Read in Your Lifetime

Well, the blog is back into swing! Welcome to Inkweb! Today is Mad Monday, where I post a randomly selected type of post (or one the readers have suggested). Today, I will be compiling a list of 15 books I believe everyone should read.

It's the end of spring and the beginning of summer, which means a lot of spare time. Libraries are rolling out their summer reading programs, which are always fun to participate in, so I've decided to help people along with a few of my favorite books. Many of these authors have written several other great books, but I've done my best to include only one book per author; you can find their other works on your own time. If anyone else has some good additions to my compiled list, please comment below! I may not have read them yet, and other readers would appreciate some more suggestions as well.

These books aren't in any particular order of importance, they're just arranged in the order I thought them up. There are many other novels out there that I've forgotten to include on this list, but this is just really to get you started.

Ok, click below to find out my suggestions for you!

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Short Story Saturdays - An Audacious Australian Adolescent

Welcome to Inkweb! I have slacked off extremely over the past months, but I plan to make it up to any of my readers still out there by coming out with much more new, regular content according to my planned schedule. Procrastination is definitely my strong suit, but I will try to combat its inertia.

Now, for Short Story Saturdays, I have taken a writing prompt given to me by a friend and have written a (very) short story. I hope you enjoy! I will post again on Mad Monday!

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1: One Big Mac
2: A library's roof
3: And a marsupial

George sighed as he looked out over the landscape of Australia. He gently swung his dangling feet, sitting on the library rooftop as he stared into the sunset. The silhouetted lifeforms, trees and kangaroos alike, provided a wonderful foreground to the keen light of the evening sun.
“Hey! You! Get down off the roof!”
George peered down at the tremendous drop before him and saw a thick-set security officer staring back up at him, chewing pensively on the biggest Big Mac George had ever seen.

George scrambled to his feet and darted away across the rooftop. He made the daring jump over to the next building, some sort of office complex, and took a ladder down to the ground. He ran off before the security officer could find him.

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Leave a comment if you enjoyed, have a question, etc., or if you want to suggest an idea for future posts of any sort. I hope you liked it!

-JW

Thursday, October 31, 2013

(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.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

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

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

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