Writing Gooder

The dog on the bottom right actually looks kinda friendly.

Postman Reading Mail by Norman Rockwell (1922)

“What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can’t reread a phone call.”

- Liz Carpenter
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the hills will be drowning , the hills will be drowning 

silence broke, shattering to pieces as 

Panic’s voice screamed out over the land. 

Rushing feet, running to escape, to hide 

and cries of the fallen are left behind as they reply 

“it’s every man for himself.” 

The rain will come down and sweep away the plains

Terror filled head and soul, every thought; 

washing over each mortal being as the 

pandemic grew and rose stronger. 

A cure oblivious to any as

fear gripped each mind and refused to let go 

break down each tree and taking lives one by one.

[read the full poem on YWS!]

The fire circled warily like a feral animal. It flickered forward, as if to test its footing, and then crackled on, menacingly, like a wolf stalking its prey. It crawled slowly across the wooden floor, warping and blackening the boards, gulping them down like a seal ingests fish. It moved deliberately, mockingly, destruction in its path. A lion playing with its food.

Meredith knew she was going to die. She could feel her lungs gyrating against her heart, heaving for air. She could feel her eyes drying, though they frantically tried to water themselves. Already small burns decorated her body. They throbbed, pounding to some greater rhythm, melding with the hot stuffy haze that surrounded her, slowly becoming one final last laceration. She was already half-way gone. But she was okay with dying.

It was the journals that had made her turn back. She could have left her home and fled to safety. But she couldn’t leave her journals behind. They were her memories. Her life! If they died, she died. For what is a person without a past? She had leaped away from the open window, forgoing the safety it promised. She had returned to the lion’s den, dashing with all her might, throwing open the chest.

And now she was trapped, a small figure huddled on the floor in a corner, streaked with ash and soot. She cradled her diaries in her arms. She knew most people would call her stupid. Insane, suicidal, mad. But she didn’t care. All she had to do now was wait for judgment day. Which was approaching fast. The fire sizzled and screamed, a horrendous, decisive sound.

[Read the full story on YWS!]

catching wind,

slender fingers reach out,

grasping everything and nothing.

curling over like dead men: five fallen.

this smothering air you breathe in;

you live for the unobtainable.

yet it’s always moving around you,

for it cannot leave. it will not leave.

it fills you up,

and it pushes you away.

your foe is your friend.

Love me.
[Read full poem on YWS!]

Why are they staring at me?

dimidium facti qui coepit habet - He who has begun has the work half done

- Horace

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

- Henry Ford

Do not be fooled by this website’s name – it deals with tropes in other forms of fiction outside of television, including novels, comics, anime, and more.

For those not in the know, a trope is a common literary pattern, theme, or motif – or so Wikipedia tells me. TV Tropes describes them as “devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations.” Sounds cool, right?

Don’t confuse a trope with a cliché though; a cliché is a trope that has been overused, and has become stale. A trope is something you may use without feeling (too) guilty.

TV Tropes is a really fun website to read through, and I cannot highlight this fact enough. My description of tropes may be stale and literary, but I lost several hours of my life yesterday just clicking through a bunch of different entries, reading all different examples, and just having fun.

Go on. Give it a read.

Oh, and also:

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