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Saturday, May. 18, 2024

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Toe in the Water

by Beholden

Rated: 13+ · Book · Experience · #2223922

A tentative blog to test the temperature.

Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end.

So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.

Signature for those who are nominated for a Quill Award in 2021

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Simply Me

a day ago
In response to "The Way of the World"

I hear you there. They say the grass is greener....too and it's not. lol

1 Like

Beholden

May 15, 2024 at 6:35pm
In response to "Being Consistently Inconsistent"

Not rude at all, Amethyst. The truth may hurt sometimes but it's never rude. And you're especially right that we learn from everyone that we read, even if we're not aware of it.

1 Like

Amethyst Angel🌸📝🪽

May 15, 2024 at 6:28pm
In response to "Being Consistently Inconsistent"

I have no idea about my style… mostly I strive for class and decency. For instance, if a story I found had a lot of swearing in it or was obviously “X-rated”, I wonder who the algorithms would identify it as resembling. Short of such obvious turn-offs, I look for the same level of awareness of the importance of subtle word choices and descriptions in the works of others that I do in my own. For instance, I see you, Beholden, and our friend Jack Tyler, as being on the same level of dignified writing, saying what needs to be said, even if it’s gritty, in the most tolerable way possible. Joey (dare I say it aloud?) is in a separate category entirely. He’s a dear helpful soul who wouldn’t purposely offend anyone, but his love for tapping into the most visceral sides of human emotions, right down to the snot on one’s tear-stained sleeve, can get on my nerves. And when he writes in the Dickensian era, his language becomes nearly Elizabethan, which I thought seemed exaggerated. But one can learn from every style of writing. And I hope I haven’t been rude.

Beholden

May 15, 2024 at 6:06pm
In response to "Being Consistently Inconsistent"

That's the interesting thing - I've never been able to see that I have a style and I wonder whether any of us can. It may be that we're too involved with what we write to be able to step back and view it completely dispassionately.

In the end, I just do what I do and I suspect everyone else does their thing as well.

2 Like

Jayne

May 15, 2024 at 6:00pm
In response to "Being Consistently Inconsistent"

I assure you that you have a distinct voice. I can (almost) always tell a piece you've written without even looking at the name attached to it.

Sometimes, I can pick out an influence insofar as "that is reminiscent of [fill in the writer]" but never "Oh, that's clearly an attempt at [fill in the writer]."

Steven's is probably consistent enough to skew King. That doesn't surprise me.

For those of us who dabble in all the things, the prediction machine will no doubt bounce around.

1 Like

Beholden

May 1, 2024 at 12:36pm
In response to "After the Game is Over"

You're right - I think we all slept an extra hour this morning. Harnessing the energy - I like that idea. Makes a change to have something to harness after all!

Jayne

May 1, 2024 at 12:28pm
In response to "After the Game is Over"

I agree with the habit thing (and the YouTube & breakfast). I was getting more done in a day before lunchtime than I was in entire *months* before GoT.

...now to find a way to harness said energy. Your strategies seem like a good place to start.

Although, I slept in this morning. I figured I earned an extra few hours for one day lol. We all did.

1 Like

Schnujo is Late to Lannister

Apr 25, 2024 at 7:55pm
In response to "Cliché"

Agreed! I hope everyone congratulated whoever came up with that idea for the episode!

1 Like

Beholden

Apr 25, 2024 at 7:35pm
In response to "Cliché"

Thank you for your kind thoughts, Schnujo. I remember that episode of Star Trek! It was really cool - and hard to get one's head around the idea of talking like that. But it did sound quite poetic. What was it ? Something like in the far land of Angevin, Mortello meets the grivensor. And so on. Brilliant!

1 Like

Schnujo is Late to Lannister

Apr 25, 2024 at 7:03pm
In response to "Cliché"

I love how you look at cliches! Good for you! I agree that they have their place and can be used, so long as we are aware of what we are doing and are specifically using them with the knowledge and understanding that they are cliches.

This entry reminds me of an episode of Star Trek (The Next Generation, I think it was) where they were trying to learn to communicate with a new species. If I recall, they could understand the words (through a translator), but not the meaning until they hit upon the idea that they were speaking in local cultural context, basically using cliches.

I've always remembered that episode and thought that was a fun idea.

BTW, you are a REALLY impressive poet! I don't think I knew that. That's a pretty fabulous poem! Well done!!

Thank you for sharing your own ideas on cliches!

February 25, 2022 at 3:42pm

#1027422

History And All That

History And All That

A few thoughts occurred when I read the prompts for Express It In Eight this morning. I find it impossible to write an 8-line poem since I have too much to say on the subject. In the hope that, if I get these things out into the world, I might be able to write a few verses, this follows:

Historians hate it when someone at the back of the class stands up and says, “ Hold on a moment. I was there and that is not how it happened at all.” That is why history starts when living memory has just about died out.

When I was at school, back in the fifties and sixties, history stopped at the First World War (known then as the Great War, mainly because it wasn’t). As I have grown older, I have learned that the Second World War is now on the curriculum and, for all I know, the Korean War has joined it. This is quite natural and how things are meant to be. History is all about the past and should not be something that I remember.

I find it disturbing when people talk about something as history when its memory is still as clear as yesterday in my head. Buddy Holly and the Crickets recording That’ll Be the Day is not history. Neither is Muhammad Ali winning his first heavyweight title nor is Lawrence Welk’s last television show. These are memories and I can still stand up in the back row and shout, for instance, “No, he didn’t. His name at the time was Cassius Clay and I watched the fight on TV. There was no Muhammad Ali back then.”

History is different. No one can ever argue me out of my memories but, with the right references and documentary evidence, I can be persuaded to change my view on history. That is important to me since my main period of interest in English history is from 450AD to 1066AD. There are new finds every day in that area that have forced us to re-evaluate our thoughts completely.

If we take it that I was not hugely interested in world events before the age of about ten, anything that happened after 1958 cannot possibly be history. It’s mine and you mess with it at your peril.

Word count: 385

3 Like • Comment • View 2 comments

Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/blog/beholden/day/2-25-2022