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Fri, Jan 23, 2026

4:05am EST

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La Bene Vita

by Brandiwyn🎶 v.2026

Rated: 18+ · Book · Personal · #1411600

The Good Life.

The (Tentative*) Topic Rotation
Self Sundays: Personal blogging days about family, leisure, work, and health. May be boring.
Music Mondays: Commentary, articles, and links highlighting music, theory, and ed topics.
Writing Wednesdays: Discussion on the art and business of writing.
"The Bradbury"

Thursdays: A weekly original short story submission.
Friday Reviews**: Every Friday, I will review a minimum of one short story on WDC.

* I reserve the right to change the topic of the day at any time, at least until I acquire a million followers and gain official "influencer" status, at which point I shall be more consistent in order to meet the expectations of my adoring public.
** I can only commit to one review per week. If you would like your short story to be in my reviewing queue, please send me a WDC review request.

Check out my public reviews

to get a sense of what to expect.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Storm Machine

a day ago
In response to "On Poetry"

I love a good turn of phrase, and even novels have poetic pieces within them. I'm excited to hear you're getting into poetry and hope we can explore that more.

it's now on the list!

Brandiwyn🎶 v.2026

a day ago
In response to "On Poetry"

Anni Pon

- having to plan or edit poetry seems a little antithetical to it's nature.
This is an excellent point, and something I didn't think of. I also agree with your other comments.

1 Like

Anni Pon

a day ago
In response to "On Poetry"

I agree with what you've said about poetry. It's very easy to write a poem, just about anyone can do it. But it's hard to do it well. Most people have an innate sense of story telling, so amateur prose usually isn't as cringe. A lot of people seem to think that if you just add line breaks to your current stream of consciousness, or put together a series of lines that rhyme, that's a poem. But poetry has rules -- it requires meter and imagery and abstraction. It should have layers. Those things don't usually come naturally; they require intentional effort and planning. However, most people have the impression you can just sit down and poetry will flow out of you without even trying or having to edit after. In fact, having to plan or edit poetry seems a little antithetical to it's nature.

To be fair, mediocre poetry still serves a purpose. It's writing practice, catharsis, bonding, etc. I've definitely seen some on here that have a lot of potential, as well as some really good "amateur" poetry.

2 Like

Brandiwyn🎶 v.2026

a day ago
In response to "On Poetry"

Charlèaux

- I agree and love WDC too! I've personally posted a lot of less-than-brilliant works of all varieties and learned from feedback. I actually feel like reviewing the work of others teaches me just as much, if not more. Nineteen years is a lot of learning! I should have a PhD by now.

I certainly don't mean to discourage anyone, beginner or otherwise. It's just how I learned to recognize good poetry and what makes it good, that ability to compare/contrast. I appreciate the variety that allowed me to learn. So I'm not saying don't post your beginner poetry.

Robert Waltz

- To your point that sometimes authors just need the catharsis of writing the words, I'm with you - if I feel like it's more intended as a personal journaling experience, I don't review it. On a related note, I never really circled back about reviewing poetry as a "quick read" to meet reviewing goals. Over the years, as I've become better at noticing the layers in brilliant poetry, it can actually take much longer to read, digest, analyze, and properly review. And good point about imagery being a key element of poetry.

2 Like

Robert Waltz

a day ago
In response to "On Poetry"

I actually agree with you... mostly.

One thing I look for in poetry is concrete imagery. If you're just writing about your feelings, even if it rhymes and has meter, it's not what I'd call good poetry. And yes, I'm including my own efforts in that.

But.

Writing it can be a kind of release for the writer, and I can understand that. Reviewing such poetry is difficult, at least for me, especially when I can tell it's heartfelt and very personal. To be perfectly honest, most of the time, I skip such efforts when I'm on a reviewing kick.

I call such work "angsta rap," because it's all angst, and lots of words that don't really communicate anything new.

One of the most important writing lessons I've learned here is that, paradoxically, the more specific you are in your writing, the more relatable it can be. Writing something like "My parents never understood me" is boring; instead, if you wrote something like "They gave me a Playstation when I wanted an Xbox" is closer to the right track, in my opinion. This is especially important in comedy, I think, but it's also applicable to other genres.

2 Like

Charlèaux

a day ago
In response to "On Poetry"

A lot of poems on WdC leave something to be desired. So does a lot of the fiction, or really any form of writing on here.

I think the reason for that is because this is not a publishing company. This is a website for writers to share their work—first drafts, unpolished... And I think that's one of the best things of WdC.

Like you said, that's not to say that these pieces are all inherently bad. It just means that this community has become a safe space for people to not only share their finished, edited, and perfect work, but it's also a space to share those midnight thoughts, random poems that hold no meaning, or maybe a piece that they know they'll never go back to edit but they share it anyway.

Because that's what WdC is: Unedited, clumsy, non-published writing from mostly amateurs. That's why I love WdC. Sure, I get to read a lot of crappy pieces. But if those people stick around, I also get to watch them get better and improve their work.

This is also a great site because it's one of the few places where you get to come across published authors as well as the 14 year old who just wrote their very first poem and had the guts the post it.

This isn't me disagreeing with you. Really it's me agreeing with you. But that's why I love WdC. Some pieces melt my brain with emotions, and others make me cringe while trying to read through grammatical errors. It's like Russian roulette but with words.

4 Like

Storm Machine

Jan 16, 2026 at 7:39am
In response to "Productivity!"

if you're curious, she made it in time for my lesson.
I'm learning a lot and apparently she's allowing my muse to lead us.
I swear this isn't some kind of rookie mistake...

1 Like

Storm Machine

Jan 13, 2026 at 5:58pm
In response to "Musical Symbolism"

Happy. I am thinking like the opposite of a waterfall, like when you see videos of LEGOs assembling by themselves.

Storm Machine

Jan 13, 2026 at 5:58pm
In response to "Musical Symbolism"

Happy. I am thinking like the opposite of a waterfall, like when you see videos of LEGOs assembling by themselves.

Brandiwyn🎶 v.2026

Jan 12, 2026 at 10:36pm
In response to "Musical Symbolism"

Storm Machine

- before the vocals come in, it makes me think of a happy little robot putzing around on the surface of a desolate planet. 🤖

You?

January 22, 2026 at 3:21pm

#1106531

It's a Day

This is ridiculous. I don't know if it's the Parkinson's or just general malaise, but I'm off my game today. My shoulders and trunk are swaying with dyskinesia. I can't focus. I've started and restarted this post probably a dozen times, but I'm determined to write something, to document why I didn't achieve today's goal, if nothing else.

Today's Goal
Today is supposed to be "The Bradbury Thursdays" - meaning, I have a short story to write. I know, today isn't over, and the story may still happen. I want it to happen. But...

The Problem (Maybe?)
I slept poorly most of the week until last night. According to my watch, I went to sleep at 22:00 (always my goal, but it almost never happens) and woke up at 8:07, which is more than 10 hours - but my watch claims I was awake for 2 hours of that. I'm not sure I believe it. But even 8 hours, if that's what it was, is a vast improvement from the 4-5 hrs per night earlier this week. So why is my watch giving me a sleep score of 66 (is that a D or a D- these days? Does my watch grade on a curve?)

Meanwhile, my energy score is 79, and my watch offered this weird advice: "Your active time yesterday was 33 minutes, which is higher than your recent average of 11 minutes. This excess activity could lead to injury. Consider reducing today's active time to 10 minutes..."

Reality
Per advice from Robert Waltz

, I have alarms set at 9:05 AM (noveling) and 9:50 AM (blogging). I set a deadline of 12:00 noon to complete any daily writing tasks. I met zero of those deadlines today.

My specific to-dos for today were: add a novel chapter; write a short story (The Bradbury); blog about short story.

Novel Chapter: I played with formatting in Google Drive and posted about it on the NF. No new chapter yet today.

Short Story: I worked on the Prize Prompt for PromptMaster! "

Week 3 Prompts Jan 19 - 25 2026"

, and by that I mean, I researched earthquakes and brainstormed all kinds of possible angles for tackling the prompt. The Task Prompt is already complete - "The Money Pit"

. While neither of these are listed in my official goals, I feel like it's writing, so I should get credit. On the other hand. it also feels like procrastination.

Noon Deadline: This is to force me to stop writing tasks (because writing is a hobby) and turn my focus to the music school (which is my livelihood and the livelihoods of all my employees), but I direct you to my aforementioned lack of focus today. So here I am blogging at 3:19 PM when I should be reviewing payroll, promoting Saturday's Winter Benefit Concert (if we don't get snowed out), working on the Bureau of Workers Comp pre-audit questionnaire...

Crap. I should probably go do that one.

If I get a short story out today, I'll be amazed. But now you know why, and a year from now, I'll remember.

Comment

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