Goodwood

Goodwood

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Fooling around with words

"Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little" Tom Stoppard

Twitter is a great playground- a place where I can fool around with words and attempt to sharpen my concentration.

When I playing about I try not to focus on the grammar too much but muse on the sound of the piece I’m putting together.

Mindfulness is helpful as I focus on an item and try to describe what I see or how I feel. The weather lately has been shocking, in good ‘old Blighty’ and I find that my mood can be affected by lower than average light levels. (I need the sun to help me shine.) However on grey days I can be melancholic and reflective.

The limit of my playground is preset: 140 characters- which includes all words, spaces, punctuation and tags.

This makes me think about which words are shorter that can explain exactly what I want to convey, a bit like texting for the first time- it’s a phaf typing miserable when sad will do! And takes less time to type.

With Twitter ‘sad’ takes 3 spaces and allows me to convey/express more than if I use ‘miserable’ which would take 9 characters.

Thinking outside the box can lead me to using a sharper word, or one with a more exact meaning. It’s what most of us writers strive to achieve in our daily writing.

I try not to take too long over the #smallstone, as I fight the perfectionist in me because otherwise it would turn into a game of procrastination. And then nothing would see the light of day.

Yesterday’s smallstone was my attempt to describe the external atmosphere that hung about all day and took only 68 characters:

A low slung sky, those scumble glazed grey clouds brim full of driech #smallstone

So why not join me and a few others when we do our #smallstone and as this tag takes 11 spaces then I’m down to 130 spaces before I’ve even started writing.

Thursday 4 October 2012

To celebrate National Poetry Day


Myfanwy


You are still, so still, my dear Myfanwy.
Why you? Why now? My heart must cry.
Let me hold you close, my dear Myfanwy,
I did not have time to say goodbye.
My world is shattered with out you,
How can I face my life alone?
God! Tell me why you took my dear one,
Is this compassion you have shown?

I remember when, my dear Myfanwy,
We met, those many years ago.
Our hearts were one from the beginning,
And we knew our love would flower and grow.
We have known life’s happiness and pleasures,
Such treasured memories we shared.
In all our days of closeness, dear
Myfanwy, beauteously you cared.

You have flown my love to heavenly pastures,
Your frail warmth fading on my breast,
Yet in my heart you shall be with me,
Though no longer sharing life’s quest,
Today, fate blessedly released you
From anguished suffering and pain;
In gods safe hands, sleep deeply, dear
Myfanwy, ‘til we meet again.



By G. E. Phelps (my dad) - Written in Portugal early 1996