Be Strong, My Child, and Fear No Nightly Noise

In honour of my good friend Sara's graduation, a wonderfully insightful and talented writer and blogger, I wrote the following sonnet. Can you find the allusions to George MacDonald and J.R.R. Tolkien? In the words of Bono, "Every artist is a cannibal / Every poet is a thief" and I only steal from the best.

Be Strong, My Child, and Fear No Nightly Noise

Be strong, my child, and fear no nightly noise.

They are but shadows, clawings of the Ash

And whispers of the Alder who destroys,

Desiring all to hunger, rage, and gnash.

But in you, child, there beats a heart of gold

As pure as laughter from a baby's lips,

As bright and warm as fire in places cold,

As precious as the desert dew that drips.

So sing, my child, and make your presence known;

Beat back the goblins with your foot and song;

Let blaze your light and they are overthrown

For courage, kindness, goodness make you strong.

Go now, my child; adventure waits for you.

Remember me and say a prayer or two.

Typewriter Monkeys and The San Francisco Writer's Grotto

What?! Two posts in one week where there is not a sequel involved? I know, my readers, I know; it's shocking. But I learned a couple of things over the past few days that I think is rather relevant to this blog.

First, I discovered a new blog, The Typewriter Monkey Task Force. Just as quirky as its title, this blog covers a variety of subjects in very fun and interesting ways. I mean, its subtitle is "Faith, Writing, Video Games, Literature, Life, the Universe, and Everything." That's a lot of stuff if you ask me. But it's not really the subject matter than struck me. Well, it kind of was and kind of wasn't. What I'm trying to say, and rather unsuccessfully at that, is that reading his blog, looking at his posts showed me that not everything that ends up here doesn't have to be some great work, or even partial work at that, but can just give my thoughts on things or share something that I found amusing. Granted, that's the way he chose to write his blog, and that not all blogs function in this way. However, for me, this was really freeing. It meant I didn't always have to have some great, edifying purpose behind my postings; they could be as simple as repeating a joke or musing on a conversation. I think I'd like to try that sometime.

Second, I bought a new book, 642 Things To Write About. While out shopping with my mom at Barnes &Noble, I made an impulse purchase of this particular beauty as I was literally about to go to the register to make several ... other ... purchases. *ahem* Anyways, there were two things that I found intriguing about this little book. The first thing was the fact that there are literally six hundred forty-two different writing prompts, in other words, two years worth of ideas should you choose to do a different prompt every day. And the range of the suggestions is fantastic. They can be as serious as relating your most embarrassing moment as if it happened to someone else or as silly as giving a pep talk to a dying plant. With this new tool, I have felt inspired to try new things, things I haven't even thought of before. My last post is the result of one of the exercises asking what can happen in a second. The other cool thing about this book is its creation; it came to be in a 24-hour period as a result of the brainstorming of the San Francisco Writer's Grotto, a modern day Inklings if you like. What this showed me is that 1) a writing community is an amazing thing and I should find one and 2) that not every idea I have for writing needs to be something spectacular or best-seller worthy; it can be silly.

And thus, I may be making a few changes to my routine and quality of posting based on my recent findings but I hope they will be for the better.

I Blinked and I Was Dead

I blinked and I was dead. Just like that. One second, I was alive and the next, dead. Yep, dead as a doornail, to borrow a famous phrase, which I've never understood really. I mean, of all the objects to be compared to death, a doornail would not have been at the top of my list. Maybe “dead as driftwood” or “dead as a coffin.” I guess there is the fact that the doornail was never alive, being made of metal and all, so the comparison becomes not only the obvious one of being very much dead but also that he may not have been alive in the first place.

Funny how much clearer you think when you're dead.

But still, the whole dying thing was much faster than I'd thought it would be. In the movies, everything slows down, and the person's life passes before their eyes like a fast-forwarded film. Honestly, I was kinda looking forward to that part. Well, a part of me looked forward to it; the other part dreaded semi-reliving every moment of my life. So when that didn't happen at all, I felt cheated, just a bit. I shouldn't really be surprised though since Hollywood over-dramatizes everything.

I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't blinked. Would I still be dead? Would I have lived to be married, had kids, spoiled grandkids, and finally died in a nursing home, filled with tubes? Would I have been happier? Made others happier? Brought about world peace? But who's to say I made the world better. Maybe I'd become the next world dictator or a serial killer. Would I have been a mean, selfish person who died alone and unnoticed? Or passed my days in utter obscurity? We'll never know. Because I'm dead.

Really now though, I'm not bitter about dying. It's just kind of amusing to think of “what-ifs,” like imagining what could have happened if you went left instead of right at a fork in the road. You'll never know so might as well imagine something crazy, right? I do have some regrets, people I wish I could have seen again or projects I wish I had completed. I hope this doesn't mean I become a ghost or anything. From what I've seen and read of them, it would stink to be one.

I will say this though about dying as quickly as I did. It didn't hurt. Often when reading a historical novel or watching some modern drama, I'd wonder how much it would hurt to die on the edge of sword or by a speeding bullet. In my experience, I felt nothing at all. I blinked and I was dead.