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Obsession by Kidd Wadsworth

July 25, 2024 by Kidd Wadsworth in category Infused with Meaning by Kidd Wadsworth tagged as Obsession, poetry, trusses, words

Obsession is my natural state.

As an undergraduate in Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University, I was required to take a Mechanical Engineering course where we analyzed the forces in a truss. Trusses, often triangular networks of beams, are commonly found in bridges. As I recall the course material now, some 40 years later, there were two methods of analyses. I had been intently studying those methods for an upcoming test, when I closed my books and went to bed to catch some z’s. Immediately, I began to dream about trusses. In my dream there appeared two beams. As I, with great speed, analyzed the forces in each beam, the beams themselves, like some terrible organic disease, reproduced. Suddenly, there were four beams. Terrified, I worked even faster, but the beams again reproduced. Now there were eight. Pencil flying, I analyzed. Sixteen beams.

Thankfully, my roommate shook me awake. “You’re mumbling,” she said. “Are you okay?”

I have no idea what I replied. But when I closed my eyes, two beams appeared. I began my calculations. Ut oh. Four beams. Eight beams. Sixteen beams. Thirty-two beams.

She shook me awake again. Understanding it wasn’t real, I cried out, “There is no truss!”

Yes, she thought I was nuts, but I did manage to sleep without that nightmare returning.

Years earlier, at thirteen, I had discovered poetry. I remember jotting down lines of verse on any scrap piece of paper I could find. When I was sixteen, and got my driver’s license, my mom sent me all over Dallas running errands. (Yes, I loved it.) One evening, flying home on the freeway, I pondered the word “mobile.”

I pronounce this word with a short ‘i’, like the gas station, or a child’s toy hung over the crib. Thus, it is nearly impossible to stop the word from leaving the palate quickly. As I drove, through the mix-master and across the city of Dallas, I repeated the word “mobile”. Mobile. Mobile. Mobile.

I was in love with words.

Somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, when I didn’t realize what I was losing, I abandoned my love of words and my love of poetry. Perhaps I was too busy pursuing romantic love or trying to analyze trusses. But now, years later my obsession with the sound of words, and all things poetry, has returned.

Consider the word, “blink”. Say it out loud. “Blink”. Notice how the hard “b” at the beginning and the hard “k” at the end are like clicking switches. So that the word “blink” turns on with the “b” sound and turns off with the “k” sound. Great word, “blink”.

And yes, I’m entering poetry contests. Not once, but as many times as allowed.

This could get expensive.

I’m obsessed. And I don’t mind. I’m dreaming about poetry. (It is infinitely better than dreaming about trusses.) I’m waking up in the middle of the night and scribbling down lines. And no, I don’t want it to stop. My mind has gone down a rabbit hole.

Pour the tea. I can handle the Queen of Hearts. I love it here.

–Kidd

Hey, have you ever thought about the words effervescence and quiescence? Go on, say them fifteen times. I LOVE WORDS!!!

Some of Kidd’s stories are in the following anthologies:

AN ELEMENT OF MYSTERTY: SWEET, FUNNY, AND STRANGE TALES OF INTRIGUE

FUR, FEATHERS AND SCALES: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Animal Tales

ONCE UPON A TIME: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Tales for All Ages

UNTETHERED: SWEET, FUNNY, AND STRANGE TALES OF THE PARANORMAL

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A DANCE OF WORDS BY VERONICA JORGE

May 22, 2024 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as dance., music, Veronica Jorge, words, Write

Hispanola, which means the “Spanish island,” became the first Spanish settlement in America. It is my mother’s native country and today we know the eastern section of the island as the Dominican Republic; a fertile land abundant in mines and minerals and rich in a great variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, and flowers, where the sun shines brightly year round.

The merengue, the country’s traditional music, embraces you throughout the island for dancing is an entirely social activity independent of holidays or festivals. Any gathering includes dancing because Dominican’s don’t just listen to music, they live it. Emotionally, the merengue celebrates life wherein you partake of the rhythms of love, family and friendship. The most skilled dancer moves in unity with their partner, as one.

My mother, Celina Antonia Luna de Jorge, (isn’t that lovely? Like a song in itself), left her beautiful, beloved island, and part of her heart, when she came to America at the age of seventeen. Like most of our ancestors, her family traveled to America in the hope of a better future. I’m happy to say that she found it. (She had me!).

Mom is most fully herself, most fully alive when she is surrounded by her family and cooking us all of the traditional delicious foods of her country. She fills and satisfies us with her peace and joy. And like the savory aromas that waft through the air, she makes our hearts swirl to the rhythms of her warmth and love.

And that’s what I want my writing to be like; a dance of words wherein writer and reader move in sync and taste the flavors of love, friendship, loss and new found purpose, joy and laughter. Writing that, in spite of sorrowful events or hardships, celebrates life and fills the reader with hope that today is indeed worth living.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I love you!

See you next time on June 22^nd.

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A DANCE OF WORDS BY VERONICA JORGE

April 22, 2021 by Veronica Jorge in category Write From the Heart by Veronica Jorge tagged as dance., music, Veronica Jorge, words, Write

Veronica Jorge is out of the office this month, so we’re running one of her columns from our archives. Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I love you!

~ Veronica

Veronica will be here next time on May 22^nd.

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Cross Words by Jenny Jensen

December 19, 2020 by Jenny Jensen in category On writing . . . by Jenny Jensen tagged as cross words, fun, Jenny Jensen, language, puzzles, words

a woman sitting in the middle of a pile of books with a crossword puzzle behind her.

In these times of pandemic lock down we’re all searching for something that will absorb us, entertain, teach–challenge us. I’ve dabbled in baking (very mixed results), sewing (mended everything mendable), crafty things (be glad you’re not on my Christmas list), knitting (have you seen the price of good wool?). They all passed the time between books, but none inspired a passion and I didn’t feel particularly challenged.

My grandmother and my mother were both avid cruciverbalists. Not only does that sound exotic, it felt like I’d be carrying on a tradition. Those esteemed women fearlessly challenged their brains daily. I bought a puzzle book with 99 crosswords claiming to “be enjoyable at all solving levels”. Perfect! I could limber up and go on to the hard stuff.

I felt I had gotten the knack with the first 30 puzzles. Sharp flavor, four letters–TANG. This is a breeze. The next 56 began to take some effort: Central parts, six letters, fifth being ‘e’. Hmmm. I consider all things central and am not arriving at those 6 letters, the fifth of which is ‘e’. Then I crossed words with Tile problem and MILDEW gives me ‘L’ for the fourth letter. I hit on nuclei. I got it! Central parts: NUCLEI pl. I am strutting like a peacock, never mind that it isn’t a commonly used word. “The nuclei of the garden are the tulips and the erotic statue.” Naw. Clearly this is a new language.

I like to think I am an honest sort, so I keep count of how many times I peek at the answers page. Eight times over 86 puzzles; a mere misdemeanor. Many of the clues involve rather esoteric and antiquated knowledge. I feel I can be forgiven for not knowing every letter of the Greek alphabet or the lessor characters of 19^th century French drama. I now include recent pop music titles among esoteric knowledge. I do not know a single Abba song title. (This leaves me feeling hopelessly uncool, but never mind.)

Still, I’m getting better–that is, until number 87. I feel like I’m taking an exam in advanced astrophysics–and it’s in Brail. Philanthropy source, 11 letters. I get there finally with the help of crossed words: BILLIONAIRE. It’s so obvious, so clear and so disheartening that I’d agonized over this. Then a light bulb goes on and I realize crosswords do not involve a new language. It’s still English (except for those pesky Greek letters). What is needed here is an entirely different thought process, a less rigid way of considering words.

I need to be flexible, more elastic than Silly String, more malleable than Play Dough. How else can you arrive at ROLE as the answer to Office? It’s all those English words with multiple meanings, all the nuances of our language that makes for rich, lyrical writing. It’s the forgiving nature of our language that allows us to get by with radical interpretation, lets us stretch the truth, so to speak. I’d been ignoring what I already know and what I love so much about writing.

Puzzle 88 is next and it looks daunting. It’s a giant grid with one and a half pages of clues. I’m going to be like water and with each clue let my mind flow over and under, through and past pedestrian definition until I arrive at the clever stretch, the humorous bent, the deceptively simple answer. It’s poetic.

I’m determined to join the ranks of my foremothers and become a cruciverbalist. I may pull out all my hair, but I intend to get there. I am definitely Faced off, 10 letters.

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PORTMANTEAUS*

July 19, 2020 by Jenny Jensen in category On writing . . . by Jenny Jensen, Writing tagged as #writing, editing, words

Portmanteau | Jenny Jensen | A Slice of Orange

We’re so lucky. The English language is like play dough.

Oh yes, we have strict rules of grammar, tense, POV, all the way to the minutia of intransitive verbs. We can choose from a number of eminent grammar and style guides to ensure conformity. We have stalwart English teachers to drill those rules into our heads so that we are all on the same page. (And bless them all – there is nothing better than order over chaos). But despite those rules a writer has so much freedom to shape our mother tongue into forms wry, brittle, silly, heartbreaking, snarky or just plain mad.

I don’t have much command of any other language; a smatter of German, a soupçon of French, about a third cup of Latin and a healthy plateful of Spanish. But I do know that the rules of those languages are not as forgiving as English — not as much room to roam before you run afoul of the language police. English allows us to mangle all the rules of spelling, meaning, and sentence structure to reflect dialect, or character traits, add color, shift perceptions or mood and anyone with a good command of English can understand — and only pedants ever complain. Of course, you have to use the rules of punctuation. Gotta have those traffic signs.

Anthony Burgess used bits and pieces of Russian mixed with Shakespearian English and other tongues to give us Nadsat, the terrifyingly unique argot of his dark characters in A Clockwork Orange. The reader may have had to work at it a bit, but it was intelligible and colored the story with an unforgettable feel. Fantasy and Sci Fi from J.K. Rowling to Ursula K. Le Guin play with all sorts of mixed up language that become magical words and when you’re reading in those worlds you understand.

Dialect and special vocabulary enrich a tale on many levels and I’m in awe of those writers who do them well, but my favorite form of play dough English is the portmanteau. Anybody can create one of these inventive combinations, and everybody does — usually with something faintly deprecating or ironically funny in mind. And with just one word a portmanteau can ooze with meaning. Frenemy speaks volumes — we’ve all had one and it’s exhilarating to give ‘em a proper name. Craptacular very neatly wraps up the verdict on so much of our over-hyped media. And then there’s pompidity, my own invention from University days when I struggled to describe the quality of politicians.

All writers love words. Words are paint, chisel, fabric, and clay for our creativity. If you can’t find that one word that perfectly reflects your intent, try cobbling a new one together — no one will take points away. Blog is a portmanteau (web log) so if you’re lucky enough to have your portmanteau go viral, you might wind up in the OED.

With a BA in Anthropology and English Jenny pursued a career in advertising and writing and segued into developmental editing. She has worked on nearly 400 books during her career. Her clients include both traditionally published and indie authors. She has worked in every genre from romance to horror and thrillers as well as edited Air Force manuals, commercial communications and memoirs. She offers every service from copyediting to developmental coaching.