WINGSPREAD for October, 2023

Spreading your wings in a perplexing worldOctober 2023                                                    James P. Hurd

A warm welcome to this month’s Ezine, offered to fellow travelers and especially to fellow writers. Enjoy. (Please forward and share this E-zine with others. Thank you.)

Contents

Writer’s Corner

Tip for writers: First, write for yourself. Are you satisfied? Trust yourself to tell the story you wish to tell with your own voice.

Word of the month: METAWRITING. Writing about your writing. Especially in nonfiction (and rarely in fiction), we have the Preface. Here, you tell the reader what you’re trying to do, how you are going to do it and why. Metawriting also may give you insight when you revise your writing.

Question for you: How do you know when you’re done writing a book? When you’re satisfied? When your editor/publisher is satisfied? You’re tired of the thing? Deadline? Cannot improve on it?

Are you serious about wanting to write? If so, try writing just a few lines each day (or each week) using the following prompts. Guaranteed to get the creative juices flowing.

Our writing must never be only goal-oriented—directed toward a published product. We must write for practice, for opening our creativity and (dare I say it?) just for fun.

Day 1: Write a story with no dialogueDay 2: Take something usual and have it do something unusualDay 3: Write a story that incorporates the color redDay 4: Select a kitchen item; write from its perspectiveDay 5: Write a story about a coupleDay 6: Write something in the absurdist style

Day 7: Write a discoveryDay 8: Write a one-sentence storyDay 9: Write about a surprise gone wrongDay 10: Write about an animalDay 11: Write about a holidayDay 12: Write about a food you (or your character) hateDay 13: Write about the weather

Day 14: Write about non-romantic loveDay 15: Write about someone who needed to take a deep breathDay 16: Think about something boring; make it interestingDay 17: Write a how-to in the second personDay 18: Write someone’s online dating profileDay 19: Write about an argumentDay 20: Write about an unopened letter

Day 21: Write about something that scares youDay 22: Write in a form you normally wouldn’tDay 23: Write something based on a random wordDay 24: Create a new mythDay 25: Write about a cryptid (a mythological animal)Day 26: Write about a piece of clothingDay 27: Write something that makes you laughDay 28: Write a story with only dialogue

New story: Navigating

**Note: I know everybody understands the things I wonder about. So you could consider these a plaintive plea for sympathy and insight.

Why do some birds find their way from New York to Chile while I get lost three blocks from my home? (True story.) I’ve had trouble navigating all my life— missing exits on the freeway, getting lost on cross-country flights, even walking out of a downtown store and turning north instead of south. What’s up? Am I just not paying attention? Is it genetic?

At our apartment in Oak Crest we have a football-field-sized main hallway, 50 yards down each wing. I walk home down the hallway and burst unannounced into Larry and Julie’s apartment. “Hi, Larry and Julie! No, nothing; just dropping by.” Their door is the last door on the right in the east wing. My apartment door is the last door on the right in the west wing. Not only have I done this three times but I don’t know why, or how to avoid doing it next time. . . .

To read more, click here:  https://jimhurd.com/2023/10/04/navigating/

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This month’s puzzler

(Adapted from Car Talk Puzzler archives)

There is in the English language, a seven-letter word that contains nine words without rearranging any of the letters.  So using pieces of the original word, without changing the placement of the letters, you can form nine words. What is the word?

So the original word has seven letters, but there are nine words buried in this seven-letter word. 

For example, the word ‘garbage’. This word contains these three words:

1. Garb

2. Bag

3. Age

And the word we are looking for is a seven-letter word that has nine words buried in it, including itself. There might even be more . . .

(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)

Answer to last month’s puzzler: 

This one was very simple. Which of the following words does not belong, and why?

And the answer is: the word cousin does not belong. And why? Because it is the only word that does not describe the gender of the family member. Cousin can be either male or female. (Alternative answer: “Aunt” is the only one-syllable word.)

BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel

Blessed Unbeliever (paper or Kindle version) can be found at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or wherever good books are sold.

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Wisdom

Whoopsie

Like other kinds of figurative language, oxymorons (or oxymora) are often found in literature. As shown by this list of awfully good examples, oxymorons are also part of our everyday speech. You’ll find common figures of speech, plus references to works of classic and pop culture.