“Huh?”

Yeah. That title would confuse me too. At least maybe. See, I came up with this tweet on my Twitter¹ account a few minutes ago:

Polishing off produce while pondering and postulating pixels for a purchaser.

And it reminded me of one of the tools I use to increase my vocabulary for writing. I pick a random letter of the alphabet and try to use alliteration to create some silly sentence.² For example, if I would have wrote the tweet³ in normal English I would have said, “I’m eating fruit while thinking about the graphics I’m doing for a client.” Instead, I decided to use alliteration to make it sound funnier and/or more interesting. Alliteration is good for that. But it’s also good for “waxing your word wisdom.”⁴

Sometimes you just don’t have enough words in your head to cover the words needed for creating the alliteration. So you look to a thesaurus.⁵ While doing so, you are naturally increasing your vocabulary.

Try it for yourself. Pick a letter of the alphabet and use it to create alliteration in your comment to this post. You’ll see what I mean.

1. Make sure to follow me: http://twitter.com/Saphrym [«]
2. Hey. I used it again! [«]
3. Not everything must be typed of course. You could use some promotional pens to write it by hand. [«]
4. Which means increasing your vocabulary. [«]
5. I use thesaurus.com. [«]

Posted by Saphrym

This is in response to the statement posted in my forums by Eyespi:

I like your instructional posts…¹ I keep referring people to your blog to read those posts.
ê¿ê

I’ve got a new one for you then. Topics. That’s right. I said topics. Topics. Topics. Topics. Topics. Topics. Topics. Topics. Topics.

I know. I’m spamming my own post with the word “topics.” No, I’m not trying to get rated highly in the Google search engines for the word “topics.” I’m just trying to make a point about “topics.”

I’m one of those people who can write just about anything as long as I have a topic. I can research topics if I don’t know anything about them. If I do know about them, I’ll write about them without as much research. Either way, they normally get written quickly. It’s just the way I am. But here’s my problem:

“Topics.”

I know. I used that word again. But to write about something, you must have a topic in mind. I can sit there and think for hours and never come up with a topic. So the rest of this post is dedicated to the top 5 ways I know of finding good topics.

1. Read. Read the news. Read other blogs. Let those topics start creating themselves in your brain as you look around. Don’t steal ideas of course. But feel free to use what you read as a jumping off point to start your own discussion. Here’s a few different things you can read for ideas:
   • Novels
   • Newspapers
   • News Websites
   • Blogs

   You get the idea.

2. Watch. Again. Feel free to watch movies and television shows and write what you think about them. Let them kick start your mind. Movie reviews are a great way to share your opinions. Maybe the nightly news sparked an idea for a topic.
3. Speak. Have a conversation with your friends. During that conversation, topics are bound to come up. Kind of hard to have a conversation without topics. Use those topics in your writing. Feel free to quote your friends.²
4. Listen. Television and books aren’t the only media out there. Listen to your favorite radio shows. Even listening to music, especially lyrics, can help you come up with a topic.³
5. Ask. This one is not as obvious, but it gives great results. For example, I asked over at the Entrecard forums for some topic ideas and got plenty. Recently, I created my own forums and started asking for topics there. I’ve already written quite a few posts using those sources. Asking has got to be one of the best methods of coming up with topics I’ve ever used. Why? Because a lot of people already read your words. They have preferences of what they want to read from you. So let them tell you those preferences.

Ok. So you now have topics. Or do you? See, the important thing to do is get those ideas for topics on “paper.”⁴ Grab pen and paper, PDA, or handheld digital/tape recorder and start keeping track of all of those ideas. Then use them. No use in having topics to write about if you’re not going to write about them, right?⁵

Hope this helps you guys who seem to get stuck with “writer’s block” like I used to. Don’t forget: Topics.

Do you have any other methods of finding topics that you use? Feel free to share in the comments. Would love to hear them. Even specific shows, newspapers, etc. would be great to list.

1. Sorry. Had to, eyespi. Couldn’t resist. [«]
2. Make sure to give credit where it’s due though. [«]
3. You didn’t spend all that money on those audio racks for nothing, did you? [«]
4. I put “paper” in quotes because there are many electronic ways of doing so. For instance I use an iPhone and the Jott application. [«]
5. Catch the alliteration? [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Tomorrow, the 25th, is my wife’s birthday. I won’t be around much. She won’t be getting any diamond rings as we’ve already celebrated this month by us both now having iPhones. But I will give her this, right now, from my heart:

Craving

But mostly I crave the simple love you give me in all moments throughout our prior and future lives within a universe that would be only dark if your eyes, lips, life, mind, smile, and world did not exist in it for all of eternity with me by your side wishing for you the most happiness that could ever be accomplished in this gloriously shining life that is much more glorious because you do love me and I know you do and I love you and always will because you are the light in my eyes, the craving of my soul, and the true meaning of my existence and I will forever be thankful to your mother for one thing: your birth.

(Poem has also been reposted at my poetry and fiction site.)

Posted by Saphrym

This is in response to the question asked in my forums by Queue:

If everyone on the planet stopped existing but you, but the world, in it’s current state, was left exactly the same, what would you do?

Well, the logical part of my brain has to look at this multiple ways:

• Electricity and running water would only be around for a couple of days, if that, as no one would be running the power plants. So generators would be the only option for electricity. Bottled water would be the only option for drinking water.
• The world’s wealth would be at my disposal, however I don’t know how to fly a plane or sail a boat. So I’d be landlocked and stuck in the American continents.
• I have no outdoor survival skills, so I’d also have to make do in the cities. But since that is the only source of easily gotten food, that’s perfectly okay¹.
• With no other computers having electricity, all communications would be gone. No Internet². No phone. But of course, no people, so I guess that doesn’t matter.
• And another problem: I would have no idea that the world is empty. Can’t communicate to find it out.

But that’s my logical mind. My logical mind pales in comparison to my emotional one. I am human after all. So I’ll answer that part with a narrative:

I wake up to an empty bed. However, this is a normal occurrence, as my wife always gets up before I do. That’s how we get our time to ourselves. She goes to bed before I do and wakes up before I do. So we always have about two hours on our own. I pick up my phone to check my e-mail, a normal part of my routine, but there’s no signal.

I smile at that thought and then pull the trigger.

Is that exactly how it will happen? I don’t know. Will I go crazy and kill myself? I don’t know. But it is a possibility. Lack of human companionship is deadly, no matter what material goods you have at your disposal.

1. I’m talking about canned goods and other foods that would last a long time without a refrigerator [«]
2. Means all those used cisco routers and millions of dollars worth of servers are useless [«]

Posted by Saphrym

I’ve yet again been inspired. This time by the Queue Three Networks and their review of my site.

I’ve owned the domain name phantomvoice.net for a long time (over 8 years) and it has been many things for me. But now it’s going to start housing all of my fiction and poetry. I’ve copied all of the fiction and poetry from this site over there. I’m keeping the copies here just for the sake of not having broken links. But form this point on, any poetry or fiction I write will be published over at Phantom Voice.

The reason for this decision was because I really wanted a place that focuses on my poetry and fiction. This blog does not do that. Phantom Voice will. So hopefully you’ll go check it out and read my older writing. I’ll be adding new stuff to it very soon.

Posted by Saphrym

This is the true story of the storm that attacked Louisiana as seen from my eyes and the way I remember it. Continued from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

When last we left the family that was escaping from the aftermath of Katrina, they were near Texas. Ok. Not they. Us. We found a hotel. We got lucky. Sprint’s information randomly gave us a number for a motel off the main road that was one of those “pay-by-the-week” types of motels. You know the ones. Well, it was actually kind of nice. Had three beds and a kitchen area. We rented two rooms. If it wasn’t for this motel, we’d have not gotten a room until the middle of Texas. Again, we were lucky.

We spent the week in the motel and went back home. Well, to our house. Trees lined the roads like natural gravestones. Our house stood amidst the river of debris. So did the other houses. Our area just hadn’t been hit that hard. My in-laws, however, did not share our fate. Their oak tree fell into their house. It was a gigantic oak tree. It demolished the house. So they moved in with us.

Now imagine this: A 3 bedroom house with a family of 3 living in it. Then 9 people move in with that family. Are you starting to see the full picture? Sanity ran from the house as if it was on fire. Too many people.

So, we started looking for a new place to live. We had planned on doing so in about two years. Katrina moved up the plan by a year. Amidst the jobs in Los Angeles that we looked at, the possibility of Toronto, or even the possibility of maybe getting jobs within the Philadelphia school system, we chose Maysville.

(The End)

So there you have it. A shortened version of the story of Katrina as it happened to us. I’m working on a longer version. If this gets enough comments, maybe I’ll extend the version on the blog.

Posted by Saphrym

This is the true story of the storm that attacked Louisiana as seen from my eyes and the way I remember it. Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.

I had no idea what an ademco was until I rented a house and got renter’s insurance out in the part of Louisiana where we lived. See, to lower the rates (tremendously by the way) you needed a security system. I never left my house unattended much. But this was the day after Katrina. It became a necessity.

The sun came back up the next day. The sweltering heat was felt throughout. Walking outside felt like walking through a waterfall. Louisiana is know for its humidity. That day was much worse. The other problem with heat and humidity is mosquitoes. They love that time of year. They also love human blood. Little tiny vampires with a penchant for sweaty bodies. We didn’t have screens on the windows or doors at the time (a lesson we learned from and remedied later) so our windows and doors had to stay closed to keep out the little bloodsuckers. That made it even hotter. There was me, my wife and daughter, my wife’s mother, brother, sister, great aunt, grandfather, two nephews, four dogs and a cat. We were all crowded in a house that had no electricity, unclean running water, and closed doors and windows. Sometimes we’d go outside and get in the van and turn it on for a bit to have air conditioner. But gas was a rarity, so we didn’t do it often. Ten people and four animals in a hot house just wasn’t working. Two of the adults were over 70. There were three kids under 7. They all had red, sweaty faces with no true relief to be found.

I checked the gas level on the van. We had half a tank. Same thing on the other vehicles. We had to get out. The storm hadn’t killed us, but that heat was about to finish the job. We all packed up, said a couple of prayers, and headed down the road passing empty gas station after empty gas station. After a few hours we were very low on gas and finally found a gas station with people. We waited in the mile long line. We finally pulled up and filled up the tanks with half-hearted smiles on our faces. The store was open, so we went in and got drinks and food, something we hadn’t had since the day before. It was nice and cool in the store. Some of us stood by the drink coolers for a while. We stayed there for about two hours, worried about the trip ahead. While sitting there, the last of the gas was sold. We had been lucky.

We packed up and headed off again. Everyone was cooled off. The vehicles had gas. It was time to find a hotel. We started this trip on the Eastern side of Louisiana. When night fell, we were almost in Texas.

(To Be Continued)

Posted by Saphrym

This is the true story of the storm that attacked Louisiana as seen from my eyes and the way I remember it. Continued from Part 1.

Oak. Before the storm there was an oak tree in front of my wife’s family’s house. It was a huge, beautiful oak tree that stretched out to touch the backyard. It stood there protecting the family. But they had come to our house not too long before Katrina showed up. They were riding out the storm where we lived. Hurricanes always skirted our city until Katrina. So they felt they would be safer with us. And they were. The old sentry had shallow roots just like the tree in front of our house. So while we were all cowering from Katrina’s wrath, that old oak tree was uprooted and fell within their house. We had no idea about this until the storm was over. In this story, it’s not over just yet.

The rain was now sandblasting the roads. They were shining from the moisture. But they also contained numerous tree body parts. Limbs all over the place. Pine cones dribbling down the road. These were sights normally seen in silly dreams. But this was a nightmare. If you listened carefully, you could hear the orchestra playing minor chords in the wind. Another >crack< shot my eyes upward and I saw a limb as big as our smallest tree falling straight down to the ground. It landed with a bass filled thump that would cause any audio system geek to shriek with envy. The cacophony of breaking branches and thumping limbs was a terrible beauty.

Then it was over. It stopped so suddenly I was sure it was only a lull. But it was over. The wind stopped blowing and the rain only trickled down, slowly stopping. We had survived the night. The hurricane couldn't hurt us anymore. Or so I thought. What I didn't know at the time is the aftermath of such a storm is much more frightening than the storm itself.

(To Be Continued)

Posted by Saphrym

Ever watched ants? They’re very interesting little insects. If you put a sugar cube a distance from their nest, one of them will go and find it. Then it’ll go back and tell the others, and then they’ll all swarm all over that sugar and take it back to the colony. It’s a very concerted effort, and it’s amazing to watch. However, they are ants. This kind of thing is their job. As a blogger, swarming for the same sugar cube is not your job.

Recently, WordPress 2.5 came out. Almost immediately, there were over 100 posts, if not more, announcing the release. When Entrecard changed their pricing system, the same thing happened. Those little nuggets of news were the sugar cubes and the bloggers rushed all over it. It’s great that you want people to know these things. It really is. But, and I’ll try and ask this as nicely as possible, don’t you think the people who read your blog that actually care about that information… don’t you think… they already know?! Heck, I got that neat little yellow stripe in my WordPress dashboard telling me to update. My price at Entrecard changed dramatically and the blog and forums told me all about it.

You want to know which blogs I read every day? The ones with original content. The ones that make me laugh (and not because they copied some comic strip from some other site.) The ones that make me have some form of emotions. The ones that tell me something I didn’t already know. If CNN already said it on their front page, it’s likely you don’t need to say it on yours.

Don’t get me wrong. When a celebrity dies and you want to pay tribute to them, that’s perfectly ok. If you want to do an opinion post on the latest headlines, I’ll be happy to read it. But if I see one more post that basically repeats what the news has been saying all day, I think I’ll… well… nothing too drastic… I’ll just stop reading that blog.

Now, see, snowflakes are awesome. Each and every one is different from all of the others in some way. That’s what you should be. In some small or big way, your posts need to be different than all the others. For example, if your blog is about WordPress and 2.5 has just launched, don’t tell me that it just launched, instead, tell me about the obscure new feature and the original way in which you managed to use it. Or another example, if the news announces that the world is about to be forced to go vegan, don’t tell me about the obvious stuff like food, tell me about the vegan shoes. That would be original, especially if you posted pictures of yourself standing on top of the bookshelf at the local library with a pair of them on. (No, I’m not trying to tell you that standing on top of a shelf at the local library is a good thing. I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m serious. Unless you’re changin’ a frickin’ lightbulb and have permission to do so, don’t go standing on the shelves at the library.)

Don’t be an ant. Be a snowflake… wearing vegan shoes and eating spaghetti with a spoon. Oh, and blogging about something original, which was the point of this post to begin with.

Posted by Saphrym

This is the true story of the storm that attacked Louisiana as seen from my eyes and the way I remember it.

I sat in a chair facing the open door to my house staring at our van parked in the driveway. Just three days before, I had been watching mechanics use their air tools on the van. The impact wrenches sounded like they were jack hammering holes into my van. But this… this was different. This was five or six limbs laying on the top of my van. Not little limbs that would break off during a normal storm, but thick limbs from the trees that surrounded our house.

The sky was a scary shade of gray with very small amounts of natural light allowing me to see it. The power was off on our street, so no safe, secure artificial light to block the true horror of that sky. The rain was not falling nearly as much as I thought it would be. This was a hurricane. “Where’s the water?” I asked myself. It’s not like we needed it. The wind was a fear unto itself. Trees in the distance bent over as if to tie their shoes. I listened as one very large tree cracked across the street. I watched as it fell on the power line behind the house directly in my sight. The boom made my chair vibrate.

“So this is a hurricane?” I had always wanted to see one for myself. Guess it was my curiosity. But now, I never wanted to see one again. Another tree fell. The next thought was my daughter. She was in the top bunk of her bunk bed, close to the ceiling. I imagined a tree falling and going through our roof to hurt her. I got up out of my chair and rushed into the room to have her move into our bedroom with my wife. After she quickly fell back asleep, I headed back to the door. Katrina was calling me, wanting to show me her strength, wanting me to bow to her power. I couldn’t help myself. I obliged her every whim.

>BOOM<

Another tree had fallen. This one was much closer, but I couldn’t see where it fell. I raced to the back door to look out. There it was. A pine tree. It had been beaten by the angry woman and was lying still about two meters from the back of our house. It’s bark was being ripped away by the harsh winds. I could almost hear it scream as it was being skinned alive.

>BOOM<

This one didn’t land in the back yard. So again, I rushed to the other side of the house. Lying there in front, about the same distance as the one in the back, was another victim of the storm. This one was oak. The wind forced it to lift its shallow roots out of the ground. But it would live for a while longer. Its roots would not go thirsty because the rain began to fall harder.

(To Be Continued – Comments will make it come sooner than later)

Posted by Saphrym