Tonight's Poet Corner: Introspection
It's been a relatively quiet week. I've had a couple of interviews, done a lot of volunteer work at my former elementary school, but other than that, not much besides my musings and occasional smatterings of writing. So it's a bit amusing to me that what's on my mind right now isn't my job search, or my future, or even the French movie I just watched. Instead, I'm thinking about the game of Scrabble I played with my parents a few hours ago.
And yes, I was thinking of self-awareness earlier, as evidenced in one of my Poet Corner entries. But since I pretty much went over that, there's no sense in repeating myself.
I had a strange hankering to whip out the board game, which I am notorious for not being so good at. Words come easily to me, obviously, but when left with a limited line of letters, I can't do much damage. Tonight, however, was different. I scored 148 points and beat both my parents as a result, my highest score for a word being 45 points. The word itself? SQUID. On a triple word score space.
Among other words I put down were RAZE, HEM, VENT, OVER, and...oh, yes...JEW. Don't judge me, I had to use that J somehow. It's worth eight points, for crying out loud.
Anyway, I got a spectacular amount of high value consonants - only got one A and one U, though. Didn't get a whole lot of vowels besides E, which makes sense seeing as the letter e is the most commonly used letter in the alphabet. And while the game was occasionally frustrating as it's bound to be, it helped reestablish the fact that I love words. I love language and the way it can be bent and shaped to execute specific thoughts, emotions, and desires. And while perhaps this selection of words I put down doesn't necessarily give Freud anything to dissect (although I'm sure he'd love to analyze me anyway were he still alive), it does remind me of why I'm a writer.
Even if you aren't a huge language buff or, unlike me, didn't have to learn approximately thirty words a week for two years in high school; delve into a little wordplay while you can. If you don't read a lot, just listen to the way people talk. Language is so powerful and I think a lot of people forget that. And the fact is, it's everywhere. Obviously. We talk, don't we?
Again, not really a whole lot of recommendations for the night. Currently, the music I've been listening to is variations of the Doctor Who theme music. Not kidding. But here's your weekly quotation.
Writer's Quotation of the Night:
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.
And yes, I was thinking of self-awareness earlier, as evidenced in one of my Poet Corner entries. But since I pretty much went over that, there's no sense in repeating myself.
I had a strange hankering to whip out the board game, which I am notorious for not being so good at. Words come easily to me, obviously, but when left with a limited line of letters, I can't do much damage. Tonight, however, was different. I scored 148 points and beat both my parents as a result, my highest score for a word being 45 points. The word itself? SQUID. On a triple word score space.
Among other words I put down were RAZE, HEM, VENT, OVER, and...oh, yes...JEW. Don't judge me, I had to use that J somehow. It's worth eight points, for crying out loud.
Anyway, I got a spectacular amount of high value consonants - only got one A and one U, though. Didn't get a whole lot of vowels besides E, which makes sense seeing as the letter e is the most commonly used letter in the alphabet. And while the game was occasionally frustrating as it's bound to be, it helped reestablish the fact that I love words. I love language and the way it can be bent and shaped to execute specific thoughts, emotions, and desires. And while perhaps this selection of words I put down doesn't necessarily give Freud anything to dissect (although I'm sure he'd love to analyze me anyway were he still alive), it does remind me of why I'm a writer.
Even if you aren't a huge language buff or, unlike me, didn't have to learn approximately thirty words a week for two years in high school; delve into a little wordplay while you can. If you don't read a lot, just listen to the way people talk. Language is so powerful and I think a lot of people forget that. And the fact is, it's everywhere. Obviously. We talk, don't we?
Again, not really a whole lot of recommendations for the night. Currently, the music I've been listening to is variations of the Doctor Who theme music. Not kidding. But here's your weekly quotation.
Writer's Quotation of the Night:
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.
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