My Writer's Wish Box

[Joe Gensle]

I’d like to sit at this laptop with my head in the cloud of a writer's trance to mute the externals (except  invited backgrounds as one playing, now-- Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor), to cloister myself surrounded by creature comforts where my story-becoming-pulp mill fodder surfaces from a drizzle of finger taps swelled to fat streams of sensible flow precipitating readers' finger blurs of page turns. 

Grammar and style’s pedant in me wants the writing to be just so, and I’ve even wondered if I should watermark the background with “FIRST DRAFT” as bog-down prevention.   

I have a job and responsibilities, not a spousal breadwinner or caretaker to hire chores-doing, dog feeding grocery shopping, and anything else that could interrupt the sequestered, sacrosanct space I could arguably require for being ‘lazy’ on the treadmill of self-discipline needed to complete my little story. 

Again and again I’ve told myself, and probably you, that I want to walk through an airport’s concourse and see paperback covers of my book in row after row of gift shop racks, and people in departure lounges laying phablet, tablets, Kindles and Nooks aside smiting their collective ego to be holding my book, a read they may not admit to friends that they purchased or enjoyed. 

It’s a story of a woman’s ziggety-zagged downfall and survival, travel and criminal triumph, and eventual crash designed for quick reading and satisfaction, maybe like what fast food would be to fine literature--not particularly healthy, but satisfying and a guilty pleasure, one's dirty little secret of indulgence. 

Trashy, maybe, but I commit to intentionally throw down an occasional ten-cent word hoping someone/anyone has take to source a definition because, at the end of the day(?), my ego’s on it’s pleading knees begging for someone with some modicum of fame to call me a “writer” and forget the “…for the ages” qualifier [and if you knew every item that follows, you’re reading above me, not my target market ::wink:: ].

cloister: seclude or shut up in or as if in a convent or monastery

smiting: striking  with a firm blow; defeating or conquering (a people or land).

pedant a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning; syn- prig, stickler

sequestered: (of a place) isolated and hidden away: "a wild sequestered spot"; syn- isolated

sacrosanct: esp. of a principle, place, or routine) Regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with; syn- holy, inviolable

modicum:  a small quantity of a particular thing, esp. something considered desirable or valuable; syn- trace

[Crosby Kenyon]

The thing is, each of those words is surrounded by enough context to give a pretty good idea of the general meaning, and usually it's a "writer" that can do that.

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

I've learned a new word. Heard it before but never seen it spelled. M-O-D-I-C-U-M, modicum.

Thankies.

:)

[Joe Gensle]

oh yikes, Angela... I didn't mean it as a test. I threw the defs out there because I think they're fun words. I sometimes *think* I know what a word means, use it, and someone corrects me. Kinda like I've been smiling all day with leaf spinach between my teeth and no one told me. I used these words very recently and had to make sure I knew what I thought I knew... Apologies, Sixers-- no condescension intended 

[Teresa]

I'm getting a little worried lately about not having a writer's wish box at the moment.  But I've got a dictionary app on my iPhone that plays all sorts of word games.  I LOVE it!  

Glad you're hanging out here more often.  There's a lot of energy in your writing.  Wakes me up, makes me want to blow the dust off my writer's wish box. 

[Joey Delgado]

If anything, Joe, you are a master wordsmith. I would read anything from you, buy it sight unseen because I know I'll laugh and learn. Great work.

[Melindy Wynn-bourne]

This was good, exactly how I feel at times. And I'm glad I was good at learning word definitions in school!! Great work! :)

[Angela]

I noticed the list as I was reading, and I thought, "Surely he is not giving us definitions," yet there they are, along with synonyms.  I was so releived to find it was a test, as I scored 100%.