Tag Archive | Writer

Coddiwomple

Jan9

Traveling in a purposeful direction

January 9, 2024

The author’s collection of dictionaries. The Webster’s New World Dictionary, third from the left, was often used for playing ‘Dictionary.’

Back in the early 1980’s I was introduced to a game my hubby and his family loved to play. There was no game board or markers to move around. Instead it required a dictionary, a piece of paper for each player, and a pen. They called the game Dictionary.

A search of the internet reveals, from the Infallible Wikipedia, that the genre is more commonly known by another name: Fictionary. In the years since being introduced to this delightful pastime there have been actual games developed and sold. As noted by the Infallible Wikipedia:

“The board games Balderdash, Dictionary Dabble, Flummoxed, and Weird Wordz are based on Fictionary. In one round of the board game Derivation, players describe or fabricate a word’s etymology; players who provide a correct etymology receive one point for doing so, but their entries are then removed from play, and they lose their chance to receive multiple points by drawing multiple votes from other players. Similarly, in the board game Wise and Otherwise, the Picker randomly chooses a quotation and reads the beginning, and other players try to create realistic endings to the quotation.”

It’s amazing what interesting words one can find when perusing a dictionary.

While these games have been successful, I rather like how we played it: Get a group of people together (the more the better) and then pick one person each round who looks through the dictionary until they find a sufficiently obscure word. They then announce the word to the group and each person has to come up with a definition for that word. The chooser writes down the REAL definition.

Once everyone has written his or her definition, the papers are passed to the person who picked the word and they read each entry aloud, being sure to hide the papers from others. Each participant then decides which might be the real meaning of the word. Those who guess correctly get one point. The chooser gets one point for every incorrect guess.

Now, I’m sure you are wondering what this has to do with the title of this week’s Tuesday Newsday, Coddiwomple. Up until the hubby and I were driving home from Yakima on New Year’s Day this year I had never heard of Coddiwomple. But it immediately made me think of playing Dictionary and probably the most favorite word I ever found and used which is ‘gardyloo.’

The hubby had read an article on the term Coddiwomple and shared it with me. What I learned, from author and philosopher David Marlowe – who coined the term – is this:

I was immediately struck by the rhythm of the word and how it seems to fit its definition. Of course the purpose of the word is to help people stop and contemplate what, exactly, they are each trying to accomplish in life.

It was exactly seven years ago today when I wrote my first Tuesday Newsday. At that time I had no idea where I was going with it; only that, via a very decidedly Coddiwomple experience, I had been nudged to take the path of starting a website for ‘someday.’

That ‘someday’ was aimed for that moment, in the murky future, when I would have a book published and be able to share it on my website.

And thus began a Coddiwomple journey toward a vague destination. My first Tuesday Newsday was all about one of my favorite musical artists, Jim Croce.

Of course I screwed it up a bit on that first go round – being unfamiliar with WordPress and how it all worked – and accidently posted it on Wednesday, January 10th instead of that Tuesday, January 9th. So I ended up with TWO articles about Jim Croce a year apart, with the other one on January 11th the following year. (here’s the link to both which I combined into one for ONLY January 10th): https://barbaradevore.com/2017/01/10/jim-croce/)

But that was okay because, well, Jim Croce. One of his best… and so bittersweet.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CczvSrdrezI%3Fsi%3D1uxXwnb0IH1HpXjH

What I did know after that first post is that in addition to the fiction stories which invade my brain and compel me to write, I had a whole lot of personal stories which came pouring forth.

Some have been funny, some philosophical; they range from recounting early childhood memories to recent impactful events. They cover music, TV, movies, nature, history, geeky musings, and cultural references. War and politics are never included.

But what do any of these ramblings have to do with traveling purposefully toward a vague destination?

For me, no matter what think I chose to do, it is the desire to fully embrace each experience in life. New opportunities frequently present themselves and, as someone who probably has undiagnosed ADD, I am often distracted by such shiny objects.

Yet, as I have matured, I’ve come to understand a universal truth: our most precious commodity is TIME. I’ve become quite protective of my time. And the one thing in life which is elemental to who I am and where I want to spend my time is writing. It’s been that way since I first put a piece of chalk to a chalkboard desk I received as a Christmas present at age three when my family still lived in Clarkston, Washington.

The author, age 3, with her chalk board. Captured with a cell phone camera from the home movies my dad took.

So now I begin year eight of my blog in basically the same way as I did in 2017, traveling in a purposeful manner toward a vague destination. Coddiwomple.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go write Nicole out of the entanglement in which she finds herself. Who will she choose: Nathan, Sam, or ???. And how will her parents react? I’m not sure she has quite embraced Coddiwomple but then again she’s only 21 and has a lifetime ahead of her.

Finally, for those who have read all the way to the bottom, here’s your reward. Gardyloo is, according to Dictionary.com, “a cry formerly used in Scotland to warn pedestrians when slops were about to be thrown from an upstairs window.” Oh those crazy Scots. You’re welcome. Of course if you looked closely at the photos, you already knew the definition.

The links:

David Marlowe’s substack: https://ikiquest.substack.com/p/coddiwomple

The Infallible Wikipedia never lets me down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictionary

WB Yeats

Jun13

His Life Was Like A Novel

June 13, 2023

A Tuesday Newsday Classic from June 13, 2017

“Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.”

Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1923, William Butler Yeats interpreted the honor as belonging to his beloved Ireland. The poet was born on June 13, 1865 and, despite a number of years in England, his writing and politics were inspired by his early life on the Emerald Isle.

William Butler Yeats

His poetry should be read through the lens of Yeats fascination with the occult. From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“Yeats had a life-long interest in mysticism, spiritualism, occultism and astrology. He read extensively on the subjects throughout his life, became a member of the paranormal research organisation “The Ghost Club” (in 1911) and was especially influenced by the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.  As early as 1892, he wrote: “If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen ever have come to exist. The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”

Personally, I find his own life’s story even more implausible than his writing. He met Maud Gonne, the woman who most inspired him, when he was 24 years old. Thus began a relationship which spanned over 30 years, involved four marriage proposals and four rejections AND a fifth proposal to Maud’s 21 year old daughter. Maud’s own story is book worthy and she must have been one heck of a woman!

In fairness to Yeats – who seemed to have some warped code of honor – the fourth proposal to her involved terms and conditions which he hoped she would find unacceptable. Once that final offer was rejected he sought out a younger woman (he was 51 by then) who could produce an heir. Since Maud’s daughter, who at the age of 15 had herself proposed to him, upon his proposal said no he found another woman:

“That September, Yeats proposed to 25-year-old Georgie Hyde-Lees (1892–1968), known as George, whom he had met through Olivia Shakespear. Despite warnings from her friends—‘George … you can’t. He must be dead’—Hyde-Lees accepted, and the two were married on 20 October. Their marriage was a success, in spite of the age difference, and in spite of Yeats’ feelings of remorse and regret during their honeymoon. The couple went on to have two children, Anne and Michael. Although in later years he had romantic relationships with other women, Georgie herself wrote to her husband ‘When you are dead, people will talk about your love affairs, but I shall say nothing, for I will remember how proud you were.’”

Truly any fiction writer could not conceive of a plot line as convoluted as the true life of WB Yeats. Multiple proposals, unrequited love, political intrigue, and the execution of his romantic and political rival, connect the pieces of the tale!

One of the challenges in being a writer is deciding which of the myriad of ideas which populate my brain to bring to the page, so to speak. When I first read of Yeats life I thought, ‘now that would be interesting to research and write a fictionalized account of his life’.

But for anyone who has ever attempted – and completed – a novel, you know that it’s not enough to simply be interested. You have to be passionate about your topic.

The average mainstream fiction novel is between 75,000 and 90,000 words. To put that in perspective, I am capable – on my most prolific days – of writing about 2,500 words. It would take 36 days of doing that to get a 90,000 word novel written. Realistically, about 1,600 words per day are how many words I write before my brain starts getting lazy. Now it’s up to 56 days. As you can see, based on the amount of time you will spend with the story and the characters, you need to really love your story.

It is said that there are two types of writers: ‘plotters’ and ‘pantsters.’

The first, the plotter, is someone who maps out their entire novel, chapter by chapter, and writes little summaries of what’s going to happen.

The second is the author who writes by the ‘seat of their pants’, usually with a general idea of where they intend to go but it’s as much a mystery to them as it might be to someone who reads their work.

I discovered early on that I am firmly in the second category!

For every one of the seven novels I’ve completed, (For those keeping score at home I would say I land at about 85,000 words per novel, so I’ve written and KEPT 595,000 words) I’ve only ever had a concept of the story, not knowing where it would take me. For the plotters out there reading this you are, no doubt, running away in terror just about now.

But hear me out. I was about 30,000 words into one particular novel when I hit the dreaded sagging middle. For the non-novelist, this is the spot in the book when you run out of steam and ideas and your plot comes to a grinding halt. What to do?

The answer, almost always, is to introduce a new character.

The sink where I was doing the dishes…

So I was standing at my kitchen sink this one morning doing the dishes and contemplating how to get through the sagging middle. All of the sudden a voice – it was a man’s voice – says to me “Put me in the story.”

There is not anyone else in the house or the kitchen. But I knew who was talking to me. It was a character, introduced as a baby in the first book of the series I was writing, and he was definite about the request. He should be in the story.

And he was right. To this day, he’s one of my most favorite characters in, arguably, my favorite book which I’ve written, and his personality arrived fully formed and known.

So, despite knowing that someone could take Yeats story and write one heck of a fiction story based on his life, it won’t be me. I have too many characters living in my head that are waiting for their turn to help me do the dishes and convince me they need a voice.

To learn more about Yeats life there is the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._B._Yeats or a much tamer version here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/william-butler-yeats