Words and More Words

Words are my inspiration. (I find inspiration from many sources but there is such power in a single word or phrase). The following quotes are just a random few of the ones that are currently bringing me much motivation and love.

"But for now we are young, let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we see." 

- Neutral Milk Hotel, Aeroplane Over the Sea

"Every plan is a tiny prayer to Father time." 

- Death Cab for Cutie, What Sarah Said

"The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt." 

- Max Lerner

"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." 

- T.S. Eliot

"I wanted a perfect ending... Now, I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity." 

- Gilda Radner

"Everything we do is a choice. Oatmeal or cereal. Highway or side streets. Kiss her or keep her. We make choices and we live with the consequences. If someone gets hurt along the way we ask for forgiveness. It's the best anyone can do."  

- Ned, Pushing Daisies

"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really 
hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen." 

- Conan O'Brien

Here's to remembering the everlasting power of words, and using those words to inspire, uplift and cherish in the week and life ahead.

♥ Shannon

NaNoWriMo Word Cloud

Well, another year of NaNoWriMo is done. Fortunately, after the disaster of last year, this year I was able to get my act together and write a grand total of 50,044 words. Score! I wasn't sure I was going to make it though - I was suffering from serious Procrastination-itis near the end. But here I am with a brand new novel on my hands. A novel that needs a serious editing overhaul, but a novel nonetheless.

Thanks to the wonderful Worlde.net (I love this site. I want to word cloud everything). I created a Word Cloud for my NaNo novel. Here it is:

I think I use the words "just" and "know" too much. I'll have to work on that in the editing process.

My Words

My voice is lost. I can’t speak.
The words are there on my mind in practiced rhythm, but speech falters.
Syllables get caught up on my tongue,
rolling over each other in a stuttering (repeating, repeating) mess.
I lose my thoughts and a deep red spreads up my cheeks
as I’m thrown into a twisting and churning sea of babbling nonsense.

I am strange, voiceless.
I cannot say what I mean so I don’t say anything at all and it’s quiet,
deafening quiet until ideas and hurts and passions and pains and answers
build and build and build
and there’s nowhere left to go but tearing out through my lungs
in one rebellious cry of sound and fury.
A loud cacophonous clatter of sounds and words and empty phrases
floating in empty space, meaning nothing, saying nothing.

They are lost. My voice is lost. There is nothing left to say.
The world isn’t listening anyway.

**

But here. Here there is release.

Here on this page, pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, I write.
In a clack, clack, clack, scratch, scratch, scratch, I write.
Words spill, splash, pour from me, onto the page.
Words, words, words released and running free,
stampeding from my mind, fingertips, every pore,
a force of glorious energy that wraps around me in cozy warmth,
fills the page with me in a soundless scream.

All at once I can be strange and awkward and stuttering,
say what I mean, mean what I say,
talk in circles and round and round until it makes complete nonsensical sense of this,
this beautiful mess of words and verbs and question marks.

Formed from thought, like clay, molded and laced and pieced together,
sentences take shape, paragraphs and pages, pages telling a story, 
winding, weaving together in a vibrant tapestry of vision, concept, imagination.
A reckless abandon of flowing consciousness.

Where at last, at last
my voice can speak.

Here, here are my words.