literature

A Few More Favorite Christmas Gifts From the Hubby

| marandarussell

Hi everyone! I already showed you my adorable stuffed Scar, but thought I would share a few other favorite gifts from my husband (Steve) this year.

First, we have this Halloween wreath that he actually made for me (for years I have been telling him I wanted a Halloween wreath):

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The best thing about this wreath is that all the decorations are removable, so you can redecorate it or swap stuff out whenever you want. He got me a bunch of other decorations (skull lights, creepy flowers, more spiders/cutouts/etc.) to use with it if I so wish.

He also got me this Anubis prayer bead necklace and Anubis & mummy statue set (the mummy actually goes inside the Anubis sarcophagus):

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Steve bought me several books, all of which I like, but my favorites are these two:

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Both of these books are very thorough reference materials for two of my favorite subjects – world mythology and world literature! I especially like that both of these do not just center on Greek/European/American history, but are more expansive than that.

So there you have a further peek into my Christmas haul 🙂

 

Poetry – Money for Liberty

| marandarussell

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(I wrote this new little poem the other day and have had a hard time deciding if it should just be shortened to contain the first stanza only, or if it is better with both. I figured I would share it with you guys and see if anyone had an opinion. Should I keep it as is with the two stanzas, or should I cut out the last four lines and have a much shorter, but perhaps punchier poem?)

He offered up money
for his liberty,
but could never quite reach
the asking price.

Though he bid
higher and higher,
the inflation would only
keep rising.

Poetry: Nightlights

| marandarussell

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I got a new blackout poetry journal that uses classic literature to inspire new works of poetry. This first one is my attempt at making original poetry from a random page of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan:

Nightlights

My love,
were not all natural
dreams forgotten?

The skeleton
crawled about the floor,
rattled up the chimney,
and bathed her hand in sleep.

Nightlights pulsed
while strange children
found new mothers
in the faces of the night.

Once all were safe
her fears sat down
by the quickening fire,
warming the nursery.

Original Art from My JRR Tolkien Adult Coloring Book

| marandarussell

The past couple days I’ve been in the mood to do some adult coloring. Using my Tolkien’s World adult coloring book that I received from a friend, I used my art markers and other art supplies to finish these two pictures of a raven and a vampire bat, which I felt would fit the Halloween season well:

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If I remember right, I think the raven picture is from The Hobbit series, and the vampire bat is from Tolkien’s lesser known work, The Silmarillion. I like the way both of them turned out and they are listed for sale on My Ebay store if you are interested in them.

Bronchitis (Again!) and Short Bits of Blackout Poetry

| marandarussell

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I’ve come down with another nasty case of bronchitis, so I’m taking it easy, hoping the antibiotics kick in soon, and putting together bits of loosely created blackout poetry (using some magazines and comics I’ve read lately). Here are a few of these creative little bits:

1)
Not a single one
became a hugely successful
project,
save the seals, coins,
and animal bones.

2)
The result
of a terrible illegality
controls
a large new stairway
down
to the mounds of holy dirt.

3)
To arms!
To the ramparts!
To let me nap in peace.

4)
The pin
is mightier
than the sword –
if gouged
into thine eye.

These bits of poetry are short, random, and sometimes a bit nonsensical, but I enjoy playing with language, and even the most ambiguous ones have a sort of language musicality to me.

Fun 6 Word Story Writing Prompts

| marandarussell

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I must admit that I stole these 6 word story writing prompts from one of my favorite WordPress bloggers, Therapy Bits. I’m not sure where she gets these prompts, or if she makes them up herself, but I thought they looked like a lot of fun, so I started borrowing a few of them just to see what I could come up with. Personally, I tend to think of these 6 word stories as a minimalist form of poetry, even tighter and more concise than haiku.

So here are a few of the prompts and what I came up with:

“Curves”
Her curves couldn’t outweigh her personality.

“Belief”
To hold a belief is self-delusion.

“Doll”
One doll, with third degree burns.

“Mundane”
Mundane, but still better than Monday.

“Maddening”
A cat is a maddening creature.

“Offer”
Make an offer, I can refuse.

“Plausible”
Perhaps plausible, but is it infallible?

“Rebel”
Rebel against your own poor expectations.

I hope you guys enjoyed this. Let me know if you did and maybe I’ll do more in the future. If you want to share any 6 word stories you come up with, feel free to do so in the comments!