Keyboards, And A Cool Photo

Okay, let me start by saying that keyboards are important. Very important, even. You’re probably thinking: yes, genius, we get that. You’re a writer, right?

Now, I should probably mention that I always knew keyboards were important—the real question, of course, is how important.

My old keyboard—a Dell one (yes, Dell from Hell and all that)—was actually a very good keyboard. It had a nice, strong feel to it; it made a nice, big CLANK when you hit it; it had nice, big keys; and it was black; and it was a great keyboard. It even had really tall keys, that required a fair bit of effort to press.

It’s weird, huh? You’d think that a keyboard should be easier to press, not harder—but actually, I find that keyboards lacking in attack (is that what it’s called?) have a tendency to provoke errant keystrokes, which are very annoying!

There is nothing more irritating than typing away at your latest scene (‘The dragon made its lair, in much the same way an oversized, carnivorous bird would’) and then—BANG!—you’ve accidentally changed to a different window and all your prose is on the web browser!

Or—my personal pet hate—you’re typing away, and a bad keystroke sends your writing on the previous paragraph, in the middle of a sentence... heck, in the middle of a word!

(You must be thinking I’m really weird after all that...)

Anyway, I broke the Dell keyboard in a fit of rage. It wasn’t directed at the keyboard, mind you: I had to edit my Drama essay to hand in the next day, and LibreOffice writer had, for some unfathomable IT reason, decided that the particular paragraph I was trying to edit should be read-only.

I still don’t why it was doing that; instead I saved the doc, and worked on it from Word.

But not before I broke the keyboard.

(I would have broken the monitor, but that would have been rather more expensive to replace.)

Anyway, I bought a BenQ keyboard thereafter.

I’m not naming and shaming here. The keyboard was actually pretty decent: it had lots of buttons—like this one—whose purpose I have never ascertained; it had big keys; and plenty of spacing; and it was a decent enough keyboard.

But it didn’t have attack. It was too soft.

So, I am now writing this on a different keyboard which I managed to find buried in the house. I’m not sure who made it, because the only branding is a funny little blue thing that looks kinda like an ‘E’. Regardless, I can smash the keys with abandon and they CLACK! nicely, and it has everything the other ones do, so I’m happy.

The keyboard is also UK, so I don’t have to deal with all that no-pound-or-euro-sign bullshit the US ones give. (I’m not too keen on the placement of the @ and # signs either. Oh, Americans...)

What About That Photo

I was always confused about what you call pictures and images and photos in the English language. In Romanian, we just have ‘imagini’ and ‘poze’. ‘Pictures’ is kind of a grey area with me.

Anyway, take a look:

‘It’s a landscape!’ you say; ‘It has snow and mountains and trees and shit’.

Well, that is correct. However, it looks eerily similar to a major setting in my novel, the Necromancer. Specifically, it looks like the ‘Northern Mountains’; a mountain range—who would have thought?—towards the north of Arachadia—surprise!—in which the Necromancer has his lair.

So there you go. A little, pale view into my imagination.

Update: had to fix some typos. Sorry for that.

The Three Days’ Word: Ephemeral

Here we go with the Three Days’ Word again. Since I am on holiday (though I’m still doing some revision as I have more exams afterwards), I have a bit more time on my hands. I have a little idea for some of the poems I’ve been talking about: it’s to do with visual art. I’ll tell you that much.

Anyway...

Ephemeral

Pronunciation: /əfɛmərɘl/

Etymology: From GREEK ‘ephēmeros’ meaning ‘lasting but a day’.

Definition: Lasting a brief amount of time; fleeting; a will-o’-the-wisp.

Examples:

‘The ephemeral memories of children; so easily forgotten, and so terrible for it.’

‘The ephemeral promises of politicians. Bah!’

‘Ephemeral dreams, and fleeting, forgotten wishes; humanity: an illusion?’

Well, there you have it. Sorry if I sound kinda tired. I am tired, you know? The work isn’t over yet, and the publishing world is a difficult one to break into. But, like the indefatigable, unyielding soldier that I am, I shall do my exams; and I’ll do well; and you can be expecting new work to come out soon enough.

My novel, the Necromancer, is under the watchful eye of a friend of mine. Decisions will be made. I may not publish it—it’s why I’m not giving you any previews of it. However, I do have a novelette written, so you can expect something from me, at least...

(‘Poor Alex. He’s rambling now,’ you think. Well, you’d be right on that.)

Words, Poems; Alex Stargazer’s Weird and Wonderful Musings

Hellooo! I have been rather busy last week, with exams (my old time favourites) and other stuff.

But with this week’s holiday, I can entertain you lot—I do entertain you, right?

First up, some obscure words. Yes, I have fallen way behind on that, so it had to be a plural.

(‘Yay! Two obscure and incomprehensible words to read. What fun!’ you say.)

But, anyway. I digress.

Acquiesce

Pronunciation: /ækwɪɛs/

Etymology: From LATIN ‘acquiescere’ meaning ‘to rest at’: combination of ‘ad’ (at, to) and ‘quiescere’; to rest. Weird, huh?

Definition: (The above will seem even weirder now:) To express agreement; to concur and be willing.

Examples:

‘It is the ineluctable nature of persuasive people; they shall always get what they want, even if they don’t really want it. Others always acquiesce.’

‘To acquiesce; or to deny your friend in favour of empiricism?’

‘Acquiesce with the dictator’s demands. Or else.’

(I’m a little morbid, aren’t I?)

Now, on to the next word: exigency. This is an odd one. It has two possible meanings! And yes—they’re both very different. English...

Exigency

Pronunciation: /ɛksɪdʒənsi/

Etymology: From LATIN ‘exigentia’; in turn derived from ‘exigere’ meaning ‘enforce’.

Definition: Now here they are—number one is ‘a sudden and pressing demand; a crisis’; number two is ‘excessive and/or difficult requirements’. Since my name is Stargazer, I shall try and come up with something creative for both meanings. Maybe I’ll even write something ambiguous. Now that would be really clever...

‘The exigencies of bad times often come in the way they do: unexpectedly, frighteningly, and devastatingly. Woe befalls all who are subject to them; the vicissitudes of the incompetent leaders that lead us.’

‘He was exigent, annoying, and frequently wrong; but there was a kindness to him, also, that was hard to resist.’

‘Exigent fool prone to random fits of rage and exigency.’

Beat that!

On to Poems, Bunnies, and Musings

First off: the bunnies.

Well, one bunny, I should say more correctly. (‘What’s he going on about?’ you say; well, please bear with.)

Today, on the Sun’s Day, I—or rather my dad—found a bunny. In the middle of the road. Blind. And young. Well, you can probably guess from there on; but you’d be guessing wrong. I didn’t take her in with us—and no, I didn’t abandon her either. Eek!

No, we gave her to the owner of the nearby pub. She was really quite happy, I must say. Mummy even looked kinda jealous. Hehe.

Moving on from bunnies, I have written five poems, submitted them to an uppity-tightety—my bad, literary—magazine, and yes, it was predictable from all that: I got rejected. Too bad. There are other ways for a poet to express themselves; and as you can guess, one of those is through this blog.

I shall, however, not give you all of them. I’m keeping the big guns for something special...

The Maiden and the Lake

Download and View on Google Drive

I am going to write a short essay on this. If you don’t like essays, don’t read it. Although, I suspect anyone crazy enough to follow my blog would probably be fairly comfortable with essays already...

Essay

The poem is about following your dreams.

If you were still trying to deduce that, I’m sorry. In any case: a poem’s message should not be didactic—for such a thing cannot be considered a work of art; rather an essay like this one—and neither should a poem’s message require wrestling from its cold, dead words. (Haha.)

A poem’s message should be pretty clear. If it isn’t, I’m not doing a very good job; please tell me!

In any case, the poem is partially metaphorical—the Little Ones in particular, represent the man’s inner demons—but also a straight up narrative: the scenario depicted should resonate of a wish come true.

The narrator is unnamed. This is not random: the narrator is the archetypal wishful lover; the one constrained by unyielding biology.

And of course, what tale can speak more of wishes? Love, and unsurmountable barriers, is my answer.

Imagery is also quite an important aspect of the poem. Here’s a badly kept secret: poems aren’t novels. You cannot build empathy, and love, and a desire for sucess, in the reader’s mind with quite so few words; you must instead appeal to our visual sense—our fastest sense. (Or ‘bandwidth capable input device’ if you want to go into tech-speak.)

The poem also takes in irony certain aspects of superstition. Take, for example: ‘On the seventh day, / Of the sixth month (of the sixth year)[.]’ Seven, now, there’s a number: a prime number; Seven Deadly Sins; seven days; seven, seven, seven.

As for six? Well, ‘six six six’ and Old Nick’s here.

The irony, of course, is in the fact that the man does not drown, and neither is he abandoned; the man gets what he wants. If you are so inclined, you will also notice that deceiving foreshadow is used in other ways as well—the ‘omen of joy’ and ‘the moon is but a memory’ and so on and so forth.

Indeed, the latter quote presents an irony in and of itself. The moon—as the mythology scholars among you may be aware—is often presented as the symbol of femininity. And yet, the man himself is rather un-masculine. It is also rather fitting, since the Maiden—a.k.a the moon—decides to keep him waiting.

And thus concludes the essay. It wasn’t terribly long (I don’t think). Besides, this isn’t my best poem; those are reserved for the Secret Project.

Thank you for reading. You can leave a comment, if you like. This isn’t meant to be monologue, y’a know?