You wouldn’t believe the stuff that people will flush or shove down storm sewers. Most of it goes right to the ocean.

Also this: https://canmore.ca/residents/municipal-services/waste-management-recycling/the-epic-poo-race

I loved that “also this” 💩🌈🚽 !!

Keamoose: Thanks for “also this”.

“Flashy dialogue tags” - never heard it called that, but I like it. Reminds me of the HTML blink tag, or the marching ants tag. Annoying and distracting to the reader.

Totally distracting… “They’re like written speed bumps,” I intoned.

Intoned to the breeze opposite the pane while aimlessly thumb flipping through the bigger pictures. Because there are, thou, more than one. Endless pictures during an infinite time. On a seashell shore.

And then the milkmaids with their knotty braids and their cows milk. Dropping drips. And then the chewing cow chewed, chewed mildly like an unamused asshole. That he was. Lovely brilliant.

To conclude: “Oh, that was awesome! I loved when you were talking about that thing on the seashore and then the shells, too.”

The cow turned her languid eyes seaward and mooed, a long, languorous moo full of longing for the past and memories of the treacle-coloured dog that frolicked in the daisy pasture. Her eyelashes sparkled sadly in the morning’s cool, vapid mist as she lifted a mud-crusted cloven hoof to kick listlessly at the hand-carved milking stool, and she thought again of the dog, the dog with the silken tail and gentle woof. “Moo,” she susurrated in her torpor, and yet another near-silent “moo” escaped her grass-stained lips.

I have to say, I’m a little giddy that I managed to work “susurrated” in there, especially given that the only dialogue is “moo”.

“Susurrated” is a good word. I even had to look up the definition. I will also admit to reading it at first as “serrated.”

I was worried Cow had lethargically steak-knifed herself.

One of the keys to bad writing is to use a lot of words that you don’t quite understand.

I am also concerned about Cow. She seems a little down and steak-knifing seems like a real possibility. The next 17 chapters go into the backstory of the milking stool, so we won’t find out more about Cow for a while. I haven’t decided what happened to the treacle-coloured dog from the daisy pasture. It’s possibly a reference to a traumatic event in Cow’s calfhood.

I kinda want to write this book. Is that bad?

“Moo,” she pleaded, her dappled hide gleaming in the lights of the late-night shop windows like the neon map of a fictional country whose people have never been to the seashell shore. The milkmaid frowned into her coffee, knotty braids a-twitch with concern. “Moo?” queried the milkmaid. “Moo? How can you possibly intone the word moo when my heart is torn asunder with memories of the treacle-coloured dog?” she kvetched vexingly.

OMG I CAN’T STOP.

DONT STOP. Write yarn book. That’s the obvious solution. There’s a market there, I intone it.

Have you ever heard of Adrian Mole? There’s a book in the series where he is writing a novel called “Lo! The Flat Hills of my Homeland” that is an amazing example of truly terrible writing. The main character in Adrian’s novel ends up writing a prehistoric novel in which a caveman writes a novel despite not having the concept of language. A publisher ends up being interested in publishing THAT novel. I think that’s where we’re headed here with Cow.

Possible titles: “The Milking Years”, “How Daisied Was My Pasture”, “Treacle Dog Summers”, “My Dappled Hide”, “Moo”.

I kinda like the last one. “Moo”. A New York Times Bestseller. Oprah’s Book Club Selection. Now A Major Motion Picture. Starring Judi Dench as (the voice of) Cow, who still only says ‘moo’ in a variety of tones.

I really think you should get going with making this a real book. It would bepuzzle the kids and their parents alike.

I would, however, shy away from using the word “Moo” in the title. When Maggie was younger she had a few Miss Moo books and I wouldn’t want the copyright police to dispatch unto thou cease and desists.

I shallwould procure the second copy. Or pre-order on Amazon.

Also said I, I was thinking in addition to over-utilizing a thesaurus it might be fun to invent words, too. See “bepuzzle” and “shallwould” above.

Methinks bepuzzle is j’fuzzle!

Well, ok. I think I’ll go with “The Milking Years” as a working title.

“Bepuzzle” is actually a real word, because English is like that.

“Moo,” mused Cow, in that inner part of her brain reserved for the most personal thoughts. Her muzzle sparkled in the sun as she nosed the spider glistening its way along the old, splintered fencerail. The spider eyed her, bepuzzled, as self-doubt overwhelmed him and he began once again to ponder whether the cow in his field truly understood that the early modern English word ‘attercop’, which survived in the Yorkshire dialect but was otherwise generally supplanted by the newer ‘spider’, was cognate to the modern Danish ‘edderkop’ - ‘edderkopp’ in Norwegian - or if the simple bovine could even aspire to pronounce the so-called Danish ‘soft D’ the word required. “Shallwould,” he sighed. “Shallwould.”

I also want to support your use of ‘thou’. I think we should bring it back. It was useful.

Thou cannot query “bepuzzle” with results included… 😢

Also… I’m tailing the moos Cow expatiated within detached documentation.

Merriam-Webster was fine with it: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bepuzzle
I guess M-W is a bit of a hippie dictionary, but I don’t have the Unabridged OED on hand for a definitive answer.

I’m glad the moos are being tracked; the number of moos in the final version should have some significance so people can be forced to discuss it in English class. Although right now I’m kind of intrigued by the spider character; he’s angsty and into comparative linguistics. Plus there’s all the symbolism: the cow and the spider can’t communicate, neither realizes that the other is also an intelligent being, there’s the question of “is it a spider in a cow field, or a cow in a spider field?” It’s a whole allegorical thing - Animal Farm meets Charlotte’s Web meets Roget’s Thesaurus.

Ah… after doing a little research I see that macOS uses the New Oxford American Dictionary. Bepuzzle has bepuzzled NOAD:

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/search?filter=dictionary&query=bepuzzle

> Animal Farm meets Charlotte’s Web meets Roget’s Thesaurus.

😅😅😅

Hmmm. Maybe “bepuzzle” is British English and not American? Although Merriam-Webster is definitely an American dictionary. Noah Webster was a big fan of spelling reform, and he was the guy who took the u out of words like colour and labour. I think I can do a whole chapter of the spider’s inner monologue on Noah Webster.

That line about the thesaurus needs to be a quote on the back cover of the book. 😉

“spelling reform” — love it. First up shallwould be the cuucumber.

And the front cover should sport the thesaurus line. It’s THAT good. 💪

:)

Paparazzi.

Mona mentioned on FB, “folks not getting enough vitamins.”

So I made a sign…

I just hate when people use that sing-songy “poetry-reading voice”. It gets in your head and applies itself to other poems. Sometimes it takes an effort to avoid reading everything that way.

I suspect you have heard some bad poetry. Have you read this one? My favourite. I won’t be offended though if it doesn’t do it for you. http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html

I’ll have to say that wasn’t bad. I particularly enjoyed this verse…

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?

I suspect it’s more the reading of bad poetry that I’m not a fan of.

So much that! ☕️

The blink tag! 😂🤣😆

And a spinny coffee cup! 😉

OMG I didn’t notice that until now. Be sure to add an “under construction” gif to your site, along with an animated envelope for email.

See also… http://bestanimations.com/Site/Email/Email.html

Wow. I don’t miss 1995.

Keamoose: Thankies for T.S. It’s a favorite of mine too.

When I read my poetry aloud I did it in defiance of “the poetry voice”. I think I know what you guys mean. I hope I don’t do that. I read it pretty fast, maybe even faster than I talk, but I’d be the last to know if I’m guilty.

Your poetries and writings are good though and what you read aloud to me, you were totally in character. The pieces had life and depth and rhythm.

I think what was missing from the poetry readers I unfortunately heard on Sunday night was craftsmanship and confidence. The last speaker/reader lady spent a minute and a half backstorying the poem she was going to recite from memory. When she did recite, at last, said poetry poem was 12 words long. She spent all this time setting up and selling her poem and then I was like, “oh, that’s it?” I’m assuming she was nervous so she wanted to prop up her work a little bit or something.

I surmisedly suppose I shouldn’t have mildly raged against all poetry because there are good writers and readers both. And getting up in front of a crowd is a good way to hone one’s craft.

Side note: when I typed the first two words autocorrected fixed them to, “You’re potty”

Twelve fucking words?! Yeah, I’ve heard worse. I knew a guy who read at readings for about 5 years on what was little more than a Haiku. He’s what’s wrong.
I used to try to write little stories because I was so impatient with the craft of fiction.

…i tol’ my cousin i was gonna git me one of them dogs what’ll whisper secrets to ya ‘bout the mailman….