by Naomi L. | November 7, 2016 | Blog, Word of the Week |
Word: detente
Pronunciation: day-TAHNT
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: the easing of hostility or strained relations, especially between countries
Source: Oxford Dictionaries
It’s been a great month for French and political vocabulary words, hasn’t it? Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past several months, you know that tomorrow is the day that one of the most highly contentious American presidential races in history finally draws to a close. Regardless of which candidate you support (or even if you never cared), I’m sure there’s one thing we can all agree on: it’ll be nice when the tension from this election season finally dissipates! Granted, that likely won’t happen until well after Election Day, but we can still dream of some sort of near-future “detente”, right?
“Detente” (also spelled “détente”) refers to the easing of strained relations or hostility, especially between nations. The word arose in English in the early 20th century and is originally a French noun, literally meaning “loosening” or “relaxation”. This noun stems from the Latin verb detendere, which means “to loosen” or “to relax”.
Naturally, the word “detente” first came to my attention recently while reading yet another political article, in this case about the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner that takes place in New York on the third Thursday of October and which U.S. presidential candidates have traditionally attended since 1960. Being a typical stop for the candidates during “debate season”, it makes sense that this event, treated as a roast, would serve as an outlet for easing some of the tension in the race. Note that “detente” is normally used in a political context, though I suppose it could be used in any reference to an alleviation of strained relationships. If you write political fiction heavy with tension between nations or parties, it may be worth throwing the occasional “detente” into your stories!
What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?
by Naomi L. | November 4, 2016 | J.C. Wolfe's Writing, Short Stories |
Welcome to the conclusion of “The Monster Under The Porch”. If you haven’t yet, read Part 1 here. Otherwise, enjoy!
Autumn watched anxiously as her mother walked around the porch, peeking under the boards on her way to the far end by the side of the house. Try as she might, the child couldn’t stop imagining what sort of monster might be lurking under their house. Was it a troll? A gremlin? Or what if, with those bright eyes – she shuddered – it was a wolf? The girl shut her eyes tight to keep from crying, but after a minute, she looked up again at the sound of a woman’s voice exclaiming.
“Autumn, come quick!”
Suddenly curious, Autumn hurried to the edge of the porch and looked down over the railing. To her astonishment, she saw her mother kneeling on the ground and smiling up at her. Next to her, a black kitten was sniffing at a few pieces of candy that had rolled off the porch.
“He must have gotten lost and wandered under our house,” she said, stroking the cat as he pawed at the candy. “I think you scared him more than he scared you!”
Autumn grinned as the kitten looked up at her, no longer afraid of his bright yellow eyes. Just then, a group of costumed children appeared in front of the house, heading up the walk toward the front steps. The girl’s mother gently scooped up the cat and rose to her feet.
“Sweetie, can you keep an eye on this little guy while I hand out the candy?” she said as she returned to the door. Autumn eagerly agreed, taking the animal in her arms so her mother could distribute the sweets. The cat was surprisingly calm around her, considering the fright she had given him a few minutes ago.
“Can I please keep him, Mommy?” the girl asked after the other children had left with their candy.
“He might belong to someone,” said her mom, taking a broom by the door to sweep up the mess of confectionery left on the porch. “We’ll wait until Daddy gets home, then he can hand out the candy while you and I go door to door looking for the cat’s owner.”
“And if no one claims him?” said Autumn, her eyes bright with hope.
“Then Daddy and I will talk about it.” And that was the end of the discussion.
For the next hour, Autumn played with the kitten on the porch while her mother sat beside her with the bowl of candy, handing out sweets to every trick-or-treater who stopped by. When her father came home, the girl set off with her mom in search of the cat’s owner, but after knocking on every door on their street and on the neighboring streets, they hadn’t found one person who had ever seen the kitten before, and mother and daughter returned home with the stray animal still purring softly in the child’s arms.
Autumn sat on the living room floor stroking the sleeping kitten in her lap while her parents talked in the kitchen. By the time they returned, her heart was pounding. She was ready to cry and beg to keep the little cat to which she had grown so attached in the last few hours, but to her immense relief, she noticed when they asked her to join them at the table that they were both smiling.
At ten o’clock that night, Fred returned from his friends’ party to find his family seated around the living room waiting for him. He was about to ask what was going on when he caught sight of a small mass of black fur on the carpet, staring up at him with round yellow eyes. When he took a step toward it, the animal hissed and scurried off to jump into his sister’s lap. Stunned, the boy looked up to see his parents laughing from the couch.
“Welcome back, Fred,” said his mother. “I see you’ve met the newest addition to the family.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll warm up to you soon,” said his father, though his smile suggested he looked forward to seeing their new pet put his rambunctious son in his place.
“Yeah,” Fred muttered, realizing that a lot had happened since he deserted his sister on the street. “So, um… what’s his name?”
Autumn, still in her costume, smiled from the armchair across the room, stroking the black cat affectionately as they both eyed her brother like a real witch and her loyal companion would a frightened child.
“Monster.”
The End
Hope you enjoyed the story! Thanks for reading!
by Naomi L. | November 2, 2016 | Blog, Creative Writing |
Welcome to November! National Novel Writing Month is upon us again, a whole 30 days for writers to put their excuses aside, scrape together all those loose ideas, and finally write that 50,000-word novel! It’s certainly an intimidating task to say the least, but a little motivation can go a long way in helping you get started. Last year, I shared some helpful writing tips in the form of 10 inspirational quotes from famous authors, so this year I’m sharing some more quotes, this time about the creative process and what it means to be a writer.
So on that note, here are 10 more inspirational writing quotes for novel-writing motivation. Enjoy, and good luck in this year’s NaNoWriMo!
National Novel Writing Month
1) The scariest moment is always just before you start. – Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
2) And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. – Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
3) Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters. – Neil Gaiman
4) There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. – Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
5) You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world. – Ray Bradbury
6) Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
7) I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. – Anne Frank
8) Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
9) The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. – Terry Pratchett
10) Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. – Louis L’Amour
What are your thoughts on these writing quotes? Any others you’d add to the inspirational list for NaNoWriMo?
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