My best writing isn't relegated to the dark hours; but I write when I have time, and that's usually during the dark hours. Like now.
I write best when I am isolated - emotionally as well as physically - from others. Of course, I have my dog at my feet and my cat sitting between my keyboard and my monitor, occasionally helping me type, but no one else is up or around.
It takes me a while to get going in my writing. This post is a good example. I'm dragging and hesitant and can't get into the flow of my thoughts yet. It will come, maybe within a few more paragraphs; but it's not here yet, and you can sense it as you read this. Where is she going? What is she going to reveal? Will it be a revelation or a divulgement?
Is divulgement actually a word? The little red squiggly line tells me it is not. My own sense of autonomy over my language tells me it is - I believe it to be a word, therefore, it is one. I love words. Good thing, right? They are my tools as well as my weapons. Tonight, they are my companions and my comforters.
As I teach Critical Thinking Skills to incredible students, I help them dissect the words into the secret codes which make up our English Language: Latin roots and Middle English chunks and Neo-Nippon techs. We draw pictures around each part~~
a circle around com because it means to come together
a house around hab because it means a safe place
a circle with a bar through it over in and un and dis
a throat above gargle, gargoyle, and the like (Yes, I put a comma after the second item in a three-item list. Showing my age, like can not is two words and there are nine planets.)
binomial nomenclature - two-part system for secret names - bi - nom -ial nomen - clatu (OK, so I stole the clatu from Clatu, Nicto, Baramas in The Day the Earth Stood Still to help my students remember Clatu was a powerful code word in a secret language.)
Secret Codes. Maybe that's what started my love of writing. That's what writing is: secret codes between sentient beings. Secret codes which reveal messages powerful enough to change the world. So words are the weapons of mass destruction as well as the building blocks of the universe.
Use a dictionary as well as a thesaurus as you write. The ones on-line are great, but don't just take them at face value; gather ancient ones from the Salvation Army and Good Will and garage sales. What a word means now may not be what it used to mean. What a word used to mean tells me more about how to use it than what it means now. It gives the word shading and an edge. It divulges secrets which I may use to my advantage.
Nocturnal comes from Nocturne which comes from a Roman Catholic term for prayers in the dead of night. Nocturnal now signifies a spiritual aspect rather than just a chronological phase. Rather than being scientific in nature, it is religious. Rather than having to do with animals and behavior, it now whispers around the edges of the darkness and empowers my words with yearnings.
Nocturnal thoughts.
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