The Noise
Irene hesitated.
She held her breath.
The noise came again.
“I hope it isn’t what I think,†she whispered.
She tiptoed forward, stopping at the door.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light her suspicions were confirmed.
“So you’ve had your kittens, Fluff?
But why did you have to use the ironing basket?”
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2006 Trevor W. Hampel
Read more of my short fiction here.
Mallee Scrub
The quiet stillness
Is gently disturbed
By the soft thornbill’s song.
We stop and listen.
We wander aimlessly,
Watching out for orchids,
Correas and sundews.
We admire the soft pink
Of the spidery
Flowering grevilleas.
We stare in awe
At the bright
Golden banksia
As it leaps skyward,
Outlined dazzlingly
Against the winter’s
Azure sky,
On fire in the setting sunlight.
We freeze.
We dare not move.
Barely twenty paces ahead
A malleefowl scratches the earth,
Searching for seeds and beetles.
We blink.
The bird departs,
Lost in the shadows
With its cryptic camouflage.
A day to remember.
A day of awe and wonder
Admiring His Creation.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2006 Trevor W. Hampel.
First published in Compedium magazine, 1996.
I am not into copywriting but for some people this could be a useful skill to develop. The skills are particularly appropriate for bloggers who want to increase their traffic.
Brian Clark, on his blog called Copyblogger has written a post called Copywriting 101.
Copywriting skills are an essential element to the new conversational style of marketing. Whether you’re looking to sell something or to build traffic by earning links from others, you’ll need to tell compelling stories that grab attention and connect with people. This tutorial is designed to get you up and running with the basics of copywriting in ten easy lessons.
The ten lessons in this tutorial are worth reading, even if you are not into copywriting. Many of the skills are, I believe, transferable.
Idioms fascinate me.
They certainly can add some interesting colour to speech and writing. As a teacher of 7 and 8 year olds I liked to have a series of lessons on identifying, understanding and using idioms. The students were usually fascinated by them and enjoyed the lessons.
So- just what is an idiom?
I guess you are waiting with bated breath for me to bite the bullet, stick my neck out and give you my definition. In doing so I might just bite off more than I can chew and have my readers haul me over the coals.
Enough.
I will chicken out and quote Wikipedia:
An idiom is an expression (i.e. term or phrase) whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a figurative meaning that is known only through conventional use. In linguistics, idioms are figures of speech that contradict the principle of compositionality.
In the English expression to kick the bucket, a listener knowing only the meaning of kick and bucket would be unable to deduce the expression’s actual meaning, which is to die. Although kick the bucket can refer literally to the act of striking a bucket with a foot, native speakers rarely use it that way.
So there you have it.
Clear as mud (oops – now I’m into similes).
Over the coming weeks I plan to highlight an idiom every Monday. I also plan to post several stories I have written containing an unbelievable number of idioms. One has actually been published in a print magazine too.
To read more about idioms click here.