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justlittlemusings

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justlittlemusings

BUCKET LIST (DD FEATURE)

2 min read
Wow, so, I was featured. A piece of literature I wrote for a transliterations prompt about 18 months ago was chosen as one of the Daily Deviations yesterday. If you didn't see it, you can do so here: Pillow Memories.

This came as a great surprise to me, especially considering I have not been particularly active within the community these past few months. I am very grateful to BeccaJS for putting my piece out there to a wider audience, and to everyone who has taken the time to read it. I have over 100 feedback messages in my inbox right now, which, besides being the most I have ever had at one time, are all :+fav:s for this piece. I have already been through some of them, and I intend to respond to each one individually. I don't want to just copy-paste a 'thanks for the :+fav:' message on everyone's profile, however, so I will be taking the time to do something for each person, whether that is looking at some of their work, commenting on their work, or just leaving a llama.

I never thought my work would be featured site-wide, to the extent that it was a 'goal' (take that term very loosely indeed as a DD is not something you have any control over) on my bucket list.

Thank you everyone for brightening up 2013.

Teresa :heart:
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JOURNAL: Features and Festivities

4 min read
I just finished helping judge the Wordsmiths-Guild's Inner Divinity Contest and I really enjoyed reading through the entries. This is my first time helping judge anything, and to be honest I'm surprised they let me help. ;) Anyway, the results are as follows:

First Place

PersephoneI fed her
pomegranate kisses
and she cried
at every frozen sunrise
for 180 days.
With cracks in my heart
and souls
caught in my hair
I counted 180 more.
Persephone by xthe-eleanorx

Second Place

Aphrodite's DissertationThe sound of catamarans upon the foam,
the march of cavalry and weary knights
who lay their bodies down are coming home
to linens drying like a hundred kites;
if not for love, what force are sword and chain
that they may honor empires with their call,
if not for me, they all have died in vain
and made of Troy the laughingstock for all.
Indeed, your chamois shirts and littered socks,
the tender cartilage of tambourines,
unfinished wine, and little jew'llery box,
and dual hemispheres of nectarines—
belong to me alone in my design:
the air you breathe, your everything, is mine.
Aphrodite's Dissertation by ThroneLiesFallow

Third Place

Kannonand all I want is
to reach inside you and gather
your flame-bred moments of sorrow,
shatter them to pieces with
a hammer made of daylight,
throw them in volcanic furnaces and
breath their smoke as they burn,
letting them settle in
recesses of my soaring lungs,
safely locked away - and
and all I want is
to reach inside myself and gather
my barefoot moments of happiness,
bathe them in dewdrops and
dry them in the fresh dawn sun,
tie them together with a zephyr-vine,
offering them to you at sunset
when tired and thirsty
and the single traveller on a dusty road
you look for shadow and a
cool drop of life.
Kannon by helice93

Congratulations to all the winners. You can read the results article here: wordsmiths-guild.deviantart.co…

----

In other news, I wrote another blog post. I haven't been keeping up with it too well this month because my workload for university has stepped up for the second year. I'm hoping to remedy that. I'm also finding that I have a strange reluctance to share it... I feel uncomfortable posting it to my twitter/facebook. I think it's because it's quite a vulnerable thing, to let people who know me in on this part of my life. This is something I need to overcome, as writing is a huge part of my life, and I want to be able to share it. I guess I'm afraid of getting hurt.

Anyway, here is my latest post: justlittlemusings.wordpress.co…
It has music, if that entices you in. :heart:

----

You might have noticed my less-than-present presence on dA recently. I struggling to find the energy for it, I admit. I'm not upset about that though, because I have so many things going on in my life that are making me feel positive and happy. It's sort of nice that for once the internet does not need to be a part of that. As much as I love dA and the wonderful people here, I'm sort of okay with letting it take a back seat. I'm still checking in daily and reading a few things, but I'm not actively involved at the moment.
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FEATURE: Colour Contest Winners

9 min read



SilverInkblot announced the winners of her Colour Poem Contest!

First Place:

TopazTopaz
Rare blue butterfly wings flickering, between
our little girl's elegant cornflower gloved hands, her
husky colored eyes greet the ocean's tide.
Cardinals singing their morning chorus, with
your Tsailes' soft melodies filling the woods, where
bubbling brooks groan in the foreground.
Butterscotch melting on my burning lips, your kiss
Honeycomb sweetness embracing my tongue, you entwine
Hot, soothing peach tea sliding down my throat, you slide.
Intimate fingers through buffalo hair, your chest
Reckless abandon grasped within your kisses, my breast
Breathless confessions as our hips join as one.
You're a constant volcano of rock and ash,
With my lava continually erupting inside you.
Your colors and mine fuse into precious jewels.
'Topaz' by Christianonfire7

Second Place:

Lime Green (the Shop Girl's Lament)Lime green
is the colour of contemporary chic,
the new spring look
and rotting vegetation.
"So fresh and clean! Isn't it gorgeous?"
Use: "I'm glad you like it"
As an alternative to "No."
We can't have the sweet colours of youth
but I refuse to swallow
this version of good taste.
The shirt is swapped for crumpled notes;
in daylight lime green leads to pain.
I knew it wouldn't suit you.
And you're not bringing it back without a receipt.
'Lime Green (the Shop Girl's Lament)' by SCFrankles

Third Place:

FirefliesGoldenrod
fireflies erratically sign their names
inside a jar that once held pickled beets.
On a Georgian night,
katydids screech chamber music
Mozart forgot to write
on his five staffed bars.
The music reminds me of the tart
taste of grapefruit seeping slowly into
my mouth, and I swallow it with delight.
But the world becomes a jar
into which I scribble my name,
as if writing it will somehow
make me free.
'Fireflies' by LionesseRampant

Honourable Mentions:

PinkPink
like the soft hue that tints your cheeks
and causes those bow-shaped lips to curve upwards
into a smile as warm as summer's sweet sunset.
I hear spring's voice as you laugh,
that sweet giggle as you blow bubbles through a wand.
Those spheres float endlessly until popped by the wind's harmonic orchestra.
Oh, the sugar-filled kisses you bestow upon me
are nothing short of the sweet nectar bees happily find
as they reach their floral destination to create honey.
And I wonder if a sting from that insect would be enough
to persuade you to wrap me into that warm embrace
that I yearn to leap into once more. Color Poem: BlueBlue,
the ice glowing against a sweater
as irises darken in late spring.
We've just broken up. I drop,  
turn cold, the silence in late
spring, the ice cracking, my breath
shaking like jazz
against the salt of the ocean floor.
This is good, I think, bitter seed
of blue turning like a cold body, lips salted
like at carnival blue, the fruit popping
in our mouths, the day swelling
my hands shaking with cold.
Fourteen years, for a love letter lost in irises.
:thumb330702088: SepiaSepia
The hue of my favorite photo of us that I keep by my nightstand
The dominant shade in your irises & beauty mark at the lower left corner of your mouth
The ink tone I've used to fill countless pages with poetry about you, about us
The echo of every hello and goodbye that resonates within the walls of my heart
The cacophony in my gut wrecking my towering pride, in exchange for your builder's arms, every time
The timbre of your voice promising to be the first and last thing I'll be hearing til my heart stops beating
The bittersweet cocoa kisses and tangy citrus grins that only the two of us will remember
The blandness of my tears on your petal tongue as you reach mine, planting my feet firmly on your good earth
The savory taste of our palms and our navels whenever the warmth of our beings meet
The downy feel of your old corduroy pants that you wore on our fourth date and first kiss
The smoothness of the milk and molasses blending in our morning coffees and afternoon teas
The roughne
Sticky FingersShamrock-painted nails
scrape the bottom of the barrel,
mint chocolate chip ice cream
dripping from sticky fingers
like the final notes
of a tragic romance.
Lying heavy on her tongue:
the bitter aftertaste
of a lesson learned too late.
Rubbing salt across the open wound,
she bites down on her spoon
and wishes for relief,
but she's always had a jealous bone
and she knows him well enough by now
to know that when his sister calls,
he doesn't turn the bedroom lights off
and lock the door. Burnt Sienna IBurnt Sienna
feet stride slowly along
a trail of sand that stretches past the horizon,
past suns obscured by occasional eddies of stardust.
The traveler makes it all the way to a sizzling, melting moon
before it sends her sloshing back to earth and
crashing once more into the land where the only noise is heat.
The unfortunate soul spits sand and liquid moon rock from cracked,
clay-covered lips and wishes it tasted more like chocolate
than centuries-old copper.
Searing the soles of the wanderer's feet,
sand scrapes against blisters long popped,
but she rubs lukewarm poultice to stave off the pain.
Just another entry for the journal of failed voyages into the infinity beyond this.

All the entries were really great, and the winners well deserving. I've read most of the entries for the contest, and hope to read the rest in due course.

I also wanted to thank SilverInkblot for including my own entry in the honourable mentions. :heart:

silverthe silver face of the moon has cracked a smile
and rained down shadows onto your eyelids.
 
your black lace dress swirls around your hips
as you spin, fingers outstretched, reaching for notes
that hum just out of reach like butterflies,
as if you could swallow them from the air.
 
I almost think you could;
 
I taste them on my tongue,
lingering like burnt toast at 3am
when we stumble home, a web of guilt
spun in the gap between our bodies.
I can feel it, rough against my skin, wrapping around
        my bones like a chinese burn.
 
your shoulder is soft against my lips
as we fall into a sultry haze
of heat,
        and breath,
                        and-

If you want to view the original announcement article you can do so here: silverinkblot.deviantart.com/a…

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JOURNAL: Long Time, No See

8 min read
Gallery
Twitter
Blog
---------------
:iconprojectcomment:

:iconwordsmiths-guild:

:icontransliterations:

:iconthewrittenrevolution:

:icondaily-lit-deviations:

---------------


Hi everyone,

Gosh, it really has been a long time since I posted a journal entry. It's been a long time since I've done anything on dA really, apart from work for ProjectComment. I'm sorry for disappearing without any warning, but I hope to make up for my absence in the coming months.

My summer has actually been very busy, despite having three months off, which you'd have thought would have been quite relaxing. I spent around half my week working as I need money for university, and I have to admit that I didn't really enjoy it quite as much as I have done previously. My need for new challenges and experiences is always going to be my problem, I think. I just can't picture myself doing the same thing for the rest of my life. Is that such a bad thing?

I've also been doing some volunteering this summer, which I've really enjoyed. I applied to work in my local library at the beginning of June and had to wait for my CRB (criminal records bureau) check to come through the post which took around 2 months. Eventually I started working though, helping out with the Summer Reading Challenge. The children had to read six books over the course of the school holidays and in return they received stickers and a certificate etc. My job was to talk to the children about their books, record their reading on their registration card and hand out the stickers. It sounds a lot more exciting that it actually was, but it was still a valuble experience which I hope I can transfer to other volunteering opportunities over the course of this year.

My second volunteering assignment (hey, it makes me sound like a special agent, 'kay?) was at my local riding stables where I've been helping out one or two days a week. It involves a lot of horse poo, but I also get to groom the horses, tack up, take them out to the fields, and even help lead the ponies in lead-rein lessons. It's been a really good experience that has helped me grow more confident around horses. I've been riding more as well, and am now learning to canter. I had a fall on Tuesday (which was completely my fault), but I'm absolutely fine. Not even a bruise (I hit a wall, so I have no idea how I'm unscathed...). I'm taking everything nice and slowly because I'm not the most confident rider, so I'm happy with my slow progression.

I have started a blog! That is probably the thing that's most exciting to me right now. You can find me over at justlittlemusings.wordpress.com and I'll be posting all sorts of stuff, including: music, book reviews, comments about world events, and other general thoughts. I'd love it if people would follow me, or if you don't like me all that much then just spread the word. I'm also open to suggestions of anything you guys think I should include in my blog posts. :eager:

My other news is that I have twitter; there's a link in the sidebar of this journal if you're looking for some random tweets. :shrug:

-----------------------------------

In other news...

:bulletyellow: SilverInkblot is hosting a Colour Poem Contest which will be opening on the 1st (which is tomorrow!). There are details in her journal, and I'll update with a link to the official rules etc. when she posts them. She is also still looking for prize donations if anyone feels they could offer something. :new: Details of the contest here: silverinkblot.deviantart.com/j…
:bulletyellow: There is some exciting new stuff happening behind the scenes at ProjectComment, so keep an eye out over there. :eyes:
:bulletyellow: Wordsmiths-Guild is hosting the Inner Divinity Contest!. It's a poetry contest and the deadline is October 31st. Check out the article for more details. (If poetry isn't your cup of tea there are opportunities for prize-giving and judging here too!)

Colorful Autumn Skin © Nesmaty

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JOURNAL: Final Stretch

6 min read
Light up the Sky by justlittlemusings



Personal Life

Heeey everyone!

It's sunny! This alone is enough to make me smile, but add the fact that I've just finished my final assignments of the term, and that I'm going home tomorrow and I'm positively buzzing.

I now have an entire month at home which I plan to fill with reading, working, revision, horse riding, laughing, friends, and writing. Not necessarily in that order.

On April 6th, I'll be heading off to London to meet my amazing friend, AslanFan, and I am so excited! :excited:

That's pretty much it for my life, but so far this year has been pretty good to me. :heart:


dA Related

I basically have no idea what's going on around here right now, because I haven't been very active at all.

I uploaded a random sunset photograph today, and I have some writing in the works, and plan to do some editing as well this month.

Oh! And NaPoWriMo which I feel obligated to attempt given that my month of relative freedom happens to coincide.


Features

:thumb292685620: Street Spirit by LorenzoDiFolco
15 minutes from a sunflower's life by ildiko-neer Spring is here by hmdll
Tree at sunrise by MusesDaughter Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna by achik74
:thumb292749362: Swoon... by goRillA-iNK


Music





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Featured

BUCKET LIST (DD FEATURE) by justlittlemusings, journal

JOURNAL: Features and Festivities by justlittlemusings, journal

FEATURE: Colour Contest Winners by justlittlemusings, journal

JOURNAL: Long Time, No See by justlittlemusings, journal

JOURNAL: Final Stretch by justlittlemusings, journal