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💋 Smooch 💋 Day 💋
You’ve got to admit, it’s less suggestive than ‘Hump Day‘ but with enough smooching 💋💋💋 who knows?
💋 Boom! 💋
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Kelly was away on errands most of the day and I’m sparing no opportunity to make up for lost time. 💋 Life is too short not to kiss your wife as often as possible.
I‘m very lucky to have someone as joyous, fun and loving as my Kelly.
Honestly, who could ask for anything more than the love of a marvelous woman? She makes all of my dreams and wishes come true.
💋 Kiss 💋 Me 💋
Sixpence None the Richer
Kiss Me (Official Video)
Sticking with the 💋 smoochy 💋 theme of the day, this is one of my favorite romantic songs. I hope you enjoy it.
💋 Boundless 💋
The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless. ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau
One of the elements of writing speculative fiction is “world-building“. Some people, like Professor Tolkien, spend decades building their fictional worlds to the nth degree of detail. Some people wing it. Some people stand on the shoulders of those who have performed world-building before them.
There’s an “Iceberg Theory” floating around (pun fully intended) that world-building should be executed to such an extent that what people can see in the prose of the story is like the portion of an iceberg you can see above the water. The part that is below the water and is far more massive comprises all of the extraneous detail that superfans like to obsess about.
Fact is, ain’t nobody got time for all that.
While listening to Brandon Sanderson’s 2020 lecture series, he offered a couple of alternatives. One of them was the hollow iceberg. You create a veneer of world-building that’s sufficient to convince the reader that you’ve done all of the work.
For those of us who are pantsers, gardeners or discovery writers, there’s a variation of winging it that Brandon suggests. Rather than an iceberg, it’s more like the ripples on a pond. You start with a kernel of an idea and then expand a little on the impact of that idea on your story world. Whatever details you need become additional ripples, expanding from your inciting incident.
As to the notion of standing on the shoulders of giants or simply cribbing from an existing milieu, tropes are immensely helpful in taking thematic shortcuts. People are sufficiently familiar with different settings that if you suggest that your story world is reasonably like something familiar, they will paint in all the details they need.
Whether it’s an urban dystopia like The Matrix, the weird New England of Lovecraft’s works or an untamed medieval landscape found in Grimm’s Fairytales, Middle Earth or a plethora of other fantasy tales, starting from a familiar trope saves a lot of effort in world-building. Of course, the downside is that you can be accused of being a knock-off or even a plagiarist. You have to find a balance.
That’s enough for one sunny Wednesday. It’s starting to warm up a little. Spring is only a few weeks away. Have a smile and 💋 smooch 💋 your special someone.