Divinely Sanctioned Procrastination

To begin, a quick guide:

• Underlined sentences within the body of text are phrases, sayings, or thingamajigs I've coined*
• Bolded words are terms of my own devising†
• Italicized words and/or sentences are real words and phrases I've come across that I find interesting for one reason or another. I will likely include links to the definitions and example pages, define the term next to the word, or offer an explanation in a footnote

It's been a while since that initial post. I've been putting off jotting stuff down in here, and I couldn't even begin to tell you why. It's not my fault though, honest. If God hadn't wanted us to procrastinate, He wouldn't have invented tomorrow.

For the first few posts in this blog I'm going to experiment with format and content to see what the best layout will be. Topics I want to cover in this blog (not just this post) include: crafted words and phrases, real words I find interesting, progress on personal writing projects, snips of my writing, story ideas, observations, tips, and things I've learned that I want to share, among others that I don't want to spend time trying to think of at the moment. For all our sake, I'll only touch on a fraction of these topics in each post, that way you don't end up reading a novella and I don't have to write one.
Your feedback would be much appreciated (see below for more details).

Project Progress

Currently, my main project is my memoir (see my Surviving the Cure for more details about my life). I am now nearing the end of my fourth draft, which began as soon as I got the manuscript back from my editor. I skipped the beginning section, since it needed to be heavily redone to speed it up and cut details that weren't pertinent to the story anymore. Hopefully I'll have that done within the next couple weeks and can then start working on marketing and the fifth draft. My goal, as of last week, is to get the memoir published before the start of August, although based on past experience with self-assigned deadlines, I've got my work cut out for me.

Crafted Words and Phrases

One of my favorite things to do is to create new words. Most of the time they're done jokingly, as part of a bad pun or as a result of somebody's comment or slip of the tongue. Mispronunciations are really fun as well, and I try to incorporate them into my writing (when appropriate) for dialogue to add an air of authenticity to the character or person's speech. I also like to make up my own phrases, sayings, and metaphors, for similar reasons as the ones above (such as the one at the start of this post). So I'll post and define one or two new words in these posts (I still haven't decided whether to do it every post or not). Feel free to use the word(s) if you would like, I'd consider it an honor. I only ask that you mention this blog or me when you use that word, but it is not a compulsory thing, it's more like a favor I'm asking. Once again, thank you in advance.

Phoment (n):

1. A moment one is only partially immersed in as a result of using a phone.
2. A missed moment caused by being completely absorbed in activity on a phone.
3. The amount of time it takes to quickly finish up a conversation or activity on the phone.

Example sentences:

• After a phoment of trying to listen to both his voicemail and his wife, he realized he couldn't remember the details of the message or his wife's sobbing story about...whatever it was.
• He didn't see his daughter's first steps because he'd been checking his texts at that phoment. 
• Hold on, honey. I'm just ending my call with Bob, I'll be there in a phoment.

Snips

Before I offload this snip, let me take a moment to explain what a snip is. It's the personal term I use for very short segments of my writing. (Being a personal term, it's really only something I use when talking to people about writing, not in my actual stories.) Examples would be a few lines a dialogue, a couple paragraphs from a larger story, or even a very short story on its own (which I call SnipFic, but is known by everyone else as Flash Fiction). What I'm including today is a SnipFic.

Most Sacred

“Hear me out, my love. I hold you most sacred in my heart. Above all else! I would never do something as profane as simple intercourse to something so beautiful! That is a base act I only perform on those I care nothing for. It would be a travesty to defile-“

Nancy held up her hand to silence him. He obeyed, sincere passion hammered into every feature. “Nice try, Hank. Sacred, pah. Get the hell out.”

Hank’s features soured. “Fine. Worth a shot.” He beat a sulking retreat to his car and drove off to the next woman's house. The daggers of Nancy's glare followed him the whole way.

Feedback and Comments

That shall be it for today. Feedback on anything mentioned in the blog is extremely helpful and will guide my hand in giving this blog more definition and tighter focus as time goes on. What did you like about this post? What do you think could be improved? Is there something you think should have been included? Something that you would have liked to see more of? Feel free to give as much or little feedback as you like, this isn't a dictatorship (yet). I'd also be delighted if anybody wants to comment on just about anything related to either my blog or writing in general. Use the comment board in whatever way you wish, as long as it's kept civil and free from ugly arguments and harassment. Otherwise, I look forward to see what all y'all have to say!

Thank you for taking the time to read this, have a marvelous (insert time of day/night),
~Andrew



* It is entirely possible that others have used these phrases before, but anything I claim to be "original" has been thought up without prior knowledge of the sentence either in writing or spoken out loud. But really, I'm not sure it's possible to have a single thought anymore that has never been used by, or occurred to, anyone else. I will do my best to give credit to whoever came up with a term or phrase when applicable.

† Similar to the above footnote, but with word(s) instead of sentences, phrases, and sayings. I will give credit to the author/creator of bolded word(s) when applicable.