3 Non-literary Reasons Why I (And You Should) LOVE Ernest Hemingway

1. Hemingway has a great taste in language, as evidenced from his quotes.
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
"I drink to make other people more interesting."
"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."
"Courage is grace under pressure."
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
"Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."
"Never confuse movement with action."
"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
"My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way."
"The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it."
"Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love."
"The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it."
"In order to write about life first you must live it."
"There is no friend as loyal as a book."

2. Hemingway has a great taste in books, as evidenced by this 1934 reading list he gave to a young fan.


3. Hemingway has excellent writing tips, as evidenced in his letters to young writers.
a. Use short sentences.
b. Use short first paragraphs.
c. Use vigorous English.
d. Be positive, not negative.
e. Never have only 4 rules.

"I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit," Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. "I try to put the shit in the wastebasket."

By the way, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises is a great read, and if you haven't checked it out yet, please do!

Tweeters: Read Before You Post!

You know what? I cannot and I will not.



I weep for humanity.

AND she tweets from an iPhone...

Louise Gluck's The Wild Iris

The Wild Iris: Form

Every poet wishes to take off and be free. While some poets believe it’s liberating to utilize their ingenuity within the secure margins of a proper metrical organization or rhyme scheme, other poets, like Louise Gluck, favor reformulating the wheel, exercising free verse to make up the poem's composition as they follow.

The Wild Iris includes seven stanzas of different lengths. Gluck frequently makes the coherent links between the stanzas mysterious in order for meanings to emerge during the white spaces. However, those recurrent white spaces are not present to ease the eye. They are intended to present the readers an opportunity to think in silence and to join the poem's ideas.

The rhythmical practice of enjambment is another approach that Gluck uses to elicit attention to what she's not stating. For example, by ending lines 3 and 17 with white spaces after the word "death" and the phrase "the other world," Gluck leaves the readers to fend for themselves without the safety kit of a period or a comma.

Although the poem does not have a fixed meter, Gluck exercises rhythm to develop the straightforward language and conversational quality of the poem. Recurrent accent on single-syllable words hints at this method’s significance in the poem: "Hear me out: that which you call death," and "I tell you I could speak again." Gluck grabs the readers’ attention by employing a formal metrical structure, in which each of the two lines includes triple spondees.

Necessary Life Hacks #1

 

Non-life Changing Weight Loss Tips

It's that time of the year again—summer. And, of course, everyone wants to look good wearing shorts and t-shirts. So, in this post, I'm listing a few weight loss tips I use and love.

Tip 1: You are not dieting. You are eating healthy.
First, forget dieting. And definitely forget about supplements and/or surgery. I think the biggest problem is not what we eat but what we think we are eating. Dieting is thought as something that changes our lifestyles, triggering our brain to react negatively against it. So, instead, believe that you are just eating better, and that your lifestyle remains intact.

Tip 2: Drink more.
Drink water, not soda or other carbonated drinks. My biggest tip for a start is to drink two bottles (16.9 Fl. Oz) of water each morning before you eat breakfast. People often confuse thirst with hunger and so, they end up eating extra calories when a glass of water is really what they need. As time progresses, try to add in a bottle of water or soup before both lunch and dinner. The fluid will fill up your stomach and trigger you to eat less. The old adage to eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper will also help manage your weight.

Tip 3: Don't binge at night.
Never ever, ever, ever eat at night or at least be choosy about what you eat. Mindless eating occurs most frequently after dinner, when a person finally sits down and relaxes. So, either close down the kitchen after a certain hour, or allow yourself a low-calorie snack, or better yet, drink some tea or chew on gum if you feel that you have to eat something.

Tip 4: Eat attractively—the social side of eating.
Not attractively in style, but in people. Studies show that a person generally lose his/her appetite, and eats less if any at all, when eating in front of a desirable/attractive man/woman. So, YES, go out on that date you were invited to. And say YES to that dinner cookout your partner so wanted you to go to. You'll not only have fun, but also focus less on eating.

Tip 5: Eat 10 meals a day.
Studies show that if a person ate periodic meals throughout the day, he/she feels more satisfied and happy. Although doctors recommend 4 to 5 meals per day, I personally believe in 10. The more small meals you have, the better. Because this way, you're tricking your brain to believe that you are always full, and therefore, eat less.

And lastly, don't push yourself. Adding these tips into your daily life one at a time is much better than cramming them all in at once. I know many hate exercising, and that's definitely OK too. (I mean, who wants to run 30 minutes or kick-box an hour every day? Not me, that's for sure!) But do try to at least throw in a walk here and there, perhaps after dinner. Now, of course, don't go outside when it's raining or hailing, but do go when it's sunny or even cloudy for that matter. A little walk could go a long way in both your health and your weight loss plan.

With these tips in mind, I wish you all the best of luck, and happy weight losing!

Writing A Sonnet (Poem)

And lastly, I also wrote, or at least tried to write, a sonnet about writing a sonnet. What do you think?

Writing A Sonnet

To write a sonnet, please use your brain,
And remember that a sonnet has fourteen lines.
One ending couplet with three quatrains,
The A-B-A-B form plus a rhyme.

No one becomes Shakespeare overnight,
But everyone should be willing to try.
And not let good ideas flow out of sight,
Otherwise, your readers will surely cry.

Writing a sonnet requires patience and care,
A keen eye to judge, and a passion to learn.
Do not ever leave words hanging, alone and bare,
Keep them close to you, like something you earn.

Now the truth of a sonnet reveals wherein,
The key to writing does not lie within.

Trust (Free Verse Poem)

And of course, I gave another shot at my poetry ambitions with another poem titles "Trust":

Trust
Said the mother who
Kicked me out of her house
When I was ten
Is what I need. But how

Could I trust
The woman who told me
To leap but didn’t
Catch me
Like she said she would? How

Could I trust
The woman who never
Remembers my birthdays and
Who still forgets
Even after I remind her? How

Could I trust
The mother who had thrown
My favorite toy truck
In the dumpster and
Told me she had to ship it to
England for a little styling? Who

Told me the day after
I found my toy truck and
Confronted her that
It had ran away on its own? Who

Told me Santa Claus
Didn’t bring me gifts
On Christmas because
I was a bad girl and
Not because she had spent
My Christmas money on French nails? Who

Had accidentally
Left me in California
A good 10,000 miles away from home
And pretended to not recognize
Me when someone brought me back? Who

Told me she didn’t have
Her reading glasses on and
That’s why she couldn’t recognize me
After DNA tests proved otherwise? Who

Have tried
Countless times
To sell me on the black market
So she could buy a new car? Who

After kicking me out of her house
On my tenth birthday
Told me I shouldn’t be too dependent on her?

Because I’m your mother
She had said
Standing in front of my apartment
In rags and dust looking
For a place to live.

Because I’m your mother
She had said
Twenty years later.