{"id":611,"date":"2018-03-15T19:06:04","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T18:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/?p=611"},"modified":"2018-03-15T19:06:04","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T18:06:04","slug":"season-xiv-alphaday-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/season-xiv-alphaday-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Season XIV &#8211; Alphaday 9"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas,<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to Alphaday 9. We\u2019ve put a lot of good, creative work into this Alpha season so far, and the idea is, of course, that this will stimulate your personal writing and make it flourish. I believe it does. You\u2019ve all contributed to the selection of writerly treats that we\u2019ve got lined up for this Alphaday, and it\u2019s your varied input that allows us an insight into aspects of the writing process that are outside our own private bubbles \u2013 and inside. Today we\u2019ll add some more food for thought to keep you interested, and I hope you\u2019ll enjoy what\u2019s on offer.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s agenda is as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This bulletin from me<\/li>\n<li>The feedback and results for the Open Page, 2<sup>nd<\/sup> edition, from Christine<\/li>\n<li>The collated entries for the literary challenge from Sarah<\/li>\n<li>The brief for Challenge 7 from Chris<\/li>\n<li>A Writers\u2019 Reads prompt from Morgen<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The winter blues and its bugs still haunt some members. The good news is that on Tuesday the 20<sup>th<\/sup> of March \u2013 and where I am at precisely 17.15 hours \u2013 there will be that little jolt as the sun hops over the Equator and most of us will be able to benefit from more daylight than darkness every day. Less than six days to go!<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s called the spring equinox; or the vernal equinox, if you prefer. \u2018Vernal\u2019 sounds quite poetic and goes back to the Latin word for spring: vernum. In the 15<sup>th<\/sup> century the French word \u2018prime-temps\u2019 (Fr. printemps) replaced the Old English word \u2018lent\u2019 for spring which goes back to a Germanic word for \u2018long\u2019 (longer days) and Lent only survived in English church vocabulary. The seasonal bugs were called \u2018lentenadle\u2019 in Old English, later translated as \u2018spring fever\u2019 of the nasty type. In the 1840s somebody (Mark Twain?) used \u2018spring fever\u2019 to mean a \u2018surge of romantic feelings\u2019 \u2013 which puts quite a different shine on the expression.<\/p>\n<p>I could go on because there are so many little avenues to explore once you get started. And it\u2019s fun, I think. Suffice it to say that the jump from that head cold to uplifting romance is only days away and the latter might supply pleasant material for your creative spirit.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">-o-<\/p>\n<p>The death of Stephen Hawking gives rise to a closer look at his work while one marvels at that powerful brain inside the frail body.<\/p>\n<p>I have picked out a few facts such as this: \u2018Prof Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology as a union of relativity and quantum mechanics.\u2019 I\u2019m afraid he\u2019s lost me already in one single sentence.<\/p>\n<p>There are some interesting facts about his writing: \u2018His book <em>A Brief History of Time <\/em>became an unlikely best-seller although it is unclear how many people actually managed to get to the end of it.\u2019 That puts him in a class of writers that include James Joyce, I believe.<\/p>\n<p>My final nugget might bother some writers: \u2018It sold more than 10 million copies, although its author was aware that it was dubbed &#8220;the most popular book never read&#8221;.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Apart from the money (well, not to be sneezed at!) perhaps there\u2019s no harm in being content with being read, enjoyed and understood by a more modest crowd.<\/p>\n<p>Christine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 9. We\u2019ve put a lot of good, creative work into this Alpha season so far, and the idea is, of course, that this will stimulate your personal&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","tag-alphaday-bulletins-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}