Love Is L'Amour C'est الحب هو

But then when he sees her coming he gets all bashful and runs away 😭

This is what's called a poetic epithet, and it happens all the time in writing. Consider, for example, Homer and his wine-dark sea, or Shakespeare and his death-mark'd love.

If you were then to start using them instead of the word they're describing, you'd be making a kenning. For example, if instead of describing the sun as honey-bright, you said "the honey-drop in the sky". Kennings are best known from Norse writings, like "the path of serpents" for gold, or "Grímnir's lip-streams" for poetry itself.

◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – The sun / was ho/ney-bright / that af/ternoon

an illustration that language and its associated rules exist to lift up human expression and not to hinder it (and are both constantly changing and maintaining helpful usage to suit the needs of the moment),

as well as a devastating reminder that whenever you think you’re doing something new and oh-so-scandalously inventive, it was probably actually the well-trodden pasttime of a glorified theater kid several thousand years ago.

then strikethrough all of it

My adaptation of the God of Arepo short story, which was originally up at ShortBox Comics Fair for charity. You can get a copy of the DRM-free ebook here for free - and I'd encourage you to donate to Mighty Writers or The Ministry of Stories in exchange.

like my tuition is far cheaper than the first time around because i'm returning to finish the degree i abandoned at the end of 2020, the degree i'd been working on since the fall of 2015, the degree that was a little kid and i was a dad running to the store to get milk, the degree now being offered to me minus 20%.

me going to college was never an if in my family, it was only ever a when.

so i went and struggled and self-sabotaged because i didn't know what happened next and it feels safe to control your hurt.

but now i'm going back and i'm married and have a 401k and a husband and i'm a bestselling author who got there even though i didn't have that pesky english literature degree and i'm going to be like a decade older than my classmates.

because apparently fafsa has no problem giving me not only enough to cover the cost for the whole semester, but enough for me to get a student refund, too. even though when i was a "traditional" student i had to fork over thousands to cover what fafsa wouldn't.

the whole "going to college because that's what you do and it should only take four years" thing is utter horseshit. if they'd made it this easy the first time around, it probably wouldn't have taken me over ten years to get my bachelor of science.

tldr: the "traditional" college student image is propaganda and your life can be wonderful and fulfilling without a degree and you can take your time and move at your own pace and doing those things doesn't make you a failure.

it feels easy in ways it never did before. part of it was because i have more knowledge, sure. but the confidence i have now is the game changer.

the idea that we have to go to college immediately after we graduate high school and then have to finish college in four years is a fucking scam.