Milldale, Derbyshire, UK

As National Poetry Month draws to a close, it is time to present our final poetic Frightful Friday selection, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. While not well-received critically upon its first release, the poem’s Gothic sea shanty atmosphere nevertheless managed to capture the reading public’s imagination, and it has gone on to influence such other works as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and even Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Here’s a little introduction to my neighbourhood, Newbridge Hill. It’s a lovely place, the views from the top of the hill are incredible especially at night.

I took some photos from inside the Charity Shop and a little boutique called Paprika, both on Chelsea Road which also has a corner store, a pizzeria, a bakery, a cafe, a grocery story and a laundromat and I’m only like a 5 minute bus ride to the city centre. It’s funny how self-contained the neighbourhoods are here, it feels like they were villages of their own how ever long ago.

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Susan Snyder, “Ourselves Alone: The Challenge to Single Combat in Shakespeare”

Having trouble with the pacing of your romance? Not sure how to break it down? French 19th century writer Stendhal has your back. I stumbled upon this while researching for a class, and figured I’d pass along his advice.

According to Stendhal, falling in love has four stages:

Admiration – You begin to marvel at the qualities of the loved one. Typically this includes small details that only you notice, while everyone else is oblivious or indifferent to these things.

Acknowledgement – You acknowledge how much you like having the loved one’s interest. You want to make them laugh, engage in interesting conversation, etc.

Hope – You start to imagine what it would be like to gain the loved one’s affections. You start to play with the idea of being in a relationship.

Delight – You’re in love! You delight in overrating how beautiful and perfect your loved one is. In fact, you might not even see them as they really are, but rather an idealized version.

Is this the only way to pace your romance? Of course not! But having some sort of outline that starts small and escalates is a great way to build up a romance. Stendhal’s writings go on with more stages, but the first four are the “falling in love” part. After that, he goes into the “falling out of love” steps 5-8.

You can read a more in-depth analysis of all his steps here. Or, if you’re looking for more info on pacing your romance, I’ve got just the post for you.

Since I have heard a lot of people talking shit about Thetis:

Who stirred all of the Myrmidons into mourning at the funeral of Patroklos? THETIS.

“Three times they drove their full-maned stallions around the body, Myrmidon soldiers mourning, and among them Thetis stirred a deep desire to grieve. And the sands grew wet, the armor of fighting men grew wet with tears, such bitter longing he roused… Patroklos, that terror who routed Trojans headlong.” (Iliad 23.13-16)

Who kept Patroklos’ body from decomposing while Achilles was busy working(slaughtering) out his issues? THETIS.

“‘I’ll find a way to protect him [Patroklos] from those swarms, the vicious flies that devour men who fall in battle.’ […] With that she [Thetis] breathed in her son tremendous courage then instilled in Patroklos’ nostrils fresh ambrosia, blood red nectar too, to make his flesh stand firm.” (Iliad 19.29-31;37-39)

Who got armor made by a god for Achilles because she wanted him to be happy? THETIS.

Thetis: “Give my son- he won’t live long- a shield and helmet and tooled greaves with ankle-straps and armor for his chest. All that he had lost, lost when the Trojans killed his steadfast friend. Now he lies on the ground- his heart is breaking.” (Iliad 18.458-461)

Who basically won the unofficial Best Mom of the Trojan War award? THETIS.

in plato’s apology, socrates tells his prosecutors that really, instead of being sentenced to death, what he deserves is for them to give him free food like they do with athletes (plato’s apology, 36d)

alexander the great once saw a horse he liked being led away and kept going “that’s a REAL NICE HORSE and it’d be a REAL SHAME to LET IT GO” until his father let him try to ride it (plutarch’s life of alexander chapter 6)

the poet lucan once farted so loudly in the public bathroom that everyone started running away, and then to add to the atmosphere, he recited a line of emperor nero’s mediocre poetry about an earthquake (suetonius’s life of lucan)

vergil’s works were particularly popular in ancient times and were sometimes used to create a form of poetry called a cento, which is a poem formed up by lines from other poets rearranged to create a new poem. this was all fine and dandy, except a poet and rhetorician named ausonius once used vergil’s poetry to create a nuptial cento, which is basically porn at one point (you can read the juicy bit on his wikipedia page)

Formatting your Manuscript

If you’re planning on one day turning your manuscript in to literary agents and publishing houses, you need to make sure it’s formatted correctly. In many cases, your manuscript will be skipped over if it isn’t done to industry standard, so here’s the basics that you’ll need if you don’t want to be ignored. Before I get started, please know that this is aimed specifically at fiction manuscripts. If you’re writing non-fiction or a memoir, the expectations will be different, so it would be wise to Google what you need.

The Basics

Make sure your font is 12 point Times New Roman, Courier New, or Arial. These are the only three fonts you are allowed to pick from.

Your spacing should be 1 inch on all sides of the text. This is the default on most word processors, but double check your settings just to be sure.

Your text should be double spaced.

All of your indentations must be a half inch. Do not press indent. Instead, drag over the top arrow on the ruler to have every new paragraph automatically indent.

The Title Page

The top left-hand corner of your title page will have all your personal information. They want to see your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, the novel’s genre, and word count.

Your novel’s title is allowed to be between 20-24 point font if you want. Bold is also an option, but not necessary.

The title will appear halfway down the title page.

“A novel by [your name]” will be about three quarters of the way down the page.

The Next Pages

If you have a dedication, it will be on its own page.

If you have some sort of verse or quote, those will also need their own pages.

Do not include a page for acknowledgements.

The Chapters

Chapter titles will be 12 point font. No bolding or italics.

Chapters will start from one quarter to halfway down the page.

An easy way to format chapter headings is to press enter five or six times

Make sure you always start your chapters the same way every time.

When you start a new chapter, make sure you use a page break to bump the new chapter onto a new page. This will keep it in place so that it will never budge, no matter how much you cut out or add to the previous chapter.

Page Numbers

Page numbers will start with 1 on Chapter 1 of your manuscript. Page numbers will not appear on the title page or dedication page.

Page 1 will be labeled in the footer of Chapter 1. It should be centered.

Page 2 will be in the header of the next page.

From page 2 onward, your headers will be labeled like this:

If you insert a section break after the title and dedication pages, it will make it easier to insert the page numbers.

For the most part, this is the most important of what you’ll need to know for formatting your manuscript. I used this video as reference, so I’m trusting everything it says is true because it was made by an author who has several novels published, and because it was uploaded this year, it should be up to date.

1. Bathwick Street. The first time I went down this street it was nearly 1am, I was trying to get back home and I was in a part of the city I’d never been before. On the left side of the street is an old church and a graveyard which was all pitch black, on top of that the wind was howling and a storm was brewing. Terrifying then, but it’s still one of my favourite places in Bath. It’s grand, bustling, and gives off a big city vibe like Paris or New York.

2. A.H. Hale Chemist, Argyle Street: This building looks more like an homage to an old-fashioned crazy scientist lab version of a chemist (pharmacy) than an actual functioning chemist’s shop, but you can actually buy anything you can find at any other pharmacy there. Which is so odd to me because there’s no way you’d be able to tell by looking through the front window and seeing stacks upon stacks of glass tubes and jars, old-fashioned medical instruments and the sort. Just another bizarre thing in Bath. The coat of arms above the store dates to 1816, so I like to think this was a place of wacky scientific happenings throughout the Victorian era.