The Wordsmith's Forge

This poem is spillover from the February 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from fuzzyred. It also fills the "nostalgia" square in my 2-1-25 card for the Valentines Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Trichromatic Attractions thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics with emotional mayhem. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes sobriety issues, angst, failed coping skills, self-loathing, difficulty planning, frustration with new skills, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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These are the content notes for "The Universal Assent to the World."

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This poem is spillover from the November 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from readera. It also fills the "The deeds of ordinary folks keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love." square in my 11-1-25 card for the Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Officer Pink thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

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This poem is spillover from the September 2023 crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by prompts from curiosity. It also fills the "Rescue / Recovery" square in my 9-1-23 card for the Story Sparks Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Aquariana, Cuoio & Chiara, and Marionettes threads of the Polychrome Heroics series, and follows "Help Others to Grow Up."

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics with emotional mayhem. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes traumatic loss, traumatic stress, supporting character death, a crying man, an inept messenger, reference to past losses, upset baby super-intellect, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before deciding if this is something you want to read.

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Here are the location notes for "Help Others to Grow Up."

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This poem is spillover from the June 6, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from mama_kestrel. It also fills the "Main character has to use odds and ends to fix a problem" square in my 6-1-23 card for the Kinky and Unusual Situations Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Aquariana, Cuoio & Chiara, and Marionettes threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes reference to past injuries, reference to traumatic loss of teammates, volcanic activity, traumatic stress, human trafficking, surprise baby, moving to a new home, dramatic scars, attachment, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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Here are the notes for "A Different Language, a Different Vision of Life."

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Snowflake Challenge 1: The Icebreaker Challenge

Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.




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Here is my card for the Public Domain Day Bingo over in allbingo. The fest runs from January 1-31. (See all my 2026 bingo cards.)

If you'd like to sponsor a particular square, especially if you have an idea for what character, series, or situation it would fit -- talk to me and we'll work something out. I've had a few requests for this and the results have been awesome so far. This is a good opportunity for those of you with favorites that don't always mesh well with the themes of my monthly projects. I may still post some of the fills for free, because I'm using this to attract new readers; but if it brings in money, that means I can do more of it. That's part of why I'm crossing some of the bingo prompts with other projects, such as the Poetry Fishbowl.

Underlined prompts have been filled.


PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY CARD

Seas Beneath	Private	You're Driving Me Crazy	Body and Soul	The Secret of the Old Clock
Cakes and Ale	Chasing Rainbows	The Castle	Soup to Nuts	Born Reckless
The Hidden Staircase	Just Imagine	WILD CARD	Up the River	But Not for Me
The Mysterious Universe	The Door	The Green Pastures	A Cup of Coffee	Beyond the Blue Horizon
The End of the World	Grumpy	City Girl	Something to Remember You By	Fascinating Rhythm

This poem came out of the March 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from mama_kestrel and rix_scaedu. It also fills the "Old Forrest" square in my 3-1-25 card for the Tolkien Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the series One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis.

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