Welcome to my self-indulgent location for the stories (good and bad) that I can't prevent myself from writing. All comments and criticisms welcome. I post on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
This past week has flown by, and unfortunately, I'm just now starting to get my life back together. My husband's parents and my mother stayed with us for several days, and we don't exactly have a large house. Add to that graduation festivities (for my hubs, not me), a new job offer, and then lots of Irish jigs that spontaneously came out of my feet, and, well, it all equals one tired Rosie.
So, with that in mind, the Big Announcement will occur on Friday. Monday is the Laughter is the Best Medicine Blogfest, hosted by Leigh T. Moore and Lydia Kang. Then Wednesday I will announce all those awesome awards.
In other news, I just saw that Lindsey Leavitt's new book, THE ROYAL TREATMENT, was released over the weekend. It's the sequel to PRINCESS FOR HIRE, which I had the honor to win from her blog last summer. It's a great, totally fun MG story.
The other thing I learned from Lindsey's blog this morning is that a bookfair has been set up by BN. ANYTHING you buy this week from BN, if you use the code #10486058 at ANY Barnes and Noble store or at bn.com, 10% of your purchase will go towards The United Way of Western Alabama for tornado relief. If we raise $2500, that percentage goes up to 15%.
Welcome to today's post on the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. My challenge, as I have chosen to accept it, is thus: I have asked on my Facebook and Twitter accounts for people to contribute random words beginning with today's letter. From Random.org, I have selected one of these words, and will below challenge myself to connect said word to writing.
For the letter L, I received 42 suggestions. Random.org selected number 20: Lymph.
Lymph
Can you imagine how I felt when this word was selected by Random.org? When I think of the word "lymph" I think "node". I'm not a sciency gal, so what was I going to do with that?
Words are constantly changing their meanings. Well, words aren't in charge of that—people are. A case in point: COOL. During WWI, cool meant a low temperature, but not quite cold. Now? Or how about SQUARE? The antithesis of COOL, or just a parallelogram?
What I'm about to say doesn't so much apply to literary fiction as it does to genre fiction. Consider yourself warned :)
Writers need to be careful about their word choices in works which are intended to be "timeless". I'm thinking about science fiction and fantasy, mainly. Characters shouldn't be speaking jive, wondering about that square cat who stole his bread/dough/moola. Their words need to withstand the test of time.
Okay, maybe not the test of "pure water" becomes "nasty puss", but keep the slang OUT. Make the words as timeless as possible. Your readers in three generations will thank you, too.
Do you use slang in your writing? How do you make your work timeless?
I'm taking suggestions today for the letter S. Have any? Leave them below. Thanks!
First, if you haven't heard yet or you're still on the fence, please join me and Charity for the HONE YOUR SKILLS Blogfest on March 16th. It's a chance to try your hand at a short story, get feedback from fellow writer-bloggers, and encouragement to try and publish it. We'd love to have you, so just click the link above or on the sidebar to join.
_____________________________________
UPDATE: I also just received this award from Kristina at KayKay's Corner. Man, am I feeling the love or WHAT?
Kristina also gave me this award:
Thank you so much, Al, Michelle, and Kristina!
For those of you who don't know Al, he is the author of Veiled in Shadows, the beautiful cover of which is staring at me from the top of my to-read pile. Then again, maybe I'm just a sucker for the big blue eye :)
(On a side note, stop by on Monday for a guest post by Al.)
According to the rules of the award, I should tell you seven things about myself and then pass it on. Here's a random assortment of things you may not yet know about me. I'll limit myself to non-writing things this time. For other random Rosie facts, you can check out these other posts: from here, here (the the truth behind it), here, and one more.
As a recovering linguist, I'm a language junkie. I'm not fluent in any language (I sometimes contend that I'm not even fluent in English), though my husband likes to argue this point with me. Anyway, over the few decades of my life, I've studied (in no particular order) Spanish, French, German, Russian, Polish, Macedonian, and Welsh officially. If I have a dictionary, I can usually read Czech, Slovak, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian well enough. I also know lots of random syntax facts about Icelandic, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Dogon (my friend is currently working on a Dogon grammar).
I'm a graduate student in my last semester of coursework. There exists about a 2% chance that I will write a dissertation (with a 3% margin of error).
If I were ever to write a dissertation, I would write it on Polish syntax and the reflexive particle się. (I promise, it's a little more interesting than Wikipedia makes it out to be.) Last summer I got to meet Norbert Hornstein, whose most recent syntactic framework is called MOVE! (yes, with the exclamation point), and talk to him about my ideas using his framework. We argued a lot. We disagreed even more. It was fun and discouraging.
My graduate employment consisted of teaching Russian for only one year. I have never worked so hard. I taught in the 2007–2008 school year. Many of my former students were freshmen that year, and so are seniors now. I occasionally run into them on campus, and sometimes they even invite me out for a drink to catch up. :)
My current GA employment is working as the Managing Editor of the for Journal of Slavic Linguistics for Slavica Publishers. I prepare journals and books for publication. In addition to the journal, which I have worked on since 2006, I am currently preparing a book on Macedonian. It should be finish in the next month and be published by summer.
I have never published anything regarding linguistics. I've only edited other people's work. This doesn't bother me, though my colleagues think it should.
I had no intention of this turning into a Rosie's-grad-school-life post. Just to mix it up, I'll tell you that I got new glasses last week. They've got the Transitions lenses, too. I can't begin to tell you how excited they make me :)
I'm going to try and tweak my system... if there was a system :)
I don't REALLY want to be thinking about this yet, since I still have a week left before the inevitable begins, but this semester I have very busy Mondays and Wednesdays. I've been trying to keep a regular schedule of posting on MWF, but then I can't seem to get back to participate in the comment-discussion.
So, in order to make it a little easier for me this semester, I'm going to try posting on Tuesdays, Thursday, and Saturdays and see how it goes—starting on Thursday. I'm hoping this will give me more time to discuss things with you guys as well as get over to other blogs as well.
Being a better blogger and blog-buddy falls into the realm of my New Year's resolutions this year. Other fun resolutions include going to the gym more regularly and eating better. After not being in control of my food for three weeks at my in-laws, but also learning the joys of reading while on a stationary bike, I think all of these should be achievable.
First, to all of you in the bloghop, I'm not ignoring you. I'm coming over as soon as I'm feeling better, I promise.
Yesterday morning I had the pleasant surprise of visiting Helen at Straight from Hel to discover she had bestowed upon me the Versatile Blogger Award. Thank you, Helen!
This award comes with the following rules:
1. Thank the person who loved me enough to bestow this gift.
2. Share seven things about myself.
3. Bestow this honor onto 15 newly discovered or followed bloggers – in no particular order – who are fantastic in some way.
4. Drop by and let my fifteen friends know I love them.
Seven Things
I had originally planned to share 7 odd or embarrassing things about myself in keeping with the inadvertent theme of this week, but I've been under the weather the past 24 hours with little brain function. So I've decided to share 7 reading/writing-related matters with you (if you're interested in a more serious list, go here).
The first story I remember writing was in the 2nd or 3rd grade. We had to write a fable about how a rabbit (or a cat; I can't remember) got its whiskers. Everyone else's story was on the front of one of those huge-lined pieces of notebook paper (the ones with the dotted lines down the center). Mine was three pages and the teacher had to photocopy page 2 because she hung them on the bulletin board so others could read them. The other kids made fun of me for spending too much time on it, but I didn't care.
My first writing attempt of 50,000+ words came in junior high, and was heavily influenced by my concurrent obsession with Goosebumps, Christopher Pike, and Stephen King—a.k.a. pretty bloody/gory.
In high school, I had two stories running at once—one about a lone Chinese girl in her high school (with parents trying to only have boys these days), and the other in which King Arthur-type lore meets high science fiction. Neither of them went very far, but I'm sure I still have them on a 3.5in floppy at my mom's house.
In high school I became slightly obsessed with Russian lit. I'm not sure how many times I read Anna Karenina, but I knew the story quite well. Of course, it wasn't until years later when I started studying Russian that I could keep all the nicknames straight :)
I started college as a creative writing major at a small liberal arts school. I was pressured into studying something more "practical", and unfortunately left writing behind for a while.
I started writing again a little over a year and a half ago. It was my way of taking control of some horrible nightmares I was having in the months after my dad died. I took my dream and wedged into something fan-fiction based because I didn't have the energy at the time to create my own universe. Unfortunately, it became epic to the point where War and Peace looked like a picture book. It resides in my computer, completely outlined, over 150,000 words hanging out in numerous word documents.
My current WiP-collection was inspired by a dream I had the night before my parents' first wedding anniversary after my dad died. Maybe it was another coping mechanism? I don't know. It's not anymore, and I love my characters, and I love the story. I have sooooo much work to do on it still, and sometimes it's a struggle, but I love every minute.
When I first picked them up my sister-in-law's recommendation, I ended up reading all four Twilight novels twice in 2 weeks.
7+1 to grow on, right?
Passing the Versatile Love
So, now it's my turn to pass this on. In no particular order...
Over the last few (insert time span of your choice here; it's probably accurate), I've been having a crisis. No, not a the-world-is-going-to-end! crisis, but more of a who-am-I-what-am-I-doing-here crisis. I waffle about school, about what I want to do when I grow up, about what color to paint my toenails—everything. Recently, I've been finding some answers, and feel like my life is moving back onto a paved road (I've never been one to enjoy off-roading).
Oddly enough, this all comes at the same time as I've been reading the Pray part of EPL. No, this is not a book club post, in case you're worried. :) Maybe just an extension of yesterday's—tangentially. Anyway, reading about Liz's life at the ashram was thought provoking. It made me want to discipline my life more, to find balance—mind/body/spirit—where there isn't any, and to better cultivate my spiritual side, which has been sadly neglected recently. Yeah, yeah, the physical side has, too...
I'm not good at disciplining myself. I've never kept a regular exercise routine going (by myself) for more than a couple of months. I don't have good study habits. My good eating habits can be attributed to my husband. And I promise you, you do not want to see my house!
Now, I realize there's only so much I can do, but I can attempt to institute some discipline into my blogger-laden life. Here are a few of my ideas on where to start.
Get up a half-hour earlier and do yoga before class.
Limit the amount of time I spend on blogger (I'll still be around, though, I promise!)
Do they job I would get paid for doing if I did it (ah, the joy of freelancing...)
Read something (that I didn't write) for at least one hour per day
Don't forsake the trees I brought home with printed versions of the first five chapters of my novel! (I thank them for their sacrifice for the good of YA fantasy)
This is a lot. I'm going to try instituting one thing at a time. Starting today, I'm incorporating the reading for at least one hour. I've been reading, but sporadically and sometimes only for fifteen minutes (before I pass out!). Saturday and Sunday are dedicated to that freelance book I'm editing. Monday morning starts the yoga. I've done yoga before but, like everything else, it was irregular at best.
The last addition to my list:
Visit the Tibetan monastery on Sundays for their open prayer meetings.
That is the plan for Sunday morning. Saturday morning=farmers market. Sunday morning=Buddhist prayer/lesson. I'm excited.
How do you discipline yourself (or not)? Do you have a routine that you must stick to? In the crazy world of jobs and children and spouses and friends and mothers and the whirlpool of chaos, how do you find time to read and write? There must be disciple in that, right?
This summer I've been taking intensive Macedonian (it's Slavic, not Greek, I promise). A couple of weeks ago our instructor was trying to find videos on YouTube to show us how one of the national dishes of Macedonia—burek—is made. It's pretty crazy, kind of like stretching unbreakable silly dough and then stuffing it with meat!
While we searched, we also came across this:
How AWESOME is it that Ali En—a Macedonian singer/rapper that my instructor has never heard of—dedicated an entire song to one food? And not just any food. I'm mean, we're not just talking about bread here. It's a national dish, full of patriotic pride. I can't really think of anything comparable for the US (apple pie, maybe?), but it would be like writing a song to shepherd's pie in Ireland, or mole in Mexico, or borshch in Russia.
The only other remotely ode-like song I can think of (help me out here, folks) is That's Amore, but that should hardly count because 1) it's about love, not food; 2) it references lots of different foods, not just one exalted dish; and 3) no one involved in the creation of the song was Italian. While number 3 shouldn't make-or-break it, 1 and 2 do.
So, in honor of national foods, I have decided to dedicate the following Drabble (a story of exactly 100 words) to... the Polish Pierogi.
Pierogi!
Oh, pierogi!
How I adore the smell of thee!
Let me count the ways
In which your potato filling
Oozes
Upon my plate and tongue,
Or your sweet cheese stuffing
Slides down my throat
Like flower petals
Along my skin,
Or your ground meat
…oh, well, that generally makes me sick…
All topped with butter and
Smalec** and
Thick sour cream.
Or how about your sweet, fruity dessert-self
Filled with strawberries,
Raspberries,
Blackberries?
A sprinkle of sugar makes you
Perfect
For my digestion.
Oh, most versatile and wondrous pierogi!
Your dough is so simple
And yet you taste so extraordinary!
**In this case, smalec is crispy, fried pork fat. Think of tiny, chopped bacon bits without the meat part.
What songs/poems/stories do you know of that are dedicated to a particular food? Is there a food you would like to pay tribute to? Feel free in the comments section :)
For my Macedonian class, we put our longer assignments online on a blog. We're also encouraged to add other things, like reflections about what we're learning.
Well, I went to YouTube heaven on this one. For some video entertainment, check out my other blog.
If you watch nothing else, please take a look at Valentina Hasan and Nevena Tzoneva. Both are impressive, though for very different reasons.
