Tag: Writing

The mysteries of the English language

30 Comments

Today, I’m happy to host Vyas Muralidharan, who I met through WordPress’s Blogging 201 challenge back in April.  A member of the Literature Blogging Buddy Circle and the Writer’s Guild: By LBSquared, he sent me a post on the history of English that I found quite intriguing.  I hope you’ll enjoy it!

I’m not going to bother introducing myself.  I live where there are mountains, I like to write, and you should go visit my site.  Now, to the topic at hand: English, the dialect of the Anglo people, and what some Republicans call the most American language.  (Actually, that would probably be Inuktitut, but whatever.)

The history of this great language begins at the fall of the Roman Empire (or at least, the end of the Roman presence in Britannia), when they left behind all their roads, but not much of their Latin language.  In 450 AD, the Germanic tribes of Angles and the Saxons (who became Anglo-Saxons) arrived in Britannia.  Anglo-Saxons spoke what we know as Old English.

Anglo-Saxon was a Germanic language from the Indo-European family, meaning it can trace its roots back to Sanskrit and Greek.  When the Romans left, they didn’t leave much of their language.  Old English to the rescue!  It had words that we still use today.   But don’t let that fool you.  The common people of today wouldn’t be able to decipher the language.  This is what Old English looked like:

Five more fun facts!

Leave a comment
Lipei serves as a source of much consternation to her beloved big brother Artwork by Hazel Butler

Lipei serves as a source of much consternation to her beloved big brother
Artwork by Hazel Butler

My good friend and fellow Worldbuilder, Andrea Baker, tagged me in the five facts game, and since I’d already considered doing this again for other characters, I was tickled to see I’d been tagged again. 🙂

With that in mind, let’s meet Vegin’s antagonist, shall we?

Fun Facts About Balil Tolhana

  1. Balil is Vegin’s brother-in-law.
  2. He’s a devout priest of the Tolathan order, dedicated to following the teachings of Kiala.
  3. He loathes the royal family and is infuriated when his sister (Lipei) marries the Crown Prince of Lokana (Vegin).
  4. He shares a desire to transform society with his brother-in-law, but goes about it in a much different way.
  5. A complex man, his character is shaped by the loss of his younger brother.

Once again, if you’d like to participate, have at it, and have fun!  Happy Friday!

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Seven more lines

Leave a comment
Anná Artwork by Hazel Butler

Anná
Artwork by Hazel Butler

The wonderful Sammy HK Smith re-tagged me in the 7/7 challenge, so I decided to share a bit more from The Lokana Chronicles, this time from the second book, tentatively titled Fog of War.

Anna stumbled on a tree root.  Her backpack flew from her shoulder and landed somewhere behind her as she went sprawling forward and landed on her stomach.  Groaning, she pushed herself up slowly, rising to her feet from a squat.  She brushed the dirt and leaves from her clothes as she looked for her backpack, but it was nowhere to be found.

With no flashlight to help her see in the dark woods, she gave up on finding her backpack and took a step forward, causing her leg to throb.  She explored her leg with her fingers till she felt something sticky on her right calf – blood.  The sickly metallic scent was unmistakable.

If you’d like to join in the fun, have at it!  I can’t wait to read more excerpts. 🙂

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Photo Friday guilt

12 Comments

So, today’s theme is guilty pleasures.  Since I’ve been über busy this week and didn’t have time to appropriately photograph my guilty pleasure, please enjoy this alternate shot:

mixtape

I’ll admit it: I love the Backstreet Boys (see top left tape).  I love ‘N SYNC.  I love 98°.  And I retroactively love the Spice Girls (meaning I hated them when they were popular and I love them now).  I don’t care how cheesy the music is or how awful their music videos are (“Backstreet’s Back,” anybody?), I can’t help but smile whenever these songs start to play.  And since these tunes influenced so many of my stories in high school, they will always have a soft spot in my heart.

How about you – what are your guilty pleasures?

Don’t forget to visit Charnele’s blog to find out what her guilty pleasure is!

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Another writing challenge

3 Comments
Lipei, the woman for whom Vegin defied his parents Artwork by Hazel Butler

Lipei, the woman for whom Vegin defied his parents
Artwork by Hazel Butler

Yes, I’m doing this on my blog again instead of on Facebook like I’m supposed to.  That’s just the way I roll.

I’m a rebel, see. 😉

Okay, no I’m not – this will make its way to Facebook, probably a couple times over, even.

I was tagged by the lovely AFE Smith for this challenge, which is to share five facts about the main character of your book.  Then, of course, you have to tag five more people, and so it goes.

Fun Facts About Vegin Martoka

  1. Despite all spelling similarities to the word “vegan,” his name is pronounced differently.  It rhymes with “bacon.”
  2. Vegin is an idealist, but feels powerless to fix anything in his kingdom.
  3. His love life, however, is another story.  He fights for the right to marry the woman he loves instead of the woman his parents have chosen, and learns in the process that he’s more capable than he thinks.
  4. He shares the same desire for change as his brother-in-law, but disagrees on how to accomplish that change.  While Balil wants revolution, Vegin hopes for peaceful progress.
  5. Though he counts himself a follower of Kiala (the deity worshipped in Lokana as the Great Mother), he remains skeptical of the truth he discovers in his father’s bequest.

I’m going to make this an open tag – if you’d like to participate, have at it!  Then let me know so that I can read all about your characters. 🙂

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

The 7/7/7 challenge!

3 Comments
Vegin Artwork by Hazel Butler

Vegin
Artwork by Hazel Butler

The ever-lovely Will Macmillan Jones tagged me in the 7/7 challenge (or the 7/7/7 challenge – I’ve seen it both ways).  It’s a new thing going around Facebook, where you go to the seventh page (or the seventeenth page or the seventy-seventh page) of your current WIP and share seven lines (or seven sentences, whichever you choose).  Once finished, you tag seven others to complete the challenge.

Give you one guess which WIP I’m going to quote from. 😀

From the newly-revised page seven, here’s a snippet from The Lokana Chronicles, in which the prince, Vegin, receives a history lesson from his tutor, Surat:

“Garedon was a widower early in life,” Surat began.  “The loss of his wife devastated him, for they’d been very much in love.  But when the pain of losing her began to fade, loneliness replaced it, and he sought companionship in the less reputable quarters of the city.

“One day, Misranna caught his eye.  Garedon was immediately infatuated, and soon he was sneaking off to see her at all hours of the day and night.  His father threatened to imprison him for disregarding his responsibilities, but the young prince ignored him.”

Vegin found himself wishing he’d known his great-grandfather.  It took guts to stand up to one’s parents so publicly, and he wasn’t sure he’d have had the stomach for it.  “So what happened?”

Okay, so this is nine sentences, but I couldn’t very well stop after the first line of that paragraph, and nine lines isn’t so much, is it?  Actually, I guess it’s only eight lines (but nine sentences).  So see?  It’s okay.

And now for the tagging bit!  I’ll tag AFE Smith, Kate Jack, MT McGuire, Tricia Drammeh, and Emily McKeon.  I know this is a Facebook thing, but I couldn’t resist sharing this with you, too. 🙂

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

Next up on the Summer Reads Blog Tour is…

1 Comment

Once again, I’ve got some great book recommendations to share with you. To find out more about the Summer Reads Blog Tour, check out Lisa L. Wiedmeier’s blog, original home of the following post.

Now, without further ado, here’s this week’s guest, Carrie Fetzer!

Summer Reads Blog Tour – Week Three
Welcome Carrie Fetzer!

This week it’s our beloved Carrie’s turn to share her favorite reads with you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have her come into my life and support me the way she has. Last November, I half jokingly put it out on the page that I needed a page administrator, and our lovely Carrie messaged me! Not only did she volunteer, but she’s run with it wholeheartedly.

She’s done an amazing job with keeping the conversation going, and filled a huge gap for me when I needed it most. This was supposed to just be a temporary position, but Carrie wanted to stay on! The best part of having her admin my page?

The legacy of words

4 Comments

One of the blogs I enjoy reading belongs to Icess Fernandez Rojas, and today she posted a letter to her readers.  The following is an excerpt:

I took to writing the last scene of the latest Jennie Manning story on my typewriter. I like using it and wished I could use it more often. There’s something about the way the keys hit the page. There’s a connection to the words there, an authenticity that a computer screen can’t duplicate. I’m not sure that authenticity is the right word but it’s the right sentiment, the trueness of the experience of writing. This is what I’m referring to — the purposefulness of words (since there is no deleting or backspacing), the rhythm of the keys tied to the fingertips, then the arms, the shoulder, the neck, the brain. That delicious, intoxicating rhythm when the brain is practically drilling the story onto the blank page. This is something that a typewriter can do that a computer can’t.  –Icess Fernandez Rojas

I love the way she describes the process of writing with a typewriter, especially as it so closely mirrors my own feelings about writing longhand.  I write all my stories longhand, and the pencil is my writing tool of choice because I just can’t stand to have a page full of scribbles where I’ve made mistakes and I don’t have enough White-Out to get me through a whole project.

Plus, there’s only so much White-Out you can put on a page.

Anyway, if you haven’t checked out her site already, what the heck are you waiting for?

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.

A look outside my window

3 Comments

IMG_20130718_134021Today’s challenge was to go somewhere public and write a detailed report of what we see without using any adverbs.  I’m not sure I succeeded on eliminating all my adverbs, but the following is what I can see through the front door of my office.  It’s a pretty sight, and I hope you enjoy it as well.

As I sit at my desk, trying to avoid the mound of paperwork that needs filing, I can see a fraction of the courthouse square.  Most of the parking spaces on the street sit empty as the day draws to a close; the courthouse has closed for business and its employees have all gone home, free from the shackles that still restrain me.

Brilliant sunshine gleams against a vivacious backdrop, blasting away the few clouds that litter the sky and casting charcoal shadows on the emerald grass.  A woman down the block strolls the main drag, enjoying the warmth.  Leaves flutter in the late spring breeze as it sends the flower baskets suspended from the streetlamps swinging.

A rusted-out delivery truck ambles past, searching for an address; the noise from its grumbling engine disturbs the stillness.  A happy little bluebird sings a sweet song, but I can’t hear it over the engine’s roar; I only see its little beak open and close, open and close.  But when the clock in the tower begins to chime the hour, the dings and dongs reach my tired ears, filling me with joy at the prospect of a quiet evening at home.

(c) 2014.  All rights reserved.