Vintage Monday: Dapper Gentleman with Hot Wheels

I'm down with a cold and can't for the life of me come up with anything witty to say. So just enjoy the eye candy.

Wednesday Word: Conk

conk 1 |kä ng k; kô ng k|verb [ intrans. ] ( conk out) informal(of a machine) break down : my car conked out.• (of a person) faint or go to sleep : Clare London conked out on the bed after a long day at GRL.

I know, I should give a detailed account of the events of Atlanta, but I just don't have the energy. Or, as the Brits would say, I can't be arsed. I'm sure out of the 400 attendees someone can do it a better justice I could.

The Power of Letting Go

Do you remember that feeling from school when you raised your hand and waved it madly because you knew the answer but the teacher picked someone else? I don't. I spent most of grade school sitting on my hands and trying to be invisible. But that's another story.

I had an urge to wave my hand and shout Pick me! during one of the panels at the recent GRNW panels. The question was: Do you read review and do they influence your writing? All the authors on the panels basically said they didn't.

I read reviews. Sure occasionally a bad one stings, but I get over it. Some even make me laugh. I went to art school and having my work ripped apart is not a new experience.

Overall, reviews help me gage if I was successful or not getting across what I wanted. And there's something else too. No two people take away the exact same thing from a book. Readers bring with them their own past experiences and their personalities, and those influence how they interpret the story. Reviews give me a glimpse at those different points of view, and it's fascinating.

Occasionally a reader sees something in my story I didn't realize was there. It doesn't make them wrong. I believe the audience is an active participant of the creative process. It's true to all art forms, but especially story telling. Authors would save themselves some headache by giving into this fact. I suspect many author meltdowns have to do with the person not being able to let go of that exact image of their stories they have in their heads. Well, okay, every once in a while a reviewer is so far out there that you start to wonder about their planet of origin, but c'est la vie, right?

Wednesday Word: Plangent

plangent |ˈplanjənt|adjective chiefly poetic/literary(of a sound) loud, reverberating, and often melancholy.DERIVATIVESplangency nounplangently adverbORIGIN early 19th cent.: from Latin plangent-‘lamenting,’ from the verb plangere.

Hm. The plangent mating call of the male bullfrog, perhaps?

I plundered this word--along with a few others--from Carl Hiaasen's Stormy Weather.  The story grabbed me and I stayed up till 3 a.m. to finish it. Yet, I don't feel the urge to rush out and buy more of Hiaasen's books. Why is that?

Vintage Monday: Glorious Beard

Because I have thing for facial hair. I think he's wearing a bow tie. It's hard to tell.

Wednesday Word: Woot!

woot

Syllabification: (woot)

Pronunciation: /wo͞ot/

exclamation

informal

• (especially in electronic communication) used to express elation, enthusiasm, or triumph: I definitely get Fridays off, woot!

Origin:

1990s: origin uncertain

Language is a living, breathing, constantly evolving thing. Dictionaries, on the other hand, are sluggish to catch up. Oxford had added woot to its stable, but others are lagging behind. I doubt you can play it in Scrabble, and it's a word I used all the time, especially in writing.

On a related note: Spirit Sanguine made finalist in the 2013 Rainbow Awards. :) I'm not gonna make a Facebook post about it, because there are a lot of finalists, and FB is already exploding with the announcements.