Jeggings, Pumpkins, and NaNoWriMo – oh my!

Hi,

Right, first things first. I saw a new word today and I thought I’d better pass it on to my fellow word-lovers for comment. Jeggings. Have you seen it? It was displayed in a ladies clothing store on a pair of super-slim-fitting leggings which look like denim (but feel more like a heavy jersey/knit fabric). Basically they are the zenith of skinny jeans which have been a huge thing here for a few years now. Not a style I favor…I walk, I have calf muscles, ergo skinny jeans don’t work for me. But I rather like the word and I think it might stick. What do you think?

I remember wearing leggings in Calgary, Canada on a visit to a cousin there in the mid 1990s and her advising me to change into something else as the locals considered them to be thermal underwear. They thought I was wearing my underwear in public! Have leggings crossed the atlantic since?  What would they make of jeggings?

Pumpkins then, we spent the afternoon carving them – three varieties of vampire pumpkins and one “scary butterfly”. You can tell I have a young daughter, can’t you? I’ll try to remember to take a photo of them all lit up tomorrow night and post it here as I’m rather proud of our collection. They may not be high-art, but they were fun. Very few people in our area carve pumpkins, they tend to make do with plastic ones.

NaNoWriMo starts in less than two days. My outline still has many holes in it but thanks to a severe ear infection this week I’m just going to have to live with that. For me however, the adventure begins tomorrow when I host my first ever NaNo event as an ML (organiser). Thankfully I know I have at least two other writers coming along. For a while there I thought it was just going to be me, looking lonesome. In an effort to support me in my attempt to write 50,000 words of my novel in just 30 days my husband is threatening to unplug our internet router and take it with him to work so I can’t waste my time online except for my one designated hour in the evening for my ML role. I know he’s right, but I feel like an addict deprived of my fix at the mere thought. Could you manage 24 hours without the Web?

Now for some good news – I’m definitely in the forthcoming print anthology “A Cup of Comfort for a Better World” (due to hit the shelves in March 2010). I’m thrilled, particularly when I heard there were more than 2,000 entries submitted. I’ll post a link to it once it’s available.

Postings here during November will be erratic as I’ll be pouring my energy into novel-writing, see you all in December,

Grace

Brave, Crazy, Inspired, Inspirational, Creative

Helping with Nano 2009

Ok, this week’s word is none of the above, but these do all describe the participants in National Novel Writing Month (November) which is starting its tenth year of activity in two week’s time for more than 150,000 aspiring novellists. I’ll be among them for the third year and this year I will be trying to organise the scribes in Ireland NorthEast as I’m volunteering as a municipal liaison. The National part of the title isn’t strictly accurate these days. Participants are spread right across the globe and languages other than English are catered for. We already have more than 1,000 writers in Ireland registered and ready to go.

There’s just one snag – I can’t decide which novel to start (my books tend to finish at the 100,000 word mark so Nano will get me halfway on a first draft). Do I go with a humourous tale of demented housewives on the edge, a more serious multi-viewpoint novel about a disparate group of people living in the west of Ireland, or a two-hander about a couple of reluctant parents? Or something else entirely? All I know is that I have to decide soon so suggestions are welcome! Either way, my November writing time may well be limited so don’t be surprised if this blog lapses until early December except for updates on my NaNoWriMo progress.

In the meantime if you’ve ever thought “I’d love to write a book someday”, now is your chance. Participation is free and there is major fun to be had along the way. Check out the site and see what you can do with just 1800 words a day.

Now, the actual word for today is termagant which a friend recently (incorrectly) described herself as. Word a Day says this is a shrewish woman and that’s what she meant. I’d never heard it before, had you? Apparently it’s one of those words which is confused from birth. Europeans mistakenly thought it was a deity worshiped by Muslims. It came to be seen as any brawling, difficult character in morality plays and gradually came to be associated only with females, for some reason which escapes me (probably because I’m a female). It occurs to me that it could be a useful species of invective against anybody in your life who is irritating you but who is unlikely to go and look it up after you apply it to them, in the sweetest of tones.

I’m just waiting for a chance to use it now…

Happy writing and reading,

Grace

ps. for those of you interested in the Big Knit hats – I managed 14 in the end.

Amanuensis

The word for today is amanuensis, purely because it came up in a book I am reading currently and sent me to the dictionary for a definition. Pronounced uh-man-you-EN-sis, it means someone who is hired to copy down words for someone else, so if you’re a secretery who is bored with his/her job title you could always try this one out instead. The word comes from Latin and Indo-European roots which mean hand-slave.

The book I was reading – an excellent biography of Robert Hooke, “The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, the man who measured London” by Lisa Jardine reckoned that Hooke was amanuensis to Robert Boyle (Boyle’s law etc, famous Irish-Anglo scientist of the 1650s-1680s) but Hooke did plenty in his own right and sadly ended up overshadowed by Newton, Christopher Wren, Boyle and other upper-class scientists of his era for a variety of reasons despite being equally responsible with Wren for the rebuilding of London after the great fire. It’s an interesting tale if you’ve any interest in early science.

Of course Boyle could afford to hire Hooke to transcribe (and operate and often design) his experiments for him as he came from landed gentry, but most authors of more modern times don’t have a secretary, we just type away on computers or other mechanical and electronic devices. However one book I browsed this weekend did come with the help of an amanuensis – the new one by Terry Pratchett in which he is quick to thank his typist (helping him as his health fails) and noting that he even had the wit to laugh at the right bits. Now there’s a typing job I wouldn’t mind having, imagine how much you’d learn from a master of words like that, even just by copying his words on the screen from dictation tapes, or whatever.

But would I, in a world where I’d won the lottery, like having a helper like that? No, I don’t think so, not unless I required one for health reasons. Even my own husband can’t read my handwriting (something I am unjustly proud of) so transcribing my often convoluted paper drafts would be cruel torture for a typist. I credit my own erratic scrawl with my ability to read pretty much anybody’s handwriting (in a language I understand, of course). I can even cope with notoriously illegible doctor’s prescriptions. I also dislike having someone about while I write, or at least not someone who is paying attention. I am fine with writing in a large crowd, at an airport or on a train etc. Thankfully I learnt how to type properly (on old heavy manual typewriters) at a very young age so I don’t need a secretary anyhow.

What about you? How would a hand-slave aid your life?

Now if you could get me a Jeeves-style manservant, I would snap up the offer; diplomacy, someone else to deal with dreary tasks like tax-returns and gifts for inlaws and ironing, wit, and support on every social event, not to mention always having the perfect outfit laid out for me each day. Yes, that I could live with.

Until next time, happy writing, reading, and word fooling,

Grace

Scythes, sickles, and combine harvesters

Hello,

In this part of the world, it’s harvest time. Most of the work is finished near me, the hay is saved (I saw some old-fashioned pitchfork created haystacks the other day – a rare sight now), most of the cereal crops are in and I run less risk of encountering a massive combine harvester on the local narrow lanes, but I’m still passing plenty of root-vegetable trucks and in my own garden I’m gathering about 15 tomatoes at day (I grow 8 tomato plants – roma plum tomatoes and gardener’s delight cherry tomatoes outdoors) knowing that the first frosts will arrive here soon and then I’ll have to ripen the rest indoors (I will be eating them until Christmas). I’ve jarred up my dried herbs, potted up a bounty of blackberry and apple jam (my second favourite, damson is best but my tree is young and non-productive so far), and gathered the onions and garlic that survived the wet clay I planted them in. I’ve still got leeks, parsnips, beetroots, lettuce, courgette, carrots, apples, crab apples, and sconzonera (like a nutty carrot – delightful) to gather in over the next month or so. I love this time of year!

It is also the time of year when my children’s minds turn obsessively to the crucial decision of “which costume for Halloween?” Thankfully for my wallet my youngest is happy to wear last year’s black and pink witch costume again, especially as I’ve given in to her request for a broomstick to embellish the ensemble. My eldest can be trickier as he tends to change his mind at the last minute in an attempt to gain a second costume for our literally bursting costume box. We had a few hours, just the two of us, last Friday, and I sat him down with paper and pencil and we designed his outfit. Re-using a previous year’s skeleton outfit and adding a shop-bought scythe (plastic, I hasten to add), and a black cloak which I will try to construct on my trusty sewing machine, I think we have the core of an excellent costume of Death from the Discworld. He hasn’t read the wonderful Terry Pratchett books yet, but he loves the covers and is confident (more than I am) that I can create a suitably spooky look by October 31st. However my sister (who joins us on the night with her own son) has just upped the ante by texting me a picture of her costume so now I have to create something for myself – argh. Not enough hours in the day!

Anyhow, scythes were naturally a topic in our house this week and co-incidentally so were combine harvesters due to an animated one in a school story. I had to explain how each worked. Did you know you can still do courses on how to cut your fields by scythe and we had proverbs involving them? I’d say it’s a great workout and in fact I think the company I previously worked for once did a charity meadow-reap in a park by scythe and had half the staff out with bad backs afterwards. I’ve never handled a real one, but I have played with a (very blunt) sickle as several hung on the garden wall of my grandparents’ home and they fascinated me. I suppose the soviet hammer (industry) and sickle (agriculture) was a clever piece of design considering it covered the two big employments of the day. Of course a sickle is a unit of currency in Harry Potter’s world, I doubt Stalin would like that too much. If you’re interested in either tool for your own plot, much to my surprise, they can both still be bought online – do a quick google search.

If you’re harvesting this month, I wish you sharp tools, huge crops, crisp weather, and no back-ache.

Happy writing and reading,

Grace

Good for Body and Soul

Hallo,

No unusual word today as I’m on retreat. Yes, retreat. Not the praying sort (although those are fine too), this is a writing retreat. So technically I shouldn’t be online at all as I’ve foresworn email and internet for three days. I’ve been writing in new places (the beach was this morning’s venue and it was COLD), trying out writing exercises, using prompts, and writing different types of work, even poetry which is rare indeed for me. It has been fun so far – two more days to go.

But I did want to post a couple of links here tonight.

2008 Big Knit Hats

First up is Innocent Smoothies Big Knit. This has been run annually for a few years now (this will be my third year taking part). Crafters internationally create mini hats to top Innocent smoothie bottles which are then sold in the shops and part of the profit (about 50p for each bottle) goes to Age Concern (UK) and Help the Aged (Ireland). It’s a fun way to use up your stash and can be competitive fun in knitting groups. There are patterns on the site (if you crochet, I can send you on a couple – comment me) and the postal deadline is 16th October so get going fast.

Secondly is another crafting charity site – this time there’s a different project depending on what the charity needs – Craft Hope is simply about crafters working together to help those in need. I love their attitude and will definitely be taking part in their next project.

We can all make a difference if we try,

happy writing, reading, and crafting,

Grace

Never rains but it pours

Thankfully today has been dry after a fairly soggy summer in Ireland, but living in a land renowned for its greeness you do tend to realise the truth of the expression “it never rains but it pours” in a literal sense. Apart from the odd “soft day” (when drizzle appears to hang in the air), we tend to have total downpours rather than light, frolicky rain.

But today the less literal meaning of the phrase is much in my mind along with the saying “you wait all day for a bus and then three of them come at once” which is similar and did prove its veracity when I used to commute to university via two bus journeys in each direction, daily.

The reason I’ve been pondering such things is that I’ve had three writing buses arrive within a few days of each other, after a drought of some months.

Bus one – (which I mentioned the last time) getting an article published by the excellent Hope Clarks’ Funds For Writers ezine. I’m not just saying that because she pays on acceptance and has always enjoyed my work. Nope, it’s because her ezine regularly gives me market information that furthers my writing career. Plus I enjoy her editorials hugely. The ezines are mainly free – if you write and you haven’t heard of them, do yourself a favour and check them out.

Bus two – being approved as Municipal Liaison for (Europe:Ireland:NorthEast) for NaNoWriMo 2009. This is a volunteer role which I’ve coveted since last NaNo and I’m delighted to be involved in such a worthy scheme. Anything that helps people to write is good in my book. I hope to meet plenty of fellow Irish writers during November as a result. I’ve heard a rumour that it helps you to reach the magic 50,000 words in 30 days target too which would be good as 2008 was my best effort and only reached 43,000 words.

Bus three – discovering that I’ve been shortlisted for inclusion in a Cup Of Comfort anthology. This was my first submission to that well-known personal essay market and I’m delighted, and slightly surprised, to have gotten that far. There are 66 finalists chosen from more than 2,000 submissions. I’m also particularly proud of the essay as it’s about someone I loved a great deal who died recently. I’ll let you know if it makes it into the final book.

Now I don’t like to leave a post without some reference to language and it’s usually English but I recently came across a great quotation in Latin which underpins the theme of tonight’s post (hard work rewarded) which is labor omnia vincit improbus – hard work overcomes all difficulties. It’s from Virgil’s “Georgics” apparently. I think it might be my motto for the rest of the week.

happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

Whiffling (guest blog)

The following elucidation of unusual words comes from Adam Jacot de Boinod, author of two books on the joyous mysteries of words.

The Meaning of Tingo

When photographers attempt to bring out our smiling faces by asking us to “Say Cheese”, many countries appear to follow suit with English equivalents. In Spanish however they say patata (potato), in Argentinian Spanish whisky, in French steak frites, in Serbia ptica (bird) and in Danish appelsin (orange). Do you know of any other varieties from around the world’s languages? See more on www.themeaningoftingo.com

The Wonder of Whiffling

“The Wonder of Whiffling” (Adam’s latest book) is a tour of English around the globe (with fine coinages from our English-speaking cousins across the pond, Down Under and elsewhere).

Discover all sorts of words you¹ve always wished existed but never knew, such as fornale, to spend one¹s money before it has been earned; cagg, a solemn vow or resolution not to get drunk for a certain time; and petrichor, the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.

Delving passionately into the English language, he also discovers why it is you wouldn¹t want to have dinner with a vice admiral of the narrow seas, why Jacobites toasted the little gentleman in black velvet, and why a Nottingham Goodnight is better than one from anywhere else. See more on www.thewonderofwhiffling.com

Pettifogging

First to my unusual word of the week and later to my news.

Pettifogging is defined at ThinkExist as paltry, quibbling, mean. Now quibbling is a favourite verb of mine, but I don’t think a pettifogging detail or indeed a pettifogger is a quibbler. So I checked my paper dictionary (Collins) and they say a pettifogger is a low-class lawyer or one given to mean dealing in small matters. Hmmm, doesn’t sound like the sort of person I would wish to befriend. Whereas I have no issue with a quibbler – someone who makes a trivial objection.

So you may quibble over an answer in Trivial Pursuit ™ or the spelling of a word in Scrabble ™, but if you’re a pettifogger you do it with ill-will. Which is an interesting distinction, I think.

Now, onto my writing news.

Last week I hosted my first ever online writing workshop (on the topic of using computer files to aid your writing life with tracking submissions, targeting niches, planning and executing your book plan etc). This week I’ve sold an article (on persevering in the face of rejection in writing) to Hope Clark at FundsForWriters, completely revamped my business cards and promotional postcards (see image used below) and made a slew of submissions. There is something about September (and the return of my family to montessori, school, and university) which is invigorating. I wonder if I lived in the southern hemisphere would this happen in April instead?

sunflower bud (copyright Grace Tierney)

wherever you are, be happy writing, reading, and word fooling,

Grace

How’s your gumption?

Some words appeal to a word-fool like myself because they look or sound odd, some because they capture a delightfully specific emotion, experience, or action, and others appeal because of the stories behind them. Today’s word is one that sounds fun. I almost have to stop myself making a silly face when I say it – gumption.

My trusty dictionary defines it as resourcefulness, sense, and shrewdness which are all worthy qualities for anyone to possess. Many would call it common sense and remark that such a sense is all too rare in the modern world. I suspect gumption is just as bountiful as it ever was, I doubt that humanity changes much over the eons, but we can all be beguiled into ignoring our gumption now and again. Any of us who bought property or equity just before the recent crash in financial markets were surely ignoring our gumption and willfully imagining that markets could and would rise for ever and ever.

But the good news is that a skill like gumption can be used to raise yourself back up again, despite such crashes. I read of one man who started a restaurant recently arguing that rents were lower, staff cheaper and easier to hire and he had less competition now too. He also gained plenty of free publicity as a rare good news story. He was a man with gumption.

I visited a new food fair near me yesterday and I think every stall-holder had gumption in bucket-loads. The stalls were smaller than usual, thus providing greater variety of stalls and reducing rents for the vendors. Nearly every stall offered samples (a recognised way to increase sales at these events) and many advertised their other sales locations or services like party-catering, birthday cakes, vegetable delivery schemes, and cookery schools. With each sale they made, they also made a new contact as well as cash. When I left (laden with goodies), the stalls were well on their way to selling out two hours before the end of the fair. It proved to me two things – 1) good products always sell if the pricing is right and 2) the locals wanted to buy a “little luxury” even if they couldn’t manage to fork out on a new car/house/sofa, they knew they could afford some organic bread or homemade ice-cream.

So this week I will challenge myself (and you), to display some of my native gumption. I will look at things from a new angle. I will try to see the simple ways I can improve my writing and my life in general.

Happy writing and reading,

Grace

Placenames in Phrases

I was arranging my beloved and battered childhood books on my childrens’ new bookcases last week and a phrase popped into my head that I doubt I’ve heard used outside an Enid Blyton or Angela Brazil school tale  – “to send somebody to Coventry”. It made me wonder if there are other phrases out there which include placenames, and of course there are.

But first to Coventry, a cathedral city in England I have yet to visit, but quite lovely by all accounts. I feel it’s somewhat unfair to use its name as a sign that someone you don’t like shall be ignored and conversed with no longer. So I had a peek at Wikipedia and discovered the perfect verb in their definition of the phrase – “to ostracise someone”. Their theory and I shall adopt it, as it mixes history and drama perfectly, is that the phrase originated in the 17th century when Cronwell sent some royalist prisoners to the then small town and the locals (all parlimentarian supporters of Cromwell) shunned them.

Another placename phrase which I think I have discursed upon before is “by hook or by crook”. The origin is disputed well here. Their conclusion relates to the tools of shepherding but as a loyal Irishwoman I refute that idea and vote for historical drama once more. Cromwell (yes him again) reputedly claimed that Waterford city would fall to his forces by hook or by crook. Isn’t it strange that the town can be entered by landing an army at either Hook Head (famous spot, great lighthouse, still used in sea-area forecasts) or Crook village?

Venturing back to England, I remembered the foolish idea of “bringing coals to Newcastle”. Somewhat akin to the notion of selling ice to Eskimos (but that might happen yet thanks to global warming). Only a fool would do such a thing as Newcastle was a well-known pit-town.

My last two discoveries relate to distance, which makes sense as we often measure distances relative to named locations. “How long will it take you to get here?” “Oh not too long, it’s not from here to Timbuktu”. Timbuktu was apparently a vital trading point at one stage and certainly seemed exotic to those of us in Western Europe, hence the phrase. How I loved the tale of a friend’s father (and youthful mates) buying a old banger (that’s a broken down car to those of you reading from America) and attempting to drive to Timbuktu simply because it sounded adventurous. They barely knew where it was on the map. The car broke down in Italy I believe.

Which brings me to Tipperary. A county in Ireland (like a state in America, only MUCH smaller), Tipperary is a lovely green part of the country, well worth a visit but you know, it’s not actually a long way there at all from my home. But it depends on where you start from, because upon perusal of the lyrics (kindly available at Wiki again, including a rather naughty final verse) I realised that the song was set in London, which is rather a long way from Tipperary, particularly in the early 1900s. Of course the song (available to listen to here) became a troop-song and was recorded by John McCormack and hence the title passed into phrase for evermore.

There is a rather bad joke about the song title which I half remembered from the days when I was reading those Enid Blyton tales of St. Clares and Mallory Towers. I don’t want to inflict it upon my readers, but if you’re very keen you can click for an easy pun here.

Until next time,

happy reading and writing, and if anyone knows other placename phrases, let me know, I might start to collect them here,

Grace