Expressions

Has anyone heard the expression, laid like broccoli? I heard it again today. It got me thinking of other expressions that we use and how we all have our pet phrases. Some are unique to only us. Some we've adopted because they suit our personalities. Some we've adapted to the people in our stories as one means of rounding out their characters and making them more "human".

Today, while I'm out running errands, I'm going to listen for pet phrases from the people I speak with, and in the conversations going on around me. I may hear something that will suit one my characters.

If you have any expressions that you'd like to share, drop me a line at: karen@karenfenech.com

Regards,
Karen
http://www.karenfenech.com/

CATCHING UP

Time to catch up with my blog. Lots has happened since the last time, most of it not very interesting to anyone but me, so I won't go into it here.

But I have my book cover for THE CHARMSTONE and must say I am thrilled with it. Those Five Star designers are just the best, aren't they? Check it out on my new website at www.ccharrison-author.com.

I'm busy, busy on another book, three quarters of the way through. I'll talk more about it soon.

Do You Keep A Journal?

I started keeping a journal when I was very young, filling the pages with pre-adolescent events in my life like I went to the beach. I had fun. I stopped when I began thinking of writing professionally and was spending so much time writing.

In the last couple of years, though, I began to journal again, and I've re-discovered the freedom of writing anything that comes to mind and not having to be concerned about revising and editing. I've re-discovered the freedom of knowing that no one other than myself is ever going to read these pages.

I've found another benefit to journaling that has helped in my writing - writing out plot problems. Often writers work alone and we don't have anyone to talk to about a problem with plot or character. I'm "talking" my problems out on the pages of my journal. I'm finding that writing the problem down and through helps me solve it.

I'm no longer talking out writing problems aloud to myself.

Well, not as often : - )

Regards,
Karen
www.karenfenech.com

Gideon's Curse - Nanowrimo Read-along

Just a quick note to let everyone know (particularly those who remember what I've done in the past) that I'm going to participate for the third straight year in Nanowrimo. As in the past two years, I'll be posting my daily output to a yahoo group, and you are all invited to join up and read along. Just send an e-mailto:

Subscribe: Gideons_Curse-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

The novel is titled "Gideon's Curse," a historical dark fantasy set against the backdrop of a cotton plantation on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp.

"In the swamp, you die, or you find ways to survive. Young Gideon Swain knows this; he knows there are older ways than the slave-labor minded Pope Family that he works for can imagine. He has seen his mother’s reflection in the slime-pools of the bog. He’s heard his grandfather, the first Gideon at Preacher’s Marsh, chanting on the night breeze. He has seen eyes, glowing white and glittering with hatred, peering from the trees that line the fields. He has heard voices like drumbeats chanting in the night, and played his blues in time with them.

The dead are rising, and they are coming. Soon."

Join in - read along. There will be weekly (and random) prize drawings...

And good reading. If the novel doesn't get completed in the month of November, this group will continue until it does. Welcome to the swamp...

David Niall Wilson
www.macabreink.com
deep-bluze.livejournal.com