Word-hoard
mystagogue: "someone who explains mysteries or displays church relics"

Listening to: "The Battle of Kerak", Kingdom of Heaven soundtrack

I got one of the nicest rejections letters yesterday. The agent was kind enough to both point out, in detail, why she would have loved to take the work, and why she ultimately passed. This one's a bummer, because I felt like I connected really well with her in person and thought I'd be able to work well with her. Well, onwards and upwards.

Myths, symbols & folklore
Leopard: "It is a symbol of wildness, aggression, battle, and pride. In China the leopard was considered a lunar animal, in contrast to the solar lion. In African myths, it is associated with the light of the morning sun. In antiquity the leopard was an attribute of Artemis and Dionysus; it symbolized strength and fertility, and in this sense it also played a role in the Dionysus (or Bacchus) cult. Because of its wild leaping it was compared with the maenads." (Herder)

Listening to: San Jose Grand Prix on TV

Back from a lovely, if too short, trip up to the Russian River wine road. There are benefits to living in the Bay Area - some of the best wine in the world is grown only a few hours north of here. It's going to be a kooky busy week at work, so hopefully I'll have time to check in here a couple of times.

Nearly done with the short story that was supposed to be 5,000 words and is now almost 20,000. Enjoying the hell out of writing it, though it looks like there's some serious editing to be done. A couple of different dreams this morning have inspired two more story ideas...I have more story ideas than I have time, which I suppose is a good problem to have. I like my job and I'm grateful for it, but I really wish I could write full time. Someday soon!

Myths, symbols & folklore
Liver: "It was believed among various peoples to be the seat of vital force, desires, anger, and love. Predictions of the future were made from the livers of animals; the Babylonians and the Etruscans had highly developed systems of interpretation. Eating liver was supposed to give one the power to dissolve magic spells." (Herder)

Listening to: Elemental by Robin Guthrie

Heading off on a mini-vacation starting tomorrow to - somewhere. Basically, I'm getting in the car with my husband very early in the morning and driving, with a stack of CDs (yes, we're old fashioned) and a great deal of crappy food. From here, we're so close to a lot of fantastic stuff - Yosemite is only 3 hours away, so we may do that, though it's rotten with tourists (like us!) this time of year. Maybe Shasta. Maybe Cambria. We'll see.

Not much else to report this morning, so have a link: an interesting article on approaches to making "friends" with your inner critic.

Word-hoard
barken'd: "When mire, blood, andc. hardens upon a thing like bark." (Glossary, 1851, to Allan Ramsay's The Gentle Shepherd, 1725)

Listening to: 2cv by Lloyd Cole & the Commotions

A cool idea popped into my head this morning for this year's NaNo. We'll have to let that one percolate in the background while I try to finish up this short story that has suddenly grown. I initially figured it would be a 5K short story, or thereabouts, and it's ballooned to 15K, with a whole lotta writing left to do. So, we'll see what happens.

Oh! And a short-short I wrote is going to be published in Behind the Wainscot (the sister online publication to Farrago's Wainscot). I'll link to it here as soon as it's live.

Word-hoard
edacious: to eat a lot; voracious

Listening to: "Troubled Mind" by Everything But the Girl

I've got a bit of a Harry Potter hangover. Read most of Saturday afternoon and got up Sunday morning to finish, and enjoyed pretty much every minute of it. Is it the best book ever written? No, of course not. Is it engaging, entertaining, and ultimately very satisfying? Absolutely. Did I cry my eyes out during (many) sections? Yep. Is it a book kids under 13 should read? Probably not. It's a frigging bloodbath.

Myths, Symbols & Folklore
Lightning: "A symbol or expression in many cultures of divine power, which appears as terrifying or creative. In many cultures lightning and thunder were thought to be caused by the highest god (e.g., Jupiter/Zeus, Indra). In the Bible lightning is associated with God's wrathful judgment; a punitive God of fire, lightning, and thunder is depicted. Zeus, the hurler of lightning bolts, can be seen as a fructifying, illuminating deity as well as a punishing one. Particularly in the Orient, a relationship exists between lightning and storms or rain; hence the symbolic connection of lightning and fertility, and the phallic significance of lightning. Until recently, people in some areas of Asia and Europe have made milk offerings to pacify lightning." (Herder)

Listening to: "Silver Morning" by Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois

Word-hoard
periblepsis: "the wild look that accompanies delirium" (Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Science, 1844)

What a fantastic word.

Myths, Symbols & Folklore
peony: "In China it is a symbol of wealth and honor. It was regarded in antiquity as protection against the wiles of satyrs and fauns. In the Middle Ages it was often used as a medicinal and magical plant; the seed of the peony served as an amulet. As the 'rose without thorns,' it is a common symbol of Mary in medieval paintings." (Herder)

But really. Isn't *everything* a symbol of Mary in medieval paintings? :)

Word-hoard
chimble: "to crumble into very small fragments; to gnaw like a mouse or rat" (Charles Mackay's Lost Beauties of the English Language, 1874)

Everyone who writes fiction knows that thrilling, surprising feeling when an unexpected character walks into a story, threatening to take it over - or at least changing the tone and even the plot direction. Happened to me yesterday - minding my own business, slogging through a scene in the Shitty First Draft (thank you, Anne Lamott), when BAM! In saunters this character that completely changed where I thought the story was going, and just in the nick of time, too. It's good to remember these moments, when it's such a rush, especially when the writing is going slooowwwwwwwwwllly.

Word-hoard
dicacity: "oral playfulness; talkativeness"

Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God:

"The art required is to make sounds, words, and forms, whether of base or noble provenance, open out in back, as it were, to eternity, and this requires of the artist that he should himself, in his individual experience, have touched anew that still point in this turning world of which the immemorial mythic forms are the symbols and the guarantee." (94)

A twofer today!

Word-hoard
manbote: "money paid to a lord as compensation for the killing of one of his men"

weregild: "money paid by the killer's family to the family of the victim to avert a blood feud"

Listening to
The History Network podcast #201: The Macedonians and Alexander

Myths, symbols & folklore
Lime Tree (linden): "A tree revered by Germanic and Slavic peoples as being sacred, it was thought to divert lightning and, when touched, to draw diseases to itself. Often it grew in the center of communities or groups of buildings (hence the lime tree in the court, cemetery, at the well, in the village center). In contrast to the oak, the lime tree is often considered to be female or feminine." (Herder)

word-hoard
limn: to depict by drawing, painting, describing in words

listening to
O quam glorifica - Anonymous 4

Not much really to report. Working on a short story that's growing into a novella. The story and characters amuse me greatly, so I'm going with it, wherever they take me - despite the 2 short stories that are still awaiting editing and the 3rd novel which is 1/3 done and stalled. I guess you have to go where your brain takes you, eh?

I need to get the first draft of this story done by August, so I can start thinking seriously about NaNo. I was considering using the time to finish the 3rd novel but since it's set in Norway in 1905, and my husband and I are going back to Norway next summer (this time with my dad), which gives me the opportunity to do some more in-person research, I'll probably do a different story. I've got the ever-growing list of stories to write in my notebook, so I'll play with those and see what sticks. Or maybe none of them - maybe another story will invade my brain like the one I'm working on.

Darn day job that pays the bills! I need more time to write!

Myths, Symbols & Folklore
Wheat: "the sowing, growth, and harvesting of grain, specifically of wheat, have represented birth and death as well as death and rebirth. In ancient Greece, the head of grain, as the fruit of the maternal womb of the earth, symbolized the fruit of the human body; it was a symbol of Demeter and played a central role in the Eleusinian mysteries. In Egypt the growing wheat was regarded as a symbol of Osiris rising from the dead. In the Middle Ages the grain of wheat signified Christ descending to and resurrected from the underworld. To the present day, the Eucharist is symbolically alluded to on altar furnishings by the images of the ear of grain and the grape. The stalk of wheat, moreover, is a symbol of Mary, for she contained the grains from which came the flour for the host. Mary, depicted in a dress showing ears of grain, is also compared to the field on which Christ, as wheat, could grow." (Herder)

Excellent post by Sarah over at Reading the Past about the "death" of genre fiction.

Word-hoard
gyromancy: fortunetelling by walking in a circle until dizzy; the fortune is determined by where the person falls

Listening to: Hildegard von Bingen, "Ave generosa" (performed by Jeremy Summerly & Oxford Camerata)

Blond

Myths, folklore, and symbolism
Blond: As a light hair color, it shares the symbolism of gold. The Greeks thus depicted their gods as blond-haired. (Herder)

100th post, woo!

To show that I'm nothing if not feature-rich, value-added, and other marketing type words (which are my daily stock in trade, you see), I give you a twofer!

word-hoard
grammatolatry: worship of letters or words

Myths, folklore & symbolism
cypress: "regarded by many peoples as a sacred tree, it is a long-lived evergreen plant symbolizing, like all conifers, long life and immortality. In antiquity it was regarded as a symbol of death because after being cut down, it does not grow back; hence it was associated with Pluto and the realm of the underworld. In China the seed of the cypress was associated with the yang principle; eating the seed was supposed to grant long life." (Herder)

I am no artist - by any stretch of the imagination - but I do tend to doodle a lot. And generally speaking, it's always the same doodles: a spiral, a 3-D box, and a church in front of tall brown mountains with two or three tall, lanky cypress trees off to the side. I've even "painted" (I use the word advisedly) this scene a few times. I have no idea where this church is (I'm guessing Tuscany) but I can't seem to stop sketching it. Very odd.


listening to: "O Madalena Che Portasti" by Joglaresa with Belinda Sykes

Myth, folklore & symbolism
Hyperboreans: "they are a fabled people said in antiquity to live in the farthest northern reaches (beyond the north wind, personified as Boreas). It is unknown to what extent an historical people gave rise to this idea. In myth the land of the Hyperboreans came increasingly to symbolize a place of light and bliss where Apollo sometimes retreated; later, political utopias were situated there." (Herder)