The last roast

Yes, it's the last roast - not the last waltz! If you've been following recent posts you'll know I've been lucky enough to have had all three of my books featured at a wonderful Blog called the 'Bookroast', generously created and hosted by Chris Eldin and friends.

If you missed all the fun, I'll just say that several times a week, an author would post his or her book details and an excerpt, and the crew would ask readers a question (usually tongue in cheek or just 'silly' ) and one of the answers to this question would win its writer a copy of the book. The whole thing had a wonderfully humorous, informal feeling about it, and as well as promoting ones work, it was a way to connect with other writers and to do something a little 'different'.

There's a farewell party going on there now - why not pop along and join in the fun. Meet Chris and the rest of the crew and wish them all well in their future venutures, as I do. You'll find them at:
http://lastroast.blogspot.com/

MONDAY'S 'ROAST'

Good morning - and apologies to those who were expecting to see my 'MondayWords' feature. I'm actually away all this week, in the 'land of my fathers' my homeland of Wales, but I'm scheduled to be roasted on the 'Book Roast Blog'

(This was arranged before my trip was organised)

All is not lost, however, thanks to my wonderful friend and critique partner the lovely and talented MISS MAE.
She'll look after you, answer your questions and even pick a winner from the replies. Yes - one lucky person will win one of the very first downloads available of my new release, CHILDREN OF THE MIST, the sequel to STARQUEST, as soon as it rolls off the presses (or in this case the ether) on JUNE 29th. If you're fortunate enough to be chosen as the winner by Miss Mae today, please be sure to send me your email address as well as your 'snail mail' address. so that I can send you a few promotional goodies as well as your download.

So - what are you waiting for? Pop along to the BOOKROAST BLOG now, and leave a comment for your chance to win the download. Go on, don't let Miss Mae sit there by herself! And after you've visited the bookroast, why not head on over to Miss Mae's 'Pure Southern Genteel' style of website and Blog at:

http://www.missmaesite.com
and
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/pure-southern-genteel

(You'll be sure of a heapin' helpin' of pure southern hospitality!)

I'm being roasted on Monday

Just to let you know I'm off to my beloved Wales for a week. The last few weeks have been hectic so I'm looking forward to a bit of a breather and the fresh air and tranquility of the Welsh hills.

I'm also being roasted on the bookroast Blog, on Monday (25th) and the lovely Miss Mae is going to be mistress of ceremonies in my absence. I know she's quite able to stand the heat, but if you have a moment to pop along and leave her a comment that would be great, I don't want her to feel lonely. Also one of the comments will be chosen by Miss Mae to win a free download of my new release 'Children Of The Mist' as soon as it hits the ether on 19th June, as well as some promo goodies.

Go to the Book roast HERE

Lyn

WORDS MONDAY

Today's word is:

Slumgullion

Not a word we romance writers are likely to use a lot - although you never know. It might be quite handy for that historical novel you have simmering on the back burner!

*Michael Quinion says:

"The word sounds vaguely unpleasant, a good example of form matching meaning, since Americans have for 150 years used it for a variety of things that are unpleasant to various degrees.

Dictionaries often say this was its first appearance in print:

'Then he poured for us a beverage which he called "Slum gullion," and it is hard to think he was not inspired when he named it. It really pretended to be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveler.'
[Roughing It, by Mark Twain, 1872.]

A slang dictionary two years later defined slumgullion as "any cheap, nasty, washy beverage".

Today it means a cheap stew made by throwing anything handy into a pot with water and boiling it, an improvised dish which has had many other names, such as Mulligan stew and Irish stew. Other senses include fish offal or the waste from processing whale carcasses (in Moby-Dick, published in 1851, Herman Melville called it "slobgollion").

We now know the word is a good deal older than the Mark Twain book. Many early examples refer to yet another old sense listed in the dictionaries, for the muddy waste left after washing gold ore in a mining sluice...

American dictionaries guess that it may be a combination of "slum", an old English term meaning slime (nothing to do with a squalid urban area, the word for which is an old bit of slang of unknown origin) plus "gullion", English dialect for mud or a cesspool. This is still known in Scots and is probably from the Irish goilín for a pit or pool. This certainly fits the mining context of early uses. "

So while 'slumgullion' may not be exactly the first word you're going to think of when writing a romance, it could certainly be used to add colour or character to a story, say set in a mining community in the 1870s. You know, the more one finds out about words like these, the more interesting they become and the more they lead you to think about them and explore possible ways of using them.

*Thanks to Michael Quinion of WORLD WIDE WORDS
World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2009. All rights reserved. The Words Web site is at http://www.worldwidewords.org

WORDS MONDAY

TODAY'S WORD IS:

PHANTASMAGORIA

Dictionary.com defines it as:

"an optical illusion produced by a magic lantern or the like in which figures increase or diminish in size, pass into each other, dissolve, etc"

Michael Quinion has this to say:

"In October 1801, a German showman named Paul Philipsthal placed an advertisement to publicise an event at the Lyceum Theatre in the Strand, London ...... a 'phantasmagoria or, Grand Cabinet of Optical and Mechanical Curiosities'...... Philipsthal's title for his show 'phanasmagoria' was a word he borrowed from "fantasmagorie", by then used for some 20 years in French-speaking Europe for similar exhibitions. This derived from "fantasme", a phantasm, plus possibly the Greek "agora", a place of assembly ...... The popularity of the visual spectacle was so great that the term soon became a generic one for this type of exhibition. It also entered the language in the modern metaphorical sense of a sequence of real or imaginary images like that seen in a dream."

A sketch of Paul Philipsthal's phantasmagoric apparatus is to be seen at
http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/pihq.htm

Next time you us the word 'phantasmagoria' in your Paranormal or perhaps in your Suspense story, you can spare a thought for Paul Pipsthal, who originated this rather weird and wonderful word!

*Thanks to Michael Quinion of WORLD WIDE WORDS
World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2009. All rights reserved. The Words Web site is at http://www.worldwidewords.org

BLOGGING AT THE ROMANCE STUDIO

I'm Guest blogger at The Romance Studio today.

Pop in and post your comments and feelings about research at
http://theromancestudio.blogspot.com/

WORDS MONDAY

THE AMPERSAND

We use this little character, often without thinking, but how much do we actually know about it and its usage? The main surviving use of the ampersand "&" is in the formal names of businesses (especially firms or partnerships).

When the ampersand forms part of a registered name (e.g. Smith & Jones), it should not be replaced with and. Conversely, I was taught at school that the ampersand should never replace 'and' in a narrative or essay, but these days it is becoming more and more commonly used in letters, and especially e-mails.

The ampersand is also often used when addressing an envelope to a couple: "Mr. & Mrs. Johnson" or "Mary& Peter". According to Wikipedia, it is used by the The Writers Guild of America to denote when two writers collaborated on a specific script rather than just rewriting another author's work. In screenplays, two authors joined with &, collaborated on the script, while two authors joined with and, worked on the script at different times and may not have had any contact with each other at all.

Michael Quinion, in 'World Wide Words' has this to say about it:

"This name for the character is surprisingly recent, not being known before the nineteenth century, though the character itself was in use long before printing was invented. It started life as a Roman scribe's abbreviation of the Latin "et", meaning "and", and became common in the early medieval period. It was later taken over as an abbreviation for the English word "and".

"Ampersand" is a contraction of "and per se, and". This sounds odd, but it's a continuation of a medieval convention in which Latin "per se", by or in itself, was often added to those letters that
could stand alone as words: A, I and O (as in "O for the wings of a dove"). "A per se, a", meant "a by itself makes the word a". Since it stood first in the recital of the alphabet, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it came to mean a pre-eminent person or thing: It was common enough that it was contracted to "apersey", meaning the first, unique, or most distinguished person or thing."
It was usual in the eighteenth century to have children end their recital of the letters of the alphabet with "&", because it was so common. "

*Thanks to Michael Quinion of WORLD WIDE WORDS
World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2009. All rights reserved. The Words Web site is at http://www.worldwidewords.org

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY PUBLISHER

It's my publisher's third Birthday today!

Happy Birthday to the Wild Rose Press.

I can still remember vividly that day in February 2007 when I returned from hospital after a fairly serious operation, to find an email waiting for me from Amy Herald, who was then the Senior Editor of The Faery Rose line, offering me a contract for 'Starquest'. This book is very dear to me and I couldn't have had a better 'get well soon' present. A couple of changes of editors and eventually the wonderful Laura Kelly took me under her wing. With her expert help and guidance 'Starquest' saw the light of day last summer, and will be followed by the sequel 'Children Of The Mist' in June this year. I was also thrilled and privileged to be one of the authors in the Faery Rose Series about the Greek Muses 'Song Of The Muses' with my story 'Dancing With Fate', also published last year, and had the pleasure of working with eight very talented fellow WRP authors, and the lovely Ami Russell, who worked so hard to edit the series. I also had the great pleasure of working with Susan Yates who edited my 'freeread' 'A Bargain With Death'. Thank you WRP press editors, you're all amazing.

I've been part of 'the garden' for over two years now and I'd like to add my thanks to the Birthday Congratulations to The Wild Rose Press, for helping me achieve my dream.

Back to the Party:



Join us May 1, 2009 for a day of fun blog posts and prizes every hour.

Stop by
www.BehindTheGardenGate.blogspot.com
all day May 1, 2009.

Beginning at 6 am ET and ending about 11pm ET, each hour will highlight the many lines we have at the Wild Rose Press. And every hour, a random winner will be drawn from those who post a comment.
The winners will receive their choice of book from that line.
At the end of the day, a grand prize winner will be drawn from all that post throughout the day.The grand prize winner will receive a gorgeous tote bag full of books, a t-shirt, coffee mug, gift certificates and whatever else we can stuff in a tote bag, or if the winner would rather, they can take a $30 gift certificate to the TWRP bookstore.(this can be any TWRP store, White Rose Publishing, the Wilder Rose or the main Wild Rose Press bookstore.)

www.BehindTheGardenGate.blogspot.com