IWSG, Origins, Weird Words, Quotes, Being Thankful

Posting the First Wednesday of every month, the Insecure Writer's Support Group, is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. YOU can sign up HERE to participate.

Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.

Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts:    Joylene Nowell Butler, Olga Godim, Diedre Knight, and Natalie Aguirre!

This month's question is: Do you follow back your readers on BookBub or do you only follow back other authors? I am not a member of BookBub. I've heard of it, I've looked at the site, but to be honest, I don't buy many new books. I go to the library for new stuff. I don't know about anyone else but going to a site like BookBub is, for me, overwhelming. 

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So last year (already?) I chose interesting words to delve into. This year I'm going to explore interesting phrases and weird words.  I'm also going to go through my extensive collections of quotes and end each post with something pithy, humorous and/or mind-bending. Clever me. So original....

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Origins: a recurring post in which I delve into the history of a word or phrase.

Today's phrase is: Up to snuff 

After three years of being careful and getting all our vaccines, hubby and I finally got one of the many COVID variants. Nice gift at the end of the year... We now call ourselves, Disease and Pestilence.  Anyway, I wasn't feeling up to snuff which made me wonder where the heck THAT phrase came from. I only knew it had something to do with snuff.

All sources agree it does indeed have to do with the sniffing of snuff, a tobacco product, which gave a certain quality of sharpness or energy to the user. So a person described as being "up to snuff" was someone who was alert, clever, and not easily fooled. So, someone NOT up to snuff, was the opposite.

The first written use comes from a play by John Poole written in 1810. It's called Hamlet Travestie: In Three Acts a humorous spoof of Shakespeare's famous play. Poole was apparently quite popular in his day.

Today's Weird Word is: Discombobulate
We all know that it means to be in a state of confusion, or disorder. But where did it come from? In that imaginative time between say 1830 and 1890, there was a fad going around to create fanciful mock-Latin words. Discombobulate is one of these and appears to be the only one that has survived. Others include: Absquatulate, to run away or make off with. Confusticate, to confound. Panjandrum, meaning a "pompous person of power and pretension." Love that alliteration! I like all of these mock-Latin words, particularly confusticate. 

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I only manage to read 22 books of my 30 book Goodreads goal. But that's ok. It's always interesting to look back and be surprised by the variety and eclectic nature of my reading.

Harbor Me - Jacqueline Woodson

The Beatryce Prophecy - Kate DiCamillo

Shout - Laurie Halse Anderson

Squeeze Me - Carl Hiaasen

Once Upon a River - Diane Setterfield - I LOVED it even though it took me three months to read!

Melissa - Alex Gino

The War That Saved My Life - Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Fish in a Tree - Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan

Queen Hildegarde - Laura Elizabeth Richards

This Book is Gay - Juno Dawson

Wait for Signs - Craig Johnson

Garvey's Choice - Nikki Grimes

A Long Walk to Water - Linda Sue Park

Bellevue - David M. Oshinsky - A interesting history of the famous hospital in NYC

See You on a Starry Night - Lisa Schroeder

The Children's Blizzard - Melanie Benjamin

Harriet Tubman - Kathleen V. Kudlinski

Hell and Back - Craig Johnson

The Ranch that was Us - Becky Crouch Patterson - a family memoir about a huge ranch not far from                 where I live in the Texas Hill Country

Femina - Janina Ramirez - A account of relatively unknown mediaeval women who did amazing things

How to Meditate - Pema Chodron - A very nice book with which to end the year

2024's list begins with three books I'm currently reading

Rattlesnake - C. Lee McKenzie - a great ghost story!

The Women's West - Susan H. Armitage - A compilation of articles and stories about the lives of real                  women who were pioneers of the American West

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Quotes of the Month

"This planet is not Terra Firma, it is a delicate flower and it much be cared for." Astronaut Scott Carpenter

"I'd like to read a book...I've never read a book before. I understand they have pages and everything." Frank Oz

"Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things." Frank A. Clark

Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful hubby and I didn't get any sicker than we did. The medication we got certainly stopped it from galloping into our lungs and we are definitely thankful for that.

Happy New Year!

Are you a BookBub user? Have you read any of the books on my list? What do you think of those faux-Latin words? Got a favorite? Do you think we should make up some new ones? I'll start. Incompuhensive: The state of being almost understandable, but not quite, so that it drives one slightly crazy.

IWSG, Books-Books and MORE Books, Being Thankful

Posting the First Wednesday of every month, the Insecure Writer's Support Group, is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. YOU can sign up HERE to participate.

Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.

Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts:   Ronel Janse van Vuuren , J Lenni Dorner, Gwen Gardner Sandra Cox, and Louise - Fundy Blue!

This month's question is: Being a writer, when you're reading someone else's work, what stops you from finishing a book/throws you out of the story/frustrates you the most about other people's books?

What prevents me from finishing a book is bad writing, poor editing, over-used tropes/archetypes, and maybe predictability and pretentiousness. If the simplest or most complicated story is well written and can take me away (like a Calgon bath) then I'm all in. 

HAPPY 2021!

and

Happy Three Kings Day!

(AKA The Twelfth Day of Christmas)

The Adoration of the Magi by El Greco

May we be the instruments of peace.

It is the 17th day of the Age of Aquarius. 

It never occurred to me when I saw Hair in San Francisco in 1970 and the cast sang, "It is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius" that I was actually going to be around to witness it.

What a long strange trip it's been.

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I didn't post last month because I got locked out of my Google account and couldn't sign-in to my blog. FOUR times I tried and kept getting redirected to the Account Recovery page. Four times I had to wait five days to get recovery verifications. Four times I was redirected to the same page and had to start all over again. It was like being on a mobius strip trip, an endless loop that never went to a new place where I could change my password. But FINALLY, on December 30th, on the fifth try, I ran across one suggestion I hadn't seen before which said to try signing in on a different device. Well, I only recently got my first smart phone. I took a deep breath and by God it worked!

I got pretty stagnate this past year. Didn't do a lick of writing except for my blog. Did a little yard work, but it's been so very dry here (barely 4 inches of rain since June) that there hasn't been much of point. We had a horrible hail storm in May that took out two trees one of which landed on our roof. It's the worst storm I've seen in my 40 years of living here and we're still waiting for repairs to happen. I could go on, but I won't, because I'm absolutely sure of two thing, EVERYone has tales of woe and going on about it won't do a thing to help or change it, but instead will more than likely only make it worse. SO, instead, here's a list of books I read during the confusing, anxious, trying times that were 2020. 

A Singular Hostage - Thalassa Ali

News of the Spirit - Lee Smith

The Last Kind Words Saloon - Larry McMurtry

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

Companions of Paradise - Thalassa Ali

American Dirt - Jeanie Cumming

The Time Keeper - Mitch Albom

Dance Hall of the Dead - Tony Hillerman

Borderlands - James Carlos Blake

Finding Emilie - Laurel Corona

Vintage St. John - Valerie Sims 

Dragon Song - Anne McCaffrey

Dragon Singer - Anne McCaffrey

Bitter Trail - Elmer Kelton

Sacred Clowns - Tony Hillerman

Voyagers: The Third Ghost - IWSG

The Book of the Dun Cow - Walter Wangerin (a reread)

Black Elk Speaks - Black Elk

The Book of Merlin - T. H. White (a reread)

The Moon Stone - Wilke Collins

Start Where You Are - Pema Chodron

All the Way to Memphis - Suzanne Hudson

The Eye of Zeitoon - Talbot Mundy

The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson - Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez (Wow!)

Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley

Olaf the Glorious - Robert Heighton

The Way to Timbuktu - Pat Ryan

The First Eagle - Tony Hillerman

Luck Star and the Pirates of the Asteroids - Isaac Asimov

Kenny and the Dragon - Tony DiTerlizzi

A Thousand Questions - Saadia Feruqui

The Girl Who Sailed the Stars - Matilda Woods

Squirm - Carl Hiaasen

Wishtree - Katherine Applegate

Forever Free - Joe Halderman

City of Islands - Kali Wallace

A Step Away from Paradise - Thomas Shor

The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry

The Jumbies - Tracey Baptiste

Driving Blind - Ray Bradbury

Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful that 2020 is now hindsight. 

I know 2021 won't be easy, but at least I'm hopeful.

What are you thankful for? Did you do much reading in 2020? Did you start a book and not finish it? What are your hopes for 2021?

IWSG and a Few Other Things

Posting first Wednesday of every month YOU can sign up HERE to find out more about the purpose of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh.

Let's give our co-hosts  a warm welcome!
 L.G. Keltner, Denise Covey, Sheri Larsen, J.Q. Rose, Chemist Ken, and Michelle Wallace! 

Man spreading. :)

In an effort to keep these posts short I will be sharing a quote. Today's quote is from:

Sherlock Homles whose birthday is today, born in 1854

“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.”

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Today is also Pepe Le Pew's birthday, born in 1945. Happy Birthday to you both, who have made our world a more interesting place.

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This is also Three Kings Day, The Epiphany, The Twelfth Day of Christmas, The Adoration of Magi. In Puerto Rico Three Kings Day is still celebrated. As a child my mother and her brothers put straw and water under their beds for the camels and when they woke in the morning found... presents! I still think this is the day we should be opening our gifts as it is the day Christ received his. 

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Lastly...

I thought this would also be a good day to review the rather eclectic list of books I read last year

1.               A Chain of Evidence by Carolyn Wells

2.               The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

3.               Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

4.               The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg

5.               The Magic City by E. Nebit

6.               Mysterious Traveler by Mall Peet

7.               Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse

8.               Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

9.               Woven by Michael Jensen

10.            The Great Time Lock Disaster by C. Lee McKenzie

11.            The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata

12.            Death Comes for the Archbiship by Willa Cather

13.            The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

14.            Connecting the Dots by Sharon Jennings

15.            The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey

16.            Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Garner

17.            Once Upon a More Enlightened Time by James Garner

18.            In Darkness by Nick Lake

19.            Esperanza Rising by Pan Munoz Ryan

20.            Coraline by Neil Gaiman

21.            Replay by Sharon Creech

22.            The Wonder Clock or, Four and Twenty Marvelous Tales by Howard Pyle

23.            Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chodron

24.            Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan

25.            Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen

26.            Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective by The XIV Dalai Lama

27.            Inner Revolution by Robert A. F. Thurman

28.            Natural Radiance by Lama Surya Das

29.            The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

30.            Shambhala by Chogyam Trungpa

31.            Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das

32.            The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow by Jessica Haight

33.            Hot Pink in the City by Medeia Sharif

34.            After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield

35.            Questions from the City, Answers from the Forest by Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu

36.            The Dhammapada by Eknath Easwaran

37.            A Work of Art by Melody Maysonet

38.            The Wisdom of Imperfection by Rob Preece

39.            The Heart Attack Sutra by Karl Brunnholzl

40.            The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett (currently reading.)

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What's your favorite Sherlock story? What do you think of the quote? Are you a Pepe Le Pew Fan? What do you think about opening presents on the 6th of January instead of December 25th (extra shopping days!) Did you read any good books in 2015? Do share!

2014 - Year in Review

The month of January I am the Author of the Month on Carol Kilgore's web page. I'll be giving away books. Come check it out!

I'm terrible about New Year's resolutions. I don't make them because I don't keep them. Instead, I'm going to touch on the more memorable moments of 2014.

January: Although technically it came out on December 30th of 2013, I'm going to say that Anansi and Company made a it's debut in January.

February and March were mostly about Anansi.

April: The A to Z Challenge was all about Anansi and though I had a really nice time, for some reason it took it's toll on me and I'm still not sure if I'm going to do the challenge this year. (Although I do have a tentative theme, just in case.)

Took May, June and July off to recover and work on my next book, A Lizard's Tail.

August: Introduced Marvin, lizard hero extraordinaire.

September: Went to the Netherlands!
A week or so after I was in the hospital for a few days.


October: A Lizard's Tail was published and Marvin finally met the world.

November: Was in the hospital for a couple of days... Began work on my grandmother's cookbook.

December: All quiet on the Western Front.

So, despite some health issues, I didn't do too badly.


Another way to look back on the year is to revisit what I read. Only got 39 books finished in 2014, mostly because several of them were quite long and I'm a slow reader...  Some books just take longer than others.

It's interesting to note that I began and ended the year with books about abused and neglected kids, both by blog friends. I like the mix of fiction/non-fiction, adult/juvenile.

1. Christine's Odyssey by J. L. Campbell
2. Gilded by Christina Farley
3. To Be a Slave by Julius Lester
4. Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. by Medeia Sharif
5. Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
6. Open Minds by Susan Quinn
7. The Quintessence of Absence by Sean McLachlan
8. Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
9. Parched by Melanie Crowder
10. Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo
11. Going Over by Beth Kephart
12. Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere by Julie T. Lamana
13. Double Vision by F. T. Bradley
14. The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany
15. Blackbird by Melanie Schulz
16. Snip, Snip Revenge by Medeia Shrif
17. The King's Swift Rider by Mollie Hunter
18. Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell
19. Polish Your Fiction by Jessica Bell
20. A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo
21. Doll Bones by Holly Black
22. Paperboy by Vince Vawter
23. One Came Home by Amy Timberlake
24. The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes
25. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
26. Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea by Thomas Cahill
27. Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin
28. Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
29. Bones of the Master by George Crane
30. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
31.  Rock 'n' Roll Princesses Wear Black by Kelly Polark
32. Bloomability by Sharon Creech
33. Lords of Trillium by Hilary Wagner
34. Zompoemz by Catherine Johnson
35. The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
36. The Girl with the White Flag by Tomiko Higa
37. A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond
38. A Language Older than Words by Derrick Jensen
39. Vitamins and Death by Medeia Sharif

What were your high points of 2014? Do you feel you accomplished what you wanted? Did you read a memorable book?