Writing Quotation

If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. 

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.

Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

                                                                                      -- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

#WordWednesday

Yea, Yay or Yeah?

Yea sounds like Yay and is the opposite of Nay. It is also used for an approximate measure expressed with a gesture, such as, "My child is yea tall." (The speaker holds her hand at whatever height matches the child's height.)

Yay means the same as Hurray!

Yeah starts out sounding like Yes and means the same thing...informally.

#WordWednesday

Here are two more regionalisms:

1) heavier than a dead preacher

2) She didn't just lick that up off the ground. (She has inherited the trait being referred to.)

Writing Quotation

Fiction is the lie that helps us tell the truth. -- Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried  and other short stories and novels

I am currently writing my first novel because I wanted, as an ally, to help shine light on a dark time in our history. I am using the "lie" of fiction to help me do that, to reveal some truths, to help us feel the terrible power of the actual lies that made Indian residential schools the atrocity they were.

The "lie" of fiction can also bring love and hope through characters who refuse to back down, learn not to give in. We readers find new strength, determination and other good things by reading about fictional lives. If the fiction is written well we wish we could actually meet those characters who have come alive on the page.

Those of us who write stories find ourselves wishing we had been clever enough or whatever-enough to have written the wonderful story...and then we're just glad that someone else was whatever-enough so that we could have the joy of reading it.

Writing Quotations

Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.

-- Neil Gaiman

#WordWednesday

Many families hang onto words that originally came from their kids' adorable early speech. Some are simply too cute to let go of, and they remind us of sweet or funny times.

A few from our family (most names withheld to protect the unconsulted from endless teasing on social media): huckoo-huckoo, which is a helicopter; Herperman which means Superman; ny-nocks for lilacs and a very excited "Koo-dah, Nana! Koo-dah!" That's "school bus" in little Davin-speak.

What are some of the unique expressions in your family? Even if they don't float around anymore, you might enjoy resurrecting some just for the delight factor.