I'm already finding more words I don't know in Steinbeck's book:
augury: The art, ability, or practice of auguring; divination.
"When, after one of her mystic recitations, the scissors were not discovered under the second board of the shed floor, they pretended to find them there anyway; for, had she lost the robe of augury, there would have remained only a little wrinkled old woman soon to die."
What a great way to show, don't tell... one sentence... seemingly off-topic from the main theme of the novel... is there to show this woman was loved by her family.
In the very next sentence:
claque: A group of persons hired to applaud at a performance, or a group of fawning admirers.
"This play of claque to a simpleton was a harsh tax on the convictions of Mother Morgan."
I've decided to keep a list of words I'm learning through my summer reading. I just read the first page of Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck. Its his first novel, and one I've never read - and that's amazing because I've read a lot of Steinbeck. I found it in our little public library (I live in a very small town and we're lucky to have one).
The new (new to me anyhow) word is:
nuncio: A papal ambassador or representative.
No wonder I don't know the word... I'm not Catholic!
Here's how Steinbeck used the word:
"Night drew down like a black cowl, and Holy Winter sent his nuncio to Wales."
I've finally started a new writing project - its a series of daily meditations for homemakers. I've been writing one each morning just after I do my journaling. So far I'm consistent and very pleased with the manuscripts. Now I just have to keep it up for a year. :)
I've found that consistency is difficult for me, but its the only thing that gets things done. For example, my writing needs consistent effort to produce a large manuscript. My dieting takes consistent effort - so does my homemaking. I've had so much dieting and homemaking on my mind lately, its only natural I'd want to write something on one of those topics. I've lost 14 pounds so far, by the way - in about 1+1/2 months of dieting.
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Saturday, July 19, 2003 ( 11:38 AM )
If I read enough books... will I be more inspired to write my own?
I believe I will be. After all, it was reading middle grade novels to my children that made me want to write them in the first place.
The last few months I've been working more on my webdesign business and less on writing... and I seek a better balance so I can continue to do both. At this point I'm taking time to work on a novel revision - trying for every day - but haven't written anything new in weeks.
I just listened to this book, on tape. It was a great recording but since the reader has a heavy English accent (very appropriate for the book) I had a hard time adjusting to it and missed some of the words. I'd like to read it again, in print.
Its a diary account of a young British woman who doesn't want to enter an arranged marriage. I liked the way her plight was compared to the lives of her caged birds.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2003 ( 6:24 PM )
I cannot believe how fast I got through this book!
Usually I'm a slow, slow reader... but this book held my attention from page three to the end. I couldn't put it down at times.
Its about a young man who wandered away from home at age 11 to follow his uncle into the wilderness. After a bear attack he was discovered and nursed to health by Crow natives. When the story starts, he's 19 already and more Crow than white. The book traces his attempts to reconcile his white background with the Crow training of his teenage years.
This is the first book I've read by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, but hopefully I'll be reading more of her work in the future. I loved her detailed scenes. Already I see this book having an influence on how I'm revising my novel.
Its all about being consistent, isn't it? I want to keep working on my novel revisions, but sometimes fear gets in my way. I wonder what will happen to these manuscripts. Once I send them to a publisher, the moment of truth will come. Either they'll be discovered and loved, or rejected time and time again. What does the future hold?
So long as I procrastinate on the revisions, I'll never have to find out. But is that what I really want? It surely seems by the way I've held off on getting the work done for months now.. maybe I do want to fail. The greatest failure, of course, is to do nothing. But a grain of hope lives inside me, pressing me onward with this work, forcing me to perservere. So again I take up the revision and make some progress, knowing this is the only way it will ever get done.
I just finished reading this book. It was short and sweet - more proof it doesn't take a lot of words to make a big impact in the world of children's literature. Its about a girl who finds a dog and names him Winn-Dixie. Because of him she meets a lot of new friends, each one with something to share with her about how the world works. I thought I'd have a hard time reading the book because the town they live in is Naomi, Florida, and I thought it would remind me of my own long lost daughter, Naomi... especially since a sub-theme of the book is separation between a daughter and her mother. However it didn't bother me at all. The idea of the child's mother (in the book) leaving her mystified me (I can't understand a mother wanting to do that) but the woman was supposedly an alcoholic so maybe its plausible.
