When the Odds Are in Your Favor

Windows to the Imagination: What Reading Books Does for Me

When I read, for once the ticking clock is silent. With my head in a book, my anxiety about project due dates, and my peanut butter cookie craving, that itchy mosquito bite, and my sister calling me to come look at a hummingbird feeder all become background noise.

Books, good books, shows me life through different windows and dunk me in emotion. With their settings they take me places I may never go in real life. I see the glittering lights of fabulous parties, smell the stench on a crowded immigrant ship, feel cold Siberian snows on my bare feet—I bristle when my valet criticizes my fashion sense, and then I wonder how hilariously shallow I might be. When the enemy army begins to fire I wonder, weak-kneed, if I would run. Once I taste Turkish delight, I wonder what I am willing to do to eat another bite. I become the characters, the lovable ones, the hateable ones, and the in-between ones. Their experiences teach me of hardship and of comfort, of hate and of hope, of disillusionment and dreams, of lies and of selflessness. Reading shows me the me I am, the me’s that I could be, and the me’s I want to be. When I finally pull my head out of the water, dry my face, and come back to my own window with its old view, I have to stop wondering what I would do and choose which of those me’s will be.

I think this was the first year that the local shop, Chapel Books, had an essay contest. That meant there was a small pool of entries. That was good for me! I won out of maybe 4 other entries. In addition to a Oxford paperback classic of my choice, I received a $50 check, part of which I plan to use to book shop.

Happy writing!

The Wind and the Waves: Poetry

    New news becomes old news quickly, but if you remember, a couple weeks ago an earthquake and a tropical storm hit Hawaii.

                    

     A second storm, Julio, was predicted to hit my grandparents home on Oahu with devastating force. I started this poem while it was on its way, with the ending already deliberately written in my mind. "Diffraction" is on two pages but is meant to be read continuously.

The Sounds of Bornovian

"How can you tell how good bread is without tasting it? Not the smell, not the look, but the sound of the crust. Listen." --Colette, Pixar's Ratatouille.

Conlanging Post #2: Phonology

     Inventing a language. What comes first? Before fun stuff like calligraphy, syllabaries, alphabets, idioms, onomatopoetic words comes phonology. Language is, at its basic, sound. "Not the smell, not the look, but the sound..."
     When describing the phonology of a language, linguists use a set of symbols called The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is a mixture of the Roman and Greek alphabet, plus extra. Since sound is so foundational, I spent an afternoon last week poring listening to this Interactive IPA Chart and comparing English, Japanese, French, and Welsh phonology with the full range. Then I filled in my own charts.



    

     By the way, I can't keep referring to my language as "my language" or it will get really tiresome really fast.
     I've had a lot of different ideas: Krstovokjn, Davkaiym, Devkpsx, Sberyut. They're exotic-looking because they are the name of the language in the language itself. But names of languages often have history and meaning, so until I know a little bit more vocabulary, I will use the "common speech" (English) name, Boronovian.

     Lots of work still to do. Getting sleepy, good night!

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Warning: Language Under Construction

    As a result of summer research, I officially decided to invent a language. It'll help me in my world-building for the Wynna and Thibault storires as well and give me a better grip on linguistics. I'm excited and daunted at the same time. I'll be working on this on my own time until I actually enroll in my senior English capstone, where I'll do it for a grade and not just for pleasure. So here is the first post in a series of many that will mark my progress. Hopefully you'll be amused or informed and not utterly disgusted. Let me know if you have any tips.

     Constructed Language (Conlang) Post #1: The Workstation

Let me introduce my tools from left to right.

TOP ROW

J.R.R. Tolkien: a Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter: for inspiration. Tolkien was a genius linguist.

The Study of Language by George Yule: for reference, one of my old textbooks.

iPod: to look up the longest consonant cluster in Russian

Cat stickies: to make notes in a borrowed book

V8 juice: to give health to my bones while I sit in one place for long periods of time

IPA charts: to help me decide what sounds are the yummiest in the world so I can claim them

Cup: to keep hydrated

BOTTOM ROW

Sketchbook: to play with the shape of words

Languages of the World by Asya Perelstvaig: to keep my language from becoming English in disguise

     After reading through The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder and In the Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent this summer, conlanging was starting to look overwhelming. But my linguistics professor alleviated my fears by telling me that 1) I don't have to tackle it all at once, but bit by little bit and 2) I can always change anything I end up not liking or that doesn't work.

     So, here I go. My first assignment is to develop a sound system, syllable rules, and produce a list of 20 nouns and 20 verbs.

This is who is making scary shadows at the top of the other picture.

My Seal of Life: Poetry

     Everyday life can be surprisingly dangerous, but I have a defender. True story.

Click here for full-size image.

~Erika

Angel on the Square: Book Review

     Hello! During my nearly 2 month hiatus, summer came with heat, humidity, and striking sunsets.

Actually, the weather has been extraordinarily good for the most part. Other than one or two weeks in June, we have had tolerably warm days and pleasantly chilly nights.

    Looking back to my last post, I really enjoyed memo-ing in May. It was just soothing to sit quietly outside and reflect on the most significant bits of my day. I hope you tried it.

    Since it's summer--let's talk about reading! My latest read was Angel on the Square by Gloria Whelan. Took me a week to finish, because I always feel guilty sitting down with a book instead of whatever else I think I have to do, but it was worth the time!

Summary:  Katya is the daughter of the lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Russia, during the reign of Tsar Nikolai II. The story follows her life from naive childhood in 1913 to trial-changed adulthood in 1918. Used to the lavish life of an aristocratic family, she is forced to come to terms with the harsh existence of the peasants as Russia crumbles.

Why I liked it: This is a much examined period in history, looked at in this book from a child's perspective. The smattering of Russian throughout struck my linguist heart. The imagery in the story brings it full circle. Ms. Whelan's words are artistry, and although she uses conspicuous metaphors and old idioms, somehow the language is not contrived; it is new and alive. I marked up my garage sale copy (in pencil!). Now I can go back to turns of phrase I liked and re-enjoy, share, and hopefully reproduce them. 

A couple favorites:

"The winter would not stop. In the Summer Garden the statues were hidden under a blanket of white" (p186, HarperCollins edition).

"Beyond that, time was an endless ocean I could not see across" (p272).


    If you're interested in the inspiration behind the book, I found a good author interview: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1342&context=lajm

May Memo Madness

    I'm alive! I survived finals week. Dare I say I'm thankful for this past week and a half of craziness because of how nice it feels now to have time? Time? What is that?
    The weekend was busy, too, but in a good way. Yesterday, I enjoyed what I only dreamed of having while I was working fast-food: a quiet Sunday evening. Even though the sun beat down during the day, once it went down it was cool and breezy, and the trees made lofty green rustling sounds. I sat on the deck rail while the guinea pigs puttered around and ate snacks, and I did my new journal challenge. I'm calling it May Memo Madness, and it starts officially today, Monday the 12th. Every day in May I am supposed to write an entry of 50 words (no more, no less), while sitting outside, writing in pencil, about anything signature from that day.
 

      This will be a good, quick way of recording memories. And it'll be a doable daily writing that will help me with word economy.

      Hop on, if you like. Happy Monday.

Happy Dickinson

     As far as personal life goes, writers don't have a very good reputation. The ones whose names everyone recognizes had preoccupations with the morbid, were depressed and alcoholic, had relationship problems, and died young. Emily Dickinson wasn't quite 56 when she died. She wrote a lot about death, although sometimes light-heartedly ("Because I could not stop for Death" --Death personified as a footman; "I died for Beauty-but was scarce" two dead people talking in their tombs about why they died).
      For my final essay in American Lit I, I think I'll write an analysis of a few of her darker-themed works. Maybe it will give me an idea why the best are so doomy. But before I dive into the gloom, I want to share a Happy Dickinson poem (if I'm not misreading it...which is quite possible).
      "I taste a liquor never brewed" celebrates nature--a nice theme, considering it's finally spring!
[Click to listen]

I taste a liquor never brewed --
From Tankards scooped in Pearl --
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of Air -- am I --
And Debauchee of Dew --
Reeling -- thro endless summer days --
From inns of Molten Blue --

When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door --
When Butterflies -- renounce their "drams" --
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats --
And Saints -- to windows run --
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the -- Sun --

King Lear: Family Reunion

Free photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

     Madness, family discord, reconciliation. They're familiar themes. One of my favorite parts of King Lear is at the end Act IV Scene 7 when the king reunites with his banished daughter Cordelia, after being betrayed by his other daughters and romping around the countryside losing his mind. It must be really emotional played out on stage. Here are lines 65-76, 83-85):

LEAR Methinks I should know you, and know this man;

Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is; and all the skill I have

Remembers not these garments; nor I know not

Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;

For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

CORDELIA                    And so I am, I am.

LEAR Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not.

If you have poison for me, I will drink it.

I know you do not love me; for your sisters

Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.

You have some cause, they have not.

CORDELIA                                       No cause, no cause.

...

CORDELIA Will't please your highness walk?

LEAR                                                                You must bear with me;

Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish.

        This is the kind of family dynamic I want between King Durim and Princess Lili. I have a huge plot revision in mind for that story, but I have hardly touched it since my revisions a few months ago. I'm a bit nervous, so I've been putting it off. I know, that's bad. I keep on telling myself sternly that there's not enough time in the world to waste being afraid of messing up, but myself doesn't always listen.

Enemy Friend

       I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and I'd like to file a complain about cheesy dialogue ("Can any of you boys direct me to the Smithsonian? I'm here to pick up a fossil" --Agent Romanov). But that is a subject for another post.

       What I want to say is that I love books and movies that make me cry.

        Near the end, Rogers (Captain America) has a faceoff with the enemy, a hired assassin with a mechanical arm. He is known as the Winter Soldier, but more importantly he is Roger's best friend from the war, only brainwashed and transformed into a cold-blooded killer.
          In this scene, Rogers throws away his shield. "I won't fight you," he says to the Soldier, who just put two bullet holes in his body. "You're my friend."

        "You're my mission!" the Soldier replies.

         "Then finish it."

         The Soldier attacks. He lays punch after punch, but Rogers doesn't fight back. Bruised, cut, bleeding, broken, and with one eye swollen, Rogers says, "Cause I'm with you till the end of the line."

       

I don't know about you, but it reminded me of someone else who called his enemy friend and took all the punches.

Most Loved, Despised

Free photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

         We're up to Shakespeare in our British literature class. This is my first time reading King Lear, unless I read a children's version before. The two plays we read before now are Everyman and Dr. Faustus, and I like King Lear much better. The plot-line is more realistic, the interaction of the characters more dynamic, and the fact that they have names like Oswald and Regan etc. and not Gluttony or Good Deeds makes it feel a lot more modern. My favorite bit so far is the King of France's proposal speech to King Lear's daughter, Cordelia. Actually, it's more like an acceptance speech, or a savior's speech, because just before this King Lear disowns Cordelia and revokes both his blessing and the dowry (which was supposed to be one-third of his kingdom). Cordelia also has just been rejected by the Duke of Burgundy.

Here are birdy sounds for you to listen to as you read.

"Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;

Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!

Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:

Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.

Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect

My love should kindle to inflamed respect.

Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance,

Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.

Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy

Can buy this unprized precious maid of me.

Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind;

Thou losest here, a better where to find."

--King Lear, Act 1 Scene 1

Word of the Day

       According to the Oxford English Dictionary, quiddity means "the inherent nature or essence of a person or thing; what makes a thing what it is." Example sentence: Chivalry is the quiddity of knighthood.

free photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

         My Brit Lit professor required us to write a midterm essay over any medieval work from our reading list. I picked  "Le Roman de Tristran," Thomas of England's rendition of the story of Tristan and Isolde who are two ill-fated lovers in the days of King Arthur.  I figured that studying the chivalry and medieval hero aspect of it, as well as identity and the characterization of good and bad qualities, would be useful for writing Wynna.


If you're interested, here are excerpts from my paper: “The Code: Chivalry and Identity in Le Roman de Tristran” 

Small But Mighty: Book Review

     This is a blog about writing, not photography, so please don't notice the bad lighting or the tchotchke (definition of tchotchke here) surroundings. Please do notice the title of the book and the sticker on the cover: The Reading Promise. BARGAIN  BOOK $4.99. Actually, it was even more of a bargain, but I peeled off the big, red $1.00 sticker.

      The Reading Promise is by Alice Ozma. It is her autobiography and centers around the 1,000-night reading pact she made with her father, which ended up lasting 3,218 nights. He read to her every night for 9 years, from the time she was nine to the day she went off to college at eighteen. That kind of commitment puts a shadow over things I've neglected, like writing, and blog posting!
      Midterms and spring break kept me from posting the past two weeks, and I think that's understandable. But what made it easy was that sometimes I feel like my words fall into a cyberspace black hole. Today, though, I was reminded that people do take time out of their hectic schedules to pop in here at The Well.

     Whether you have read every post since I started or just the posts that grabbed your attention or you only look at the pictures or have only read the title of one post you are a Well-Wisher, and you give me power to write.

Thank you for visiting!

Free photo courtesy of Free Digital Photos.net

     Now, on to the book. Instead of the usual 5-star rating, pros and cons review, I am giving you my 4 favorite lines. I actually underlined them and dog-eared the pages, so I could go back to them. My before self would be horrified, but that's another story.

Which Jane?

    

The falling sleet and occasional thunder made for a good reading day (click here to share the experience). 

           Earlier today I read about Lady Jane Grey, the "nine days queen" who ascended the English throne at sixteen. It was the first sort of autobiographical literature this semester that really fascinated me! From her biographies and personal letters I gathered that, she...


...was well-educated 
"I found her in her chamber reading Phaedon Platonis in Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentleman would read a merry tale in Boccaccio." --excerpt from Roger Ascham's Schoolmaster
...was bold
In a letter rebuking her former tutor for renouncing his faith, "Why dost thou now show thyself most weak, when indeed thou oughtest to be most strong? The strength of a fort is unknown before the assault: but thou yieldest thy hold before any battery be made. O wretched and unhappy man, what art thou, but dust and ashes? and wilt thou resist thy maker that fashioned and framed thee?"
...cared about her family

Sheepish Writer

    When I say I'm majoring in English, 90% of people ask me, "Oh, so you want to teach?" And I always feel sheepish when I tell people, "No, I want to be a writer."

     Maybe I feel sheepish because I write more about writing than anything. Or maybe because I halfway don't believe my ultimate dream will ever come true, because it would be too good to be true. Living above my bakery-bookstore in a quiet English town or a noisy American city, scribbling poems in a dog-eared notebook at a coffeeshop, recording music in a studio, owning a tabby cat, being indebted to my editor, posting audio chapters of Wynna on my website, and sending friends and acquaintances autographed copies of my book would be too good to be true.

      Maybe this isn't a feeling of sheepishness but of selfishness.

     How do I spread hope with poems about my emotions and stir hearts with stories about dragons and princesses? And do hope and heart-stirring mean as much to me as all the rest?

In a Chocolate Shop in Switzerland

          Daydreaming doesn't have to take place during the day. It can just as well happen at night. And although dreaming requires that you be asleep, you have to be awake to daydream. The funny things we talk about in linguistics.         

The cold spell broke and Pudding enjoyed snack-time outside!

             Yesterday the lazy writer was daydreaming (instead of reading the paragraph on the page in her textbook about international marketing) about owning a chocolate shop in the shadow of the Alps, in Switzerland. In her daydream, a group of cyclist friends met in the chocolate shop after a race. One of them was gray-haired and rather old, but several of them were young. The lazy writer wondered to herself (with her eyes intently staring at the same paragraph) whether Manny the mammoth on Ice Age speaks the truth and, "Guys don't talk to guys about guy problems. They just... punch each other on the shoulder." The lazy writer watched the young men at the chocolate shop to see what they would do. They began...to talk. About guy problems. The lazy writer jumped up from her chair and plugged in her computer, resolved to record her daydream instead of (a) waiting for a better idea or (b)  waiting until she finished her homework. In other words, she decided not to be lazy and just to write.

Sweet Mint: Bradstreet

         Dorinth and Boronovia are still frozen in time, a bit like the backyard (we haven't had so many snows or such sustained cold weather since I can remember!), and after my grand declaration that I would be posting ever-after on Saturdays, I already missed the first one!  I could rename this blog Confessions of a Lazy Writer.

        As a sort of an excuse, I spent most of yesterday at 2 different shooting ranges helping my dad gather research data. 

❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃

     I have been trying to really soak in the good stuff from my assigned readings, to help my writing when I do actually get to it. One American author I quite like is Anne Bradstreet. She was the devoted Puritan wife of a prominent colonial politician and the mother of their eight children. Her writing is from the same period as the explorer narratives of men like John Smith and William Bradford. After listening to my classmates rip them apart for their hypocrisy and shameful treatment of the Native Americans (I plead the fifth as to my political/moral opinion in this discussion), Bradstreet's poetry was sweet mint to my ears. "To My Dear and Loving Husband" is in some ways rather generic, but her deep sincerity of feeling struck me.

     Click here to hear it read aloud (by me! I'm trying something new).

     Those of you who enjoy hearing poetry read aloud, try the If Poems app (available for purchase on iTunes). I got it for Christmas, and it's a little bit cumbersome to scroll through and find the poem I want, but it's worth it to have Tom Hiddleston read me poetry while I make my hair &c! ♥ 

New New New

     When we heard the campus bookstore was selling 501 French Verbs for a dollar, my English major friend (and fellow fashion blogger at rubyslippersfash.wordpress.com) and I zipped over to buy a copy.

     I ended up with a few more books than I intended to, but all six of them (brand new!) plus a wall calendar cost me less than $8. That's thriftiness right there.
      The Sense of an Ending, right in the middle of my pile, I've been wanting to read for a while now. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy--you might have seen the movie version in the theater. It sounds intriguing. Those Lovable Pets I plan to wrap up and send to my retired high school librarian, and squirrel seeks chipmunk I only hurriedly flipped through before I snatched it up, mostly because of the cute size and cute cover. I hope it's good.

     Flip-through, snatch-up. That sums up my flurry of a past two weeks. I have sacrificed a bit of sleep to get back into reading in the midst of everything. In the realm of Christian literature I'm working on Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton. His style reminds me of C.S. Lewis, from his hard-to-wrap-your-head-around intellectualism to his dry, punny humor.
     Also on my bookshelf are "Sir Orfeo" (Brit Lit) and John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity" (American Lit), and in my suppertime reading, I've journeyed as far as the Old Forest with Frodo & Co.

     I've had little time...I've made little time for writing, as I adjust to scheduling around a new weekday job. New. New job, new month, and really just the beginning of this new year (still crossing out 2013?). Time for a new post day. Welcome to Saturday afternoons at The Well!

     

Branching out Into Boronovia

     This semester, I think I'm going to be reading my eyeballs out over British, American, and Irish Women's literature, plus the reading for my marketing class. In Brit Lit we're starting out in medieval England with "Caedmon's Hymn" and "The Dream of the Rood."
    For my own pleasure I'm reading 1,000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp and re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring. Although, I suppose all the reading I'm doing should be pleasurable--I don't know what it is about being assigned reading that takes away the enjoyment.

Lurith

     Recently I'm writing a short story (and a bit of history) on the country of Boronovia, which covers almost the entire eastern coast of Lurith. The people are concentrated in the northern middle because of active volcanoes in the south and vicious Ice Bears in the North.        
Logline: In a land of bitter winters, boot-making Piyar...

Traditional msiri Recipe

Ingredients
milk
honey
cinnamon
ginger

Directions
1. Fill a tea or coffee mug with milk and microwave until hot (1 min 35 seconds in my microwave)
2. Add a spoonful of honey and the spices
3. Stir and enjoy

The spices don't mix very well, as you can see.

      With the snow and freezing rain forecasted for tonight, I'm sure we could all use a warm beverage, and msiri is simple enough that "anyone with the use of their limbs…" (quote Mrs. Patmore) could make it.  But the real reason I posted the recipe was in case anyone wants to try a Dorinthian drink! It's what King Durim, Princess Lili, and Wynna have while they talk in the palace gardens, partway through the tale.

     
       My most quotable English professor started eating onion sandwiches because of Ernest Hemingway's character Nick, in Big Two-Hearted River. Yesterday, my brother ate a macaroni-cheese and ketchup sandwich to test out Slim's (Hank the Cowdog, John R. Erickson) idea. I'm sure msiri is much tastier than either sandwich, but it just goes to show that stories inspire people.

Share your book recipes in the comments below!

Two-Way Street

     M y mild-mannered English professor often says, "It's a two-way street," and whatever it is, I think he's right. As we look ahead to the new year, I think it's also good to take a look behind.

    I have mostly let Wynna: Dragon Rider sit and hibernate for the month of December, which right now is quite a hodgepodge of snippets in semi-chronological order. Today I started my new project of going back through what I've written and making an outline of events. As I go, I highlight things to help with continuity. For example, at one point Filip refers to people who speak dragon language as dragon warblers. I marked that, because if that's common in everyday Dorinthian conversation, I will probably need to use that again.

     It's nice to see even a holey first draft with fresh eyes. I'm excited--when I finish marking it up and filling in some major plot holes, I'll be ready to continue with Wynna on her journey to Disaster #3 and its resolution, i.e. The End.

What do you see behind that helps you move ahead?