Friday 27 July 2012

My face hurts.


Another slight delay this week.  I’ve been a bit ill, and managed to burst the blood vessels in my face from being sick.  Gross I know.  The result is I have a lovely mottled effect that feels like a (very sore) bruise extending from my eyes to my chin.  I’m back to typing today, so things should get back on track.  I know you’ve probably all been holding your breath for the story collection, but I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you waiting a little longer! 

In other news, if you are in the London area, be sure to go along to get your copy of Queen of the World signed by Ben Hennessy!  I’m unfortunately not going to make it due to being on another land mass, however I’m eagerly awaiting my copy of the paperback, which should be arriving this week.      

And finally, a little inspiration!  Last weekend I went over to Scotland, here are some of the shots from that trip!














All photographs copyright © Sarah Cosgrove 2012

Friday 13 July 2012

Local words


The point of language is to communicate an idea.  I’ve always found it interesting that the same creature came up with different sounds for different things, even to the extent that some humans can’t make the sounds that other humans do.  (For example, some languages have trouble with “th” in English.  And no one but the Danes can manage “Rødgrød med fløde”)
Why did one set of people agree that a tree is called a “tree”, but another that it’s an “arbre”?

But then to complicate things even more, there are words that only exist in local regions within languages.  One of the biggest debates between people in the UK is what this is called:

Recipe and credit to: http://www.localfoodheroes.co.uk/?e=368
Image credit


I’d call that a batch.  A lot of people would call it a bread roll.  Some people call it a cob, others a bun, and if you go to Bradford it’s a teacake (seriously, Bradford?!)
So can you get away with local words when writing?  Maybe.  Even though I maintain it’s a batch, if I mentioned one in my story, I’d probably not call it that, because I know that anyone from outside of the Midlands would get confused. 
But maybe I could get away with “scraze”?  That’s what we call what others would call a graze.  I guess it came about as a cross between scrape and graze. 
I suppose this leads onto the question of why I want to use local words at all, and not the “proper” ones in the dictionary.
Well there are two reasons:
One is, characters don’t just use words out of the dictionary.  They have their own words for things, and probably have a few good regional ones of their own.
Two is, the dictionary isn’t language.  It’s a reference for all those words that people made up.  And some words haven’t been made up yet.
So make sure you don’t get in a mardy.  I’m off to eat a batch in the spinney!   

Friday 6 July 2012

It was merely a setback!


So I imagined this week I’d be saying how my Sci-Fi story collection was nicely second drafted.  But it isn’t.
My editor (paid in chocolate/coffee) read through the last story to be reviewed, got half way through, and came to the conclusion that it didn’t live up to the standard of the other stories.
This didn’t upset me; in a way I was relieved.  You see the thing was, I knew it wasn’t good enough, before I’d even handed it over to be read.  I wanted to be told to keep that one out.  Why didn’t I make the call myself?  Perhaps a lack of confidence.
Would I be able to write a better story?
What if I’d run out of ideas?
What if I’d been deluding myself and all the stories weren’t good enough? 

I spent the next two days thinking.

Strangely that is one of the toughest parts of being an author.  You can spend hours or days, sitting, walking, doodling, making a drink, getting a snack, staring into space… and to the whole world it looks like you aren’t doing anything at all.
It sounds very lame when at the end of the day someone asks how it went, and you reply:
“Good.  I thought about a lot of stuff.”
The world values the physical, and if you don’t have something to show at the end of the day, you don’t really have a mark of progress.  I went through a stage of feeling worried and guilty that I wouldn’t have anything to show by the end of this week, that it would be a “wasted” week. 

Looking back on it, I can now see it’s been a valuable week.  I’ve learned a good lesson on how to deal with a setback, and maybe gained a little confidence too.

No one was angry that I’d been delayed in my plan.  I did get some new ideas.  I started writing one, it’s going well, and I’m enjoying it.  I can say with certainty that the final product will be as good as I can make it – and a bar to beat for my future endeavours.