Cinco de Mayo

Today there's not only Cinco de Mayo but all kinds of things to celebrate.  One, I've crawled out of the writing cave and submitted two projects aka stories.  I kind of miss them now, no more mornings running from deranged killers or crawling through bat caves and no more Josh - sigh and Max - add a second sigh there. 

 So they're off into the world and I wait and worry that they made it safely.

Meantime, last week I was blogging the alphabet with a great group of bloggers but things kind of fell apart near the end - for me, not for them.  So while I never got to x, y or z, I had fun all the same.  It was too bad as I had a favourite name for z.  i saw it on a clerk's badge one day while I was shopping.  Zed.  How great is that?  A name that appears, if phonetically pronounced, to be exactly how z is pronounced in Canada.

So back to Cinco de Mayo.  While I have no ties to that holiday and I'm not even in the right country, it's still a great excuse to haul out the lawn chairs, open a bottle of tequila and have a fish taco or two.  Because you know, there's been almost a full week without even a trace of snow!  Now if that isn't worth celebrating...
 

Ryshia
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VW and the land of the Volkswagon

I saved V for today specifically to have the VW post.  I know that sounds right and it sounds plausible but it was also convenient.  As the story I am just finishing lurches to the finish line it is gobbling more of my time and it seems like it will never be done.  But the end of a story always feels like that, like the edits will never end.

And I'm happy to declare as I return to writing a blog post I started this morning, that the finish line has been reached, for now.  The story is out to my reader who fortunately, is much faster reading than I am at writing.

The punch to the finish line of a book reminds me of one of my first vehicles.  Back when in those free and easy days when all you have to think about is yourself and your possible career plan or lack there of, I was in love with the Volkswagon Beetle, and one of my first cars was a bug.  That was before its rebirth, we're talking the vintage model.

And as I thought about that old bug I remembered a trip that I took with a friend from the prairies to Victoria, British Columbia.  Now the VW could do sixty miles an hour top speed and that was with a

wind in your favour and a flat road.  So the mountains presented a bit of a challenge.  My trusty old VW crawled up those mountain roads chugging and panting to make it only to race down the other side. 

And then the worst happened.  The car wouldn't start.

Remember the days of youthful flying by the seat of your pants, when worries were as few as the dollars in your pocket?  A car that was a little finicky was not going to stop us from reaching Victoria not when just cooling the engine off got that car going again.  I shudder to think of driving that balky little vehicle onto the ferry for the last round of the trip.  But she started right up to drive off with no problems and we were problem free again until we hit the mainland.  From there we jump started the car a couple of times before we finally arrived home.

Why didn't we check in at a service station?  I wonder that now.  But if we had, I suppose now, I wouldn't have a story.  And the story was, that Volkswagon made it despite weary parts, all the way to the end.  Kind of like a story, one day at a time, one word at a time and eventually you'll finish that last word and voila - a story!

Ryshia
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Letter V Song

This morning there's not just one word beginning with V but a whole lot of V words.  Why weren't there learning videos like this when I was learning my alphabet?  Although, I don't know about you, but when I was singing A B C D - no one was mentioning consonants.  However, consonants are something every fledging writer should know.

For all you adults just enjoy this light video with your coffee, and maybe it will begin your day with a smile!

Ryshia
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Time for U

T is for time

U is for underestimate

Never underestimate time for it is probably out and about over-estimating you.  Like today when I am blogging T and U because I had so much time yesterday...not!  I thought I did.  I thought I had time to do it all, to catch up on my edits, to get a brochure for the upcoming craft sale ready, to walk the dog, pay the bills, answer e-mails, clean the house and the list rolled on. 

We all know the list.  The tasks that scroll threw our mind when the alarm rings in the morning.  And then like water dripping out of a tap, that distinct blip, blip, blip... and the day is gone. 

Yesterday I threw a few extra things into the rotation, a book finished and reviewed, a coffee with a friend I'd neglected, and the list goes on.  But there was even more I didn't get done.  Like that book, excuse me books, two of them - still working on it.  The book prizes that need to go out have moved to today - tomorrow at the outside and there again is a list, of what still needs to be done.

Time just got away!

So when I had the opportunity to review a new book about just that - maybe being happy with where you are and not rushing to be somewhere else or even be something else - I thought, yes I'm interested.    Now, I'm not sure if this is exactly what the author is going to tackle but it appeared to be on those lines and caught my interest.  Yes, it's more on my to do list but sometimes it's nice to do something a little different and give back.  Plus, as I said, the book might be helpful.  I'll update all of that on Goodreads.

Meantime I will continue to time wrangle and today in honour of saving time, I am blogging T and U. 

Til tomorrow.

Ryshia
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Moving on the the letter S

I could say S is for snoring.  For that is what Rourke is doing as he lays on his bed, to my right this time.  He lays to my left when he curls up on the rug.  Don't ask, it's a dog behavior that he has developed on his own and one he refuses to explain.

S by contrast is also for silence or quiet that I blogged about only two days ago.  The silence that I often need when I write and somehow get by blocking the canine snoring.  To be fair, he doesn't always snore - but sometimes...  Maybe there lies my answer to how people work in coffee shops, they block out the noise.  Thank you letter S.

S is also for summer, a season we're looking forward to on the prairie where snow is still being punched and pushed and reconfigured to encourage those last few piles to melt.  I suppose we could mention that other S - snow but we don't like to encourage that party animal who needs no invitation to show up unannounced.

And one other thing, S is for soda.  Hey, I needed that word for the picture.  I was getting a little tired of posting the party animal's pic - you know the one, read up a line or two, it begins with S too.  Shhh!

Ryshia
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What Are You Reading?

I'm one day behind on blogging the alphabet.  Does being one day ahead in the earlier letters give me any banked credit?  I thought not.  I also see that my reading might be a little behind too.  Possibly it's having five books on the go that's the problem.  Possibly it's those two book I'm trying to do edits on.

But all that aside here's some of what I'm reading.


Luckbane by Tony Breeden
In a dystopian future, online gaming is the ultimate escape… until one corporation gives a few lucky players the chance to play their favorite sword and sorcery game live and in person on a distant planet. In the inaugural Øtherworld campaign, the winners will face monsters, magic, warriors, dragons, and betrayal as they quest to find a weapon capable of stopping the dreaded Firelord and his armies.


Against Her Will by Peter Martin
Rape is every woman’s worst nightmare, an act so vile, so devastating, it robs the victim of any sort of dignity, leaving scars that can last a. lifetime. Having family and friends rally round can make all the difference in the world. But without this support the victim may never fully recover.
Donna is such a victim. 


Against Her Will is a dark story that draws you in right away and interestingly enough, written by a man.  Luckbane is a rollicking, fast paced story that took me into the amazing world of gamers.  So far, I'd recommend both.

What are you reading?



Ryshia
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Q is for Quiet Spaces

It interests me, the people who can write in coffee shops and train stations and airports and other such public places.  I can glean ideas from these places, jot down observations, take those kinds of notes that will eventually become a story but to be able to write fiction in such a place.  Never. 

The most noise I want to hear while writing, is sometimes only the dog snoring, as he is this afternoon, to my left.  Sometimes I'm a little more open to distraction and I'll have music playing - classical with no voice to distract.  And sometimes I go for the gusto and it's music with lyrics combined with the dog snores from - you guessed it, the left hand corner.  It all depends on my

mood, how much noise I can tolerate. 

Today, it's one of those dull days.  You know the kind, a day when even the weather is dull.  It feels like Sunday, which is the slow day of the week, when in actuality it's Saturday.  It's a good day to get some work done amidst the quiet.  Even the television cooperated with offering curling as a distraction to writing - not. 

Are you one of those writers that finds their best work in a public place?  Or do you seek quiet and solitude to get your best writing done?

Ryshia
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P for Pushup - Don't Do It!

And now I'm going to contradict my own title.  Pushups, you should do them.  And I do, except this morning when I did the darn things wrong.

Okay, here's the thing.  I do my pushups as the coffee starts up but I do a bit of stretch first.  Bear in mind that this is the beginning of my morning, a few quick exercises in the time it takes the coffee to brew.

I know, I know.  At least I know now.

It's not enough time to stretch correctly.  And this morning, as it always is, the pushup was the last exercise and I did a few more than I normally do.  And that's when I felt the slight twinge in my shoulder that turned into a nagging pain that has troubled me all day.  Nothing major but annoying all the same and a reminder of why exercising without a proper warm up is really, just a bad idea.

Somehow it's so much easier to write about exercise than it is to do it.  Why is that, do you think? 

Ryshia
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O is for Obstinant

If I hear one more blog, post or comment about luck I may scream.

Alert people,  making a living at writing isn't the result of winning the lotttery.

Sure, luck has a factor in some instances, right time, right place, right environment.  And yes, sometimes the writing is less than the hype but usually no.  Writing is a skill and a talent.  More importantly it is a skill  that needs time to be developed, a lot of time.  Writing isn't a home run stratosphere event.  It's like any other trade, a talent proceeds skill, followed by obstinance and then ureka, or at least we hope - success!

Confused?  I don't think so, it's fairly simple but it's not what I've been reading too much of lately.

Luck is what I've been hearing.  Maybe it's because the two worlds have converged, that of the stratosphere star and that of the earning writer.  One is more often than not short-lived and the result of luck and the other, well there's talent and sweat and longevity.  Pretty clear lines that we're all getting confused right now as the publishing arena proceeds to flip on its head.

Luck.

Its not a valid way to go through a career never mind a life.  Luck is the office drone standing in the lotto line week after week. 

Are we saying writing is the same?

Here is how I see it.  Yes, there is luck, the kind that sky rockets books to the number one best selling issue to glow in the suns rays for a day, two, a week or longer.  But they're not the norm,  they're not the Nora Roberts, the Stephen Kings.

Success takes many skills; not just one, or two.  Yes, luck is a factor but if you don't have talent your readership won't follow you far.  And if you're not
obstinate, talent isn't going to get you far.  These days persistence read (be obstinate) is what takes talent all the way.

Talent - that's in the "blogging the alphabet world T and talent falls on Wednesday.  Stop by but in the meantime let me know, is it just a matter of luck or is writing not for everyone?

Without talent the great books wouldn't survive through the years that they have.  Luck is for the lottery, a short-termed bitch that carries you only so far.  Hopefully when she picks you up she's holding that one time lottery ticket because she's not coming back again.

A bit of luck combined with talent and a healthy dose of obstinance, now we're getting somewhere.

To obstinance, talent and a dollop of luck

Ryshia
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A New Day

I went shopping today, not meaning to.  It was one of those random encounters as I headed through the mall toward the parking lot.  But not before I encountered the sale.

I suppose I should back up a bit from the sale.  It's snowing today.  That has a lot of us a bit bummed out as on April 16 we should be well into spring, not looking at snowflakes sprinkling what remains of the old snow.  It's the time of year when I should have put my winter jacket and boots away but wimp that I am, I'm still wearing my toque too.  So when I saw the sale, and saw all those lovely summer dresses, I couldn't resist.

Because you see, it's one of those days when, so far, on a personal level, good news has far

overshadowed the bad.  Now, I must admit that on most days things are fairly stable not too much news of any kind.  But today was different and with snow in the air, new summer clothes were definitely in order. 

And on the subject of new, I found a new author - one I'd known about but had never read.  I discovered in a waiting room (one of the top ten places to get caught up on your reading) that this author I couldn't put down.  Not the delivery man thumping past me or the sporadic ring and ding of incoming calls and texts from fellow waiters deterred me.  I was caught in the world of the story.

New clothes - new authors and tonight some new poetry.  It is not just a month for poetry but a day for poetry as well, for today I discovered the Lai which is a nine line French style of poem.   And as this month is Poetry Month, the Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan has invited me to a poetry reading tonight.  Now all that sounds pretty impressive but the reality is that the Lieutenant Governor has invited the entire Saskatchewan Writers Guild to the event.  Pay your dues - get the invite.  Last year's was fun as our Poet Laureate was a bit of a story teller.  I'm curious to see what this year's poetry will be.  I'm not a poet but maybe after it is all over, I may try to write a Lai, I haven't been this intrigued since Haiku.  Besides, to write good fiction, you need to stretch.

What do you do to keep your work fresh?

Ryshia
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Bad Luck or Just Half Way Through?

It's position in the alphabet makes M number 13.  Thirteen is considered unlucky.  So is M an unlucky letter?

Well, the first thing that came to mind with m was not a bad luck word but oddly, maroon.  I know it's not a word but
remember Bugs Bunny when he would mispronounce moron.   It's rather a fun word that I've used from time to time, usually when laughing at one of my own goofs. 

Maroon, a funny use of the letter M.

The next word that came to mind was militant.  That's a word I hear far too often for comfort on the news. So enough of that and moving on.

M is for Malaysia where my heroine has run or for the Mulu Caves where she is now hiding.  It's murder and mayhem but it's fiction and romantic suspense, so we all know that love is going to happen somewhere along the way. 

Okay, enough.  I have to get back to the story and finish those revisions.

Ryshia
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L Leads The Way

This blogging the alphabet has been rather a learning experience.  It's interesting how many words the letter l leads, as in first letter of the word.  So far, in the first sentences of this post, that's; learning, letter and leads.  If I look to my right,  blogger is showing Post Settings of:  labels, links and location.  On the table just in front of me is the Reader's Digest that I always read second hand from my mom who has subscribed since before I was born.  All that aside, I see the title "Defeating Death Embracing Love".  That title grabs

me and makes me want to pick it up and read it.  It seems that love mixed with anything dire, such as death, usually does - grab me that is.  And, of course, love and the letter l.

But it's not all good for the letter l.  I found one place where I'm not liking l so much.  It leads off the word line.  And as this is income tax season I see the letter l and the word line a lot as I complete the family tax forms. 

Enter on line 1,
Enter on line 2,
Enter on line 3
Enter on line 264...

... and on it goes until your eyesight fades or your fingers wear out.

Another downside to the letter l - it kind of looks like the number 1.  So when faced with the dreaded captcha, the letter l can be a little bit devious.

All in all, the letter l is a handy little creature that shows up more times than I suspected.

So let's live, love and laugh our way through today - cheers to the letter l.

Ryshia
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Good Luck With Number Eleven

It's coming up elevens.

I have a good friend who swears by the luck of the number eleven. Using that theory as a starting base, I have to say that today is a very lucky day for in the world of alphabet blogging, today is time for number eleven.  Wait for it...

Drum roll...

It's center stage for the ravishing letter K.

And what does K have in store us besides holding one of the luckiest placements in the alaphabet?

Well, let's see:

K is for kill which is an ugly word for most people but in the world of romantic suspense, it becomes a necessary word.  It's an active word that describes the evil that gets perpetrated before the hero and heroine put a stop to it all and ride off into a ravishing (each other) type of sunset.

K is for kudos.  A strange kind of word that probably began as a slang but now has found it's place

right along every other word in Dear Old Merriam's pages.

K is for King.  Yes, I had to go there.  Stephen King, the author who made me a horror addict as a teen.  I don't read a lot of King now but I am rereading The Shining because you know there's now the new book, yes I admit I forgot the name but it's waiting on my bookshelf, you know the one - the one where Danny grows up.

Okay one more and then I have to go and pay some attention to that book that just won't finish itself.

K is an abbreviation for a few things, one of them a thousand.

So now it's off to work another hour or so before it's time to enjoy a Saturday evening.

Here's a little k - for good luck.

Ryshia

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The Fabulous Letter J

J is for so many things.  Funny, this morning I couldn't think of a thing.  That, I suppose, could be because I had only just tied into my first cup of coffee and the morning had begun a little too early after a night that started too late.  Of course, I can blame all of that on trying to get too many things done at once.  It was another case of Friday coming too soon.  Not that I don't love the weekend but that's when I kick back and relax and I still have things to do. 

Ah - but I'm way off track and I've had my coffee, and J is starting to heat up.

J - the fabulous letter J.

First off, J is for my current hero - Josh.  Josh is busy trying to get his heroine out of Malaysia and out of the reach of the rogue biker gang set on killing her.  But Josh has a problem...he's falling in love.

J is for Jon another hero's name.  I suppose I like the letter j in a name.   I didn't think about that until now but there's some truth to that.  J has a solid sound to it.  It's a hero my heroine's can rely on starting with the name and ending with...well, you'll have to read the book.

And lastly J is for joule.  I had to put this in - maybe a nod to my last physics teacher, even though a physicist I was never going to make.  Joule, that little measurement of energy.  And while it's not quite a joule that I need and it really has no correlation to what comes next, I'm going to say it anyway.  Joule or not, I need to amp up to get through my to-do-list today.  Fortunately, some of it is fun - banners and story endings and a tour of a friend's new house.  Maybe, all of it is fun, we'll see how it fans out.  Right now it only looks like it's packed into too few hours.  But that's how Fridays tend to be, don't ask me why...they just are.

How's your weekend looking?  See any J's going forward?

Ryshia
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Could it be all Hogwash?

In the world of h's there are so many choices of words known and unknown, of muscial groups and literary forces but instead I chose a word that may be on its way out.

It's a word I remember my dad using occasionally.  Of course he was also fond of the phrase "whoa dobbin."  A phrase I suspect exited a generation or two ago.

So the word I chose is, drum roll please...

hogwash

When was the last time you heard anyone use that word?  I suspect we all know what it means but lets dig a little and see if the assumptions are correct or, if not, where this little gem came from.

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary it means:
foolish or meaningless talk; nonsense, balderdash (another good word rarely heard), swill, slop

So where did hogwash come from?
I turn to my bookshelves and yes, wait for it, paper books!
In the gem of a dictionary a friend located in the back of a British antique shop dated 1795 - there is no reference.
A wartime dictionary also - no reference

So now I'm intrigued, where did this seemingly outdated word come from if it isn't even making the pages of yesteryear?

I move to online references:
Wikipedia, as dicey as some of the information may be - returns nothing.  I search further.

Ahha! - English Ancestory claims that hogwash became a word around the 15th century and combined the word hog along with wash or the waste from a kitchen.  Meaning anything that was bad or worthless.

So, is this true?

Turns out that Online Etymology concurs with this history and expands the meaning to have once meant bad liquor which another site implied, as well as inferior writing again confirmed in a further search.

So what became a simple post, an easy one off in my blogging the alphabet, became instead a mission as hogwash became not just an outdated word but an intriguing one that seemed to have no history.  Now the mystery is cleared up and the next time I write a page that I must later delete I will know not to feel too bad as it was all probably hogwash anyway.  After all, every writer has to have a little leeway to spin just a bit of hogwash.  And...

Okay, done with the hogwash and on with my day.

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com

G is for Gone and Also for Gnome

April in Saskatchewan marks the end of Snow.  And yes, that is snow with a capital S.  Snow wouldn't have it any other way for its place is front and center here for eight or so months of the year and during those months it reigns supreme.  It's not leaving quietly.

Yes, snow is almost gone.  Potentially disappeared yet even when it all goes away, it isn't unheard of to have a spring day or two that turns murky with slushy, sleet.  Insert sigh here.

Right now there are banks in yards big enough to build a snow fort, snow man or any other snow engineered structure you might have in mind.  But snow has definitely shrunk and trickles of water are running down the street and the roads are almost clear but on the lawns and fields the banks hang on with icy tentacles, claws gripping into the ice as the sun beats down with singular determination.

And then, there it is - the sign.

I can see the top of the gnome's head, garden variety.  That is a sign that the snow is about to lose its battle.

The end is near and we're all out there doing our best to enjoy the beautiful weather and the imminent turn from ice and snow and anticipate the possibility of warm days and sunshine that's right around the corner.  On yesterday's dog walk I saw two little girls digging passionately into a four foot bank, creating some masterpiece that only they could visualize.  Further on there were two more children stomping on drifts of snow, one with a catcher's mitt on and the little girl in plastic summer shoes that I'm sure made snow pounding, slightly treacherous.  Further down the road was a man taking the shovel to his mounds of snow and scattering them over the sidewalk so they'd melt that much sooner.

As I turned the corner I saw the ultimate way to spend a sunny, still snow-filled prairie day.  Two people had hauled their lawn chairs to the front yard and there they sat perched on a still towering drift with bare legs, gleaming white and sun starved.

And the garden gnome - I'm declaring him the first sign of spring.  Who cares what the calendar says.  On the prairies, when it comes to weather, we've tossed the rule book aside.

And speaking of rule book - that romantic suspense where love is heating up and danger is firing shots around them, well it's not going to finish by itself.  So it's off to enjoy some warmer weather in the land of limestone cliffs and awesome caves, Mulu, Malaysia, where things aren't so rosy despite the scenery.  

On the snow draped prairies G is for gone and hello gnome!

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com