Baby’s First Words

Baby was watching television and saw a McDonalds commercial. His first words were “Macca!” Click on the video below and listen to the baby’s first words.

A Writer’s Tool

Daily Writing Practice Prompt for Saturday, August 1, 2009: “Write about a tool.”

A writer's tools are the words she uses;
the words placed in sentences and paragraphs;
the words inscribed into lines and stanzas;
the words that describe a lake at sunset;
the words that express similes and metaphors.

A writer uses computers and pens
to put these words into documents,
into blogs,
into journals,
into books,
but the tool itself are the words used by the writer.

Gathering Words

I receive a daily meditation in my yahoo.com mail box called Elder's Meditation of the Day. The meditation for Monday, May 11, 2009 is "[The Old People] would gather words as they walked a sacred path across the Earth, leaving nothinig behind but prayers and offerings."
---- Cleone Thunder, NORTHERN ARAPAHOE

Each day we live we walk a sacred path on Earth because we touch the lives of other people. As we walk, we to look at the world around us. Since the planet itself is in constant motion, the world in which we live is always in motion, either visible or invisibly.

Nothing on this planet is still, not even the words we speak or the thoughts we think. As we walk the path of our lives we gather words and feelings, many times we don't notice the words and feelings we gather. Therefore, sometimes we acquire words and feelings which are positive and don't assist us or others on the journey.

Instead of gathering words and feelings willy nilly without noticing whether they are positive or negative, we should begin to notice the feelings and thoughts moving through our lives. We need to gather the good, the positive and spread them around to our fellow human beings. Once we begin to notice our thoughts and feelings, we will realize the interconnectedness that exist in the world around us.

May you gather words in your journey that will carry you through the day and make you and someone else happy.

I have a new book

I have a new book called 100 words every word lover should know From the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. This book contains 100 different words with the definitions, pronunciations, etymologies, and other important information. This is a book that every writer should have because of the information it gives about the words.

Some of the words in this book are snakebite, juxtaposition, and koan. All words that a writer and author can use in stories or poems. I am going to have fun reading this book and finding ways to use the words in my writing.

Writing about coffee pots and other technological objects

I got to thinking about coffee pots, refrigerators, and the names we use to refer to these objects. My grandfather made coffee in an electric percolator, which he referred to as a coffee pot. I make coffee in a drip coffee maker with a glass carafe and I refere to the carafe as a coffee pot.

My grandparents had an electric refrigerator, which they referred to as an icebox. My mother still refers to the fridge as an icebox. My grandparent called the refrigerator an icebox because the that was the type of fridge they had in the early 1900s. The iceman came every weekday and Saturday morning to deliver a block of ice. The ice block was placed in the bottom of their icebox and it kept the foods from spoiling.

Because my grandparents had an icebox when my mother was small child, (my mother was born in 1921); Mom refers to the fridge as an icebox. Therefore, when writing a novel or short story, a writer has to consider the terms that the characters us for object. This makes the story and the charactors authentic to the reader.

If the story is set in the past, then the writer needs to use the terms the people of the era used for objects. If the story is set in the present, but the characters are older then the writer has to look at the words they use to refer to technological objects such as refrigerator. In conversation where these words are used, the writer needs to us words that the character would use.

The little things like this that make the story believable within the context of the story. It does not matter if the story is historical fiction or science fiction, the characters will have their own names for technological object based on their cultural background and family history.