Updates

Summer is here, and with the changing of the season, perhaps it’s time to refresh things. Buy a new toothbrush. Give the house a good cleaning. And…update your blog?

Yes, definitely. Most of my interaction with my own blog is by hitting the post button or responding to comments. I don’t often check all the other pieces that make up my blog. So here’s my tips for seasonal “blog cleaning”:

1. Make sure your contact info is up to date. How will people contact you and tell you your email address isn’t working? You should update your profile, too.

2. If you link to other blogs on your site in any way, make sure they’re all still updating. So many people disappear from the internet that you can end up with a blog roll that stretches down forever, filled with sites that haven’t updated in over a year.

3. Make sure any links you have are working, as well as any gadgets you may use. Last year my Twitter gadget stopped updating with my tweets. I’m not even sure how long it had been broken for! It’s also no good if you have a link to your latest book and anyone who clicks on it gets a message saying 404: File Not Found.

4. Keep things interesting! Change your format, your picture, themes. Maybe add new pages. (I have to admit, this is the one I often skip…but “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” probably isn’t a good way to run a blog)

Okay, I suppose that’s it, unless one of you has something else to add—by all means, share. Don’t let your blog languish!

Life in the Electronic Age

E-books are a wonderful idea. It’s easy for anyone to get published…which also means it’s easy for anyone to get published, even people who have no idea what they’re doing, but that’s not what I’m here to complain talk about. This time. No. Rather, the wonderfulness of being able to carry around a thousand books in a e-reader, often (but not always, yet another digression) purchased more cheaply than a print edition, is offset by the fact that you’re buying that copy of the book only for that particular e-reader. Legally, you can’t transfer it to another tablet/computer. Ever. Even if your old one is woefully out of date, you can’t download your purchased e-copies to your new model.

It’s called DRM—Digital Rights Management. It’s designed to protect media producers, whether they be writers or musicians or whatever, making it illegal for you to purchase something and then email it to all your friends so they have copies they didn’t pay the artist money for. In theory, it’s a good idea. Having an e-copy isn’t like purchasing a book in the store. If you loan that out, the person probably isn’t going to spend six hours at a copier to make their own book they didn’t have to pay for. Until DRM came along to lock it out, copying an e-book was just as easy as hitting Ctrl-V.

The only thing is, now you can’t even transfer it among your devices, or give your copy away. I get that piracy is a bad thing and is difficult to deal with, but in an age where computers and game systems last maybe five years before the new model is announced, it’s unfair to consumers to have to trash all their previous purchases if they want a new device. It’s especially sucky when Apple has been accused of price gouging with e-books and the new Xbox One won’t be backwards compatible.

Sadly, this isn’t going to change anytime soon, and things will probably grow more restrictive. Say goodbye to copying songs from your laptop to your desktop to your new laptop. If you break your e-reader, you break however many books you bought with it. Oh, and in the United States it’s illegal to try and get around a DRM scheme (seriously, that’s what they’re called). So have fun with that.

There are Still More Words that are Easy to Confuse

Is it that time again already? I feel like I’ve just done this, but sometimes I see a word and go “no, that’s not what it’s supposed to be” and then I go a little crazy. Well, crazier.

Aught/ought

I think this is another one Liz mentioned months ago. If you’ll remember my post about “nothing”, aught is a version of the word naught that got the n dropped off. But it’s also a completely different word that means “anything whatever”, “any part”, or “at all”. Then we have ought, which basically means should. How do you tell them apart? Um…you know what? People don’t use them much anymore. Let’s just erase them both from existence. That should do it.

Taught/taut

Darn homophones. They make everything so confusing. But taught is what a teacher does (in the past tense). Taut is what a rope does. A teacher with a rope has taught with a taut piece of line. You don’t mess with that teacher.

Reek/wreak

Although the ea digraph has a few different pronunciations (think of read or lead), the ee one only has one, the long e, and because wreak is like the present tense read, these two are also homophones. Reek goes with smell (two e’s, two l’s), and wreak goes with havoc (no clever way to remember this one, sorry, but it has nothing to do with odor so you should be able to keep them straight that way). And for bonus confusion, there’s also wreck.

Bridal/bridle

If a hotel offers a “Bridle Suite” be very suspicious. See, bridle is what goes on a horse. Bridal is what has to do with a wedding. I always thought these words were confusing because bridle has an e in it like bride, but it was pretty easy to train myself to remember which is which. Sadly, I’ve seen evidence that not everyone has done this…

Decadent/decedent

The annoying part of these words is that they sound nothing alike. Deck-a-dent and de-see-dent, because c is an annoying letter that sounds like both kuh and suh and we should just get rid of it. Always, always double check them (and I’m talking to myself here, but feel free to do so yourself).

Genres

A conversation with Andrew brought something to light for me: dystopian and post-apocalyptic are separate genres. Previously I took post-apocalyptic as a sub-genre of dystopian since if you look it up in the dictionary, it’s defined as “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding”. Post-apocalyptic societies, at least the ones I’m familiar with, generally fit the bill.

But! The literary definition of dystopian is different from the definition of the word. A literary dystopia is a place where a governing body enforces a warped idea of perfection. YA Highway had a really good post about the difference between the two.

So while I thought it was this…

It’s really more like this…

With examples! All YA of course.

I think THE HUNGER GAMES really is both—after an apocalyptic event, a dystopian society rose up. Although they don’t enforce perfection as much as they do obedience, I think it fits.

Anyway, post-apocalyptic does not equal dystopian, although I think it would make sense if it did. That is all.

Write Club

Or technically, WRiTE Club.

DL Hammonds is at it again. From now (well, since last Monday) until June 30, you can send in a 500 word writing sample—under a pen name. Thirty two will be selected. Then in July, the “fighting” begins!

In each fight, a pair goes head to head, with the winner being selected from the votes in the comments. However, you have to remember that this is anonymous, so no vote angling allowed. After round one, the winners keep duking it out until one story is crowned champion. Since the winner is chosen by a panel of authors, agents, editors, publishers, and marketers, it’s a good way to get seen.

If you’re interested, head here and sign up. I haven’t entered yet, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to come up with something before then. Remember: before June 30. Fingers crossed!

Language of Confusion: -fest

I am writing this sentence before actually looking at the words etymologies: please let festive and infest be related. Language owes me this much.

Festive first showed up in the mid-seventeenth century as something specifically related to a feast, with the holiday-merry meaning not coming along until the end of the eighteenth century. It comes from the classical Latin festivus (for the rest of us!), with the same meaning, and festum, which is just festival. And that word comes from festus, the origin word for feast.

Dang. They’re not related after all. Fester showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French fester, a pus-leaking sore and no I’m not making that up. Festre actually comes from the classical Latin fistula, which means pipe or ulcer and is even an English word that means "a narrow passage formed by disease or injury".

Infest showed up in the late fifteenth century from the Middle French infester and classical Latin infestare, to attack or disturb, and infestus, aggresive or dangerous. The in- prefix isn’t a stranger around here—it means opposite of in this case. Aggressive certainly sounds like the opposite of a joyous, festive occasion, however that is probably not where that festus comes from. Infestus is actually from infensus, which is related to -fendere, fight or strike, the origin word for defend.

The final -fest word is manifest. These days we mostly know it as a cargo list, but it’s original and now rarely used meaning is evident or easily perceived. Cargo manifest didn’t show up until 1706, but the other manifest came about in the late fourteenth century. It comes from the Old French manifest and classical Latin manifestus, which has about the same meaning. It’s root words are manus, hand, and like infest, the festus that means struck.

TL;DR: Infest is related to defend, not festive. Fester and festival aren’t related to them or each other.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Dictionary.com

Orbis Latinus

A Manual of Latin Etymology, asUltimately Derived ... from the Greek Language By Francis Edward Jackson Valpy, from Google Books

June Goals

June already! 2013 sure has been going by fast. It’s already summer, if not by the date then by the hot, muggy weather.

May was far more productive than April, as you will see:

May Goals

1. Get COLLAPSE out to more beta readers. I do want to fix some things from my reader first, but that shouldn’t take more than two weeks.

Nailed it! Plus I signed up for the WIP It blogfest to meet more potential beta/critiquers. I’d call this one 200% done.

2. Actually follow some more blogs on Tumblr this time. This shouldn’t be that hard! Your weekends are wide open, self!

Yes, I did this. I hoped it would let me meet more people and get more followers, but I’m still stuck at a pitiful four. So I did it, but it’s kind of a fail anyway.

3. Start on rewrite. Maybe. I’m not sure if I’ll have time, but it would stop me from worrying about beta reads. It’s hard sending my baby out on its own!

Also done, with about 20K written in the new version. Another “Nailed It!”

So I did good, although not with all the results I hoped for.

June Goals

1. Finish collecting and giving critiques. This should be easy. I love beta reading.

2. Start posting more at the Spamfiles. I think having more posts will attract more readers. Could it be that other people don’t find spam as amusing as I do?

3. Add 20K more words to my rewrite. Usually first draft writing is easy for me, but I’ve been feeling a little bit of the writer’s block lately. I hope I can do it.

So it’s going good. What does your June look like? Are those of you who are parents drowning in children on summer break yet? 

WIP It Good

It’s time for the WIP It Good blogfest hosted by DL Hammond and Elise Fallson, which means it’s a special Friday post.

Hi everyone from the bloghop! If you’re looking to swap beta reads/critiques and don’t detest first person present tense, I’m here.

WIP Title: COLLAPSE

Word Count (projected/actual so far): 90,000/90,000

Genre: YA Dystopian/apocalyptic

How long have you been working on it?: A little over a year.

Elevator Pitch (if you came across an agent in an elevator ride, what couple of lines would you use to summarize your book): The world is ending. Society is crumbling. Cassidy, however, isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

Brief Synopsis (250 words or less): World temperatures are sky-rocketing and society is on shaky last legs. Cassidy is witnessing it all firsthand. But she isn’t the type to let a little thing like the end of the world do her in. Of course, the life she once knew is gone, replaced with something vastly different from high school and a boring suburban life. Bullies used to be a problem for her. Now she’s slightly more worried about being gunned down by people she once called “neighbor”, and whether or not her brother will die from an asthma attack because they can’t get to a doctor. Her father says keeping the family safe at the expense of everyone else is the right thing to do and she believes him…except for the one niggle of doubt when she sees the people gasping their last breaths in triple digit temperatures. It may be a question of who breaks first, her or the heat.

Are you looking for a Critique Partner?: Yes!

Are you looking for a Beta Reader?: Also yes!

Language of Confusion: -fused

It’s been right there all along but I never thought of etymologizing the suffix –fuse. And I know I haven’t done it before because I actually made a list of all the words I’ve featured. Yeah, I’m as surprised about that as you are.

Fuse

Fuse the word showed up in the late seventeenth century from the word fusion, a mid-sixteenth century word from the Middle French fusion and classical Latin fusionem, outpouring, a noun version of fusus, the past participle of fundere, pour or melt. PS, fundere is also the origin word for found.

Confuse

Interestingly enough, confuse showed up in the mid-sixteenth century (although it didn’t firmly take its place in English for another couple of centuries), while confused first appeared two centuries earlier. Confused was actually an alternate version of confound, in the way the classical Latin confusus is the past participle of confundere, to mix together (which is literally what con- plus -fundere means).

Infuse

Showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin infusus and infundere, to pour in. Since -fundere is “pour” and in- is “in” (can you can puzzle out that one?), I’m guessing you see what I’m talking about.

Diffuse

First showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin diffusus and diffundere, which means to pour out/away. The prefix dis- means apart or away, so this is another straightforward one.

Transfuse

Showed up in the early fifteenth century. The classical Latin forms are, as expected, transfusus and transfundere. The prefix trans- means across, so it’s “pour across”, or transfer by pouring.

Defuse

Did not show up until very recently, in the nineteen forties. This means that unlike most –fuse words, it doesn’t come from Latin. It’s just a mix of the prefix de- with -fuse.

Refuse

In this case, there are two homophones of the words, the verb refuse which means will not and the noun refuse which means garbage. No refuse showed up in the fourteenth century, in this case coming from the Old French refuser and Vulgar Latin refusare. The classical Latin equivalent is of course refundere, pour/give back, the origin word of refund. The garbage refuse comes from the Old French refus, waste, and comes from the above mentioned refuser.

Profuse

Profuse (a word for large or excessive amounts), showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin profusus. Profusus/profundere has the same meaning as the English version as it’s a figurative way of saying “poured forth” pro- (forth) and -fundere (pour). Despite looking similar, profound, like a deep thought, has a slightly different word ancestry. Its suffix comes from the classical Latin fundus, which means bottom. Basically, fund is different from found and profound comes from the former.

There are also several other -fuse words that you may or may not have heard of, like effuse (pour out), affuse (pour on), perfuse (pour throughout), suffuse (overspread), circumfuse (pour around), superfuse (no longer used word just meaning pour) and finally, humifuse, which means to spread over the surface of the ground. Awesome points to anyone who can use it in a sentence.

TL;DR: fuse means pour and it’s related to found, but neither is related to fund.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Dictionary.com

Orbis Latinus

Rewrite

It’s weird. When I have a lot of ideas for writing, I have no ideas for blogging. When I have no ideas for writing, I have many ideas for blogging. This is one of the former times, so I’m just going to write about what I’m writing and maybe that will count as a post.

Writing-wise, I have a lot to occupy my mind. COLLAPSE is deeply mired in beta reading, and with the WIP It blogfest I should be getting even more. So while I’m waiting to collect all of that, I decided, what the hell, it’s time for a new project. Well, a new old project.

My 2010 book was called A SAFE PLACE IN HELL. The name is…a work in progress? Anyway, I really liked the concept, but as time went on had doubts about my execution of it. Part of this was inexperience…okay, all of it was inexperience. I’ve heard that you need to do something for 10,000 hours before it can truly be mastered, and I was at about 8K there. Not bad, but not there yet.

So I decided that if I found the time, I would rewrite it basically from scratch. And I found the time. I’ve only got about ten thousand words down, but I have a plan for what’s going to happen and I think it’s going to come out as good as a first draft can come out. Same plot, same characters but evolved so it’s, I hope, a lot better. You’ll know that it’s good if in about a year I’m going on another beta reader hunt.

I know. I’m ending with questions, the written cat-picture (read: easy way out) of blogger tools, but I’d like to see what you, my fabulacious friends, have to say about rewrites. Have you done them? Have you wanted to? When do you think they’re warranted and when does an idea need to fade away?

Also? Disappointed that “fabulacious” isn’t in Word’s dictionary. They have frigging ginormous, but fabulacious is where they draw the line.