How have you been?  Most who ask that question are waiting to let you know how they’ve been or what they’ve been doing.  So, I ask, “How have you been?”  and “What have you been doing?”  You’re right!  I want to tell you what’s new in my life.

1. I now have an LLC.  I was told I needed one to protect me and my rights as a published author.
2. I now have a copyright!  That part was easy.  Go to the Secretary of State’s website and pay your $35.  Upload your work.  When you’re filling out the necessary forms, read the instructions on each page.  Many times you simply click one box and it fills in everything for you.
3. Hopefully, my debut novel,  A PLACE TO BELONG, will be available on Amazon/Kindle later this summer.  It is in the hands of beta readers now.
4. Thank you so much for walking with me in this adventure I call life.  (Okay, I admit it.  You’ve been there all along.  That isn’t new–I do have a new appreciation for you, though.)
5. One more new thing.  It will go away soon, I hope.  The strap on my computer bag unclicked itself Saturday morning as I was walking into St. Luke’s UMC for the monthly meeting of Oklahoma City Writers, Inc.  The bag with computer, iPad, binders, and extra paraphernalia slid from my shoulder and crashed.  The corner of the bag landed on my foot.   The Bible says that your mouth is directly attached to your heart.  (From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.)  My heart must be absolutely empty.  I didn’t say a word.  I couldn’t.  Yesterday, five days later, I noticed a bruise on top of my foot.  There is a matching bruise on the bottom of my foot.  I’ll bet it goes all the way through.  It’s about 2″ in diameter.  I wonder if anything was broken.  Hurts to walk on it, but not badly enough that I can’t ignore it.

What’s new with you?

Here’s your words for the week.

1. imprecation:  A curse, spoken.  He spewed his imprecations at my rapidly retreating back.
2. gelid: really cold.  It can describe winter, winds, comments . . .  His gelid reply caused me to blink in surprise.
3. grimoire:  a book of spells or incantations, chants, charms, hexes, mumbo-jumbo.  A grand grimoire would be all of a witch’s spells.
4. magnanimous:  very generous or giving, very forgiving especially when you’re forgiving someone who is not capable of restitution.  Jesus magnanimously forgives my sins.
5. deleterious:  harmful or causing damage, really bad.  That child has a deleterious impact on the children in his neighborhood.

Blessings,

Lorelei

Isaiah 40:31

You have 30 days.  Get it done.

When Christine Taylor Butler gave me the “Get it published in the next 30 days.”  ultimatum, I was pleased and scared at the same time.  I knew, with two weeks left until school was out, that I’d need two weeks and 30 days.  I will also need an intellectual property attorney, a graphic artist (a picture being worth at least 1000 words), and an accountant.

If you know anyone in those fields, please share my contact info with them.

I went to a Fiction Writers’ Retreat over the weekend.  I was ecstatic over the review I got from Bill Bernhardt.

I need beta readers.  For those of you who are readers and not writers, a beta reader is someone who reads and gives blunt honest opinions, edits, and/or commentary on soon-hopefully-to be-published work.

I wish I could go back in time and ask Louis L’Amour if he had beta readers.

My words for the week are:

1. aphorism:  a pithy observation or comment that is generally true.  Sometimes called idioms
   1. Apples don’t fall far from the tree. . . .
   2. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

2.  atavistic:  like when you’re scared of spiders for no reason.  An unreasonable (we’re talking about your fears not mine) fear of something for ancient or ancestral causes.  No, I don’t happen to like spiders, but I’m not afraid of them.  I also don’t like lavender.  Most people who are afraid of spiders love the scent of lavender.  I’ve heard that it’s because lavender is a good spider repellant.  Who knew?

3.  imperious:  arrogant and/or domineering, assuming power or authority without justification

4. impecunious:  broke, poor, having little or no money (remember folks, this is not a crime, but it sure feels like the world has committed a crime against you)

5. ignoble: not noble, not honorable in either character or intent or purpose.  Having humble beginnings or social status.  ignoble aboriginals or savages

Blessings to you and yours

Lorelei

Isaiah 40:31

Yesterday was my birthday.  Today is my oldest daughter’s.  Next week is my daughter-in-law’s birthday.  We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Ted’s Escondido by the Outlet Mall in OKC.

Those of you who know me well know that I collect music boxes.  But, the music has to fit the box.  I have a phone that plays I Just Called to Say I Love You.  I have a teddy bear holding a globe that plays It’s a Small World.  A beer stein plays How Dry I Am, my trolley car chimes out the dulcet tones of I Left My Heart in San Francisco.   My clowns all play Here Come the Clowns. 

What I didn’t have until Sunday was a music box dancer that played Music Box Dancer.  I’ve been looking for one for years.  I was probably too picky.  I wanted a pink and white jewelry box with a pop up ballerina that played the right song.  You guessed it.  They all played something else.

But my wonderful children–especially the second one–found a beautiful jewelry box, perfect in pink, white, and gold,  With some help from her brother-in-law, they changed out the musical mechanism for one that played the right tune.   So, yes, Sunday at Ted’s I cried.  I still get teary when I think about how very much I am loved.

I hope each and everyone of you has someone in their life that loves them as much as I am loved even though that much love is a huge responsibility.

Blessings to you and yours.

Isaiah 40:31

Lorelei

This week’s words are:

apotheosis:  the highest point in the development of something, culmination, climax

apropos: with reference to, concerning, about

arcane; mysterious, secret, or perhaps only understandable by few

farinaceous:  flour or cereal made with grains, nuts, or starchy roots

fecund:  producing or able to produce an abundance of offspring, fertile.  Our neighbor’s garden has particularly fecund soil.

I have two small groups that meet on a regular basis.  One meets every Sunday morning at 8:30.  That group I call Inklings.  On Sunday mornings the lesson can go out the window and sometimes does.  This group’s primary goal is for each member to get one step closer to Jesus.  And then, one more step closer.  We also do a small craft item.  Some of the members are phenomenal artists.  Makes me wonder what I’m doing leading this awesome group.  This week we are setting up notebooks for the class, and making name plaques.

On the second Friday night of every month a group of serious writers meet at my house.  That group is Inklings Critique.  We read each other’s submissions and mark all over them.  Some of our comments are funny.   (My fifteen-year-old is a  grammar Nazi and a comedian.)  Most of the comments are constructive.  Most of the comments are words.  Did I mention that my daughter is also an artist?  She can be very informative with  tiny sketches.

This week’s words are:

archetype:  typical example of someone or something.  The archetypical cowboy wears boots, jeans, and a western hat.  His name decorates the back of his leather belt.

assiduous:  showing great care.  Assiduity is the constant attentive concern to what one is doing.

avaricious:  Greedy!  having (or maybe showing) an extreme greed for wealth or material gain or goods.  stingy, penny pinching, ungenerous

avuncular:  Uncle-ish.  His avuncular good humor and patience won the day.

imbroglio: an extremely confusing, complicated, or embarrassing situation or mess!  It was quite an imbroglio when her  husband and boyfriend both showed up drunk and angry.

Here’s to a wonderful week for you and yours. I hope you enjoyed the blog and vocabulary.

Lorelei

Isaiah 40:31

The old adage says, “Be wary of the words you speak–of them oft you have to eat.”

I’m modifying that a bit, I’ve choked on words I’ve spoken.  And, more often, wanted to choke others for the words they spoke.  Like the erstwhile brother-in-law who asked my favorite aunt, “How’s that mean old man of yours?” Her reply? “He’s still dead.” I wanted desperately to reverse time fifteen seconds to choke the BIL before he got the awful words out.

My New Year’s Resolution is to help you along the same journey I’m taking.  I am intentionally expanding my vocabulary.  I have a cigar box where I keep words or phrases I find unusual or interesting—or strange. Erstwhile is a new word for me. I don’t know how I missed it for nearly sixty years!

Thank you to e e cummings for puddle-wonderful and mud-luscious. Thank you to unknown for drums of thunder.

One of my favorite authors, Linda Lael Miller, uses the word ubiquitous. Not everyone who tries to write cowboy stories has actually been on a horse. It is obvious to me that she’s been saddle-sore from long hours working on horseback. My own knees have buckled a time or two when getting out of the saddle after a long day of rounding up cattle on the river breaks. (We’d be at the river before sun-up, and were usually in bed before midnight—usually.) She describes the pain exquisitely.

I’ve been listening to Lady Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER series while I clean house or work out at the gym. She has a fantastic vocabulary. I get two or sometimes three new words out of each of her books. More often, I find new definitions or applications for the words I already knew.

I love Louis L’Amour. I must. I have a whole bookshelf with nothing but LL’A Books on it. I don’t find new words in his writing, but I’ve been reading them since I was in grade school.

Without further ado, here are this blog’s words in no particular order. Definitions are compliments of a variety of sources, including websites, people, and old fashioned paper dictionaries.

1. hoike; to lift abruptly or pull upwards with great effort. She hoiked the soggy collie onto the examination table.
2. amorphous; without a clearly defined shape or form. The fog alone wasn’t creating the amorphous ghosts between tombstones and statues.
3. ubiquitous; pervasive, universal, found everywhere. Think about the teens at the mall with their ubiquitous earbuds.
4. susurrus; whispering, rustling, or murmuring. I’d heard susurrus used to describe the wind in the pines and in the long prairie grass, but I hadn’t known it could rip a sword from its sheath. It surely can!
5. unalloyed; pure. Copper is not an alloy, but bronze is. Bronze is made of copper and tin. Brass gets its “z” from zinc. Okay, I knew that! But, his unalloyed anger erupting with the susurrus of his sword being unsheathed from its metal encumbrance and re-sheathed in his enemy was a bit disconcerting.

There are your five words for the week. I invite you to send me your favorite words! I’d love to add them to my repertoire.

Happy writing and blessings to you and yours,

Isaiah 40:31

Lorelei

I hate Bing.  It just ate my whole blog.  I’ll write more later.  I’ve tried everything I know to block it, but it must be part of the software that came preloaded on my machine.  I open a new tab and there it is.  (sound of grinding teeth.)

It isn’t surprising to me that the number one item searched on Bing is “GOOGLE.”

Blessings.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Lord.

Lorelei

Merry Christmas!  Happy Holy-days.

When clerks tell me “Happy Holidays.”  I reply with “Merry Christmas and Happy Holy-day. ”  If nothing else, it does make them–and everyone else in line–think about their salutation.

I remember going out with Dad on the weekend after Thanksgiving and chopping/sawing down a tiny tree for our living room.  It always amazed me how much the tree stretched and swelled when we tugged it in through the door.  It was tiny outside and huge inside.  Some people are like that.  Not much on the outside, but all heart.

Ah, memories.  Hot tea with toast when the tree was decorated.  Dad made better tea than Mom did.  I think it was because he wasn’t worried about how much sugar we ate, he went to work and Mom was the one stuck in the house with five hyper kids.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Blessings,

Lorelei

Isaiah 40:31

But I didn't lock myself out!.