Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Christmas is a strange time of year. It's full of the stress of Christmas shopping - finding the right thing for each person, making sure the bank balance will stretch to that one extra thing, dealing with pack carparks and other shoppers. It's also a time to take a break and relax with friends and family, catch up on everything that's happened over the year, and make plans for the bright shining new year approaching. All in all I think the pleasure of Christmas outweigh the stresses :) I hope they do for you too. I hope you have a great Christmas and a new year filled with joy and wonderful opportunities.

No guarantee I'll post next week, I fully expect not to have finished digesting after the over indulgence of the holiday and doubt I'll be able to get my laptop onto my lap. So in lieu of a post two pics. One because it ticked my fancy - who does like a moose in funny boots, and one to remind us that even the darkest of people can enjoy Christmas if given the chance.

King James Bible & English language

Coming up to Christmas I thought a post about the bible might be apt. The King James Bible turns 400 next year, and regardless of how we feel about the book, it has shaped our language.

As well as selling an estimated 1bn copies since 1611, the KJB went straight into our literary bloodstream like a lifesaving drug. Whenever we put words into someone's mouth, or see the writing on the wall, or go from strength to strength, or eat, drink and be merry, or fight the good fight, or bemoan the signs of the times, or find a fly in the ointment, or use words such as "long-suffering", "scapegoat" and "peacemaker" we are unconsciously quoting the KJB. More astounding, compared to Shakespeare's prodigal 31,000-word vocabulary, the KJB works its magic with a lexicon of just 12,000 words.

More than this enthralling matrix of linguistic influence, there's the miracle of the translation itself, a triumph of creative collaboration (54 scholars in six committees), outright plagiarism and good old English pragmatism. The Authorized Version's mission statement was a masterpiece of lowered expectations. Its aim, it declared, was not "to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, that hath been our endeavour".

In its own time, a further aim was not only to help unite the crowns of England and Scotland but to heal religious division and give the word of God to the common people once and for all in the vernacular, without bloodshed or uproar. With some notable contemporary dissent ("It is ill done," wrote one divine. "The edition crosseth me. I require it to be burnt") this was achieved.

In fact, the KJB became, in Adam Nicolson's resonant phrase, "a kind of national shrine, built only of words".

Interesting articles: The Guardian, Bible research,

Compendium of Villians

A little while ago you may recall I posted Ilona's compendium of leading men & leading women. Now she brings us... the villains.

...Be forewarned, these knaves are most base of character.

Mr. Hyde.

Mr. Hyde is often a man of aristocratic breeding, considered by his neighbors to be a gentleman of good character, but his facade hides a streak of vicious cruelty. He seeks to possess the heroine, in all senses of the word: he wants her body, her lands, if she has any, and whatever wealth she can offer and he has no regard for her wishes. He desires complete control of her being by any means necessary. There is no level to which he will not stoop, for he had decided that the ownership of the heroine isn’t merely a want, but his right.

A lady facing Mr. Hyde must take care, for he is prone to violence and lady’s gender will not be a barrier to his physical assault. Reasoning with this type is a pointless endeavor, for Mr. Hyde will not stop until he is taken down by brute force.

A Spoiled Rake

A Spoiled Rake has everything: excellent breeding, money, looks, and acceptance of the fairer sex. He has never been rejected, and when the heroine brushes him off, he reacts like any spoiled child would do: he throws a tantrum. The Spoiled Rake is a dangerous opponent; he is cruel, vindictive, and isn’t above the most vicious of subterfuge. He rarely resorts to physical assault, preferring instead to assassinate the heroine’s social standing, isolating her from friends and possible protectors, until she has no choice but to accept his advances.

Unlike Mr. Hyde, who feel entitle to complete ownership and who would never release the heroine, the Spoiled Rake may or may not intend to keep her for himself. His fantasies stop with an intimate tryst, after which he may choose to ruin the heroine, subjecting her to public humiliation so the entire world would know that he had won.

The Evil Stepmother

The Evil Stepmother isn’t always female, although most of the time she is. A relative of the heroine, she is in position of authority and influence over her. The Evil Stepmother is consumed by jealousy and hatred; she despises the heroine and takes every chance to cut her down and destroy her chance at happiness, while professing to have the heroine’s best interests at heart.

The Evil Stepmother is often subtle and manipulative, preferring to pull the strings behind the scenes. She will falsify documents, befriend and corrupt heroine’s friends, use poison, and when all else fails, hire thugs to accomplish her goal. When exposed, the Evil Stepmother often fails to to come to terms with the failure of her schemes and will invariable resort to direct violence, even to the detriment of her own safety. She would literally rather die than let the heroine find happiness.

The Faceless Creditors

The Faceless Creditors are not exactly villains in the typical sense. They simply lack any compassion and view their fellow human beings as means to achieve professional gain. They’re motivated by self-interest and are steadfast in achieving their goals. If they’re owed a debt, they must collect it, no matter how inhumane their actions are. The hero or heroine simply happen to be their next victim. It is rarely personal, it’s strictly business.

While the Faceless Creditors have no emotional investment in destroying the heroine’s quest for happiness, their pressure may drive her to desperate actions.

The Evil Boss

A subtype of the Faceless Creditor, the Evil Boss views people in his employ as pawns to achieve his own personal goals. He may be a military commander, a powerful relative, or a feudal lord. Whatever his status, he is in the position to use the hero or the heroine to his advantage, which he proceeds to do without any regard for their emotional well-being and personal safety.

The Evil Ex-Girlfriend

The Evil Ex-Girlfriend hates the heroine with the passion of a thousand suns. Oddly, this passion isn’t personal. The Evil Ex-Girlfriend doesn’t take time to assess the heroine’s personal qualities and form an opinion regarding her character. In different circumstances, she might be perfectly civil to the heroine and even strike up a friendship. However, the Evil Ex-Girlfriend is consumed by the need to return the hero to her loving embrace, and she will remove any obstacles to her quest with extreme prejudice. Unable to cope with rejection, she views the hero as easily mislead and views any woman entertaining romantic notions toward the hero as an evil manipulator and the barrier to her own happiness. If only she could remove the heroine, the hero would surely come to his senses and beg for her forgiveness.

The Evil Ex-Girlfriend is capable of anything. She is unpredictable, dangerous, and committed to her cause.

The Woman Scorned

A subtype of the Evil Ex-Girlfriend, the Woman Scorned (or the Man Scorned, respectively) is a tragic figure, spurned by her lover. Of all the villains, she is usually the one with a genuine grievance.

Perhaps the fault indeed lay with the hero or the heroine, but in any case, the injury caused to the Woman Scorned causes her to lash out with disproportionate violence.

The Woman Scorned seeks vengeance, believing that retribution is her just right. She is truly committed to her cause and destroying the person who’d inflicted the grievous injury on her becomes her mission in life.

The White Knight

A subtype of the Evil Ex-Girlfriend, the White Knight is romantically infatuated with the heroine. He is aware of her fondness for his rival and he views that rival as a man of despicable character, clearly wrong for the heroine. For the White Knight breaking up this dangerous liaison becomes not just the matter of the getting the heroine for himself, but the quest for saving her from a fate worse than death. The White Knights thinks that he knows what’s best for the heroine better than she does and feels a strong urge to safeguard her from the evils of the world.

While noble, the White Knight’s intentions often lead him down the slippery slope of progressively villainous actions, fueled by his frustration with heroine’s inability to recognize what he views as the proper course of action.

Vampire novella release date

Woo hoo, release date for my novella REDEMPTION'S KISS ... January 19th 2011.
This story is stand alone but set in the same world as HUMAN WITH A TWIST.
Lauren's been alone for a long time, too long. After all, there are few who understand her condition and need for blood - then she meets Rhys. He seems like a perfect match on all counts, until her bite sends him running.

Rhys thinks he’s met the woman of his dreams, that is until she sinks her teeth into his neck and his dream turns into a nightmare. Now Rhys has a choice to make. Is being with Lauren the biggest mistake of his life? Or is she his salvation?

Things you can't do while reading....

There are some things that just can't be done while reading: driving, showering, & eating ribs.
mmm ribs :)

My apologies from not doing a post last week but I was taking a little holiday. Some wine was drunk and some ribs were eaten. Now, I confess I'm not a huge pork fan, but the sauce on those ribs was sooo good.

What did I read while I was away (obviously not while I was driving, showering or eating ribs)?

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
I'm a fan of Mr Fforde's books. I love the Thursday series, funny, fresh etc... This book is equally good, but not as lighthearted in tone. It's also hard to categorize, you might find it in fantasy, or in general fiction, or in comedy (although if there its placement will most likely be driven by Fforde's previous books). Don't let me mislead you, this book is funny, but there is more beneath the surface.

Blurb: Part social satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, Shades of Grey tells of a battle against overwhelming odds. In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social standing, Eddie Russet belongs to the House of Red and can see his own color - but no other. The sky, the grass, and everything in between are all just shades of grey, and must be colorized by artificial means.

Eddie's world wasn't always like this. There's evidence of a never-discussed disaster and now, many years later, technology is poor, news sporadic, the notion of change abhorrent, and nighttime is terrifying: no one can see in the dark. Everyone abides by a bizarre regime of rules and regulations, a system of merits and demerits, where punishment can result in permanent expulsion.

Eddie might well have lived out his rose-tinted life without a hitch. But that changes when he becomes smitten with Jane, a Grey. She shows Eddie that all is not well with the world he thinks is just and good.

Stunningly imaginative, very funny, tightly plotted, and with sly satirical digs at our own society, this novel is for those who loved Thursday Next but want to be transported somewhere equally wild, only darker; a world where the black and white of moral standpoints have been reduced to shades of grey.

Play of Passion by Nalini Singh
Those who follow this blog will have heard me mention Ms Singh's books before. She's a fantastic author. Her characters are vivid and her world building strong (something I don't always find with romance). If you enjoy romances, especailly paranormal, I can't recommend the Psy/Changeling series enough. While each book is stand alone, there is an ongoing story arc and if you can I'd recommend starting at the beginning with Slave to Sensation (Psy-Changelings, Book 1).

I've added the blurb, but honestly, it doesn't do the book justice.

Blurb: In his position as tracker for the SnowDancer pack, it’s up to Drew Kincaid to rein in rogue changelings who have lost control of their animal halves—even if it means killing those who have gone too far. But nothing in his life has prepared him for the battle he must now wage to win the heart of a woman who makes his body ignite…and who threatens to enslave his wolf.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
Misborn is the first in the trilogy and I've got the next to books on my Christmas list already. This book has been sitting on my TBR pile for about 6 months. Now I've finally got round to it I can't believe I took so long. I really enjoyed this book. A lot of your standard fantasy tropes, but Sanderson doesn't always do what you expect with them. Well worth picking up for fantasy fans.

Blurb: Once, a hero arose to save the world. He failed.
For a thousand years since, the world has been a wasteland of ash and mist ruled by an immortal emporor. Every revolt has failed miserably.

Yet, somehow, hope survives. A new kind of uprising is being planned, one built around the ultimate caper, one that depends on the cunning of a brilliant criminal mastermind, and the determination of an unlikely heroine, a street urchin who must learn to master the powers of the Mistborn.

As you can see from my quick reviews, all in all, good reading was had during my break :)

Awesomely Untranslatable Words

Ever wanted a word that quickly sums things up, instead you end up blathering on while trying to explain.

Some romance authors spend a whole book trying to convey “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start”. Instead they could simply write Mamihlapinatapei - the end. And move onto something else.

Okay as a romance writer, I'm glad we don't have that word in english :) But there are other examples of times english fails us - This list is wonderful:

Here are a few examples of instances where other languages have found the right word and English simply falls speechless.

1. Toska
Russian – Vladimr Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

2. Mamihlapinatapei
Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start”

3. Jayus
Indonesian – “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh”

4. Iktsuarpok
Inuit – “To go outside to check if anyone is coming.”

5. Litost
Czech – Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, remarked that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.” The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.

6. Kyoikumama
Japanese – “A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement”

7. Tartle
Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

8. Ilunga
Tshiluba (Southwest Congo) – A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person “who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.”

9. Prozvonit
Czech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”

10. Cafuné
Brazilian Portuguese – “The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.”

11. Schadenfreude
German – Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune. I guess “America’s Funniest Moments of Schadenfreude” just didn’t have the same ring to it.

12. Torschlusspanik
German – Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to “the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.”

13. Wabi-Sabi
Japanese – Much has been written on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

14. Dépaysement
French – The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.

15. Tingo
Pascuense (Easter Island) – Hopefully this isn’t a word you’d need often: “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.”

16. Hyggelig
Danish – Its “literal” translation into English gives connotations of a warm, friendly, cozy demeanor, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s likely something that must be experienced to be known. I think of good friends, cold beer, and a warm fire.

17. L’appel du vide
French – “The call of the void” is this French expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from high places.

18. Ya’aburnee
Arabic – Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

19. Duende
Spanish – While originally used to describe a mythical, spritelike entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature, its meaning has transitioned into referring to “the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.” There’s actually a nightclub in the town of La Linea de la Concepcion, where I teach, named after this word.

20. Saudade
Portuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word “refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.” Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade.

Know any other examples of words that can't quite be captured in english?

One dimensional female characters...

I'm on a flowchart roll :)

Ever wondered if female characters are getting a bit predictable? This one's a bit small so might need to go to the source.


Posting over at Black Roses Blog, come visit :)