You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May, 2009.
Fun with blog stats! Here are a few of the search terms that have brought eyeballs to my blog. I’ve arranged them in poetry form for you. If I was able to figure out the link, I added that, too. Enjoy!
poems to tell people you hate them
turkey-baster baby
the field of freaky flowers
I stepped on a slug barefoot, what can happen
why ball-point pens use blue ink?
best place on earth
sleeping with phone in hand
defination of photography from authors
how to write christmas on a cake
dog with floppy ears
mrs. carla my first sex teacher
Sexy fiction woman
what do ear wigg do to you
Whatever happened to peacock blue ink?
why use clairefontaine
MAKING A FACE ON A CAKE
madeleine stowe
the day you were born
vanity plates suzanne
Ribsy quizzes
I want to meet and marry a pilot
empress of the north blog
cake face
spotted dick
parachute pants
what dose the snowglobe stand for
jealousy like ink in milk quote alice monroe
funny bird cartoons, poop
a naked man swimming
how to 300dpi
michelangelo appropriation
love photography
picture of parachute pants
scanoe
mysterious things
poems to tell people you hate them
"love photography"
turkey-baster baby
the field of freaky flowers
I stepped on a slug barefoot, what can happen
why ball-point pens use blue ink?
sleeping with phone in hand
mrs. carla my first sex teacher
defination of photography from authors
how to write christmas on a cake
dog with floppy ears
what do ear wigg do to you
Whatever happened to peacock blue ink?
why use clairefontaine
MAKING A FACE ON A CAKE
madeleine stowe
the day you were born
vanity plates suzanne
Ribsy quizzes
I want to meet and marry a pilot
empress of the north blog
cake face
parachute pants
what dose the snowglobe stand for
jealousy like ink in milk quote alice munro
funny bird cartoons, poop
a naked man swimming
how to 300dpi
michelangelo appropriation
love photography
mysterious things
…and not leap to your feet!
This video was made in the Antwerp , Belgium Central (train) Station.
How the heck did they do it?
29 May 1954
still smiling 55 years later
I get some crazy recognition errors when I dictate my handwritten draft into the computer with Dragon Naturally Speaking. This video is a perfect example of … well, see for yourself:
Get it right
Help me out here, people. For the umpteenth time, I’ve had a note from a reader telling me about an error in my book. Many writers I know, including the peerless Tess Gerritsen, get this kind of feedback.
Now, ordinarily, I love getting corrections from readers because it means that in future editions of the book, I can change, says “commissary” to “dispensary” or put the Pax River Naval Station in the right state (blush).
But quite often, a reader wants to change a word that’s already correct. The latest? Gabbie K. tells me I’ve spelled “minuscule” wrong. She wants me to spell it “miniscule.” Is it because it’s derived from the ancient root “mini” as in, “mini marshmallows”???
And don’t get me started on words that are spelled right, but are perennially misunderstood. There has to be a term for this–words that don’t mean what you think they mean. You know, like toothsome. Ask anyone what she thinks it means. Use it in a sentence, even. “He had a toothsome smile.” Trust me, toothsome does NOT mean toothy. It has nothing to do with teeth. Look it up, I dare you.
And niggardly is not a racist term, although this word is so misunderstood that I’m nervous just typing it. It means stingy, and always has. Out of ignorance, some people think it’s an offensive term. So much so that when I need to say “stingy,” I’ll just say “stingy. Or maybe if I’m feeling daring, I’ll say “begrudgingly.”
Oh, and just so you know–when someone makes a speech and you want to agree with them vociferously, it’s “Hear! Hear!” Not “Here, here,” unless you’re calling a dog. And did you know that if someone was killed by hanging, he was hanged, not hung? And the past tense of sneak is sneaked, not snuck. Check it out, people. You know I’m right.
[Note: Some sites like the New York Times have a new lookup feature. Select any word, and it will takeyou to a dictionary link.]
Here are a few more “counterintuitive-nyms” for you. Treat this as a pop quiz. Do you know what these words mean, how to use them and how to spell them? If yes, then YAY YOU:
Noisome, inflammable, invaluable. Chasten, bemuse, vilify. Fecund, lachrymose. Guttural. Timorous. Restive, leman, sacrilegious.
How about you? What are some sadly misunderstood and misspelled words in your writing world?
So the counselor at Ivers J. Norton Elementary School wrote to me about the school’s 100th anniversary celebration. Today, they’re honoring former staff members at the school in a small town in Western New York. I was asked to share some of my memories of the school, which I attended in the late ’60s. Here are a few:
We lived at 502 West Henley, kitty corner from the school. Some of my teachers were Mrs. Ellen Blessing, Mrs. Geuder and Mr. Schwabenbauer. Mrs. Mazza was the gym teacher.
The library was amazing to me, and one year, I read one biography from every letter of the alphabet. I also devoured the “Betsy-Tacy” books by Maude Hart Lovelace, Beverly Cleary books and pretty much everything else I could get my hands on. Mrs. Geuder (5th grade) was a great reader and read aloud to us every day–Caddie Woodlawn, Harriet the Spy, Tom’s Midnight Garden, Big Tree are some I still remember. Later, when I became a 5th grade teacher, I read to my students every day too.
When I was in Mr. Schwabenbauer’s class, I wrote my first piece of long fiction. The assignment was to write a story about a natural disaster. I remember considering a glacier but he suggested I go with something like a flood or forest fire. I filled an entire theme book with my story. I’m sure it was awful but he gave me an A.
When I was in third grade, I climbed over a chain-link fence in the back schoolyard, ripped open my arm and had to get stitches.
We moved away from Olean in the 1970s and enrolled in schools overseas. People told our parents we might be “behind” in the competitive private schools in Brussels and Paris, but this was definitely not the case! Olean schools prepared us well.
I’m currently a novelist with more than forty books published, including numerous bestsellers. My series of books known as the Lakeshore Chronicles take place in upstate New York, and feature a fictional town that has a lot of features in common with Olean!
What was your grade school like? How did it shape you into who you are today?
my alma mater
Banker rescues ducklings! Adorable news video! http://ping.fm/cHTWc
What do the following have in common: a TV star, a porn star, the IMAP creator, an Olympic medalist, a Nirvana drummer…and moi? http://ping.fm/fGh6c
Barkis trying to hypnotize me into taking him for a hike: http://ping.fm/v2VEq
