WNW: Grammar Girl Writes

Today's Word Nerd Wednesday post isn't what I expected it to be. I had two of Grammar Girl's books. One was really short. Surely discussion on both books would fit into a single post, right?

So I started with the (short) first one, Grammar Girl's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know, by Mignon Fogarty. (If you haven't stopped by to check her out, you must.)

I jotted notes and thoughts on my bookmark (a business card). I didn't think I'd need more room than that. I did. Let's just say that I'll have to talk about the other book another time, because one post simply won't do them justice.

When I first flipped through 101 Words, a few entries caught my eye. (Glacier? Really?) I wondered why Fogarty had included them in a list of words of importance for high school grads. Then I read it. Now I get it. (Yes, glacier. Really.)

The words in this book aren't necessarily ones that high school grads will know if they did their homework. I've seen similar lists for high school grads, and they usually do include boring stuff like hypothesis that grads should know when they get a diploma.

This one's different. If incoming college students knows these words, they'll be a step ahead in cultural literacy and understanding the world around them, whether it's the news, politics and what the politicians are saying (or calling each other), technology (important in today's world), science (ditto), or even pop culture.

The book has a fun tone. It's a quick and easy read with lots of white space (easy on the eyes) and humorous drawings. The words are alphabetical, and every letter of the alphabet gets at least one.

A few of my favorites:

• galaxy (New etymology for me.)
• ironic (Please, please, people! Learn this one and use it correctly.)
• epic (And not just as "epic fail.")
• mandate (I love how its got a history that's the reverse of verbification of nouns.)
• canard (New word for me.)
• ad hominem (A must-know for election years.)
• Romance languages (Before, I could have told you what they are, but I didn't know why until now.)
• ubiquitous (I love a good word joke, and you'll find one here.)

The explanations are easy to understand, and each word gets a quotation to show how it's used. I really enjoyed these; they're totally entertaining. She quotes classics like Shakespeare and Jane Austen, contemporaries like Dave Berry and Obama, and even fictional characters like The Simpsons and House. (The 101st word quotes someone many of my readers will perk up at: Ezra Taft Benson.)

In the end, if you read the whole thing, you'll get more than 101 words, because several entries include opposites and related words.

This is one I'll be keeping on my shelf. And making my teens read.

*I received a copy of the book from the publisher. Opinions are entirely my own. I have standing policy of not reviewing books unless I have personally contacted the author with that intent.

WNW: The English Ear

(Fun news at the end of the post; don't miss it!)

A couple of years ago, I posted a funky mind bender that messes with your head, or, rather, your ear. I talked about how, to understand language, your mind needs to know when one word ends and the next begins.

I used this pseudo-nursery rhyme as an example of messing that up so you can't figure out what's being said:

Maresy dotes'n dosey dotes'n littel amsy divie.

The answer to that one is in THIS POST.

After that, several people told me about the great game Mad Gab, which works off this same principle: one team reads a garbled (but famous) phrase off a card and tries to figure out what it really means. The person holding the card knows the meaning. And I can tell you, it's wild playing Mad Gab; as the person holding the card, you think your team has said the phrase, only they don't know what they said.

The other day, my friend Robison Wells posted a link on Twitter to something that reminded me of this concept but in a different way.

Here's a song from an Italian television show that's nothing but gibberish . . . but it's deliberately written to sound like English.

The freaky thing: it totally sounds like English.

I've watched it few times now, and it's always the same: my brain twists into pretzels trying to understand the lyrics. It's as if my mind recognizes the sounds and thinks the singers are really saying something . . . but they're not.

It's sheer brilliance. Enjoy!

Note: You can find a "subtitle" version on YouTube as well. I don't recommend watching it; it's not actually subtitles; it's what one person thinks the song sounds like, putting English words into the gibberish. To me, the so-called subtitles don't sound right.

FUN NEWS:

You'll want to check out the newest writing podcast, specifically about middle-grade books. It's called Wordplay, and the three hosts are awesome: critique group member J. Scott Savage, James Dashner, and Nathan Bransford. (You read that right.)

Hey, I'm Still a Mom!

Awhile back, I got on a frugal kick. My efforts included signing up for newsletters and going to blogs aimed at helping mothers save money.

They included freebies, coupons, giveaways, announcements of sales, and so forth. I was quite excited over the prospect of getting great deals and saving money for our family.

But as the months went on, I found these lists less and less useful. As the mother of four, how is that possible?

Turns out that these money-saving services aren't really aimed at mothers in general. They're aimed at new mothers, women with children who cannot use the toilet, feed themselves, or read.

If I still had the need for cheap diapers, strollers, board books, car seats, booster seats, high chairs, building blocks, bibs, bath toys, and videos with bouncing shapes and characters singing mind-numbing songs, I'd be having a ball.

But I don't, and I'm not.

See, my children are older than that. They're not only potty trained and can feed themselves, but they also dress themselves, one is learning to drive, another babysits for the neighbors, another is on a dance team, and the youngest steals my Kindle to read novels.

Since these newsletters and blogs are pretty useless to me, I've unsubscribed from several of them and delete the rest. (Those I haven't unsubbed from I hang on to with the dim hope that maybe, just maybe, I'll find something useful.)

I wish they were honest about what they're offering. They are not catering to moms. They're catering to mothers of babies and young children.

Based on their definition, I don't qualify as a mom. But I am most definitely a mom, and if I've learned anything in the sixteen years I've been one, it's that children get more, not less, expensive as they age.

Some ideas (a small but growing list, I'm sure) for making a useful mother's deal site:

• Trade-ins for new jeans in the men's section because your son is having yet another growth spurt and the ones you bought two weeks ago are too short but look brand new.
• By one, get one free, scientific calculators (with a bonus graphing calculator) for teens taking upper math.
• School-supply sales that go beyond crayons and markers (my suggestion: case lot sales for pallets of binders).
• Inexpensive locker decoration ideas (mostly for daughters).
• Frequent-customer punch cards for local orthodontists.
• Make-up sales (again, for teen daughters).
• Rebates where you get college tuition instead of cash.
• Notices on sales for hair products since all the kids now use not just hairspray, but mousse or gel.
• Also sales on shampoo and conditioner, since with puberty, they need to wash their hair more often.
• Giveaways on hair dryers, straighteners, and curling irons (with bonus entries if you have multiple daughters, since those things are dang expensive).
• Two words: free gas.

And finally: deep discounts on massages. For Mom, of course. She needs it.

WNW: Mormon Edition, Take 2

A couple of years ago I did a Mormon Edition for Word Nerd Wednesday, wherein we discussed the proper pronunciation of words like Ensign, Patriarchal, and Melchizedek, and how the phrase "strait and narrow" (meaning tight and narrow, basically synonyms) is constantly misunderstood and referred to as "straight and narrow" (not twisty and narrow). You can read that post HERE.

I thought it might be time for another edition with a few more Mormon-y common mistakes.

Shew

I know this looks like new and threw. That's the reason we often hear pronounced as SHOO.

I pronounced it like that well into my adulthood until someone corrected me. Doubtful, I looked it up, and lo and behold, they were right. It's an archaic spelling of show, but it's still pronounced the same way: show. It uses the same spelling (and sound) that sew does.

Yea/Ye/Yeah

In the scriptures, we see yea. Most people pronounce it correctly (YAY).

Every so often, I'll hear someone pronounce ye (the objective pronoun for you) in the same way. Remember that ye is YEE.

And then in writing, people often try to celebrate with someone else and mean a word that sounds like, "hip-hip-hooray" but spell it like this: yeah!

But yeah is a different word. It means "okay, sure," it's an affirmation.

So: "Did you do your homework?"

"Yeah."

If you want to celebrate, use either yea, or, since you don't mean anything scriptural, yay.

Revelation

The final book of the Bible is singular, not plural. John the Beloved recorded his revelation of the last days, and his book is called Revelation.

It's not RevelationS.

Please and thank you.

Psalms

The book in the Old Testament that has all those pretty songs is the book of Psalms.

However, if you refer to something within the book, you are referring to a specific psalm.

So a citation to the verse that reads, "The Lord is my shepherd" should read like this:

Psalm 23:1

That's singular, because you're referring to a single psalm. It's just like with the D&C: you refer to Section 76. You would never say, "Sections 76."

So it's NOT: Psalms 23:1

(Side note: Try typing "psalm" several times in a post. It'll start looking wrong and wonky.)

"in the name of Thy Son"

This is how we're taught to end prayers, right? THY ("your") makes sense, since we're talking to our Heavenly Father.

But have you ever heard someone end a talk or a testimony this way?

I have, and I don't like it.

This is a grammatical thing, but I mention it more because it's something that bothers me: it's clearly someone being thoughtless about what they're saying rather than truly honoring the Savior's name.

You can tell someone is just throwing out a rote phrase, because it doesn't make sense in context.

Think about it: if you're talking to a congregation, you aren't speaking about their son. So "in the name of Thy Son" makes absolutely no sense in that situation. To me, it's being disrespectful.

Why Kindle?

I got a question over on Twitter the other day.

(Note: If you want to follow me, I'm HERE.)

The question came from Zina over at My Imaginary Blog. Readers here may remember her as the blogger I borrowed the malapropism post from. (She's got a lot more where that come from.)

When I posted the first chapter of my middle-grade fantasy novel, The Golden Cup of Kardak, she was curious as to why I decided to go straight to the Kindle with it.

Since the answer doesn't fit into a 140-character tweet, and because I'm guessing other readers may have the same question, I felt a blog post coming on. So Zina, here's the answer.

But some history first. I now have four e-book titles. I traditionally published seven novels with Covenant. My first two went out of print years ago, and the rights reverted back to me. And then I sat on them, because self-publishing a hard-copy novel is crazy expensive. If you go inexpensive and do the print-on-demand thing, you're unlikely to sell much, and it wasn't worth doing to me.

But when e-books started taking off, I decided to get those books back into reader hands.

So just over a year ago, I did a spit-polish on Lost Without You and made it an e-book.

Note to readers: I always liked my original version of the final scene, so I changed it back (in case readers of the original are wondering, yes, it's different).

It had slow sales at first, but every month increased significantly from the month before.

Then around the first of this year, I put up At the Water's Edge, and shortly after that, my grammar guide, There, Their, They're, both of which I updated a bit. I priced the novels nice and low at $2.99, and the grammar guide at only 99 cents, since it's a small book.

At the urging of colleagues, I'd originally self-published the grammar guide in softback with print-on-demand technology about two years prior. I never had any plans for it to go really big; it was more a labor of love than anything, something to offer to friends, colleagues, conference attendees, and the like. I'd been told many times that I can explain language stuff in a way that's easy to understand. When e-readers became mainstream, it made sense to put it onto the Kindle too.

A bit of NEWS: All three novels are now also available at Smashwords HERE, which supports virtually all e-book readers. You should be able to find them through Barnes & Noble, too. The grammar book will on Smashwords soon as well. If you're a Kindle person, they're all HERE on Amazon.

When I had multiple books out, sales took off significantly. While I'm not getting rich, it's certainly been worth doing.

So back to the question regarding the fantasy: Why did I go straight to Kindle with The Golden Cup of Kardak?

1) As I said above, I've had pretty good success (by my definition; I'm no Amanda Hocking) selling my books online myself. It made good business sense to put it out there and see how it does.

2) While I have every intention of going the traditional route with other books, this one is sort of like my grammar guide. It's a labor of love, something I really like that I want to get to the world and let my kids (and other kids) read. Now.

3) I feel confident in its quality without going through the industry vetting process. It's been through my critique group. I've had kids in the target age range read it and offer honest feedback. I gave it to my editor at Covenant, and he loved it, but as I mentioned a week ago, the company wasn't publishing fantasy. So I think the book's good, and it's fun. If I say so myself.

4) But it's probably not what's "hot" in agent and editor minds right now. It doesn't follow any current market trend, and it's more like the fantasies I read as a teen. (I have no delusions of being in their league, but for the sake of categorizing, it's more Robin McKinley, less Suzanne Collins, if that makes sense.) So it's not urban fantasy. It's not paranormal or dystopian or post-apocalyptic. There's no romance. Sure, it might sell if I were to pitch it nationally. It might not. It's a softer fantasy, not a The Forest of Hands and Teeth or a Percy Jackson.

5) Because of that, I believe the book's audience may be a niche. But I do believe an audience for it exists. However, niche audiences aren't really what publishers are about. They don't have the luxury of spending the time finding and cultivating a niche. Sales are sink or swim in the first weeks or months after release. But I do have the luxury of time, and I don't have to invest thousands to do it. I can slowly find readers and build my audience. (Here's where the whole short tail/long tail theory comes in.)

Like I said, I have future plans for traditional publishing (both in the LDS and the national markets). For this book, right now, going self e-pubbed simply made sense.

WNW: The Scandinavian E vs. O (Or: Spell My Name Right!)

I'm combining two topics for today's Word Nerd Wednesday: history (in particular, family history) and word nerdiness in the form of patronymic names.

The history, of course, must come first:

Most people in the United States with European ancestry can point to a specific reason (an "immigration event") that spurred people to leave their motherlands and head to America for a better life, whether it was for economic, religious, or other reasons.

One big example is the Irish potato famine. Lots of Irish people came to the States during that period in hopes of, oh, not dying.

Other countries experienced hard financial times, and we see spikes in immigration during them, including people coming to work in U. S. mines, thinking that they'd strike it rich.

A lot of immigrants came from Scandinavia, Sweden in particular. Some of the more common last names we see from that era are Larson, Peterson, and Jacobson.*

Those are patronymic names, meaning the person's last name simply told who their father was. (So Jacobson is Jacob's son, and so forth.) Last names changed with each generation calling themselves after their father.

Most Scandinavian descendants around the U. S. come from Sweden, Iceland, Norway, or Finland.

Not Denmark. Why? Because Denmark never had an immigration event.

Except that it sort of did. The early LDS Church sent missionaries to Denmark, and lots of newly converted Danes then immigrated to Utah. So Utah has a large population of specifically Danish ancestry, something you won't find in any other area of the country.

Now we're getting to the fun part:

Danish patronymic names use an E instead of an O: Larsen, Petersen, Jacobsen. I learned this early on in my marriage when addressing a Christmas card to my grandfather-in-law.

"Is it Jensen with an E or O?"

The answer was a prompt: "E, not O. Grandpa's big on his Danish heritage."

The prevalence of Scandinavian (but not Danish) ancestry in the U. S. is why most Americans, when faced with a patronymic name, will assume it's spelled with an O.

The O is the normal spelling to them. And, assuming the person is not from Utah, chances are, they're right.

But in Utah, the reverse is true. The vast majority of patronymic names are Danish, and they end with an E.

The E is normal to them.

So, the kicker:

If you're like my high-school choir instructor, Mr. Larson, and have a patronymic name not from Denmark, and you either live in Utah or know people from Utah, and those Utah people are always spelling your last name wrong, now you know why.

*This post was inspired by Melanie Jacobson, a victim of this Utahn, who spelled her name wrong once and never will again.

Edited to add: The O is clearly from Sweden, not Finland, Iceland, or Norway. I'm aware of Icelandic and Finnish immigration, but I don't know much about Norway's. Must investigate!

Now Available in Electrons

It's been a busy few weeks around here between me doing proofing (three times) and getting constant changes and tweaks to my computer guy (the husband).

Oh, and then there was getting two covers made.

One was a new one for Lost Without You. It's in the header and over in the side bar, but for your viewing pleasure, here it is again:

(If you've read it: doesn't the new one reflect the story so much better? I know!)

But the biggest news right now is what's behind all the proofing and coding and the second cover.

All of that was for a brand new e-book.

I got the idea for the story during my senior year of high school.

(Here's where I wax nostalgic.)

I was part of a program called the Senior Honors Seminar. About a dozen seniors were picked for it through an application process. It was essentially a way cool book club run by the principal and one of the English teachers. They gave us books to read, and about once a month, they excused us from class, fed us donuts or pizza, and we talked books and ideas and concepts and had a ball.

The last meeting before graduation was of particular note, when one of the more eccentric members, a student known for his intellect more than his grades and good behavior, showed up high on drugs. (That freaked out several of us young, naive high schoolers.) Fortunately, most of the meetings were interesting for the discussions.

One month, instead of reading a book, we arrived not knowing what to expect. They divided us up. A girl I'd known for years, Steffani, was my partner. Each pair got a painting to look at. We had to come up with a story based on the painting. Totally cool exercise.

Steff and I got "The Timpanogos Storyteller" by James Christensen. In the four or five minutes they gave us, we came up with an adventure based on two characters sitting in the foreground, a boy and a girl. Clutched beneath the girl's arm is a golden object that looks like a dragon. (She's got bluish hair and he's wearing a dark green tunic. Can you see them?)

(Image from Inthepagesofabook.blogspot.com)

We said that these two were siblings. Their father was a prisoner of war, and they had to go rescue him with this magical goblet (that's what the gold dragon thing was, we decided), and that along they way, they find this group of people and creatures in the wood (including a wizard who tells stories, per the painting). This eclectic group would help them find the prison and free their father.

We didn't have time to come up with more details than a skeleton, but I loved the general idea. I went home and jotted it down: a single paragraph in a notebook. That scribbled idea stayed in there for years, but eventually I opened up that notebook, read the idea again, still liked the idea, and began writing the story.

In the end, lots and lots of things changed, and I fleshed out all the stuff that Steff and I didn't come up with in four minutes. The siblings ended up closer in age than in the painting (they're 14 and 12), and the sister doesn't have blue hair. I gave them a wounded knight as a traveling companion. A scene in the book that's inspired by the painting does show up (as does a bunch of other fun stuff; see the blurb below).

I played with the story off and on for years. I took it to my critique group. At one point I had some nibbles submitting nationally, but when I decided to pursue the LDS market in earnest, I let it gather dust. Later, I played with (and polished) the manuscript yet again.

When Kirk at Covenant, who was my editor at the time, expressed interest in the fantasy, I sent it to him. He loved it, but turns out that in spite of his enthusiasm, Covenant wasn't doing youth fantasy at that point, so it was a no-go.

I'll go into more detail next week as to why I decided to put it onto the Kindle instead of wooing an agent with it, but for now, I'll say that after all these years, it's out there for kids and grown-ups alike to read, and that's just cool.

Here's the cover and the blurb:

Ever since their father went to fight in Midian’s War, fourteen-year old Torin and twelve-year-old Merinne have been forced to fend for themselves, hoping one day their family will be reunited. But when a short woman with odd clothing finds Torin in the wood and tells him their father is a prisoner scheduled to be executed in fourteen days, his hopes for ever being a family again are dashed. Then a tiny green dragon shows up at their cottage, wounded and near death but lugging a legendary golden goblet behind him. He brings word of a prophecy that the siblings are to not only rescue their father but save the kingdom. With the help of Markanus, a wounded solider, they set out on a quest to free their father. In their search for the secret prison, the small group faces near-capture by the ruthless enemy army, a maze of terrifying underground caverns, kidnapping by giant hairy creatures that will kill them to keep the goblet, capture by outlaws, and attacks by snake-tongued flying beasts with razor-sharp talons. To succeed they must find help to deliver the goblet to their father and somehow muster the courage it will take to stay alive.

Find it on Amazon for $2.99.

WNW: Two Definition Blunders

Whether I'm reading a book or editing a manuscript, I tend to notice misused words. (I do, however, maintain the right to have typos and mistakes here on my blog. Just sayin'.)

Some of these are misused word pairs, which I've covered before on Word Nerd Wednesday (see the homophones posts HERE and HERE, with more to come), but others aren't word pairs. Instead, they're terms we often assume mean one thing but really mean something else.

Today's we're focusing on two commonly misunderstood words and their real meanings. Both words are often mixed up because they sound like they're emphasizing the core word. Not so.

penultimate

This word sounds really cool. It sounds like "the ultra ultimate," of something, so whatever it's describing, it must be way awesome.

The real definition isn't nearly so spectacular: penultimate simply means the second to last.

If you're a reader and know this series, here's a way to remember it: The second to last book in The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket is The Penultimate Peril.

That book isn't the ultimate peril. (You could argue that other books have worse perils.) It's just the second to last conflict that the Violet, Klaus, and Sunny face as they try to foil Count Olaf. It's the second to last book in the series. It's the penultimate volume.

infamous

Back in eighth grade when I created a writing and reading club focused on (shocker, I bet) L. M. Montgomery, I wrote a newsletter and included stories we wrote in it.

One of my stories included the term infamous, meaning (I thought) someone (my hero) who was really, really famous.

Turns out that infamous means someone or something is dastardly or "bringing infamy." It's having a bad reputation, which could mean the person is famous, but if so, it's specifically for a doing bad things. A good example of an infamous person would be Ted Bundy the serial killer.

So, yeah. Not my hero and heroine.

Tristi's Hang 'Em High Hoedown

Welcome to the Hang ‘em High Hoedown, counting down the days until the release of Tristi Pinkston’s new novel Hang ‘em High, the third installment in The Secret Sisters Mysteries.

When Ida Mae Babbitt receives an invitation to visit her son Keith’s dude ranch in Montana, she’s excited to mend their broken relationship, but not so excited about spending time with cows. Arlette and Tansy go along with her, ready to take a vacation that does not involve dead bodies or mysteries of any sort—one must have a break from time to time. But it seems a no-good scoundrel has moseyed into Dodge City and is bent on causing all sorts of trouble for the ranch. Unable to keep her curiosity in check—especially when it seems her own son is the most likely culprit—Ida Mae decides to investigate. Can she lasso the varmint and get him to the sheriff in time?

You are invited to the launch party:

When: Saturday, August 13^th, 12 – 4 pm

Where: Pioneer Book, 858 S. State, Orem

Prizes, games, Dutch oven cobbler (first come, first served)

Tristi will be joined by authors Nichole Giles, Heather Justesen,

Cindy Hogan, and J. Lloyd Morgan

To count down to this book launch, Tristi is holding a contest, and you can win a ton of great prizes!

On my blog, you can win:

Band of Sisters, winner of the 2010 Whitney Award for Best General Novel

The backliner:

When the war on terror calls their husbands to duty, five LDS women are left behind to fight battles of their own: Kim, newlywed and pregnant, frightened of what the future might bring. Brenda, struggling to manage three unruly boys and a crippling bout of depression. Jessie, secretly grappling with mixed feelings about her emotionally abusive husband. Marianne, wrestling with a rebellious teenage daughter. And Nora, the seasoned Army wife with perfect hair, an immaculate home — and an ill-tempered mother dying of cancer.

Knowing the separation of deployment is extremely difficult, Nora gathers the wives every week to share lunches and burdens. In good company, they worry over safety in the field and stability at home and offer one another counsel and comfort. But as their personal crises build, each woman faces the risks of forming deep bonds of trust. And when tragedy strikes, they must confront the painful realities of war that pull families apart and bring friends together as sisters.

EDITED TO ADD:

OR you have the option of winning Tower of Strength, my fourth temple-related book. Like the other prizes in Tristi's Hoe Down, it features a HORSE. Winner's choice. Read about Tower of Strength HERE. (You can also watch the trailer for it in my side bar.)

To enter, do all of the following:

1. Be a follower of my blog.

2. Go to Tristi’s blog at http://www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com and become a follower of her blog.

3. Leave Tristi a comment and tell her you’ve been to my blog, and tell her one reason why you’d like to win my book.

You have two days to enter the contest on my blog (all entries for my prize must be received by midnight, August 2^nd, MST), but the hoe down fun is just getting started.

Be sure to check Tristi’s blog every day for information about the next prize – you’re in for a rootin’-tootin’ good time as we count down the days!

Sample Sunday: The Golden Cup of Kardak

Chapter One

Urgent Messenger

Torin whistled as he headed down the forest path. He had a bag of potatoes over one shoulder and a five piece in his hand. Wouldn’t Merinne be thrilled! He tossed the coin into the air and caught it, then heard a noise in the brush ahead.

At first he thought it was just of fox or a jackrabbit, until he looked over and saw a flash of a brown cloak slipping behind a big rock. Because the colors blended into the forest so well, he thought he’d imagined a green, pointed hat—it was a wonder Torin saw anything at all. His curiosity getting the better of him, he took a step off the path to investigate.

A little woman with mousy, brown hair peered out and waved a bent hand at him. Startled, Torin caught his breath. Was she a dwarf? A gnome? She looked younger than the pictures of gnomes and dwarves he had seen in books. Her hair was pulled into a bun, but wisps had come loose and framed her face. She crooked her finger at him.

He pointed at himself. “Me?”

She looked around as if she was afraid someone might have heard, then held a finger to her lips. Again she beckoned for Torin to follow. She ran a few steps but paused and looked back to be sure he’d come.

Torin debated for only a moment. If Merinne were there, she’d insist he go straight home. But this felt different than the times he’d been duped, like when he bought a goat for milk and didn’t realize it was a he-goat until it was too late. He tucked the coin into his pocket, hoping the woman hadn’t seen it, and promised himself to not give it to her.

Again the woman stopped and waved him on. Torin stepped off the path and followed through the rough. She moved quietly as she led him to a tiny cave hidden behind some brush. He had to lean down to fit inside. She pulled Torin into hiding, throwing a glance into the wood as she drew him in.

Her wiry hands gripped his as she whispered, “Your father is alive and needs your help.”

[Title now available HERE for $2.99]

Answer & a Post

For those wondering about this week's Word Nerd Wednesday, Sandra got it right!

All the words in that list describe groups of animals. When I first saw this list, I knew a couple of them, but into a big group like this, even those definitions dissolved, and I couldn't figure it out until someone else told me. The full list is below.

Also: Today I'm guest posting at my friend Liz's group blog. (I've blogged about the awesome Liz, who I've known for over half my life, HERE.)

Read my guest post over at Hey Nonny HERE.

And the animal list:

Kindle of Kittens
Sleuth of Bears
Leash of Greyhounds
Brace of Ducks
Charm of Goldfinches
Drift of Swine
Exaltation of Larks
Grist of Bees
Leap of Leopards
Murder of Crows
Bed of Clams
Sounder of Boars
Chattering of Choughs
Spring of Teals
Trip of Seals
Watch of Nightingales
Wing of Plovers
Rafter of Turkeys
Clamor of Rooks
Kettle of Hawks
Mute of Hounds
Unkindness of Ravens
Wisdom of Owls
Train of Camels
Gulp of Cormorants
Skulk of Foxes
Rhumba of Rattlesnakes
Clutter of Cats
Bloat of Hippos
Troubling of Goldfish

WNW: What Do These Words Have in Common?

FIRST, A REMINDER:

The registration deadline for the Precision Editing live critique workshop is coming up. The workshop will be much like the Storymaker conference Boot Camp, but all day, and with less of a crowd.

MORE:

The workshop is Saturday, August 13, 10:30 to 3:30.

Cost: $35 for the day. (A one-hour lunch break is on you.)
CLICK HERE for more info.

Serious word nerd alert here.

I found this list of terms not too long ago. I'm posting it now with a question for you:

What do all of these words have in common?

I'll post the answer later.

Kindle
Sleuth
Leash
Brace
Charm
Drift
Exaltation
Grist
Leap
Murder
Bed
Sounder
Chattering
Spring
Trip
Watch
Wing
Rafter
Clamor
Kettle
Mute
Unkindness
Wisdom
Train
Gulp
Skulk
Rhumba
Clutter
Bloat
Troubling

Rowling's Splash and Ripples

Found a great article in the Wall Street Journal, a piece that essentially said thank you to J. K. Rowling for the impact she and her books have made.

One element of the article that I had fun with in particular was the comparisons of Rowling to Dickens, thanks to my studies of Dickens as an English major. I had an entire semester course on his work and had a ball dissecting them, especially some lesser-known works (two of my favorites: Our Mutual Friend and Dombey and Son).

But for this post, I wanted to talk about the overall message of the piece.

First, yes, the article contains a lot of hyperbole. No, Rowling didn't save a world on the brink of illiteracy. Yes, many kids were reading books long before Rowling penned her first Harry Potter book. So did grown-ups.

That said, Rowling's writing and publishing changed the landscape of reading and publishing in huge ways. Love her books or not, here are just a few ways she made a splash that's still rippling:

For the first time, lots of kids as young as eight and nine were reading 700-page tomes. And it wasn't just the nerdy kid without friends. Reading became cooler than almost anything else. Really young kids got caught up in the activity like never before.

Kids who hated reading (and thought they were bad readers) suddenly decided that reading was awesome. Thousands (if not millions) of reluctant readers started their journey into books.

Then the big cross-over happened. In the past, some YA books were read by grown-ups, especially Newbery winners (most of us have probably read A Wrinkle in Time, for example), but there had never been a cross-over like this.

With HP, suddenly parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents were reading the same books as young kids. Several generations were in the room discussing the same books together.

My kids were young (and in some cases, not born) when the books first came out. But the books provided hours and hours (and weeks and months) of entertainment for me and my husband. There aren't too many books out there we both like. We've read the series twice together.

Publishing houses took note of the cross-over appeal and huge sales numbers. They then seriously upped the number of their YA titles and pushed them like never before.

The ripple is ongoing. One example: this spring at the Storymakers conference, I spoke with a senior editor at a big house. She said her boss wants them to actively seek out new YA since it's such a big seller. She's floundering a bit, because in her entire career (spanning decades) she's always focused on books for adults.

Thanks to all of this, we have tons more new youth titles being published (and more titles sold and read) than, I'm quite sure, in any other time in history.

The New York Times even had to create new bestsellers list specifically for youth fiction to accommodate it all.

Many adults who never really bothered to read, did pick up Harry for whatever reason (likely word of mouth). Those same folks are now reading new books, sometimes YA, but often adult and literary fare as well. Many have even joined book clubs.

It's almost like Harry was a "gateway drug" for a lot of people to discover (or rediscover) books.

I've talked with many school teachers who are grateful for the impact Harry Potter has had. Even though current junior high students were in diapers when the first book came out, the impact continues. New students, even if they've never read Harry, benefit because they have a much wider variety of books to choose from than their peers did in the mid 90s. Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction has exploded in the last then years. (I can think of several really big YA names that probably owe JKR their careers.)

Then there' s the cultural impact. Like any big cultural phenomenon, vocabulary, ideas, and other elements from the Harry Potter universe have seeped into our consciousness. One example: the word "muggle" no longer means solely what it does in the series. People today use it to refer to others who lack a specific skill or ability in their industry. ("There's this guy in our department who's a total muggle when it comes to technology.")

I know there are others who don't agree or who don't see what I'm saying, that they and all their friends have always been readers. Basically: what's the big deal? Rowling didn't do so much. She didn't impact me.

To those people, I say: You're not normal. (And I mean that in a very, very good way!)

I'm also not normal. I've always been a reader. So are my friends. In 8th grade, some of us even set up a reading club. I can't understand people who shrug and say they can't remember the last book they read.

But those people exist, and J. K. Rowling lowered the numbers a bit.

Bottom line: I believe that the more literate a people are, the better off society is.

So yes, thanks, Jo. Big time.

WNW: Metathesis

You may not know what it is by name, but you've probably done it yourself lots of times, and if you've been around kids, I'm sure you've heard more examples as they learn to talk.

Metathesis is when two sounds get flipped in the pronunciation of a word.

For young children, the most familiar one might be saying pa-sghetti instead of spaghetti, where the child exchanges the places of the S and the P.

A common example among adults is how they say the full word we write as etc. Many people say ex cetera.

That's not technically correct, but a lot of us say it. The term is really et cetera, with a T, not an X. That pronunciation makes a lot more sense when you look back at the shortened version we all use, etc.

When my son was little (and because I'm a total word nerd), I loved watching his language develop. A version of metathesis he came up with was with "granola bar."

He dropped the R altogether, as young kids often do, since it's a hard consonant to say when you're two years old. Then he exchanged place with the N and the G, but kept their accompanying vowels. So GA was swapped with NO. Oh, and two syllables was plenty for this kid.

The result: GRA-NO-LA > (drop the R and last syllable) > GA NO > (add metathesis) > NO GA

He often asked for a "noga" bar.

Below is a short video explaining more about metathesis and how this linguist had students catch her on a word she often says "wrong." She also discusses some unexpected English words that have changed permanently over time through metathesis.

So . . . Close. Help, Please.

So I entered a photo taken several years ago of my husband and one of our daughters into a contest for pictures of fathers. Winner gets a cool camera.

The finalists are voted on by the public. I'm close, but I need help to bump our picture up and win.

You can vote once a day through Sunday, so go back tomorrow, too!

To vote, write "I vote for Dad and Daughter" in the comments under the photo.

HERE'S THE LINK!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Thanks, Valerie

Ten years ago, in the summer of 2001, I got yet another rejection from one of the two publishing houses I was bound and determined to break into (Covenant, the other being Deseret Book). This rejection had a lot of positives in it, and it included a request to revise and resubmit.

About two weeks later, I got an e-mail from an editor there who I knew personally. We'd crossed paths many times, at League of Utah Writers meetings, conferences, and so on. She was one of the most helpful and sweet people ever.

Her name was Valerie Holladay.

In her email, she said that she'd seen my work cross her desk over the years, and she knew I had the chops, but for whatever reason hadn't quite crossed the line into acceptance. Long-time readers of my blog will remember the story (HERE and HERE) about how Valerie invited me to lunch so we could discuss my writing and figure out how to fine-tune my work so it was more marketable.

I spent days frantically writing synopses of my novels so Valerie could read them in advance and give me feedback on the stories when we met for lunch. I remember the table we sat at when the light bulb went off over my head and I realized what ingredients my stories were missing. I remember talking to her in the parking lot, where she told me that if we could just get me in the door I'd "be an asset to the company."

She gave me permission to submit to her electronically, which wasn't the norm back then. But by the time that day came, I learned that she was leaving the company. At first I felt like the brass ring had been taken away from me; my advocate at Covenant was gone.

Sure, Valerie had left, but she'd taught me what I needed. That fall, I submitted what became Lost Without You, and by the one-year anniversary of our lunch, I had a novel on bookstore shelves with my name on it.

In the years since, we've corresponded here and there as friends and colleagues about topics ranging from cat training to typesetting. Most of my friends who are fellow Covenant authors came aboard after I did and never knew her.

In many ways, I owe a lot to Valerie for helping me and guiding me. She took me under her wing when I needed it the most.

I know I'm not unique in that respect. I've heard many other writers express gratitude for the friendship and help they received from Valerie.

Which is why the world lost something special on Sunday when Valerie passed away after a short bout of cancer. I didn't even know she was ill. When I heard, my heart ached.

I'm quite sure I'm not alone in saying that she will be missed.

Thanks for everything, Valerie.

WNW: Anaphora

Anaphora is a funky term that essentially refers to a stylistic effect with repetition at the beginning of sentences or phrases.

Before your brain starts spinning with "what the huh?" let's look at some examples you're probably already familiar with. Note the bolded sections:

One of the most famous examples in modern times is from Martin Luther King, Jr:

I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi a state, sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Then there's one of the most famous openings to a novel, where Charles Dickens used anaphora in A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . .

Or how about Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right . . .

A general writing rule is to avoid repetition. But as with any rule, there are exceptions, and this is one.

My critique group is great at catching weak repetition (so, not anaphora), whether it's when one of us gets redundant with concepts ("beating a dead horse; you already showed that . . . a lot") or words ("on these two pages, your characters looked twelve times").

When I find that kind of repetition, I cut it out and revise, and I suggest the same to editing clients. A great way to find repetition is to read you work aloud. Your ear will catch things your eyes don't.

But anaphora is a different animal; it's repetition with a purpose. It's used for a specific emphasis in meaning or to create a desired impact on the reader or listener.

In thinking about anaphora, I realized I used one in Lost Without You, my first published novel (*cough*now on Kindle for cheap*cough*cough*).

It's a minor moment, when Brooke falls into a lake. Greg and Russell worry at first that she's hurt herself, but

Brooke was only wet. Very wet.

I remember circling "Very wet" during revisions, wondering whether I should take it out. In the end, I kept it in for emphasis, even though I didn't realize that what I was doing had a name. In that case, I think it worked.

Once you 're aware of it, anaphora shows up a lot. Without resorting to Dr. Google, can you think of other examples of anaphora? Any favorites?

*Edited to add: In hindsight, the example from LWY technically isn't anaphora, but epistrophe, which is repetition at the end of a line.

Collaboration, Trail Mix, and Sleep Deprivation

Around a year and a half (or more) ago, Josi Kilpack and Julie Wright went on a fabulous book promotion trip together.

Somewhere along the way, on the open road, they were struck by brilliance. They asked me and Heather Moore to have breakfast with them one morning at a restaurant, where they laid out the idea:

What if we created a series that actual book clubs would enjoy reading?

What if we did that by coming up with four great characters, each with her own set of problems, and throwing them together?

What if the four of us each wrote one book in the series, which featured an actual book club?

What if the books could stand alone but had stories that intersected?

By the time I finished my omelet, we already had a general idea of who the four characters would be, which of us would write which character, and what their main problems would be.

Over the course of the next few months, we played around with time lines and story ideas. We all had other things we were working on, and we had to put those projects "to bed" before tackling our book club idea, but eventually we reached the point where it was time.

Since January, we've had several writing weekends, where we get together at a library, write most of the day, take a break around 3:00 for a late lunch/early dinner, check into a hotel, write our brains out (with snack food alongside so we don't have to leave) until we can't keep our eyes open any longer, go to bed, write in the morning, then check out.

During that time, we pause to pick one another's brains. We throw out ideas. We ask one another questions about characters, back story, and geography. We smooth out time lines (each book covers the exact same period, and each book features some scenes that show up in others). We do Internet research. We consult maps.

And . . . we get addicted to trail mix. Walk the halls of the hotel in pajamas to stretch our legs. Laugh. Lots. And go home with lots of new words on our laptops.

In between those weekends, we do a lot of emailing back and forth, sending one another scene clips, details we need from each other, corrections to scenes, and so on.

As of last Saturday, I finished drafting my contribution to The Newport Ladies Book Club series, called Paige. Each book is titled after that book's main character, and they're all written in first person.

The four books are all either drafted or almost so. We're entering the stage of swapping manuscripts for editing and revision (and for flow and accuracy between books) before submission.

It's an exciting project, something totally unlike anything I've done before, and something I couldn't have done with just anyone. The series works entirely because the four of us are friends and have already worked well together professionally. And because we get each other. I don't know how many other groups of women who hang out this much, working so hard, with so much give and take, and still love each other to pieces at the end. It's been an amazing ride.

I can't wait for the final result and for when readers, too, will get to learn about Athena, Paige, Livvy, and Daisy. I hope readers will come to love these fictional women like we do and discover how they impact one another's lives.

Each book will be able to stand on its own, but readers will only get the full braided story by reading all four, although you can do that in any order, so it's not a "series" in the typical sense.

To keep up-to-date on The Newport Ladies Book Club, check out the series blog.

In the meantime, I get to celebrate the completion of a shiny new draft with a little chocolate!

Flat Daddy Family #5

We've got another military family in need of my awesome readers' help to get a Flat Daddy.

Quick reminder for my newer readers:

A Flat Daddy is a life-sized image (often a cutout) of a deployed parent from the waist up. Flat Daddies are especially helpful for families with small children, as they ease the pain during a deployment by having a physical representation of their mom or dad with them.

Some families hang the Flat Daddy on the wall, while others tote him around everywhere they go, so Dad is "present" at his daughter's tea party, his son's field trip, at the grocery store, trick-or-treating, or attending a soccer game.

See THIS PAGE of my website to see a Flat Daddy in action and just how cool the program is.

Thanks to my research into the military for Band of Sisters, I've come to appreciate military families in ways I never could have otherwise. So periodically I spotlight military families who could really use a Flat Daddy (creating one yourself is rather cost-prohibitive). Readers can then donate to the current FD Family using the Donate button over in my side bar. When we have enough funds, I order the Flat Daddy, and then the people there make it and ship it directly to the family.

And now, today's Flat Daddy family, in the words of my friend Danyelle Ferguson:

The Bauman Family

Michael and Rachel Bauman have a military love story. The couple first met in Afghanistan in 2005 while Rachel was serving in the Air Force and Michael in the Army.

They were married in February 2006. Together, they have a yours, mine & ours family, which includes four kids between the ages of 1 1/2 and 10 years old.

Michael left for a tour in Iraq in March and will be there for a year. He joined the Army right out of high school in 1996 and has been stationed at Fort Knox, Fort Sill, and Fort Leavenworth. His family is currently at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

The Bauman family enjoys watching movies together, going for family walks, and playing with their two English Mastiffs, Sarge and Carmel. While Dad is serving our country, Mom plans to stay at home with their kids.

So far, the deployment has been met with mixed challenges. Rachel’s mother, who planned to help during the deployment, suddenly fell ill and passed away early in May. Michael was able to come home for two weeks to help with the funeral.

The family was grateful to be together during those first few weeks, but having Dad leave a second time was particularly difficult for the kids. They look at pictures of Dad and sleep with their military Dad dolls each night.

Receiving a big Flat Daddy will add more comfort to their days.

When asked about her husband’s service, Rachel said, “As a former active duty soldier, I am proud of my husband and his willingness to serve our country. I know the next year won't be easy for our family or for him to be away from us, but we are going to do our best to communicate together as often as possible and remind the kids Daddy loves them every day.”

Daddy Bauman

Okay, folks! Let's get the Baumans a Flat Daddy. Ready, go!

(Oh, and so you know: Daddy Bauman? That's Danyelle's brother!)

WNW: Homophones the Sequel

I keep a running list of homophone blunders I come across, and when it gets long enough, we get another Word Nerd Wednesday featuring the latest fun.

7 more word pairs to keep straight:

eke/eek

• If you're struggling to make ends meet, you eke out a living, meaning you get it with great difficulty.
• When you open the pantry and a mouse scurries between your feet you shriek, "Eek!"

discrete/discreet

I'm going to be honest; this is a word pair I regularly pause to think over to make sure I get it right.

• When I write a novel, it's discrete, individually distinct from any other.
• If Sammy hears a juicy piece of gossip, she knows how to be discreet by using good judgment and not blabbering it about publicly.

bolder/boulder

• In high school, I was generally too shy to speak up. I had to learn to be bolder in class.
• I used to live on a street named after a huge gray boulder, a stone taller than my ten-year-old self.

latter/later

I've seen this pair mixed up a lot lately, with the second word used as the first, even by highly educated folks. It has me scratching my head. A refresher:

• Laura had to to decide between buying the red or green blouse and opted for the latter. In other words, she's now the proud owner of a green blouse, since it was listed second.
• Had Laura arrived at the store an hour later, the green one might have already been sold, so she'd have bought the red one.

passed/past

I address this pair in my grammar book, but it bears repeating. The first word here (passed) is a verb that already happened:

• As Dave rode his bike to work, cars passed him awfully close.

The other word (past) could be either a noun or a preposition. (It can also be an adjective, but let's keep it simple for today.)

• Noun: Tell me about your the last three years of your past.
• Preposition: Scott walked right past Julie without recognizing her.

allot/a lot

Peeve, peeve, peeve. First of all, note that I didn't write alot. That would be because it's not a word. You need the space between the A and the LOT. TWO words. For the love.

The two words in action:

• Pete planned to allot thirty minutes for his lunch break at work.
• On second thought, make that forty-five. He was starving and knew he'd eat a lot.

idle/idol

This is a recent confused pair. I'm guessing it has something to do with the popularity of American Idol. (Although if that's true, wouldn't more people know the difference? It's a puzzler.)

• Janice planned lots of activities for summer to keep her children from being idle.
• Jenny's mother wished she'd find someone else to look up to instead of her idol, Lindsay Lohan.

The other day, I borrowed a book from my dad that will likely inspire future WNW posts and will definitely bring me lots of nerdy joy: Diction of Confusing Words and Meanings.

I'm salivating already.

Random Thoughts on Disneyland

I've been absent from my blog of late. I meant to schedule some posts for while I was gone, but obviously that didn't happen. I can say that in the interim, my writer brain was all a-flurry, and I couldn't help but think of funny Facebook status updates or tweets, stuff I wouldn't be posting during the trip.

This was my kids' second time to Disneyland. The last was four and a half years ago, long enough for them to have forgotten a lot and for the youngest to grow so tall that there was only one ride she couldn't go on. (To her dismay; she really wanted to ride Screamer. She's maybe an inch too short and might have slipped through with her shoes on, but Mom is paranoid and wouldn't let her try.)

Much like I did after spending weeks doing Costco book signings, I couldn't help but observe Disneyland and find several amusing things about our time there. A sampling:

I Can't Turn off My "What If" Button

In one shop, the kids made Disney-themed stamped pennies, where the coin is stretched out and pressed with an image. Glass encases the machine so you can watch it happen. As the cylinder rolled across one penny, I couldn't help but picture what would happen if a finger got caught in there and the cracking, oozing damage that would ensue.

I made the mistake of mentioning it to the kids. "Ew, Mom! Stop it with the writer imagining stuff already!"

Sticker Shock Is Relative

When I first passed a churros stand and later a cotton candy stand, I about choked at the $3.50 price tag. And we won't even discuss actual meals, whether in the park or out of it. If I wasn't careful, I could blink and spend a week's worth of groceries on a basic meal for our family of six. But by the third day in the park, spending forty bucks on a few ice cream cones (and on a brand found in our local grocery store) no longer fazed us.

Families that Laugh Together Have the Most Fun

Sure, we had our moments of groaning, eye rolling, and siblings vying for their own space ("She stepped on my toes!"), but for the most part, we had fun. Somehow we hit the Grizzly water rapids ride in California Adventure at just the right time two days in a row, riding it a total of five times. We laughed harder as a family during that one ride than any other.

Mom's a Child at Heart (And Sometimes Has Good Ideas)

I haven't been to Disneyland nearly as often as some people, but in the few times I had been there, I'd never attended the parade. This trip, I insisted we go to one. The announcement elicited eye rolling from the older kid crowd. I persisted. We got a decent spot and waited.

And it was awesome.

My youngest was tickled over and over again when princesses and other characters waved at her (or at least looked like they did). Ariel in particular did notice her, stroked her own red hair, then pointed at my daughter's matching red hair, smiled and waved. Made my girl's day.

When it was over, all four kids agreed that the parade was totally worth seeing.

Souvenir Choices Improve with Age

Last time we went, I cringed when the kids chose lame souvenirs like an electronic toy that mimicked a cell phone and had a calculator, a photo album (never used), and a squeezy plastic thing that oozed worms from a brain. This time, each child wanted to take home something meaningful, and in every case, that ended up being something they'd actually use that would last and they'd have fun memories from.

Dorothy Was Right

As fun as the trip was, when it was time to go home, we were ready. I drove the leg that went through Death Valley and eventually to St. George. Entering the gorgeous landscape of southern Utah sent a sweet surge through me. Home.

Part of the feeling could have been the fact that Death Valley is so dang ugly, but I have to say, southern Utah is gorgeous. (Oh, and I got to see the St. George Temple, which always brings me warm fuzzies for obvious reasons.)

SO MUCH happened on the trip; I could write post after post about it, including all the inside jokes that developed, but I'll end with this, my favorite "what the crap?" moment:

The Masochistic Woman

By day three, my hips, knees, and feet were killing me. (Note to self: call the chiropractor ASAP.) As we boarded the Jungle Cruise, I noticed a woman behind us that didn't seem to fit in. She wore a flowing, plum-colored dress. That alone seemed odd. Who wears flowing gowns in an amusement park?

Worse, the dress was held up by nothing more than a strap around her neck. Hm. Few rides are conducive to dresses, let alone fancy ones like this. And the California sun isn't particularly forgiving on backs and shoulders that are totally exposed to UV rays, which they were thanks to both the dress and her fancy up-do hair.

Huh. I thought. Odd.

Then the kicker: She wore four-inch heels.

My feet were protesting the seemingly endless miles I'd traversed (and the hours I'd waited in lines) in my comfy shoes. Why in the name of Dr. Scholl's was she wearing torture devices on her feet at Disneyland?

It wasn't until I noticed who she was with and how she behaved that the likely reality dawned on me. She and her daughter were with a man and his daughter. Both girls were about the same age. They looked so different from one another, it was clear whose child was whose. Based on body language, the couple didn't know one another that well. She flirted and cooed and at times looked unsure of what to say or do. And both had bare ring fingers.

Eureka.

I'm betting it was a date, and she was trying to impress the guy by looking hot. I'm curious: Did he buy into it? Or did he realize that she's a few Mickey ears short by wearing a get-up she could have attended a wedding in?

People-watching is research. It's a writer's excuse to spy, wonder, and, at times, walk away totally bewildered. It's fun to think of motivations and personalities and wonder why someone does what they're doing.

So I had to think: What if the location of the date was a surprise? Maybe the guy just told her a time, and she got gussied up, only to find out they were heading to the Magic Kingdom. Then the guy was the idiot for not telling her how to dress. So many options.

I was on the verge of blisters and tears with my good shoes. So her poor, poor feet! I'm wishing I could find her and ask if she was hobbling an hour later.

And, more importantly, whose brilliant idea it was to wear such a ridiculous get-up when it was bound to make her one of the most miserable people in the happiest place on earth.

I'm a writer . . . I'm sure I can use that somewhere.

Whoa. You're in THAT Group?

When writers (published or unpublished) ask who is part of my critique group, that's the response I usually get.

Yes, I'm in THAT group. I'm one of the members who's been there the longest.

The next reaction is: How did you get to be so lucky?

Before I go on, let's back up. Here are the seven members of my group:

• Me
• Robison Wells
• H. B. (Heather) Moore
• Sarah M. Eden
• Michele Paige Holmes
• J. Scott Savage (Jeffrey S. Savage)
• Lu Ann Staheli

And James Dashner is a past member. (The first chapters of The Maze Runner were read aloud around my kitchen table.)

So yes. Whoa. I'm in that group. How did I get in?

I certainly didn't just get lucky one day, managing to sneak into an amazing group with writers who'd all been published multiple times and won lots of awards.

That's not how we started out. That's who we became.

Below is a collage of our book covers and awards. (This doesn't count the books published by a couple of current members who joined after being published or since leaving the group. It's solely books published and awards received while in the group.)

I know. Amazing company.

So I'm am lucky, in one sense. I've been part of this great critique group for eleven and a half years.

Our group began with a bunch of aspiring writers who happened to live in the same general area. Our only publishing credits were a few articles here and there. We bumped along for a few years, trying to find our legs as we figured out what we were doing. The group morphed over time as members have moved in and out, as goals and priorities for some people changed.

Today, it's something else altogether, and we have the publications and awards to prove it. But that's not a result of sheer luck. It's a result of other things, like hard work and friendship and synergy.

Nearly two decades ago as I sat in a university class about the Romantic poets, I was amazed at the wild coincidence of how the most successful poets of the era all knew each other and were good friends. They hung out together, read one another's work, and offered suggestions.

What were the chances?

I get it now. It wasn't a coincidence at all. The Romantics were essentially an amazing critique group. Their friendship and support are the reasons they were all so successful and why, two hundred years later, we're still reading their words.

I can say without any hesitation that I wouldn't be where I am in my writing career (or skills or sanity) without my critique group.

At last night's meeting, we thought back to our beginnings and talked about where we've come from. We laughed a bit at the writers we were ten years ago, seeing how much we've all grown.

Granted, I doubt we're destined for the history books like the Romantics were. (Although a former member is already a NY Times bestseller, so who knows . . .)

But what I do know is that these people are like family to me. We're there to cheer one another on, to cry together when things don't go quite right. To laugh and giggle and crack jokes that help ease the tension of the writing life. (I think last night's meeting might have had more tweetable one-liners than any other. Too bad my computer and phone were in the other room.)

Our success is largely a result of that friendship and support.

They're ten shades of awesome, and I am, indeed, very lucky. If I have any say in the matter, I'll never, ever leave.