It's wintertime which means I drink a lot of tea. Friends who know me gave me a ton of different teas for my birthday and Christmas, some even come with a saying. They make me roll my eyes, grin, or think. I thought I could share some wisdom.
#1
Forgiveness is an act of consciousness.
After finishing the King’s Mate series, I wrote short stories for the anthologies, prompts, and collaborations with Valkyrie and Cole Matthews, mixed with some poetry. A few months ago, however, I thought it is time to start a new book. Those who know me a little are probably aware of my fascination with vampires. They will play a decisive part in the new series.
I’m currently writing chapter four. As I am a slow writer due to life and the fact that English is my second language, it takes m
There are about 7000 living languages in the world. (Ethnologue)
We come upon texts that have been originally written in a language other than our own all the time: manuals, articles, papers, songs, movies, TV shows, books, etc.
Personally, I try to read or listen to the original version, emphasis on ‘try’, seeing the sheer number of possible languages. It means I have to rely on translations.
My question for readers: Do you prefer an as verbatim as possible translation over an in
Eight years ago I joined GA. Time to reminisce—a lot of firsts. Sorry.
On September 21, 2011, I switched from lurker to member. I wanted to be able to comment and get notifications. Meanwhile, I wrote my first prompt story. Thank you GA for your encouraging comments and reactions. I became an author and wrote my first anthology story, The Wardrobe. Again, thank you GA for motivating and encouraging me to write my first mini-series, Four Perspectives.
The next step was my first multi-ch
Some time ago I became seriously ill. With seriously, I mean getting close to meeting Azrael personally, at least three times. With a white blood cell count considered extremely high even for the type of illness I had, the resulting stroke, hemiplegia, pneumonia, and cerebral edema, to be able to walk and talk again almost like before, I have to count myself lucky.
What I learned: Life as you know it can be over in a blink of a moment. In theory, I knew this, but suddenly being confronted w
Poems with an accent
I like to write. However, why attempt to write in a language other than the one I learned first. One reason: Over 130 Million people speak German (https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/culture/the-german-language-surprising-facts-and-figures)
More than 3 Billion people speak/understand English. Duh.
I’ve come a long way from
There is a cat.
The cat is fat.
The cat lies on a mat.
to my first novel long story written in English. Red Running Shoes.
Around four pm, mini-cat became restless. She wandered around the house and followed me everywhere. Then around ten, she had her first contractions. The first kitten, a large black and white, was born at 11:15. Sadly Alpha was dead by the time it was finally born.
The second (Bravo) came an hour later. It was barely alive and we quickly cut the umbilical cord and rubbed it dry with a towel. For a short time, we thought we would lose it too, but it got stronger when we fed it with dry milk f
In 1788, Carlos III of Spain decided that he wanted some of the exotic plants, flowers and trees from his territories in South and Central America brought over to adorn his palace in Madrid. Trouble was the flora needed a stop-off point to become acclimatized to their new environment. The Canary Islands, with their sub-tropical climate, seemed the ideal choice, so Carlos drew up a Royal Decree on August 17th of that year declaring the establishment of an "acclimatization garden" in Puerto de La
We had a bad storm in February, which meant our carnival parade has been cancelled. My city is famous for its political floats and we couldn't just not have a parade, which means we had it today.
The weather was perfect, so were the floats IMO.
For those who speak a little German, although most of the floats are self-explanatory.
There's no talking around this: I'm stuck. The first chapter and prologue is written, but I'm not happy. Beside some minor things I'm struggling with perspectives. I'm experimenting with authorial (omniscient) narrator perspective, but I'm afraid I end up head-hopping a lot. The other option is I change the perspective mid-story, not ideal either.
Then my summer antho story is nudging me. In my head it's almost written and I itch to actually start the piece. There's some beta-reading too.
I
M. has to memorize and recite a Shakespeare sonnet for school.
Most important criterion: No ‘thee’, ‘thou’ and ‘hath’ and shit.
My comment: I never found ‘shit’ in a Shakespeare sonnet before, so I googled it. I didn’t find any, thank God.
His final decision fell on Sonnet 130.
Next step: How do I pronounce this shit? Again with the shit… Anyway, for a German student that’s not an easy task. He needed some help and he found Stephen Fry:
http://sonnets.touchpress.com/titles/sh
