When Life Gets in the Way

I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking.
-- Dorothy L. Sayers, classic mystery novelist and Christian Writer

Isn't it astounding how one event can shape the course of your life for a time? We had a rather tragic event affect our family this week - one of The Tall One's friends from school died suddenly Sunday night, leaving behind a very shocked and confused group of young people. I can't imagine what his family is going through. The kids seem to be handling things okay, but as you can imagine, the entire week seems to have passed in slow motion.

I'm still busy with the rewrite. One positive thing that came out of this week has to do with that surprise I mentioned a little while back - we're still not quite ready to reveal it just yet, but at the least it was a distraction from real life that helped me slog through the week. And don't get all in a dither, it's really not such a big deal, just a little something I've got cooking on the back burner for the new book.

Because my brain is more focused on this rewrite than just about everything else, I'm going to close out the week by following the suggestion of my wonder twin and saddle you with the week's vocabulary lessons, as well as a few quotes I've come across this week that I particularly enjoyed.

More news soon. In the meantime, read a book!

=) JB

Word(s) of the Day:

malapropism \mal-uh-PROP-iz-uhm\ (noun) - The usually unintentionally humorous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound; also, an example of such misuse.

lubricious \loo-BRISH-us\ (adjective) - 1 : Lustful; lewd. 2 : Stimulating or appealing to sexual desire or imagination. 3 : Having a slippery or smooth quality.

languor \LANG-guhr; LANG-uhr\ (noun) - 1 : Mental or physical weariness or fatigue. 2 : Listless indolence, especially the indolence of one who is satiated by a life of luxury or pleasure. 3 : A heaviness or oppressive stillness of the air.

pulchritude \PUL-kruh-tood; -tyood\ (noun) - That quality of appearance which pleases the eye; beauty; comeliness; grace; loveliness.

censure \SEN-shur\ (noun) - 1 : The act of blaming or finding fault with and condemning as wrong; reprehension; blame. 2 : An official reprimand or expression of disapproval.

Quotable Quotes:

"The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it."
-- Elizabeth Drew (1935- ) US journalist

"All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer."
-- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish novelist, poet

"For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver."
-- Martin Luther (1483-1546) German leader of the Protestant Reformation

"I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane."
-- Bram Stoker (1847-1912) English novelist

Vocabulary and Quotes from ArcaMax