Cabin Fever But By a Better Name
At the library the other day we kept a couple ladies waiting when we opened the library doors a few minutes late. (We were having a health and safety talk). So we got to talking with those ladies about how much the library is needed in peoples’ lives in our small community—for a minute there they were thinking we weren’t going to open, and that would be a bad thing. One of the ladies even suggested that the library was essential because she lives in the bush, and without the human interaction the library provides she’d easily go shack wacky.
Say what?
Uh-huh, shack wacky. I’d never heard that expression before. My writer’s brain turned the phrase over, tasted it, tested it. A new expression! A funny expression! An expression that succinctly and superbly expressed its meaning.
Okay, so you’re probably thinking I’m acting a little shack wacky for gushing over a couple of words. But part of the fun of being a writer is collecting these little tidbits wherever you can. No, it’s not a new expression as I see it’s out there and part of the urban dictionary. But it was new to me. I would’ve just used the term I was more familiar with: cabin fever. But isn’t there an interesting difference in feel, in nuance, to the two expressions? Yes, I’m tucking “shack wacky” away for future use. Maybe you’d like to, too.
So yes, believe those PSAs because it really is true: you never know what you’ll learn at your library.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
You’re Sending Me What? Something BAD?
Got an email today from an editor and the subject line really threw me for a minute. I first read it as meaning I was being sent something BAD about my forthcoming series. BAD was capitalized.
After I got over the heart attack, I looked at the subject line more closely. Oh, it said a BLAD. I was being sent a BLAD. Praying that wasn’t a typo and it really was supposed to read BAD, I opened the email.
It was a BLAD! Hurray! A pdf of the BLAD to be exact. But my next thought was sort of a whispered: um…what’s a BLAD?
Fearing to look at the file, I first Googled the acronym. And I found:
Bovine Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency?
Um, don’t think so.
Bioartificial Liver-Assisted Device?
Ya, no.
So that left Book Layout and Design. Yes! It was a Book Layout and Design!
BINGO!
Okay, so what the heck is a Book Layout and Design exactly? Performing more Google-foo, I found this definition:
Blad (Book Layout and Design)
A blad is a marketing and sales tool, used where printed sample material is needed in advance by the sales force to sell the title. A blad will often feature sections from the finished book, including the cover artwork, page layouts and images.
Hunh, who knew? Thank you Oxford University Press Glossary of Publishing Terms. May you continue to help many confused authors like myself.
So I finally opened the file. And it was awesome! I’ve never had a BLAD for one of my books before. It’s my very first BLAD! And that, my friends, is definitely, most decidedly, and definitively not BAD.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
The Horrible Hairy Holiday Surprise
How’s that for a title? Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
But it was hairy, it was related to the holidays, and it was a surprise. It’s horrible, too, if you’re arachnophobic. See:
This was lurking on the pineapple display in my local grocery store just before Christmas. I’m not too sure it’s native. Could it have come in with the pineapples? It was a healthy inch and a half long at least. [[shudder]]
My daughters and I tried to tell store personnel about this unusual squatter but no one was interested in giving us the time of day.
I wonder what happened to it. Maybe there’s a story there…somewhere.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
You know you might be a children’s writer if…
There you are, sitting on the hard white wooden bench in your small town arena lobby. You’re reading quietly, passing the time during your son’s hockey practice, while two young boys you don’t know toss a small ball back and forth across the lobby. Back and forth, back and forth, they chase the ball, toss it, chase it, and so on until–
The arena doors open with a clatter and a woman walks in. One of the boys calls out to her with an enthusiastic, “Hi, Bitch!” (Which sounds a bit like “hiya beetch!”)
Silence.
A silence in which you cringe for the boy.
“What did you say?” the woman, finding her voice, demands. She repeats her demand several times in increasingly higher volumes.
The boy wisely stays silent.
Finally the woman orders him to SIT THERE on THAT BENCH and DON’T MOVE.
He perches timidly beside you, head bent, sitting on his hands. You just want to hug him.
Do you empathize with the mother having to hear that from her child? Not really. You feel for the boy. You bet he’s seen someone greet a friend that way on some TV show, or heard it uttered by an older kid, and the reaction was much different from the one he got.
Yes, if this happens you just might be a children’s writer. And there might be a story there….somewhere.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.