A to Z Challenge & Six Word Saturday: Exfoliation

This post is part of the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. This year my theme is simply, "things I know." Some posts will be informational, some about life lessons, some about things I've learned as an author/blogger. This post is also part of the Six Word Saturday blog hop! A chance to be a little less verbose, and use your weekend for other things. Lovely :)

Exfoliation - Key to glowingly healthy skin

This was a lesson that was difficult for young me to learn. I didn't want to scrub! Ugh! But now that I'm older, and especially since living at altitude, where everyone's skin dries out so easily, I've learned the benefits of exfoliation. I regularly get complimented on my skin, and told 'no way you're over 30!'. Exfoliation plus the oil cleansing method are my two keys to having lovely skin at altitude.

Anyone have any skin care suggestions to share?

A to Z Challenge: Dicing

This post is part of the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. This year my theme is simply, "things I know." Some posts will be informational, some about life lessons, some about things I've learned as an author/blogger.

Today I have two life-changing videos for you, about how to Dice things more efficiently.
The first, is how to cut and dice mangoes. The second, a more efficient method to dice onions. We love to cook around here, so both of these methods were super exciting to learn, back in the day.

Mangoes are known as a hazardous thing to cut, but if you love them like I do, it's good to know how to cut them safely!



And onions, of course, are just a pain. So here's an easier way to dice your onion.



Anybody got any good cooking tips/tricks to share?

A to Z Challenge: Characters

This post is part of the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. This year my theme is simply, "things I know." Some posts will be informational, some about life lessons, some about things I've learned as an author/blogger.

Characters!
Character development is, I admit, something I struggle with a bit. That's why last year I did my whole A-Z theme on characters. Each day I did writing exercises to practice writing about people. Something that is tricky about writing people is that we are all so complex. To create, from scratch, a whole person?! It's a little like playing God. My ego hasn't gotten that big yet! But there are a few things I've learned about creating characters:

• There is no shame in pulling parts of your characters' personalities and histories from your own life or people you know. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
• Readers can fill in a lot of gaps. No need to give a physical description, down to the freckle on his left wrist, unless that plays an important part in the story.
• Most things characters do should be influenced by their history in some way. As actors say, "What is my motivation?" or, "why am I doing this?" There has to be a reason for every action.
• That said, not every character is so important as to need a name and entire history. It's ok to have peripheral characters that are just that. Maybe a tiny bit of history to establish why they are there, but no need to make a home movie reel for the incidental bartender.



Bartholomew Boulstridge Bell
from our new book, Sky Pirates

• Main characters must be dynamic! They have to learn and change, for better or worse, otherwise why do we care to read about them? The lovely lad at right is the main character in our new book, Sky Pirates. He starts as a somewhat stuffy scientist's assistant and in some threads turns into quite the adventurer. Change! It's what makes reading about a character fun. :)

Anything y'all can share about characters? Your favorites? Least favorite? Has a character in a book ever really pissed you off? (the answer to that for me is YES - the main character in Eat, Pray, Love. UGH)

A to Z Challenge & IWSG: Bumperglint

This post is part of the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. This year my theme is simply, "things I know." Some posts will be informational, some about life lessons, some about things I've learned as an author/blogger. This post also happens to be part of the Insecure Writer's Support Group, a bloghop dedicated to writers supporting one another through this crazy thing called 'being an author.' I hope you enjoy!

image from wikipedia.org

bump·er·glint
/ˈbəmpərglint/
noun
1. raised reflectors on roads, used to denote center lines, fire hydrants and other important transportation markers
"the tired driver listed toward the middle of the road, only startled back to attention when his tires went over the bumperglint along the center line"
synonyms: cat's eyes, road reflectors, road turtles

This word is made up! My husband checked out a book once of words that really should be 'real' words you can find in the dictionary, but for whatever reason aren't. But ever since he told me about the word bumperglint, it has been a ready part of my vocabulary. It's almost onomatopoetic, which I guess is why it stuck for me. So there you go, a new word for your vocabulary! Let's make it real.

So far as IWSG is concerned, I just wanted to take a brief moment to reflect on 'made-up' words. They are tricky, aren't they? We can want to create our own. I mean, we are authors, so we're very creative. We should be able to make our own words, right? But that can be dangerous. Not all of us are as brilliant and able to create entire languages as Tolkien. But at the same time it can make our writing more compact and engaging, if done right. I find that I am terrified to coin my own. Even if there's something that seems like it could be more simple, I am apt to use 'normal' words (lots of them if I have to!) rather than make up my own word for something. This, I think, can be problematic when world-building. If that animal or object is going to play a major part in the book, why not name it? I think I am afraid of coming up with things that sound Seuss'ish. 

What about you? Have you read any books that use made up words to good effect? What about books that were terrible this way?

A to Z Challenge: Appreciation

This post is part of the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. This year my theme is simply, "things I know." Some posts will be informational, some about life lessons, some about things I've learned as an author/blogger.

Today's word is: Appreciation. I wanted to start my A-Z with taking a moment to say how much I've appreciated working with the whole A-Z co-host team, and my wHooligans, this spring. I was a bit intimidated at first when Tina asked me to join the co-Host team, as I'm just a little blog. A-Z is one of the only things I've really done to reach out to other Bloggers, so being asked to co-host was an honor. It was also kind-of crazy to be thrown in with the calibre of other folks on the team. But they've been fun to work with and we've gotten some good stuff done this spring, so thank you to the whole A-Z team! This is going to be an amazing month :)

Also a super-special thank you to my wHooligans, Shilpa, LuAnn, TaMara, Kripali, Helen and Elsie! You're the best a gal could ask for!

Last Chance!

The April A-Z Challenge starts tomorrow! You have just the rest of today to sign up, if you haven't already! Why are you still reading this? Go! The rest of the internet will wait while you got sign yourself up for the biggest blog hop in the 'verse!

And now off to keep writing my posts. I do hope you'll join us :)