Thoughts on Ms. Rowling (Jillian)

Today is the day J.K. Rowling's first novel since Harry Potter, The Casual Vacancy, is/will be released to the public.  As a writer about to enter into the publishing world, my little novel clutched hopefully to my chest, I can't help but admire Ms. Rowling's quest to continuing writing in spite of all the mounting pressure.  Will it be as good as Harry Potter? Will she be able to successfully separate herself from the wizarding world?  Can she handle it?  I don't have the answers to those questions, because I'm not her, but I believe she is doing a very brave, intrepid thing, breaking herself away from the creative world that brought her so much success and trying her hand at something new, a totally different kind of story.  I wish her the absolute best.

Allan Massie of the Daily Telegraph has an interesting blogpost this morning on Ms. Rowling, asking: how do you deal with a book by an author who has achieved such a phenomenal success as Harry Potter?

Adventures in Logophilia Day 12: Ossuary

Rendered in more rudimentary calligraphy is today's word...

An ossuary (noun) is a depository box for the bones of the dead.  Creepy, no?

Why on Earth didn't I save this for Halloween, you ask?  Well, on a basic level, I say, creepiness is not bound to one particular day.  Anyway... in perusing the lexicon today, I came across this word and was struck with a memory.  I first learned that "bone boxes" or mortuary chests existed when Michelle and I studied abroad at Oxford and took a trip to Winchester Cathedral.  As I remember it, there are six such chests situated on the presbytery levels of the cathedral, each containing the remains of Anglo-Saxon (and one Danish) king of England.  I believe these bones were buried deep in the crypt of the "old minster" and were moved to a place of honor when the new cathedral was built in the 1100s.  Occupants of these chests include Cynegils, Aethelwulf, Cynewulf, Ecgbert, Cnut, Emma (wife of Aethelred the Unready and Cnut) and an assortment of bones that could be Edred (who could also be someone named Edmund). 

What I find to be so fascinating about the ossuaries is how old they are (we're talking pre-1066 here), and how certain facts are lost with time, how a few of these kings made no impression on history at all (or were erased from history), or were mixed up.  These mysteries only prompt discussion.  Like the mystery of Richard III's bones in Leicester and those of the Princes in the Tower thought to be unearthed from under the staircase of the Tower of London, there is always the knowledge that we will never know - and probably never should - what or who rests inside.  Here is a website with more interesting tidbits on these memorials.

This is the only clear picture I have from Winchester of one of the mortuary chests.  We were allowed to take photos, but the flash of my camera could only go so far.  Yet, even from here, you can see how ornate these chests are, beautiful in their ancientness. 

Adventures in Logophilia Day 11: Iota

Today's word is...

Iota (noun) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet, used in English to mean "a small, infinitesmal amount."  In astronomy, it signifies the ninth star in a constellation.  All signs point to jot.

I've just learned from Oxford Dictionaries that jot (the verb to write something down quickly) - as in "I'm jotting this down for you" or "I don't give a jot" - is the fifteenth century noun translated from the Greek word "iota" into Latin.  It makes sense to me (this was a "Eureka!" moment for me), because until recently "j" was not actually a part of the Latin alphabet, and "i" had most of its workload.  Iota must have had quite a normal entrance into English through this road: iota spelled with a "j." This opens up a world of writing whimsies for me: marginalia and doodles and random notes.  That thing you're scribbling down may not be scintillating to the person next to you, but it is vitally important.  I jot most of the time and not always on paper - it is the way we translate our stream-of-consciousness discoveries into a more permanent form.  Sometimes those jottings make it to a journal.  Sometimes they clutter my wall.  Sometimes they serve as bookmarks that cannot be thrown away.  They seem to be of infinitesmal importance, but really they're not.  We jot because it is of vital importance.  If I didn't jot, I'd lose threads of ideas that could fill my stories, or I'd forget to do something. 

Jots are like Ariadne's crimson thread guiding Theseus through the labyrinth and out of it again.  If I didn't jot, how would I find my way home again?



Adventures in Logophilia Day 10: Huggermugger

Today's word is...

Huggermugger is an adjective meaning: confused, disorderly, or secret and cladestine.  It is a word that came about in late Middle English, the 16th century.

I always thought this word was a funny one in the same baffling vein as harum-scarum (meaning chaos) or helter-skelter.  A kinder word for chaos or for mischief.  Or, in other words, what the cat is up to when we're away from home, and one comes back to find abandoned water glassed tipped over, newspapers askew and sweaters napped on.  Yes, dear kitty is the queen of all things huggermugger.

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One of these days, I promise, my calligraphy will look nice.  *Sigh*

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Today is the first day of Autumn.  Yes, the equinox is here, and I always get the uncanny feeling at these times of year that we are standing on the edge of a threshold, about to walk through into another reality.  Goodbye, Summer!

Adventures in Logophilia Day 9: Ellipsis (Jillian)

Today's word is...

An ellipsis (noun) is the omission of one or more words that are clearly understood in context but must be given in order to make a sentence or phrase grammatically complete; a sudden jump from one topic to another; and the marks (as in ...) which indicate such an omission or pause.

When I was a burgeoning writer, I happened across the ellipsis and became obsessed with it.  Not in the sense that it was an excuse to be lazy with my writing, but that as I began to create elaborate scenarios in which my characters journeyed and struggled, the ellipsis indicating pause was poetry to me.  It was the only construction - punctuation or otherwise - that conveyed what couldn't be put into words: a character trailing off in thought, unable to bear contining his thought, a break in the middle of the paragraph that could otherwise sound like the space between the stanzas of a poem, an open-ended sentence that the reader could fill in with whatever he/she chose.  I was, and am, drawn to dialogue that sounds natural, full of pregnant and uncertain pauses and allusions.  Naturally, in the early days, I got carried away.

I have pages from my old high school class journal where my writing teacher, a grammar expert, told me not to use them at all, even though I wrote about how "cool" they were.  In high school, anything you're obsessed with, anything that defines you in the remotest way must be defended.  Ellipses were important to me.  For his class, I did my best to refrain from using them but... obviously... I still love them.  It me a while to realize that there isn't anything particularly wrong about the ellipsis, but that if it's being used in place of proper punctuation, it tends to muddle things.  Used sparingly, and I mean once in a blue moon, it can add just the right amount of nuance, the faintest touch of cinnamon.

Adventures in Logophilia Day 8: Vade Mecem (Jillian)

After a thorough search, today's word, conveyed in to you in rudimentary calligraphy is...

Vade mecem (noun) is from the Latin (in case you couldn't tell) for "go with me" (or "come hither", as I'd say).  It is a book or manual for easy reference, or an item regularly carried about by a person.  Sometimes both, I'd imagine.

I'd like to think the blog (and perhaps Twitter) is the vade mecem of the internet age.  Now that many of us (not myself, however) have smarty-pants phones that connect to the internet and convey updates on our friends' thoughts, the latest celebrity melodrama or the weather.  We google from where we're standing.  We search and follow directions from these devices.  From an intellectual standpoint, the blog is a public journal, a different kind of vade mecem.  Depending on your subject matter, you're inviting your readers along for an adventure - not necessarily plotting directions but experiences.  I'd like to think that Daedalus is helpful - perhaps not a manual, but a source of encouragement to be carried about through the year.  This isn't my or Michelle's personal-minutia blog, but I'd hope we can share our challenges as writers. 

Honestly, this Autumn might be a tough one for me.  I might have mentioned it before, but I'm currently drafting a query letter for my novel.  I hope to get the first query sent to a literary agency in the next couple of weeks.  I've never done so before, and the more I think about it, the more it's like standing on the edge of an abyss.  The only way to know what lies beyond is take a leap of faith.  As that unfolds, I'm considering applying to a graduate creative writing program again.  I hope that through Daedalus you can come along with me on this journey in the dark, and we can figure out the world that is literary agents and publishing and graduate school applications together.  Who knows where we might end up?

Whimsical Wednesday (Jillian)

There have been quite a few little news tidbits in the writing world-at-large in the last week, and I thought I'd compile them here for a Whimsical Wednesday.  Ready? 

• Today, Stephen King announced that he is penning a sequel to The Shining, his third novel, to be published next year, entitled Doctor Sleep.  It follows Danny Torrance, who was a young boy in The Shining, and whose father succumbed to evil spirits that inhabited a winter hotel.  This was made into a film starring Jack Nicholson, generally thought to be one of the scariest films ever.  I've seen parts.  I was properly freaked out.  I am just amazed at Mr. King's work ethic, this drive to create.  If you're a King fan and want to know more, here is his website: http://www.stephenking.com/library/novel/doctor_sleep.html. 
• Last week, we heard from Mandy Patinkin (read article here) about why he left the violent television show Criminal Minds several years ago.  He says his role as a criminal profiler was "very destructive to my soul and personality," and Criminal Minds was not the show he thought it would be.  He has made a very good point about the sort of destruction that we take for granted on television these days. 
• For history buffs, you may be following the news that the grave of Richard III was found in Leicester, Great Britain, at a site underneath a car park (parking lot) where the Grey Friars church was believed to have stood.  Richard III had a short, tempestuous reign and was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.  His body was paraded through the town by the victorious Tudors and buried at the church, which was later lost in obscurity.  The skeleton in question appears to have signs of scoliosis - perhaps resembling the hunchback of Shakespeare's play (though not quite), and an arrowhead through the neck.  DNA testing will commence to see if he is in fact the lost king.  If he is, he may be entitled to a state funeral, five-hundred twenty-seven years after his death.  The Telegraph as all the intrigue. 
• The trailer for The Hobbit was released today.  The Telegraph has the trailer embedded here.  I am excited to see these beloved stories come to life once again, and see Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and Benedict Cumberbatch among familiar faces... although the latter, also known as Sherlock Holmes (Freeman being Watson), may not be particularly recognizable.