Since I ran out of the popular weekly Amalgam poems last week, I will compensate by offering two Archaic Definitions:
quillon One of the two arms that form a sword’s cross-guard, the device that protects the swordsman’s hand.
quoin A wooden edge with a handle at the thick end used to adjust the elevation of a [ship’s] gun.
– A Sea of Words : A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O’Brian’s Seafaring Tales (Third Edition) by Dean King with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes.
I have to comment on a recent story in the Huffington Post by Real Time With Bill Maher writer Chris Kelly about the novel recently published with Glenn Beck‘s name on. It has everything a lit industry blogger could want:
Self-publishing. Derivative plot-lines. The influence of celebrity on sales. The question of whether literary merits — or other, less culturally healthy influences — drive publishers. Continue reading
A little history/archaeology news before we move on to the publishing links. A dig in Coventry has uncovered a 13th Century copper badge displaying the three lions of the English Coat of Arms.
This is particularly intriguing to me, as the intertwined history of badges and heraldic symbols (particularly animals) is central to the Observer Tales.
Now, on to the links! Continue reading
Yesterday, my home town paper The Washington Post published a neat list of the “Five Buzziest Summer Beach Reads,” including post-apocalyptic vampires, a post-vampire career apocalypse, a blast-from-the-past sequel, and an ape-girl. How can you pass that up?
And now, on to stuff recently blogged upon by literary agents: Continue reading
In a survey of accused criminals conducted in Italy, roughly 98 percent of Spartacuses are lying.
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Afterthought: Spartaci?
Since I expanded the blog from showcasing my fantasy novel, The Ligan of the Disomus, and have posted other stories including some science fiction, I guess I might as well start sharing some science background material in addition to the historical (and prehistorical) stuff I normally post.
One of my favorite works of science fiction is Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. So, when I read that a study of delta formations on Mars had turned up an ancient shoreline that not only corresponded with previously identified shoreline formations, but also would indicate that this ancient ocean covered one-third of the Martian surface, I knew I had to share it.
Read about it at USA Today, FOX News, or TG Daily.
There have been some interesting recent developments in the not-so-recent world of archaeology.
A site on the Patuxent river that not only yielded a Native American house from the age of the Crusades, but implements carbon-dated to 3000 years ago, and clues that could push the site’s antiquity back to 10,000 years BP.
And, interesting for those of us who love the little historical details, archaeologists have discovered what is believed to be the oldest leather shoe ever found, “about 5,500 years old, which is about 1,000 years older than the great pyramid of Egypt and 400 years older than Stonehenge.” The shoe was found in Armenia but, according to the story, the oldest footwear of all was found in the United States and made of plant fibers.
Finally, in news of a more nautical nature, an ongoing, 18th century dig site in Maine uncovers details about two of the first shipwrights in the region.
Oh, Monday… with your false enthusiasm and wearisome clichés of toil resumed.
Prescription: coffee, with a healthy shot of cynicism and defiance!
The writer links this week are chock full of advice on characters and a writer’s personal approach to writing. On to the links! Continue reading
Today’s Odd Thought brought to you by hunger and a food-starved brain searching a mall on a Saturday afternoon.
BUSK. A piece of whalebone or ivory, formerly worn by women, to stiffen the forepart of their stays: hence the toast, ‘both ends of the busk.’
– 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue : A Dictionary of British Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence (unabridged) compiled originally by Captain Grose
