Hoarse, But Happy!

I spent yesterday morning with 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students from Oak Mountain Academy in Carrollton, GA, reading and discussing my YR series, Cynthia's Attic.

At first, I was a little leery about reading my books to 2nd graders, but they were wise beyond their years! The Missing Locket is set in 1964, with twelve-year-old best friend, Cynthia and Gus listening to a Beatles record. I mistakenly assumed that these youngsters wouldn't have a clue as to what a record, record player, and especially, what a Beatle was!

Was I ever wrong! When I pulled out an old circa 1963 Beatles album, they not only knew what records and record players were, one student shouted, "I have that album and listen to it all the time!"

To say my chin almost dropped to the floor wouldn't be much of an exaggeration. My morning with these delightful students was a satisfying, but humbling experience and reinforced my opinion that you should never assume. (We all know what happens then!)

Above all, never, NEVER talk down to young readers.

Mary C, aka, Babe

Mary Cunningham Books

Do The Math...

Like a lot of other WOOFers (Women Only Over Fifty), give or take a stray black sock, I’ve sorted and stuffed a load of dark clothes into the washer about 5000 times over the course of my adult life.

You’d think I’d learn.

Oh, but, no.

Today, as I lift damp, limp clothing from the washer, give each piece a shake and transport it to the dryer, I see it. The lint-cover black tee.

That’s what I get for buying new bath towels only every decade or so. And back in the 90’s, when I purchased white ones, I did so to avoid this very thing.

How quickly we forget.

So now, here I wait to see if the dryer can rectify the damage I have done, remove the plethora of lint I have inflicted on an innocent black tee. Damn those new dark green towels.

Besides that, they don’t absorb as well as the old ones.

Oh, there’s the dryer buzzer. Wish me luck…

Of course, the lint filter is going to be just the WORST!

-- Diana "d.d. dawg"

Writing a Trilogy, Tetralogy, or . . .

Stray conversation has a way of sparking curiosity. When a passing comment asking what a series of four books was called, I had to wonder--just what is it called? Since a trilogy is three, would a quadrilogy be four? And, guess what? It is--in non-standard usage. Goggle is full of references to the Alien quadrilogy. The real word is tetralogy. Look it up! So what about five or six or seven. . . Here's a handy list for you. All the words can be found on the net in dictionaries like Merriam-Webster, Wiktionary, or allwords.com.
tetralogy-a series of four connected works
pentalogy-a series of five related works of art (hey, books are art!)
hexalogy-Anyone seen the Star Wars hexalogy?
heptalogy-a series of seven creative works connected by a common storyline--Harry Potter for instance
octology-a collection of eight books as one single unit
nonology-a trilogy of trilogies
Now, I know most of us would like to create at least one novel, but as my witty husband quipped, "The word for five is millionaire!
Happy Writing--ZMS =^..^=