Younker

Younker is a very old term for a youngster. Here's a picture of me when I was a younker.

Despite the evidence, I don't actually feel old enough to have been in black and white.

Sultana

I'm sure you're aware that a sultana is a dried seedless raisin type thing and absolutely delicious when included in sticky buns which have been toasted and spread generously with butter and... Sorry, got distracted for a moment there.

The small yellow grape variety which produces these fruit is also called a sultana - as is the wife, mother, daughter or concubine of a sultan.

So a sultana could grow sultanas, dry them to make sultanas and feed these to the rest of the sultan's sultanas.

Launch

A launch is a type of motor boat e.g. a pilot launch.

To launch, is to hurl forward, set in motion or make a start. Traditionally when a ship was launched, it would be sent speeding down a ramp into the water. Nowadays they're more usually floated out, a safer and more sedate process, which is still referred to as launching the vessel.

In the case of a book launch, the word means to introduce a new product. My latest book was launched just two weeks ago.

Have you launched anything lately, or perhaps you're planning on launching in the near future?

Whee!

Whee! is an expression of delight. The exclamation mark isn't compulsory, but I feel it's justified.

Whee! is the sort of thing a person might say either because it was the launch day of their first ever co-written non-fiction book, or to show how thrilled they are to have purchased a copy of the rather excellent From Story Idea to Reader. (Wheeeeeeee! is what you squeal when being spun round on a children's roundabout in the park after a celebratory glass of something bubbly. Apparently.)

From Story Idea to Reader is available from Amazon as a paperback (£9.99) or ebook (£3.99). If you'd like it in a different format, such as pdf, you can obtain them direct from the publisher.

For a full list of contents, click here.