Sepia

Sepia either means a dark, reddish brown colour, or the lighter and less red tone which was once the only option in photography, but which I was unable to recreate with my digital camera and computer. It's also the fluid secreted by a cuttlefish, the pigment prepared from that, or a drawing created using it.















Don't know about you, but I'd rather have colour at the press of a button, than squeeze a cuttlefish in the hope of monochrome.

Destination

A destination is a place to which a person, or thing, is going.













You already knew that, didn't you? I expect you also realised, as soon as you spotted it, that I'd only picked the word in order to provide an excuse to post more of my travel pictures.










Is the destination of your novel somewhere on the bestseller list? If you think it has that potential, you've already got a lot of it done and it happens to have a theme of new beginnings, you might like to enter it into this competition.


Do you recognise any of these destinations?

Sustain

To sustain is to support, bear the weight of, strengthen, encourage or nourish.

It can also mean to endure or suffer, to decide in favour of something, substantiate, corroborate or maintain.

One who sustains is a sustainer. Do you qualify for that description?

Sustainability is a topical issue, meaning as it does 'avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance'. That's very important of course, but I suspect we're doing even more damage by what we're adding to the planet than what we're removing – plastic, greenhouse gasses and other pollution, nuclear and chemical weapons ... but this is a writing blog, so I won't continue in this theme sustainedly.

Sustaining interest in our writing can be something which makes many writers feel insecure. For some it can seem like they're enduring the writing process rather than being supported and encouraged by it.

For others, the worry is how to sustain a reader's interest, either as they're reading one piece, or in their writing as a whole. 

If any of those, or anything else is making you feel like an insecure writer, then you might like to consider joining the Insecure Writer's Support Group.


For me, the issue making me feel most insecure at the moment is how to achieve a sustainment of sales for my lovely books. I probably need to do some form of marketing, perhaps even make a sustained effort in that direction? 

This free to enter short story competition has the theme of sustainability. The first prize is £200 – if you don't want it, feel free to send it over and I'll recycle it for you!

Hoy!

'Hoy!' is a call for attention, sound made to drive livestock or a way to hail a boat ... apparently.

Personally I'd go for 'Hi' or 'Hello' in the first instance, always used 'cummo-on' to get the cows moving (and was pleased to hear the exact same call used by the people moving these cattle in the Outer Hebrides), and wouldn't be able to resist 'ahoy there' should I ever need to yell at someone on a boat.

Another thing my dictionary claims is that hoy is an Australian game resembling bingo which is played with cards. It's a long time since I played bingo, but I'm fairly sure it doesn't even vaguely resemble cards. Anyway ...

A hoy is a small vessel, usually rigged as a sloop, which carries pasengers or goods for small distances. I can't argue wth that, as I've not yet done sufficient research. Clearly I need another boat trip or two.

Here's a free to enter short story competition with a prize of publication in a glossy magazine and a two night stay in a castle; ideal if you want to get away from the hoi polloi ;-)

Saline

My dictionary gives several complicated definitions of saline, but they all come to pretty much the same thing – has salt (or salts) in it.

The process of making something salty is salinization. The level of saltiness or salinity is measured using a salinometer.

What's your favourite salty thing?

Froward

If a person is froward, then they're perverse or difficult to deal with.

I'll admit that I occasionally act frowardly, but I don't think my overall character displays much forwardness.

The same is mostly true of Jess in my novel Leave Nothing But Footprints, but she does have her moments.

Don't we all?

Corrgible

You've probably come across the word incorrigible, which means a person is unable to be changed, corrected or reformed. It makes perfect sense that corrigible means the opposite of this, but until I spotted it in the dictionary a few moments ago, I hadn't realised corrigible was an actual word.

I've changed since this photo was taken, so I must be corrigible – or at least, I was once!

Vegetal

Vegetal refers to plants, or anything which has the nature of plants, or is vegetative.

Gimmick

A gimmick is a trick or device, used to attract attention, publicity or trade.

Valentine Gimmick is the title of my story in the Valentine's Special issue of Ireland's Own. It's on their website too, so you can read if it you like and find out what Betsie thinks of Valentine's gifts and cards (yes, there could be a clue in the title!)





I've possibly got involved in some gimmickry myself by reducing the price of my short story collection All That Love Stuff to 99p/99c this week.

What do you think – is that a bit gimmicky?