by Roseanna White | May 3, 2017 | Announcements, Book News, Remember When Wednesdays
First of all, thanks to everyone who commented or contacted me last week in regards to the question of “What book should I talk about in my next Facebook Live chat?” The majority of those who replied requested that our next stop be my biblical fiction, so I’ll go through those four titles in the order in which I wrote them, beginning with…
A Stray Drop of Blood! So next Monday, May 8, that’s the book I’ll be talking about. (My husband says, “Wow, lots to talk about with that one–you might need a two-hour special.” LOL. Don’t worry. I’m sure we can cover it all in the usual less-than-one.
Stray Drop is now in Kindle Unlimited, so if you haven’t read it but are part of that program, you’re doubly in luck! Since quite a few asked for links, here they are:
Now, on to the fun stuff. =) As many of you no doubt saw, I just got home from my 2017 writing retreat! As always, it was a lot of fun to hang out with my best friend/critique partner, Stephanie Morrill, and to just have days on end when I had to think of nothing but story. I arrived in KC on Thursday afternoon, we checked in to the gorgeous apartment we’d rented from HomeAway, and wasted no time in getting all set up.
Of course, we weren’t always at the table (though it made a great standing desk, actually), we also each had our spots on the couch.
Here are a few shots of our work space, the beautifully appointed apartment that made settling in for a weekend of “What, there’s an outside world?” so very easy. (Okay, so we left for food twice. And even took two walks!)
The ever important coffee machines deserved a picture unto themselves, of course…
I ended up with the master bedroom, solely because the other one wasn’t as close to the kitchen, and therefore Stephanie would not be so easily awakened by her crazy morning person roommate who insists upon getting up at 5:30, even when on “vacation”…
We had packed up and were ready to lock the doors behind us when we finally remembered to take a picture of US.
I’d love to give you the blow-by-blow of the retreat, but honestly, it’s pretty boring to report on, LOL. I did so many random Google searches that it occasionally made me laugh (Cockney rhyming slang, teas good for arthritis, how far X in London is from Y [about a hundred times–I’m becoming quite versed in London neighborhoods, which is just weird for this country girl], whether Rolex-founder Hans Wilsdorf had children, etc.), we paused occasionally to share interesting tidbits we were learning/questions we had, and Stephanie is especially awesome about started each meal/walk with the question of, “So where are you in the story now?”
The fellowship and dedicated time is always such a blessing. And it’s so rewarding to see those word counts tick up and up. I started the retreat with a mere 14,537 words in my manuscript (I’d hoped to be so much farther along!), but I ended it with a solid 57,908, which is half of this particular book. For those of you who don’t want to do math, that’s 43,381 words written in 3 full days and 2 travel days.
And I left off at the mid-point climax/twist, so a super fun scene to dive back into! When, of course, I get caught up on the stuff that got ignored while I was gone. (Including some not-fun stuff, like my great-grandmother finally passing away at 102. Funeral is today…)
So another successful retreat, and I came hope with lots of words for our Word of the Week spots, and plenty of things to feature on my Remember When posts too!
by Roseanna White | Apr 26, 2017 | Book News, Sales
In 24 hours’ time, I’ll be en route to Kansas City for my annual writing retreat with my best friend/critique partner, the awesome Stephanie Morrill. Which means I have approximately two thousand four hundred twelve things to accomplish in the next 24 hours.
So naturally, I decided to add a little more work to my list and just created a Mother’s Day SALE on my website shop!
There are currently 2.5 weeks until Mother’s Day, which is the perfect time to get those gifts ordered–and what makes a better gift than a signed book, right? So from now until 5/6, everything in my store is 20% off with coupon code: MOTHERSDAY17
This can apply to A Name Unknown as well, but please do keep in mind that that book is currently on pre-order, so it will NOT SHIP until I have copies in hand in July.
And that’s all the brain I have for a blog post, because there are still dishes to do and cats to take to the vet and refrigerators to clean out and packing and recording music for church and . . . 😉
If you’re curious about my writing retreat progress this year, I’ll be posting on Facebook each day–and there may even be a random Facebook Live video to show you what it looks like when two writers lock themselves in a room with nothing but coffee, chocolate, and their laptops! (Okay, slight exaggeration. There will also be muffins. And donuts…)
Otherwise, I’ll see you back here next Wednesday!
by Roseanna White | Apr 24, 2017 | Word of the Week
Not happy inspiration here, as I thought to wonder about the word as I was typing it into a description of what happened to my computer for the second time in a week–thoroughly and completely went kaput on me [grumble, grumble, growl, growl].
But the word itself is rather interesting!
It traces its first appearance in English back to the 1890s but really entered common usage during WWI–it being taken from the German kaputt. (I had no idea it was that old.) It means “to utterly ruin or destroy,” and it’s said that in the early days of the war and German victories, “everything enemy was kaput.”
The German word, however, is actually presumed to be borrowed from the French. As early as the 1640s, the Germans took the French phrase faire capot–taking all the tricks in a card game–and flipped it, so that it reflected the negative rather than the positive side of winning/losing so completely.
So all in all, a very interesting word. And a terrible thing to happen to one’s computer. 😉
Don’t forget that tonight is my last Facebook chat on the Ladies of the Manor Series! I’ll be taking next week off while on my writing retreat, then pick up again May 8.
by Roseanna White | Apr 20, 2017 | Thoughtful Thursdays
So I’ve been working through some things this week–and anyone who knows me knows that my “working through” usually involves writing. Where better to compose my thoughts, then, than for you all, right? 😉
I think the kernel of what’s been bothering me is assumptions.
Now, again, anyone who knows me knows that not only am I an optimist, I’m a “give them the benefit of the doubt” sort of person. My husband is regularly amused at how I’ll bend over backward to try to find a logical reason why that driver might have cut us off–“It’s a minivan, maybe she’s got six kids in there and one of them just threw a toy at her head!”–or why someone is totally rude in a store–“I guess we don’t know what bad news they may have just gotten.”
Then there are the times when humanity just disappoints or frustrates me, when I can’t explain away bigotry or cynicism or prejudice or . . .
It’s especially upsetting to me when it happens within the church. When people who are supposed to be my brothers and sisters in Christ dismiss other brothers and sisters in Christ as heretics and condemn them to hell just because they don’t believe exactly the same as they do on a few matters. When they try to claim they understand the other side and proceed to state the opposition’s beliefs as if with authority . . . and when they’ve got those beliefs wrong. When they’re clearly just parroting what they’ve been told without ever actually talking to someone of those beliefs and asking for an explanation. Oh, they talk to them–to try to convert them to their way of thinking. But when you start a conversation with the assumption that the other person is wrong, what are the chances that you’ll see any truth they have to share?
Why is it easier to condemn than to wonder if maybe we don’t understand something correctly?
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s part of my rather unique education. Maybe it’s because I’ve been taught to ask questions rather than assume answers . . . but why do people behave this way? It hurts my soul when I see someone who’s supposed to be representing my faith snarling at other Christians like that. When I realize that this is why so many people today think Christianity is a joke. Because some people can’t fathom that God is bigger than our finite understanding. They are so convinced that they have every detail right that they’ll condemn or dismiss anyone who doesn’t agree on every point.
It hurts me when the people of God act like the world–no, worse, when they act like the very hypocrites Jesus argued with in His day.
This isn’t the way we’re supposed to be. We’re supposed to be united with other believers, no matter if they’re Baptist or Methodist, Lutheran or Episcopalian, Catholic or Greek Orthodox. There are differences, yes–but if perhaps we stop coming at those differences from the assumption that “I’m right and they’re wrong,” we might actually learn something from one another. And we might actually learn something about God. We might realize that they believe what they do for reasons, and that we were taught it’s wrong belief because our ancestors rejected either the verses or interpretation; reasons for them to think we’re wrong. We might actually read something through new eyes and realize that we’re not as far apart on an issue as some people on both sides want us to think we are.
I told my husband the other day that I’d come to a rather odd conclusion: that I could live out my faith in any number of church congregations. I could live out my faith in a Catholic church, or a Greek Orthodox, or a Methodist, or a Lutheran. I could live out my faith pretty much anywhere. But I couldn’t live out my faith in that church that ought to be similar to my own, under the direction of someone who would label me a heretic because I don’t label other people such.
But you can’t learn if you start from the assumption that you are right.
You can’t teach if you start from the assumption that the other person has nothing to teach you, or is a lost cause.
You can’t reach the lost if you start from the assumption that they’re worse than you.
I’d rather assume people are better than they are, that they’re capable of goodness and learning and fairness and love, and be taken advantage of or disappointed, than to live my life waiting for people to fail, expecting them to sin, searching for reasons to dismiss them or sneer at them or condemn them. I’d rather turn the other cheek and give my shirt as well when someone demands my coat than be combative and victimized and capable of seeing only my own cause.
I’d rather eat with sinners than with religious hypocrites. And I think I’m in good company there.
by Roseanna White | Apr 17, 2017 | Word of the Week
Perhaps it’s no surprise on the Monday following Holy Week that forsake has come up–I daresay many of us heard again in the last few days Jesus’ lament upon the cross. It was some silly wordplay, however, that made me wonder as to the word’s etymology. Yesterday in the car, I said something about “For your sake” to my husband, and he replied with “You’re forsaking me?” with an exaggerated pout.
First time I’d ever really paid attention to the two parts of that word! So this being me, I immediately wondered if they’re from the same root.
The amazing part being that I remembered to look it up this morning. 😉
So first off, forsake and sake are indeed from the same word. Both are present in Old English, and probably came from Norse, as there are similar words in other Nordic languages. Sake has always meant “purpose,” the original form being sacu. It was actually originally applied to a legal cause or case. So to say “for someone’s sake” would mean for their cause, for their case. (Interestingly that phrase is pretty much the only one in which the word has been preserved.) But it would also take on the other side of the legal coin and mean “accusation, blame, dispute.”
Forsake then combines that opposition sense of sake with Old English for-, which meant “completely.” Forsacan, the Old English word, literally meant “to object to, deny, refuse, give up, renounce.” At some point in time it came to be used not just in a legal sense, but in relation to those who have turned their back on something to which they ought to be loyal.
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Don’t forget that tonight is my second Facebook Live event, at 7 p.m. eastern! I’ll be chatting about The Reluctant Duchess, answering your questions, and reading a snippet. I’ll be starting with one of last week’s questions about my favorite authors too. =) Hope to see you there, either live or afterward!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.