Guest Author & A Giveaway: Vivian Arend

It’s March. It’s March and I just can’t handle this! I need a pause button, wherein I can make everyone else pause and I try to catch up. Like … reverse Sleeping Beauty. 😛 (I’m probably messing that up, aren’t I?) Anyway, it was Vivian Arend‘s birthday yesterday! And she’s our “special guest” of the month! Whee! (Also exciting, she’s one of the few who didn’t opt for the “interview.” Smart. 😉 Viv took the time out of her special day to send us this post, so I hope you chime in – and wish her a happy belated! <3

High SeductionBack in senior high, one of the requirements for my Grade Twelve English was to complete a ‘major study project’. With limited interest in doing standard research, but a strong creative streak, I came up with what I thought was a fabulous solution. I proposed re-writing part of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene into modern English.

It was a far more ambitious task than I’d anticipated, but something happened while I puzzled out the ancient syntax into modern terms. I fell in love with storytelling.

The words were interesting, but the pictures those words painted were more important. Shifting Spenser’s phrases into current day lingo allowed my friends to experience the wonder of the story.

Words can be beautiful. Author voices can make me smile and wish I had their skill with words, but in the end, the prettiest phrases become meaningless if they don’t tell the story.

And now, in a lighter twist, I find myself once again forced to interpret confusing words. Not olde English, but my own. See, I picked up a dictation program to help take the load off my wrists. The program works wonderfully, except when it doesn’t.

If I’m paying attention, I stop as I work and fix mistakes. Only when I’m really rolling, I don’t want to interrupt the flow, and then I end up going back over scenes a couple days later. And that’s when I have to figure out what the heck I was talking about.

Black GoldJust like with Spenser, scene context can help. Thats how I knew “Beowulf and the bear” was supposed to be “a wolf and a bear”. And– “Long strands of spun gold, fresh from Russell stills skins wheel…” is also easy to parse.

But what about “Disparities in mind at all claim little height go seek”?

?????

Seriously? I had to have been following the authors’ creed of “Write Drunk…” to come up with that one. Only now as I hit the “…edit sober” section of the command, nothing made sense.

I eventually figured it out, but it was an exciting task.

So…what do you think it means? That mysterious phrase of mine? I’ll give you the following hints: this is found in a paranormal story. The hero is a grizzly bear shifter. The heroine, a shy back bear shifter.

I have a print copy of Black Gold (book 1 Takhini Wolves) for the person who gets the closest, or makes me laugh the hardest with their guess.

Have fun!

16 thoughts on “Guest Author & A Giveaway: Vivian Arend

  1. Jolanda W.

    I give it a try:) Had to translate to Dutch first before even trying to figure out:P

    When everybody has a different opinion it is very difficult to get everybody on the same page.

    Reply
    1. Vivian Arend

      I’ve started a hashtag on twitter to post the really good ones, especially since Thea harrison is also using Dragon now. #DragonDictateOops if anyone wants to see as we find them.

      And Dreamseeker is close!!

      Reply
    1. Vivian Arend

      Well done, Kate!!!

      That’s a line from my upcoming COPPER KING novella, a new story set in the Granite Lake and Takhini Wolves world. It will be out April 1st!

      I’ll need you to send me your mailing information for the book. vivarend at gmail dot com

      Reply

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