Aimee Massey's Blog: Odric and Friends, page 2

Good News!

Hello, followers!
I'm very excited to announce that yesterday, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, which is a branch of none other than the august Library of Congress, will be making "Odric the Bold" into an audiobook format, to be available to any of its registered patrons! It will be at least six months before the book is available for download or for borrowing via snail-mail, but six months can pass awfully fast.
I knew from the start that I wanted Odric's story to be accessible to blind children or blind parents; as a lifelong NLS patron myself, I'd be a first-class hypocrite if I didn't make every effort to put my book into Braille or audio. This is an aspect of book writing and publishing too often overlooked, and so the fact that NLS agreed to make this happen, and the decicion was made over the course of mere HOURS, is a huge deal to me.

Words, Words, Wonderful Words

It's obvious, of course, but it bears repeating: words are the tools of a writer's trade. While the right word used correctly and at the right time won't save a book from its own crummy plot, unbelievable characters or lazy research, words used incorrectly can ruin a book that would otherwise be quite enjoyable.
I won't get into the nuts and bolts of good word choice and usage here, or anyplace else; there are plenty of books dedicated to all that. But I would like to share a few words that, while they aren't likely to be encountered in conversation or even in most writing, are nonetheless sparkly little gizmos of our language.

Librocubicularist: First of all, this one is really a bear to type. Second of all, I openly and shamelessly identify as a librocubicularist! I've been one since I was six years old, and I'm not alone!
Wait, put away your Awareness ribbons and hold off on that fundraising walkathon. A librocubicularist is simply a person who likes to read in bed. You knew there had to be a name for it, didn't you?

paraselene: Sounds vaguely chemical, doesn't it? Like it might be flammable, or good for healing irritated skin, or possibly be an essential nutrient for horses? Wrong. A paraselene is a "false moon" or rather, it's a reflected image of the moon in the sky, due to moisture in the air or some other unusual atmospheric condition. This is a rare instance where the scientific term is prettier than the common term.

Sesquipedalian: This one's a good example of a word that handily illustrates its own definition. Sesquipedalian literally means "having fifty feet" but in practice, it means a word that is unnecessarily long and complicated. The kind of words the insufferable Anne Shirley, red-haired scourge of Green Gables, liked to throw around to try and show off how smart she thought she was.

Quotidian: And here we see a word that is the opposite of its own definition. Quotidian is a pompous (sesquipedalian, perhaps?) word for "ordinary" or "everyday." Do yourself and everybody else a favor and never use this in speech, and only with great caution in writing. You will most likely look like a jerk even if (maybe even especially if!) your listeners know the meaning of the word.

Introducing Odric

Hello and welcome! I'd like to introduce you to a small friend of mine, named Odric. (He hasn't told me his last name, if indeed he has one.)
Odric is nine years old and lives in Cranberry Valley, a quiet, peaceful little village that's nonetheless renowned for its many seasonal social events, particularly the Blue Gourd Festival every fall. In my very first published book "Odric the Bold" I tell the story of how Odric bravely hiked to the top of the High Forest on a quest to find wild blue gourds and save his hometown's famous festival when their own domestic crop of the lovely blue things failed. He made his trip all by his lonesome, and despite the fact that he is blind.
Odric met lots of interesting and helpful talking animals along the way and we meet them too in the book.
A note about our young hero's name: Odric is pronounced ODD-rick. He's very particular about this.

How to Buy My Book

Buying my book is as simple as dropping me an email at asm1976@comcast.net.

“Odric the Bold” will be $10 a copy, and payment will be via PayPal. I am, of course, the very soul of discretion and PayPal is a very safe, secure payment method.

Of course, you could also buy on Amazon, but I’d rather cut out the middlemen.

Welcome!

Welcome to the new and (I hope) improved blog!

But what’s going on? Why the new look? What happened? cry the concerned readers, all two of them.

Long and short of it: I am now a published author, and I want to use this blog to promote and publicize my book and the ones I hope will follow it!

The book is called “Odric the Bold.” Odric is a little blind boy who lives in a once-upon-a-time type place called Cranberry Valley. When bad luck and bad weather causes the loss of the village’s blue gourd crop, it looks like Cranberry Valley will have to cancel its popular Blue Gourd Festival. There’s a good chance that wild-growing blue gourds can be found at the top of the High Forest, but CV’s adults all have some excuse or other for not going up there to find out.

Odric impulsively decides to make a solo trip up to the top of the forest to find the gourds, and with the help of a carved wooden map, his own judicious use of his other senses, and the help of some talking animals along the way, (because those are the only kind of animal you meet on such a trip) our hero has every intention of coming home with his pack full of blue gourd goodness.

Will he succeed? What’s it like traveling in the forest without sight? What do skunks really think of us humans?

The only way to find out is to READ THE BOOK!