Stuart Aken's Blog, page 311

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Yak

Image via Wikipedia
Yak: noun – domesticated, heavy build ox covered in long shaggy hair and with a humped back, used in the uplands of central Asia as a pack animal and for its milk and soft dense underfur.
'Sammy said he'd describe Melinda as a yak, except she wasn't as pretty, couldn't carry heavy loads and had never, to his knowledge, given any milk.'

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Anagram

Image via Wikipedia
Anagram: noun - transposition of the letters of one word or phrase to form another word or phrase; transposition, mutation.
http://wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html  This link will take you to a website dedicated to the art of the anagram. It's full of fascinating facts, some of which I use here, in my own words, of course.
'Anagrams' forms an anagram of the Latin phrase 'ars magna', which translates into 'great art'.'Itself' is an anagram of stifle.The former capital of Japan was Kyoto; the current capital is Tokyo. These names are anagrams of each other.Java's former capital was Kartasura but moved to its anagram of Surakarta.Compass points; north = thorn, south = shout, east = seat, and west = stew.Clabbers is a version of Scrabble where all words must be anagrams of real words.When King John signed the Magna Carta (Anagram Act) in 1215 he appears to have conferred the right of the people to take the mickey out of royalty and politicians, by using anagrams.An anigram is an animation demonstrating an anagram at work. Have a look at the foot of this page to see the daily anigram displayed from the website noted above. You can display your own anigrams on your own Web page by using this link See here.A true anagram is an anugram.Eleven plus two = Twelve plus oneHere are a few anagrams for Stuart Aken:Karate Nuts, Karate Stun, Rankest Tau, Rake Taunts, Aunt Streak, Skater Aunt, Ask Taunter, Nature Task, Tetanus Ark, Attunes Ark, Unseat Kart, Neat Krauts, Astute Nark, Astute Rank, Statue Rank, A Rake Stunt, A Streak Nut, A Skater Nut, A Skate Runt, A Stark Tune, A Tart Nukes, Sneak At Rut, Teak Saturn, Takes a Turn, Take Saturn, Eat Ant Rusk, Tank At User, Ask An Utter, Ask At Tuner, Anus At Trek, Tsar At Nuke, Star At Nuke, Tart As Nuke

And some for Breaking Faith, my romantic thriller:
Habit Freaking, A Barking Thief, A Braking Thief, A Father Biking, A Fake Birthing, A Farthing Bike, Began Faith Irk.
The above anagrams were generated by the anagram generator on http://wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html. It really is worth a visit to this fun spot, if you're at all interested in words.

Writing: Not the Novel, but a Short Story

No writing done on the epic fantasy tonight, but a short story, using characters and locations from the novel, prepared for reading at my writing group tomorrow night.
That's it for tonight.
But I invite you to take a look at the website on this link: it's a salutary, and fascinating lesson.
http://www.breathingearth.net/

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Incomplete or Uncompleted?

Incomplete: adjective - not complete; not fully formed; unfinished; not whole or thorough; lacking something, imperfect. Uncompleted: adjective - not completed.
I display these alternatives here, as they came up in a discussion at my writers' group a short while ago. We spent a little while discussing the meanings of the two words and came away without any conclusion, so I looked them up in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (my standard reference dictionary, and the one from which the definitions were taken: thank you to the Oxford Press). Apart from the fact that 'uncompleted' has only one, very specific, meaning, I can discern no essential difference between the two terms used in the context of the sentence we were discussing at the time. I'd still go for 'incomplete', simply because I find 'uncompleted' has an ugly sound to it. It goes to show that, in English, the chosen word can often be a matter of taste and preference without actually altering meaning in a significant way. Agreed?
The picture is just a shot I took a while ago.  Zemanta, the widget I use for illustrations, came up with nothing suitable this time.

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Birthday

Birthday: noun -  anniversary of the day of one's birth; the day of origin or commencement.
'This unusual word, rarely used, is selected today to mark a very important event in the human calendar; a happening that should be celebrated enthusiastically the world over: okay, so it's my birthday, I admit it!'
And the picture? No relevance at all.I just like it; it's one I took on a walk last weekend.

Writing: 1600 Words This Morning

Up a little later this morning; well, it is Sunday. Moved the epic fantasy on another 1600 words, with some challenging ideas besetting one of the characters and a small cliff-hanger ending the section. Needed a new name for a character who will appear only briefly, so consulted my list of made-up names and selected one that seemed suitable, after Googling, to ensure it hasn't been used by someone else and doesn't mean anything inappropriate in some other language.
I'm also working on a short stories to place in fantasy mags and edited a short story I wrote a little while ago. Will take that to my writing group on Wednesday so they can crit it before I send it off. Great feedback from the very professional group I belong to. And I managed to select most of the ten shorts I intend to place in a free anthology shortly; to be published on Smashwords as an eBook with a real variety of material for readers to sample. Everything from crime, through romance and erotica to horror and fantasy.
Had a pleasant walk along a familiar route today, as I wasn't up to walking too far after over-exerting myself in moving a couple more plants from the front garden to the back. Be glad when that particular project is done with.
Opened birthday cards and presents after tea, as tomorrow, which is the actual date, I'll be late home from the office and then we'll need to be out soon after our evening meal to attend our dance class. So, there's unlikely to be a post for tomorrow, apart from the word spot, which I've already scheduled, of course.

The picture shows the village of Goodmanham, a few miles away.

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Xebec

Image via Wikipedia
Xebec: noun - small three-masted boat with lateen (triangular) or, sometimes, square sails, once much used in the Mediterranean.
'Watching the sun, as it set over the island of Rhodes, Veronica was surprised to see a xebec enter the harbour, sailing in as if from some ancient forgotten myth.' 
8 May 1886 - Coca-Cola went on sale at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.

Writing: Another 1500 Done

An early start again and 1500 words placed before breakfast. This section has a perceived threat become a reality and two of the characters planning their escape from the trap that is about to close around them. The other writing things I've done today include an update to the suggested Books page and a small update to the Writing Contests page, so if you like to pit your wits against the judges, have a look and see if any of the links takes you to a place you'd like to try for a prize. Some of these contests offer decent prizes with no entry fee as well. Also, I joined a poetry group on Facebook a while ago and today I posted my first piece of verse there. You'll find it at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_153270078024205&notif_t=group_activity  but you'll have to scroll down a good way because this is an active group and there are plenty of posts every day. One of the group thought my piece was 'brilliant', which is nice to know. I've had a few dozen emails in my 'pending' place and I dealt with all of those today as well. So, quite productive.
We took the car to town for groceries and to buy new mats for the car and a can of spray paint to touch up some of the body work before it rusts.
Our walk was just a short trek around the block to get the blood flowing after so much physical inactivity.
And I've just delivered Kate and her friend, Charlotte, to a party at a local pub. Another 18th birthday party; this one a themed 'Where's Wally?' do.
The remainder of the evening is for reading and gazing at the TV screen instead of the PC monitor. Recharging the batteries in readiness for tomorrow.

The picture is from a local walk, about 8 miles away, near a village called Huggate.

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Wadding

Image via Wikipedia
Wadding: noun -  material from which wads are made for guns; a wad; soft, pliable stuff used for padding, lining, stuffing, cotton wool forming a fleecy layer.
'Gavin looked on with deep disappointment as Barbara eased out the cotton wool she'd used as wadding in the  top of her bikini.'

Writing: 1500 Words Today

An early start and going well when the keyboard, a wireless affair, decided it needed new batteries. Power restored and the words flow again. Then the keyboard packs up again. It's been playing silly devils for a while now and it's clearly suffering some sort of short. I managed to get 1500 words done, so Ch25 is complete and Ch 26 is begun. But the power problem became too much to permit me to continue to create.
After breakfast, a quick trip into town and a new keyboard bought; working fine. Just can't be doing with technology that doesn't work, can you?
I've managed to prepare and schedule my Daily Word Spot for the next 2 weeks, prepare and schedule an author interview and answer a few outstanding emails, so not a bad day.
Moved a few plants in preparation for a major project in the garden.
Now I shall go and read, whilst Kate is out filming some of her school mates for their media studies project and Valerie is out on the coast, bowling in what started as a bright warm evening. Hope it stays fine until they finish.