Setting Sail

Dear Friends of Author Vivian Probst,

As my husband and I prepare to set sail on a cruise of the Scottish Isles on the North Sea, I am keenly aware of how long it has been since I’ve written to you. The good news is that I’m still writing and a two-week cruise should give me time for more of that. Here’s what’s up…

The Woman Who Forgot Who She Was (novel series I started some years ago) sits in 4 volumes with a 5th being written as I have time. My specific project right now is to bring these 4 volumes into present tense and then to drop them into a specific location. I have never had an opportunity to pick a particular (real) location for a plot to take place. Now, however, I get to use my home town of Waukesha, WI and then pieces of London, England and around Edinburgh, Scotland. Interesting that our ship will land in Edinburgh, and we will have three days there, isn’t it?

These books are being written in a type of English that I am calling ‘Shenglish’ because I am learning how to write without using words that give male gender dominance to English while not demeaning our own gender with negative words. For instance, think how often we apply the prefix ‘mis-‘ in our language to speak of something that’s wrong: mistake; misbehave; misappropriate…

‘Miss’ is also how we address young women, so I’ve decided to avoid using negative ‘mis-‘words in my stories. There’s much more than that to shift our language into more gender balance. In these days of ‘Me, Too’ I think it’s time that our language support all of us more equally. Quite an adventure! More to come…

With affection,

Vivian!

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