NEWS FLASH! BARBARIAN THUGS GO BERSERK AND VANALIZE IWSG!

Posting the First Wednesday of every month, the Insecure Writer's Support Group, is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. YOU can sign up HERE to participate.

Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.

Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts: Jemima Pett, Nancy Gideon, and Natalie Aguirre!

This month's question is: Do you remember writing your first book? What were your thoughts about a career path on writing? Where are you now and how is it working out for you? If you're at the start of the journey, what are your goals?

I wrote many, many partial and incomplete novels all through my teens, but my first completed novel was written in my mid-20s. I still have it. I haven't looked at it in at least 30 years. I know parts of it are ok, but most of it is a steaming hot mess of you know what. I worked hard to get better and to write and publish the three books I did. I'm happy with what I've done. If I get any other books published, I'll let you know!

Origins: a recurring post in which I delve into the history of a word or phrase.

Today's words are: Berserk, Vandalize, Thug, Barbarian, and Babbling.

I know, I know. FIVE words? But they're all kind of related and I couldn't separate them, they would have been traumatized.

                                         

This may depict a one-eyed Odin
guiding a berserker.

Berserk comes for the Old Norse words bjorn, meaning "bear" and serkr, meaning "shirt." It literally means bear shirt. Old Norse was spoken before 1350 CE. At some point someone mistook bear shirt to mean bare shirt, as in "without clothes." Ancient Scandinavian warriors were known to "go berserk" in battle, the confusion is whether they fought naked, weren't wearing any armor, were wearing bear skins instead of armor, OR were magically transformed into bears. Whatever they did, when they went berserk, the warriors were filled with a mad and wild frenzy and it was believed they couldn't be wounded. Apparently women could go berserk, too.

The Vandals sacking Rome.

Vandals, on the other hand, were an ancient Germanic people. They went berserk and overran Spain, North Africa, and Gaul - present day France. In 455 they arrived in Italy and sacked Rome, destroying many buildings and monuments as they went and bringing about the final end of the Roman Empire. Hence we have the verb "to vandalize."

I wonder if there were any thugs among those berserk vandals? Thugs were professional robbers and murderers in India. Their trademark was to strangle their victims. Thug comes from the Hindu word thag which means "thief." Thag comes from two Sanskrit words, sthaga, meaning "rogue" and sthagati, meaning "to cover" or "conceal." Translated that means sneaky thief. Thugs were finally put out of business by 1840. By the way, Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world.

Those thugs can be real barbarians. Barbarous comes from the Greek word barbaros, which means, "foreign, rude, or ignorant." It's similar to another Sanskrit word, barbara (not to be confused with the name) meaning "to stammer." In this case the stammer is used for a person speaking a language in which they are not fluent. They are speaking unintelligibly, which is another way to say they are "babbling" incoherently.

So there you have it, babbling barbaric thugs go berserk and vandalize IWSG.

LoanWord: A word adopted from a foreign language with little or no modification.

Today's loan words are from Hindi and Sanskrit. Loot, Pajamas, Bungalow, Shampoo, Khaki, Bandana, Bangle, Cot, Cushy, Dinghy, Dungaree, Punch (as in a drink) Veranda, Basmati, Avatar, Guru, Cashmere, Chintz, Deva, Jungle, Jute, Tank (as in a cistern/water catchment) and Ganja (a word the Rastafarians have pretty much claimed as their own.)

Being Thankful

Today I am thankful for another couple of Dribbles being accepted by Vine Leaves Press. I recommend subscribing to their Dribble a Day. The stories are so varied and unique. I'm also thankful that I was inspired to write a story (well actually to rework an old story) for a contest called Fractured Fairy Tales put on by the Institute for Children's Literature (now called The Institute for Writers) - I took all their courses years ago and learned SO much about writing for children! Years ago I won first place in one of their contests with my Anansi story "Why Dogs Beg" which led to the eventual publishing my book Anansi and Company. Lastly I'm thankful that I got the second round of edits finished on my grandmother's cookbook and sent it off to my cousin and sister for their second reading.

What are you thankful for today? Do you remember writing your first book? Was it terrible or what?

Grammy's Cookbook

I have mentioned in several past posts that my grandmother, Erva Boulon, wrote a cookbook. It is filled with recipes and anecdotes from her life.

Grammy was born in 1895 in Ada, Ohio. The opening pages of her book tell the story of how, in 1904 while living in Lincoln, Nebraska, her father announced to the family that they were moving to Cuba.

Her father, Eugene Hartwell, was a weatherman who worked for the Federal Weather Bureau (now known as NOAA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admistration) and was being transferred.

They traveled by train from Lincoln to St. Louis. From St. Louis they floated down the Mississippi on an old fashioned river boat to New Orleans. At New Orleans they got on a small freighter to Havana. The ultimate destination was the town of Cienfuegos, on the southern coast, 160 miles away. It took a day to reach by train.

As one might imagine it was a totally alien environment for Grammy's mother, Bertha. "When the question of milk arose, we discovered that the delivery was very simple: the cows were driven from door to door and milked at your door step."

"Mother was very anxious to try all of the strange new fruits and vegetables which she saw on the push carts about town, so one day she arrived from a shopping expedition with a green avocado, our first. The vendor had been reluctant to sell her the fruit as he knew it was green, but Mother had insisted. All that she had understood of his directions for using the fruit was the Spanish verb "to cook." We had green avocado cooked in syrup for dinner that evening. It tasted strangely like sweetened laundry soap and was promptly dropped from our menus."

Here's a recipe that's come a long way from green avocados cooked in syrup! Sometimes her instructions are not always clear, so I've done a little editing.  My additions are in blue.

Avocado Mold

2 envelopes of Knox's gelatin
4 cups mashed avocado
1/4 cup lime or lemon juice
3 bird peppers (a small very hot pepper) or Tabasco sauce to taste
1 cup of cold water
2 cups of boiling water
1 tsp salt (to taste)
Cooked shrimp, lobster or chicken pieces marinated in a small amount of gelatin

Soak the gelatin in cold water. Melt with boiling water. Pour a little of the clear gelatin into the bottom of a ring mold. Arrange shrimp, lobster or chicken which has been marinating in this small amount of gelatin.. Set the mold into the refrigerator to harden quickly. Combine mashed avocado, lime or lemon juice, hot sauce and salt and add to the rest of the gelatin mixture and allow to cool. When the clear gelatin has set in the mold add avocado mixture, set mold back in the refrigerator until the gelatin has hardened. Unmold on a bed of crisp lettuce leaves, fill the center of the mold with chunks of peeled tomatoes, serve with tart mayonnaise.

Check out this video of Cienfuegos, Cuba. Many of the buildings pictured were there when my grandmother was little girl of nine.