2T Repeat Performance

 I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published sometime in 2013 for Ali's Bookshelf

Thank you to Ali and Ali’s Bookshelf for having me here today!

Day in the Life of Mary Hughes

Rise and Shine: My husband’s the early riser. I’d sleep until 9 if he let me (before kids that was noon J ). He’s wonderful enough to bring me a cup of coffee (he says it’s in self-defense). The usual shower, etc.

Commute: Down the hallway to the office. Hug husband, who goes downstairs while I boot the computer. Husband, having gathered lunch and coat, appears at foot of stairs with “I love you”, to which I reply “I love you too! Drive safe.” I have to add the Drive Safe because he tends to use his knee to steer and has a following distance of three postage stamps. He leaves. I go into office and rattle the doorknob. Clingy cat runs in last minute and I shut the door and get on with my day.

Work: Email and online tasks. Then close all browsers—very important because Internets is Shiny—and write. The occasional game of Spider Solitaire clears my brain. Practice flute.

After work: Glass of wine or juice with dinner unless it’s Thursday, which is beer & pizza night. Relax with television, which is also a great way to experience visuals for writing stories. Brush both cats (if they let us).

What's on your Bookshelf

Fiction

Elizabeth Peters

Janet Evanovich

J.D. Robb

Rex Stout

David Eddings

Charles Stross

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Nonfiction

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

Writing books enough to make the shelves sag.

 

 

3T Writing Tidbit - lucking fuvely wordplay

April showers bring may flowers, and Mayflowers bring pilgrims.

As writers, we each have our own ways of expressing ourselves. In other words, though we all tell stories, we each have our own styles.

Still, there are some common tools in our tool kits. One is wordplay.

Wordplay is the thing that allows you to take the sentence, "I had a dog and his name was Blue," and morph it to, "I had a dog and he sang the blues," or "I had a frog and he croaked the blues," or...

Wordplay creates a phrase like "lucking fuvely" from an -ahem- less pristine saying.

It takes the stock (and therefore probably boring) idiom, "Create a dissent among the ranks," and spins it into the Sopranos bit of fun, "Create a little dysentery among the ranks."

AI enumerates several different types of wordplay, puns, double entendres, Spoonerisms, malapropisms, alliterations and portmanteaus (my social media creation, TwitFace, falls into this camp). But in the end, it's all about playing with language in order to tickle the reader. 

I write action/humor romance, so it's a tool I find easier to fit in with my style. What about you? How can you use wordplay to enliven your prose and delight your reader? 

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.