Blogging from A to Z Challenge: Purple Prose

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog. Every day this month I'm blogging a new word for all you Word Nerds during the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. Join me as we journey through the alphabet!!

~logophile~

a lover of words, Dictionary.com

Another name for a logophile is Word Nerd. Do you agree? This whole month  Focused on Story is for logophiles. In the beginning of this challenge, I explained my theme—I’ll share words that have caught my attention, words that fascinate me, words that roll off the tongue, words that make a sound (crackle), and words that have been in my vocabulary for one reason or another which I will explain. Many of the words are new-to-me. Hopefully, by including them in this survey of words, my vocabulary will expand and perhaps, yours will too.

 I came across logophile in an article by K.M. Weiland on her website, Helping Writers Become Authors. She called herself a logophile and addressed Fellow Logophiles. She cautioned against using purple prose in our writing. She defines purple prose as “an elaborate, gauche costume that, more often than not, simply covers up a lack of depth in the story itself.”

Because we love words, sometimes we are carried away with "elegant" words and forget to use words to match our voice. She calls a story “overblown” when trying to impress readers with our vocabulary.

“Stories do not exist to showcase words. Rather, words exist to tell stories.” K.M. Weiland

It is my hope, when you learn a new word this month on this blog, when you use it in your article or story, it will be appropriate and not sound pretentious.

Click here to read the entire article. I’m a subscriber to her blog because she is so clear with her tips on improving writing. 

# # #

Are you a Word Nerd? If so, why? Please leave a comment below. I love meeting readers.

Let's get together on Facebook. Like my author page and I'll like you back! Click here to visit the J.Q. Rose author page. Thank you.

Click here for the MASTER LIST

of all participants who signed up

for the #AtoZchallenge 2018.

Blogging from A to Z Challenge: Growing Lettuce with a Hydroponics System

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog by J.Q. Rose.
One week of words down. I hope you're having fun and getting a kick out of some of the words I've chosen to share with you.

~hydroponics~

the cultivation of plants by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil; soil-less growth of plants, Dictionary.com

My husband and I were in the floral business for nearly twenty years, so I was familiar with the term, hydroponics. But in the spring of 2017, hydroponics became very real to me when Gardener Ted decided to try growing lettuce and a few other plants using hydroponics. He has grown lots of vegetable and annual plants as well as foliage plants, mums, glads, and Easter lilies in our commercial greenhouses, and he plants a vegetable garden which produces delicious food all summer for our family in Michigan and a small garden in winter in Florida for us. Yes, he gardens twelve months out of the year. A dream come true for him.

Lettuce and other plants growing in a hydroponic system
Photo by J.Q. Rose

He was ready to try something new, so he set out to build his hydroponic system and raise plants. Learning how to grow healthy plants in water is definitely not like raising plants in soil! Figuring out how to move the water through the growing pipes, adding nutrients to the water, and keeping the pH at the right point was a real learning curve. And of course, the weather conditions change everything--warm, cold, windy, humid, etc.affect the demands of the plants to keep healthy.

Delicious speckled lettuce grown using the hydroponics system
Photo by J.Q. Rose

He followed through on producing lots of lettuce grown hydroponically, but the garden lettuce seemed to grow faster. I liked the hydro lettuce because it was clean when he cut it, whereas the garden lettuce had sand and soil on the leaves. So this spring he is planning to make improvements to his system and experiment some more with hydroponics. I'll keep you updated as to his progress this year.

Are you a gardener? Do you have experience with hydroponic growing? 

Dangerous Sanctuary by J.Q. Rose
Pastor Christine Hobbs never imagined
she would be caring for a flock that includes
a pig, a kangaroo, and a murderer.

Advice?? Thank you.

Click here for the MASTER LIST
of all participants who signed up
for the #AtoZchallenge 2018!

Sunday, April 8--I had fun visiting with Linda Hill on her blog, Linda's Book Bag, Staying in with J.Q. Rose. If you have time, I hope you'll hop on over as we enjoy  a pizza and discussion of my romantic suspense novel, Dangerous Sanctuary. Click here to visit this RNA Industry Award Winning Blog for Blog Star of the Year 217.

Blogging from A-Z Challenge: Those Darn Cats!

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog and to the Blogging from A-Z Writing Challenge!
I'm thinking of all the bloggers who are participating in this huge event. We're just getting our feet wet. Looking forward to this month of daily blogging. I would appreciate feedback from readers. Jump in and share one of your fave words.

~catawampus~

askew; awry, Dictionary.com

Don’t you love saying this word? Just as it’s spelled. Take a minute to say it out loud. Pronouncing this word seems to take your whole mouth, tongue and jaw to get it out in the open. Say it again and let it just leisurely flow out across your tongue and teeth and then what happens? You smile. Yep, I bet you did.

 

CAT-awampus
Courtesy of Pixabay

The dictionary spelled this word as cattywampus and catawampous. I guess how you say or spell it depends on the region where you reside. This word is also associated with kitty-cornered or as some folks say katty-corner which means diagonally across from a place. If you're familiar with the high-jinx of cats/kitties and how lively they can be, you can probably imagine how a cat could make a situation go awry with their antics.

Are you familiar with the word, catawampus? Do you say kitty-corner or katty-corner or is it a new expression for you? Please leave your comments below. 

Thank you for stopping in today.

Click here for the MASTER LIST
of all participants who signed up
for the #AtoZchallenge 2018!

Blogging from A to Z Challenge: Word Nerd

Hello and welcome to the Focused on Story Blog! I'm blogging on a Sunday, quite unusual especially on an Easter Sunday, because I joined a month-long event held every April--Blogging from A to Z Challenge. The challenge begins on April 1. 

Blogging from A to Z Challenge

This is my first experience as an A-Zer so I thought I'd better explain what I'm doing for this month. A whole month of wallowing in words. Can't wait! I admit I'm a Word Nerd. 

Read on to see what you'll find EVERY DAY on the Focused on Story Blog, with the exception of the rest of the Sundays in April. 

The Challenge

According to the Blogging from A to Z April 2018 Challenge website, a blogger begins "April 1 with a topic themed on something with the letter A, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until you finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z.  It doesn't even have to be a word--it can be a proper noun, the letter used as a symbol, or the letter itself. The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day."

My Overall Theme

If you are a Word Nerd, then you'll like my theme for April because I'm going to share words that have caught my attention, words that fascinate me, words that roll off my tongue, words that make a sound (crackle), and words that have been in my vocabulary for one reason or another. Yes, I'll explain why they made the list. Many of the words are new-to-me. Hopefully, by including them in this survey of words, my vocabulary will expand and perhaps you’ll also learn more words.

I'll share words I learned by reading books both fiction and non-fiction; I'll attribute the new word to the author. I read eBooks because I love having a dictionary right inside my Kindle. When I see unfamiliar words, I can easily look up the meaning of the word, highlight it, and make a note about it. So much easier than dragging out the dictionary and then usually losing my place in the book I was reading.!!

Besides my words, I hope you'll offer words in the comments to add to my growing list of vocabulary words. I'd love to know your thoughts on this challenge.

Now, Word Nerds, we're off to a fun month filled with words. Thanks for joining me on this journey. 

A to Z Challenge

~ augur ~

portend a good or bad outcome, Kindle dictionary

The spelling of augur took me by surprise as I was familiar with the word auger spelled with“er."

The auger in action on an Iowa farm.
Courtesy of Pixabay

I grew up in a small farming community in Central Illinois known for its acres and acres of corn fields, so I was familiar with augers that are used for moving corn and other crops up into the grain bins for storage.

You can imagine my confusion. I smugly believed that one of the big publishers didn't catch this when proofreading Pat Conroy's book. I clicked on the Kindle dictionary and discovered augur is spelled correctly in his usage of the word. I smiled sheepishly when I read the definition and learned it has a completely different meaning than auger. The word augUR, gave me the chills when I discovered it means a foreshadowing of a bad outcome. Perhaps it was the way Pat Conroy used it in his memoir, The Water is Wide. “Overall, the night seemed to augur strange things.”

Can you think of words that sound the same but with different meanings? Example: lie and fair.

NOTE: Homonyms are words that sound alike but have different meanings. 

Augur and auger are homophones. They're a type of homonym that sound alike and have different meanings and different spellings.

See? I bet this post convinces you I'm a Word Nerd!

# # #

To all those who are celebrating Easter today--

Wishing you a joyous and blessed Easter.
J.Q. Rose

Please leave a comment below. Are you familiar with augur and auger? Have you heard the term homonym before reading this blog post? Thank you.