Blogging when I should be novelling

I blog too much. And now I have another blog on which to do it at Today.com. Today.com is an outfit which promises to pay bloggers $1 for each day's blog post, and since I'm always on the verge of financial disaster I was tempted and now have a blog called The Sci-Fi/Fantasy Flying Circus.

*sigh*

I had decided to work on this blog daily to try to expand the readership, but now have to work on the other blog daily. I had thought of just replacing this blog with that one, but over at Today.com I can't put up links to books at Amazon.com and so therefore can't participate in the CSFFBT.

And I really should be working on my novel. Or on my other novel. Right now. Or else searching the snowbanks for a statue of the Infant of Prague I just bought on Ebay and that the Fed-ex guy handed over to my dog. (I've found the box and packaging, Infant of Prague clothing, and an Infant of Prague hand so far. And I'm wondering if the dog will go to hell for destroying a statue of Jesus.)

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A list of science fiction and fantasy authors with blogs is to be found at SF Signal. List is limited to those published at major (secular) publishers. Look and see if your fave authors are bloggers!

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Jackie Castle has a must-read blog post: Have we really thought through these propositions? dealing with the anti-Gay-marriage propositions in a more Christian and loving way than some, which is sure to cause controversy. I offer her my thanks for that post, which really made me feel like I'm not altogether an outcast in spite of being out as a chaste Gay person.

I Challenge Thee to a .... Writing Exercise!

As this is post #100 I decided to make it a challenge to my reader or readers. This is a writing exercise I did some years back and I just rediscovered it today in my file cabinet. The idea is to write ten opening sentences for novels/stories. I believe it's meant to be a help for those struggling with writing the 'perfect' opening sentence for your work. Anyway, I'll show you my ten sentences, and then you can write your own--- in the comments, or at your own blog, or on the restroom wall, wherever.

Opening Sentences

1. "Don't touch that!" the man screamed, seconds before the explosion.

2. If Mary had known that the old book would eventually cause the murder of 75 people, she would have gone into the antique shop instead.

3. The governor knew, of course, that Red Jack was innocent, but he had no intention of stopping the execution.

4. They moved to Wisconsin the year Maia turned thirteen, and things would never be right again.

5. I knew it was a bad idea to stow away on the Andromeda, but I'd rather be spaced out the airlock than stay on the station even one more day.

6. The suns glared orange in the sky ar Aminton killed the last thousand of the Iliani rebels. The last of them, women and children mostly, might have been permitted to live, had any of them thought to ask for mercy. But the sheer weight of those who had gone before them drained off all their hope, and they died, silent.

7. The dragon was small, blue-eyed, and in my living room.

8. "Don't you even b'leeve in God, Charlie?"
"Nah," Charlie told his kid brother, "there isn't no God, not for real there isn't."

9. Reggie was dead, but that didn't mean he wasn't planning on attending the wedding.

10. The day the world ended, Jennie had a terrible fight with her ex-husband. Not a physical fight, of course. Ron was too smart for that.

I've noticed that a couple of these are more than one sentence. Oh, well.

Polish Names for Your Characters

Continuing my new obsession with all things Polish.... I'm compiling a list of Polish names in order to help with naming Polish fictional characters.

Nazwisko--- family names
Polish family names are hereditary and passed from father to children. The family name comes last. The most common Polish family names are Nowak, Kowalski, and Wiśniewski. A long list of Polish family names in order of popularity is found at http://www.futrega.org/etc/nazwiska.html

Kamiński
Mazur
Grabowski
Baranowski
Krupa
Pawlik
Barański
Czyż
Mroczek
Grodzicki

Imię - given names
A list of Polish given names is given at http://www.edziecko.pl/ciaza_i_porod/0,79473.html

IMIONA DLA CHŁOPCA male names
Piotr
Krzysztof
Jan
Marek
Stanisław
Jacek
Łukasz
Paweł
Grzegorz
Michał
Józef
Klaudiusz

IMIONA DLA DZIEWCZYNKI female names
Maria
Katarzyna
Agnieszka
Krystyna
Elżbieta
Janina
Halina
Danuta
Jadwiga
Dorota
Grażyna
Natalia
Ewa
Zofia

Pronunciation:
Polish pronunciation can be difficult. 'J' is pronounced like english 'y', 'w' like english 'v', 'y' like english 'i' in 'bit', and 'ł' like english 'w'.

I hope this will help writers in naming their Polish characters. This post will be updated with more names as time goes by, as my similar post on Korean names is.

Polish Name: Wikipedia