Home Page of Anne Ashby Writing Warm Fuzzy and Fun Stories

May 26

How different is the English we speak? My first three stories explored this question quite thoroughly because as a Kiwi living in Maryland USA I’d had a lot of fun with American friends interpreting each other’s language. I hadn’t realised how different NZ English and US English actually was until I lived there. And it wasn’t the obvious Maori words that we now commonly use that caused raised eyebrows – let’s face it, we would expect that and rephrase or explain these - but no. They were good old common English words. But hey, what a great way to make a story different. I had my inter-national characters at odds with each other over minor language misunderstandings quite often. In ‘Worlds Apart’ (soon to be released by Wild Rose Press), my editor came up with the idea of actually using the spelling appropriate to each character depending on who’s POV we were in. An interesting concept and I’m intrigued to see how it works out. It does make the editing process a little confusing though, as my computer – and I’m sure hers as well – keeps telling us we’ve spelt this and that word incorrectly. It’s a lot of fun playing with words – I’d be a pretty sorry writer is I didn’t think this – but I’m aware of how careful we must be. Writing Kiwi English isn’t going to work on the international market. I am now setting my stories here in NZ so at least I’m not facing the fear of giving, for example, born and bred New Yorkers a Kiwi accent instead of that broad New York twang.

Join me next week and I’ll tell you about another language problem I’m having to overcome.

May 19

Recently I realised one of the great things about being a writer. Well, I suppose some people might think it's no big deal but I disagree. I think it's very, very cool.

My daughter, expecting her first baby in August, asked me for some ideas for possible names for their new baby. I got off the phone excited and really thrilled that she'd included me - a budding new grandmother - in the process, even though she had very clearly added the proviso that they wouldn't necessarily use any of my suggestions. Hmm. I'm sure she just added that because she knows how I like odd and unusual names and figured any I come up with would definitely fit into that 'odd and unusual' category. Anyway, I digress. Without any real conscious thought the blank page on my desk was immediately filled. Under two columns for boys and girls - obviously, duh! - were the names of all the characters in my stories. I'd named the heroes and heroines, the secondary characters, the children, because I felt an affinity with each and every one of them. I loved them so naturally I loved their names.

In our lifetime we could never have enough children (or pets) to use up all those lovely names that strike a cord with us or maybe hold some special meaning. Or even just sound really cool. But as a wrtier, I can dream those names into people and then into a reality that's very alive for me. The most exciting time of writing is as the very beginning of a story idea as I play with heaps of names until I find the right one. Just like naming our children, naming our characters is a very important and thought provoking time. Not to mention very exciting.