To all my American followers, and really I guess anyone else who wants to remember those who died in wars, happy Memorial Day! And happy official start to summer 🙂 I’ll celebrate vicariously through you as A) its not Memorial Day in Singapore and B) there really aren’t any discernible seasons here.
What are you up to today?
So my brain has been on fire the past four days! Writer’s high to the max, Ideas just itching and itching to get out of my head.
I finally made myself get started on the prequel to the other novel I’m wrapping up right now (which is off at a development editor), Hooligans in Shining Armour set in modern-day Belfast. I was putting it off because I don’t know why, probably because I didn’t feel like researching, but I finally found my spark. I’d already plotted it out a bit, which helped immensely. Plus as I was writing this, I found out I loved this character even more than I ever knew!
Anyway… Have you ever written a sequel or a prequel? What did your process look like for that? Is it easier or harder to write than the first?
So I started doing a bit of creative writing teaching in the Singapore schools. So much fun. Love kids. Now I’m the token white person and the token Yank 🙂 Anyway, at the end of the lesson, this little girl comes up to me. Here’s our dialogue:
“Miss Sarah, are you Australian or British?”
“I’m American. Which one did think I was?” I ask.
“Australian.” She smiles up at me.
“Why?”
“Because of how you talk.”
Nope, I’m this:
(Image retrieved from bleacherreport.com)
(Side note: I DO NOT agree with the above meme, let me be clear. Let’s be real for a second, we all can be obnoxious in certain…situations, let’s just say. Except Canadians 😛 They’re so nice and polite. Do they even have an obnoxious chant? I guess maybe “Oh, Canada!…” I don’t know the rest, sorry Canada. I blame my mom for not teaching me.)
This is definitely not the first time someone from Singapore thought I was Australian after I talk. Not that there’s anything wrong being Australian of course. To be fair, I can’t recognize different Southeast Asian accents in English and most of the white people here are Australian so it’s a safe assumption. Maybe it’s because I wear flip flops a lot or maybe I just don’t look British. Who knows. Either way, it’s pretty amusing 🙂
Have you ever had an experience like this traveling abroad? Can you recognize different groups of people based on the way they look or dress? (hope I didn’t open a can of worms with that last question)
(retrieved from http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/05/yanks-and-brits-is-america-really-the-best/)
So as I mentioned in my previous post, over in Singapore, I have loads of British friends and that’s who I hang out with the most. One of the most fun parts of this, for me, is learning the dialect differences–as there are many. My friends have also unknowingly been my research subjects! They’ve helped me write a bunch of my characters in my novel, which is set in the UK. Today I’m posting a list of some of the words my friends use that I find awesome but don’t feel I have the street cred to use. It would just sound weird if I said it. This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of vocabulary differences, though perhaps some day……
Gutted (this is my favorite I think): like you’re devastated. Like “Arsenal lost and I was just gutted.”
(retrieved fromhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2013120/JLS-left-gutted-forced-cancel-T4-On-The-Beach-performance.html)
Knackered: tired/beat
Shattered: tired
Dodgy: sketchy, questionable
(retrieved from theinspirationroom.com)
Posh: upper class and likely snobby. Yeah, like Posh Spice, but I’m not sure why she was called Posh Spice. My friends don’t use it in a complimentary fashion, particularly when talking about posh Londoners. There’s also posh accents. I’d say that posh British people are what Americans might stereotypically think of all British people as being (which is obviously not true lol). We’d probably consider those old money Martha’s Vineyard types that play polo posh in the US.
(retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/may/23/posh-duke-yorks-review-billington)
Wanker: idiot. Wank means to masturbate, so wanker would be one who masturbates, but this is used as a generally insulting term.
(image retrieved from www.kitschagogo.com)
Rubbish: garbage or crap. This can refer to actual garbage, like “Put it in the rubbish bin” or generally to desribe a situation or thing that is crap or no good, like “That’s rubbish.”
Chav: white trash. Also maybe like a poser, too.
(retrieved from hfboards.hockeysfuture.com)
Bollocks: literally means balls, but is used in many ways. Used in isolation, I think it means like bullshit. Examples of uses in sentences: “Bollocks you do” “That’s a load of bollocks” “Made a bollocks out of it.” “Bollocksed it up.” Also, that’s the dog’s bollocks, which apparently means it’s awesome.
(retrieved from www.thecalmgallery.com)
The loo: the bathroom. Example: I’m going to nip to the loo. I’m going to quickly go to the bathroom. I will say I’ve stopped calling it a bathroom and call it a toilet instead as, at least in public places, there is no bath in it
A few phrases I’d like to use:
Also, I’d like to use those little xx after text messages or other messages. like “See you tonight! xx”
I’m sure I’ll have a follow up post to this. Not sure what next post’s topic will be, but I’ll definitely do one about words I say my British friends don’t know 😛
Have you encountered words other people say that you either started using or wished you could use? Also, did I get any definitions wrong?
Have you ever been so in the zone while writing that you looked at your clock and went, crap it’s been four hours? Yeah, I love those days when the words just flow and you can tell it’s amazing stuff flying out of your fingers. I like to call it the writer’s high. Now sometimes that flow gets interrupted by things like dinner plans or obligations to go out with friends….
Really though, I love them all but sometimes I want to be like NOOOO can’t leave, magic happening!
Does this ever happen to you?
Sarah J. Carlson 