Conlangs & Horseshoes

A few small but gutsy things to report.

One is that I tried a new cable in my knitting, called a horseshoe cable. I'll be sure to post pictures once I cease to be lazy and actually take a few.

The second is that I've been playing with conlangs again. Conlang stands for "constructed languages", and since I'm a linguistics geek I've always thought it would be interesting to create a language. Marry a love of linguistics with a love of writing and you get...a person who creates worlds and populates them with languages that each have their own grammar system and unique vocabulary (read: a Tolkien wannabe).

Obviously it's not an instant process, but now that I'm working on a novel for FebNoWriMo I thought I'd get back into it a little more. Working on a language now that is a mixture of Irish, Russian, and French. Pretty fun, and crazy, but mostly fun. It's a time filler, anyway, and a good daily puzzle to solve. Hitting a word I haven't come up with yet and being like, "Drat...gotta pull out three different dictionaries and figure that one out."

Incidentally, my FebNoWriMo is currently up to 10,690 out of 50,000...so I'm behind. But the important thing is that I'm writing, so even if I don't make 50,000 I totally don't mind. It's just good to be working on something. And I'm liking my story so far, as that's good.

To be honest, though, the gutsiest thing I'm going to attempt tonight and tomorrow is NOT getting the stomach sickness that is sweeping through Seattle right now. Really, honestly, I don't want it. Mainly because throwing up is my least favorite thing. I can handle a lot...really I can...but throwing up sucks big time.

Anyway, wishing everyone a healthy long weekend (for those of us with President's Day coming up!).

Maybe I should plan a gutsy adventure on Monday?

-The GLS