Issue #16

Blog #13-2015

Section: Demons of The Jungle

Blogger: Joseph Clay

On fall vacation in 2013 my true love, Nina the Kat and I were talking about the Nashville based publishing company and their suggestions they had made when they critiqued my manuscript, To find out more read my post From Engineering to an Author. Nina the Kat had decided that it was time for me to get serious and give it another go, she had come up with a writing exercise that would hone my skills. My thought: got to have skills to hone, but I agreed.

The writing exercise she proposed was that I take 14 consecutive words of the day—which were sent to us via Dictionary.com every morning—and write a scene around each word. Every day I would write a scene around the new word, building on the scene from the day before. This exercise began on October 24^th 2013 with word one, and concluded on November 6th 2013 with word fourteen. The words are listed below in the order I received them.

1. Fainaigue [fuh-NEYG], Verb – To shirk; evade work or responsibility.
2. Rime [RAHYM], Noun – A coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles caused by a rapid freezing of water droplets.
3. Svelte [SFELT], Adjective – Slender, especially graceful; slender in figure.
4. Biblioklept [BIB-lee-uh-klept], Noun – A person who steals books.
5. Trundle [TRUHN-dl], Verb – To convey or move in a wagon, cart or other wheeled vehicle.
6. Empurple [em-PUR-puhl], Verb – To color or become purple or purplish; to darken or redden; flush.
7. Alexipharmic [uh-lek-suh-FAHR-mik], Adjective – Warding off poisoning or infection, antidotal.
8. Effervescent [ef-er-VES-uhnt], Adjective – High-spirited; vivacious; lively, also effervescing; bubbling.
9. Pontificate [pon-TIF-i-keyt], Verb – To speak in a pompous or dogmatic manner, or to perform the office or duties of a pontiff.
10. Erinaceous [er-uh-NEY-shuhs], Adjective – Of the hedgehog family.
11. Quench [KWENCH], Verb – To slake, satisfy or allay, as in thirst, desires or passions.
12. Howdah [HOU-duh], Noun – (In the East Indies) A seat or platform for one or more persons, commonly with a railing and a canopy, placed on the back of an elephant.
13. Anopisthograph [an-uh-PIS-thuh-graf], Noun – Manuscript, parchment or book having writing on one side of the leaves.
14. Mulligrubs [MUHL-i-gruhbz], Noun – Ill-tempered, colic; grumpiness.

After the 14 days were up, I spent some time tying the scenes together, trying to make everything fit and make sense. From the words and their meanings, I decided to connect the stories using a paranormal theme, after all that’s the same theme I used in the manuscript. Some of the words got moved around and didn’t appear in the first draft in the order I had first received them, but Nina the Kat and I decided that was fine, as long as they were there somewhere. Once I was finished I had a rough outline. The next thing to do was come up with a title and character names (instead of Person 1 and Person 2). I will cover that in the next blog.

Did all 14 words of the day make the final cut? Now, I can’t tell you that—you’ll have to buy the book and see.

Demons of the Jungle was first released in e-book format in May 2014. Then in Paperback May of 2015.

Demons of the Jungle, second edition, is due to be released in late December 2015/January 2016.

Next week I’ll cover how the book title and characters come to be in the third blog of the series.

This series on Demons of the Jungle will consist of 8 blogs: “When is a second edition needed?”, “Birth of the Demons”, “Piecing it all together“, “Who is Debra Wright?”, “Who is Patricia Mitchell?”, “Who is Levi West?”, “The Demons”, and the teaser before the release, “A deal too good to be true”.

Joe

Blog edited by Clare Diston @ Human Voices