The lovely Jo Schafferhas tagged me for LUCKY SEVENS
http://jostorm.blogspot.com/2012/03/lucky-sevens.html
The rules are as follows:
1. Go to page 77 of your current MS
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines - sentences or paragraphs - and post them as they're written. No cheating
4. Tag 7 authors
5. Let them know
I gratefully accept tags, but I know many of my friends do not like them. I don't know who among them do not, so I do not tag. If any of you visiting want to play, great!
Alice insisted I use her latest book, so here are the those seven paragraphs (not sentences). Hey, you know how Victor loves words:
Legba, was still here. Happy with me he wasn’t. It was almost a tradition with me when arriving anywhere.
“What be wrong wid you, boy?” he huffed in his Jamaican accent.
Alice giggled, “Do you wish the list alphabetically or in order of importance?”
Legba pointed a long scraggly finger at the wiggling tentacle on the grass busily growing an Old One at the end of it. Sfumato! I never knew that could happen. Stephen King should publish a handbook or something on the by-laws of creepy-crawlies.
“You be killing all of dis city, girl!” Legba shouted.
Alice quickly pointed my way. “Me not him.”
“That’s right. Throw me under the wheels of the bus, Alice.”
***
Many of you have asked me about the word "Sfumato" with which Victor swears. Though a ghoul, Alice Wentworth was raised in the early Victorian Age and is made uncomfortable with Victor's normal "colorful metaphors" as she puts it.
Victor loves her with all his heart so he tries to use the word "Sfumato" that sounds like what he wants to say! Having spent literally years in public libraries for their safety, he is undestandably well read.
He knows Sfumato is one of the four major painting modes of the Renaissance.
The most prominent practitioner of sfumato was Leonardo da Vinci,
and his famous painting of the Mona Lisa exhibits the technique (especially in the shading around the eyes).
Leonardo da Vinci described sfumato as "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane."
To Victor, Leonardo's description of Sfumato dove-tails exactly with what he feels about "proper" and "improper" when he wants to swear!
***
I have waited for this movie since I first read the books with the Leauge of Five as a young boy
And I actually knew what Sfumato meant! (Studied Renaissance in college.)
ReplyDeleteGo see John Carter!!!! Saw it last night and it was awesome. Epic story, amazing visuals, and fairly accurate to the book. But it's the feel of the movie, the Golden Age of science fiction and adventure, that really sets it apart.
Alex :
ReplyDeleteYou and I must be the only ones who do know from all the emails I've been getting!! Good for you! The critics hate the movie, but the audiences love it as do you!! I just hope the critics panning it doesn't hurt its box office. I want the sequel, GODS OF MARS, that were planning.
I haven't seen John Carter, but I'd like to, soon.
ReplyDeleteI was tagged on Friday with the Lucky 7, *sigh*. I looked briefly yesterday at page 77, line 7. Wow, it's in raw form! Unfortunately, I was tagged with 2 challenges that day, so it'll take me some time to get it done. Should post by mid-week.
I'm loving getting to know Victor!
I almost forgot! FABULOUS cover for The Rival!!
ReplyDelete(= I've always loved the word sfumato...(= my dad was an art teacher before he retired and I traveled to Italy with him once. It was amazing having an art historian along on that trip!
ReplyDelete