As I was revising All the King's Women, I had this feeling that maybe I needed to put more thought into the culture. I'm creating this world where one's status is paramount, but nothing in their language seems to suggest it. Everyone in my book speaks English. By that I mean their language does not reflect their culture and mindset.

For example, in Asian languages, you have honorifics and levels of politeness and formality, and you must choose the correct combination to use. Failing to do so usually means one of two things:

1. You're ignorant / uneducated.
2. You're deliberately trying to insult the other person.

In Korea, if your speech is too formal and polite for the other person, you're being sarcastic and/or insulting. If it's too informal, you're being insulting or showing your lack of social grace. Furthermore, each level of politeness / formality shows the speaker's relationship to the person she's talking to and the situation. So one person may use one type of speech, while his conversation partner may another. And the same people can use different levels if the situation changes, i.e. work v. social. (It can get very confusing for foreigners…!)

But it makes sense given Korea's history. Social status, occupation, age, gender, etc. were all very important.

So when I looked at my own world, I had to consider its history and what mattered to these people (other than power and sex). They care a lot about social status, proper protocols and the type of relationships they have with one another. So their language needs to reflect this.

Took me about an hour, but I came up with six different levels for my people. The fun part is incorporating them into the story and seeing how my characters can learn so much about the situation and people around them, even strangers, by the way they speak. I just love how things come together.

P.S. No, I didn't invent a new language. It would be cruel and unusual to expect my readers to learn six new dialects to read my story.

I'm still struggling with the ninth chapter from All the King's Women. Nothing's happening!!!!! My h/H brood, brood, brood, eat, brood, brood, brood, brood. I want to delete the entire chapter or just pretend that everything's fine in it, but I know better. Ch. 9 shows the aftermath of my h/H's first love scene. I can do better than having my h/H brood.

Another thing I noticed as I revised — I used different spellings for the same thing. *sigh* Usually they're for words that do not exist in ours. So I made a vocab list in Excel and sorted it alphabetically. I haven't realized this until I put them on the paper (or on my trusty computer screen) but I have fifty-five world-specific terms.

I finished reading Butcher‘s Small Favor. Very very good, although the middle part felt a bit slow. Also read Cole‘s Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night and Rich‘s Free-Range Chickens.

On my own writing front — I figured out what's been bugging me about the second quarter of the book. There are two sex scenes, and they're so…dry.

What I mean is that the characters are doing this and that, but very little emotions are coming through. My characters have a lot of history together, so the scenes rang false when I reread them for the sheer lack of feelings from both of them. A lot of missed opportunities.

I also decided to add a couple of short scenes to advance the main subplot (the court intrigue part). They're all new and feature secondary characters. I think they'll add a bit more to the subplot because currently the book's about 85% romance.

After dinner I spent about ten minutes jotting down notes on my next project — a futuristic paranormal romance. I can't decide if I want to write it in 1st person or not. The heroine is snarky and slightly eccentric, but I think the snarky 1st person narrator is a bit of a cliché now. I wonder if her voice can come through just as clearly in 3rd person.

Hmmm.

I've been feeling very blah about my own writing. Of course it's expected since I haven't read anything in over four weeks. So I went on a reading binge. Since Thursday, I read:

• No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole
• Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews
• Midnight Rising by Lara Adrian
• Veil of Midnight by Lara Adrian
• Demon's Fire by Emma Holly

I also watched 32 episodes of Hamtaro in original Japanese (no English subtitle). I can now sing the entire opening song in Japanese and picked up several new words.

Currently I'm reading Small Favor by Jim Butcher.

So what did I get at the end of reading & Hamtaro marathon?

I'm more or less happy with the first five chapters (about 100 pages) from my WIP. They went to my 1st beta reader. (No, May, you didn't lose them in your spam folder.) Am working on the next five chapters, and I'm very happy with where things are going. I also subscribed to AutoCrit. Will post more on what I think about that online editing software later. :)

mood: hopeful
Shiro's status: still hanging in there

On the writing front, revision is kicking my butt. At the same time I absolutely love the story, and I don't want to shortchange my characters. So that means I just have to gambaru*.

Re: Shiro —

On Monday, I held Shiro and cried. She was very weak, kept collapsing on her side and Hero Material and I were sure she was dying, esp. since she lost even more weight (17 grams).

The idea that Shiro might be cold and unmoving when I wake up made it very difficult for me to sleep, and Hero Material got up at 5:00 a.m. to check up on her. (He couldn't sleep well either.)

On Tuesday, Shiro ate some baby food, little chunks of her favorite nuts, grains and a little piece of dried protein treat. She also drank some water and walked better. Her eyes seem more open and alert, and we were just so grateful to have her still with us.

This morning, we weighed her. She's about 20 grams now. Hero Material held her and gave her more food. She loves the attention, I think.

I want to thank all my friends who sent Shiro good thoughts and prayers. I also want to thank generous people over at Hamster Hideout forum who gave me invaluable advice.

Thank you.

* gambaru — Japanese for “doing one's best” (at least in this context anyway)

mood: slightly sleep deprived
currently reading: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
Shiro's status: hanging in there; gained 2 grams :)

I can't believe Margie Lawson's Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors workshop is over. For those of you who know me well probably know that I'm not the one to get all spiritual and frou-frou, and Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors doesn't sound like something that would tempt me to sign up. You're right. It's not. But I'm glad I did. She teaches it once a year in January, and I encourage everyone to take it if they can. It's worth every penny and more.

Margie also teaches Empowering Character's Emotions (ECE) and EDITS workshops. I bought her lecture packets for ECE and EDITS, and already went through ECE and took tons of notes. Again, I encourage people to take the class. (She's teaching ECE in March.) The only reason why I decided not to sign up is because I'm planning to outline and draft a new project in March, and I honestly can't take a revision class while drafting a project. My internal editor will go crazy.

For All the King's Women 1st round of revision, I plan to do something a bit different. I'm going to revise backward.

What does that mean?

Instead of starting from the first chapter (my standard M.O.), I'm going to start from the last chapter. I tend to rush the ending, and I want to devote the most time and energy on making the ending very strong. Of course, I'll do a read-through from Chapter One to make sure everything flows correctly before sending the revised draft to my beta-readers.