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 one year older now.

Received very nice notes from some of my friends & Mom called this morning. And of course, we discussed my wedding. I have the date, but I have yet to make the guest list or select the music, menu, dresses, etc. Since Hero Material and I are going to the States this summer for a couple of months, everything must be done before we leave so that at least the invitations can be sent out late May or early June.

I spent the most of the day revising and reading. Unfortunately no celebration today since I'm not feeling very well, but maybe Hero Material and I will go out this weekend or early next week. :)

Speaking of which…I just realized that I didn't get any cake…! Ack…!

*suddenly craving Mario's Dessert…*

…Shuro!!!!

This thing is way too addictive…!

Hero Material and I got a couple of vouchers for free movie tickets that expire this month, so we decided to check out Yes Man. (Yeah, it just hit the theaters in Japan…)

The movie was actually better than I expected and quite funny. The only part that made me cringe was when Jim Carrey tried to speak Korean to the bridal shower girl. O.M.G. I actually thought he was trying to speak English Korean fusion language or something because it was that bad. (FYI — The shop girl's Korean was fine.)

BTW — I saw the trailer for Happy Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It's coming out in Japan on July 17, two days after the U.S. release. But I'm going to be in the States this summer, so I can watch it with my friends and Hero Material on July 15. W00t!!!!!

…check out Lynn Viehl's post on the reality of a NYT bestseller.

…just because I write paranormal romance.

According to Mary W. Walters‘s open letter to editors:

…your desk is piling up with flimsy bits of vampire literature, fantasy, romance, detective stories and the kind of first-draft bubble gum that used to be called chick-lit but is now shuffled in with other women's writing in order to give it heft — although as far as you can see, neither the quality nor the subject matter has improved — which you are required to somehow turn into publishable books.

…

…fine fiction writers who are crappy copy-writers attempt to write fast-paced pitches about their own serious novels that will make those novels sound as much as possible like commercial drivel.

And literary agents are like rabid dogs — or was it vampires? — trying to destroy fine literature and screw editors:

They are the literary agents — that league of intellectual-property purveyors who bring you every new manuscript you ever see, those men and women who are so anxious to gain access to the caverns of treasure they believe you sit upon like some great golden goose that they would likely hack one another's heads off were they not united by one self-serving mission: to ensure that quality fiction never hits your desk.

Then Mary goes on to say that her novel was rejected by over sixty agents, “mainly sight unseen”. I assume this means her query letter was rejected by lots of agents. If your query letter can't get you some decent partial / full requests, you need to rewrite your query.

Oh…it also helps if you don't say all those nasty things about agents on your blog.