An Homage to The Sounds of Istanbul

Şerbet: Dried fruit, tea, herbs, and/or spices in any combination imaginable, concentrated into a syrup, and ideally served over shaved ice from the mountains. Find some great examples like violet, pomegranate mint, or tamarind on Saudi Aramco World. 

Şerbet takes on a certain magic when it's served to you by a traditional street vendor, but to really understand what I mean, you'll have to watch the following kidlit-friendly clip.


From the clanking glasses of the Şerbetci,
to the gulls crying,
to the backgammon dice rolling across the boards...
Every sound is something a girl (little or big) can enjoy.

My favorite: the purring kitty hills.
Istanbul is full of cats.


 

Cultured

In 1917, Cartier acquired his New York City location in a famous trade: $100 and a double string of pearls valued at one million dollars, in exchange for a 5th Avenue address.

Meanwhile, across the globe, Tokichi Nishikawa patented his first cultured pearls. When Nishikawa married the daughter of Mikimoto, the union changed the pearl industry forever. Cultured pearls, created for a fraction of the price, in a fraction of the time, were destined to control the market ... with nacre just barely skin deep.

In 1957, that one million dollar Cartier double strand sold at auction for only $151,000.

So I ask:

How much authenticity is enough? Is a quick eye test the only valid gauge? (Rhetorical question, I'm afraid.)

The same concept applied to writing:

Details can be layered as deep as an author pleases, but those details better look pretty enough on the surface. A reader is most interested in the sheen, after that, they want to keep on flipping those pages. The only authenticity an author can't skimp on is character.

Well ...that last statement is not entirely true for every genre. *ahem*

Where I've been lately...

I wish my news was exciting.

It's a day job.

I'm back to the daily grind.

I'm determined to make this work/writing thing balance.

As soon as I get settled.

Outside of work, I spent the past couple of weeks:

1) Learning and networking in a dialogue writing workshop with my editor/friends, Carin Siegfried and Betsy Thorpe of Two Editors and a Comma (Pics are on their page.)

 2) Browsing at the Tweet Up for the Charlotte Friends of the Library book sale (Look what I found! In German! I didn't buy them, but I did bring home two bags full of other good books.)

3) Distributing twenty copies of THE LIGHTNING THIEF for World Book Night

And

4) Watching my son play in two, weekend-long basketball tournaments.
(I might need a chiropractor soon. Those bleachers are unforgiving!)

Regular programming should resume shortly ...

I'm lining up some posts for the rest of the month.
I'm planning to finish edits for at least eight chapters of BA this month.

Hold me to it!