Something Fishy



via gamze sonmez @Flickr



The best way to learn a language is by immersion. In my case, I was stuck in a small fishing boat off the coast of Mersin with three people who laughed at my childish efforts. Well, that was only part of my training. The point is you have to be forced into it, without recourse to speak your native language. Be a fish out of water, so to speak. :) 

Fishing is a big deal in Turkey, as with any coastal place. My Eniste (husband's uncle-in-law), Teyze (husband's mother's aunt) and dearest husband conspired to spend the weekend evenings of my first Turkish summer cramped into a tekne (rowboat). I couldn't understand anything on TV anyways, so... off I went.



I'm not so bad at fishing...with a rod. But when they gave me a small rectangle of wood wound in some fishing line and studded with multiple hooks at the end, things suddenly got hilarious.



via RedBubble.com

 Eniste baited the hooks with some shrimp and tossed my line overboard. And it came up empty. Again and again and again. Everyone else was catching fish, so I started to get desperate, tugging at the line in little jerks. When I pulled it up, there were fish hooked on alright. Some small fry Eniste called mercan (coral) aka sea bream, all about the size of a half-dollar coin. Hooked on by the gill, tail, fin, everywhere but the mouth! The little buggers kept nibbling my bait all night. (OK, so it was more than just the ONE night. I can't live this down! And here I'm telling you about it...)

I did much better at the seafood restaurant in Narlikuyu, a beautiful cove which managed to included in my MS. Yup! Seafood is important to Mediterranean life, but, if you ask the women there to cook some up, they point to the nearest restaurant. Fish dishes are relegated to the summer, when you can open the windows to air everything out thoroughly. If you cook it at all. (Sinks up the house and that's bad for visitors, apparently.)

BTW, Happy Valentines Day!

Layers of History

credit: walter52 via twip.org

I remember standing in a riverbed, admiring an ancient aqueduct, and marvelling at the layers of civilization visible in the cliff next to me. I wanted to write about the experience in my MS, but it was one of those darlings...so it had to go.

Today, when I watch archeologists digging in the Virginia lowlands, looking for possible artifacts that resemble any other stone I'd find in the yard, I sigh. Here we are digging for something, ANYTHING, yet in Turkey so much history is left to weather, or worse yet, flooded for the nearest dam. SIGH.

That's what happens when there's more history around you than you can shake a stick at. Imagine - my KizKalesi, my beautiful, magical, tragic, amazing KizKalesi is a B-grade landmark! Nevermind the other places like Olba up in the foothills, or...you get the idea. Peasants plant their crops up to the very walls, and ...you know what?

I like that.

Because I'm selfish. I can touch every carved block if I want to...I can find a secret alcove and connect to history...with my fingers, not just my eyes. Nothing is roped off with red cording...although some of it should be. Beware the cisterns and caverns and other odd places where you might fall to your death. No one will hear you scream. Well, hopefully a peasant will pass by with her goats...

Anyhoo, thought I'd tell you about the Metro in Istanbul. Workers are continually unearthing artifacts on the route they're digging, and for a change, it is slowing the pace of development. It's the right thing to do. I have to stop being selfish and hope someone important recognizes the value of these landmarks one day.

So how about you? Has a connection to place influenced your writing?

Related Articles:

Yenikapi dig to postpone opening of Istanbul Marmaray

Istanbul trembles at pace of change (guardian.co.uk)

One more thing! Jules is passing on a Valentine to all her followers and I got one...so I'm passing it on to you. No strings attached!

Stuffed in The Bottle

Image via WikipediaGenies are stuffed into bottles all the time...but I wonder why? Did Pandora use the last box? I guess the phrase "bottled up" is as close to the truth as I'm going to get.

What would a person stuff into a bottle and lock away? Not something with a great power they can use, that's for sure. It's something fearful. Things like forbidden desires and dark magic. Stuff you KNOW is wrong and yet you're tempted with anyway. (No wonder they stuffed Christina in there! She looks like jailbait in this video.)



So you put your former ally/scapegoat in a bottle and put a cork in it. It's not the genie's fault you can't control yourself, is it? I would be pretty pissed if I had to be stuck in a bottle. Hence, the bottled djinn vintage is usually....unhappy. How many stories are there about angry djinn and their masters? A bazillion? Hint: NO masters in my MS. 

Actually, djinn can be bound to any object. Like the Horcrux idea, the object is a vessel for the spirit, and the object can be a person, as Harry demonstrates. You might say Harry is ma-voldemort...lol! (As opposed to majnoon which means crazy and translates to "with the djinn".) 

So why would a djinn even get into such a bad situation? Curiosity. Our world is interesting to them and they get tangled up in it if they get too close to someone, or someplace. I have to stop here...or I'll get too far into my story. ;)

It was a dark and stormy blogfest...

I don't post on Tuesdays anymore, but Brenda Drake is holding a first line contest, so I thought I'd toss my name in the hat. :)  Here goes...

Name: Carolyn Snow Abiad
Title: Burnt Amber
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy

Seyhan led us up the serpentine streets of Bebek to an unimpressive building Alexis and I would never have found on our own.


Here's the first paragraph, because I saw some others post theirs...

Seyhan led us up the serpentine streets of Bebek to an unimpressive building Alexis and I would never have found on our own. From the outside, it looked like any ordinary backstreet coffeehouse.  The faded lime green stucco façade was punctuated by worn, wooden window frames and over the door hung a crooked hand-scribbled sign with the name of the shop.  Few people went in or out, but all of them were well-heeled customers.  An odd smell of freshly roasted coffee, mixed with dusty wool and candle smoke wafted out into the street. 

Romaiika - Byzantine Greek in Trabzon Today



via wikipedia


I knew about exctinct languages - nobody speaks Latin anymore - and endangered languages? Any small ethnic population deals with that problem - but endangered extinct languages are a new thing to me. I was blogging around the blogs, looking for interesting Byzantine stuff and I came across Romaiika. It's classical, Byzantine-style Greek....and you find it on the coast on the Black sea near Trabzon, Turkey. (Empire of Trebizond on the map at right. Do you see New Armenia? That's the Cilicia of my MS.)

Originally a Byzantine successor state, Trebizond was eventually cut off from the rest of the Greek speaking world. Somehow a small muslim population in the mountains, exempted from Turkish/Greek population exchanges, has preserved the centuries old dialect of Romaiika. So Byzantine Greek is extinct, but it's not...it's endangered. This video explains the unique situation of Romaiika best:




Isn't that amazing? Did any of you think that Turkey could be so green? Did you know that Trabzon was probably part of the story of Jason and the Argonauts?

And hey! I'm joining a blog platform building Crusade over at Rach Writes. (You know I love Crusades, right?) There are tons of great bloggers out there, and some you have my back, but thought I'd add a few more to my little circle of commiserators, ya know...maybe learn a little more about my craft and the publishing world, etc.

Related articles

• Pontic Greek Survives? (rogueclassicism.com)
• Jason and the argot: land where Greek's ancient language survives (independent.co.uk)

Pre-Raphaelites & Sultans

Image via WikipediaArt likes to imitate culture. So when I write, I like to research the art of the time and place I'm working with...unfortunately, I don't ALWAYS find what I need.

Example: Byzantines and Turks. Byzantine artwork is two-dimentional and interesting, but not the muse I need. Turks...well, in Islam sculptures of animals and pictures of people (besides loved ones) are frowned upon.

It has to do with idolatry. If you don't own sculptures, you can't worship them, see? Same thing goes for the pictures, which is why mosques only use floral patterns and calligraphy as decorative motifs.

Plus...creepy idea...angels won't come into your house if you have sculptures. Something about demons chasing them away. Remember Interview with a Vampire ? The part where all the statues in the garden had eyes at night...yeah...creepy like that!

I had to look elsewhere for inspiration. Lucky for me, I had one piece of art in my head for years and it falls into the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Pre-Raphaelites love the Greeks and Byzantines kind of fall into the same vein, no? But I didn't KNOW which painting was my muse until I wrote a scene description remarkably like Flaming June (above) by Sir Frederick Leighton. (Do you see it, Leigh?) When I read the draft, I recognized the image and pulled it up on the internet. Then more details jumped out at me.

I love the toxic Oleander  in the corner...it led me to another scene description. And the serpentine, yin/yang position of the model led me in another direction still...Then the fluidity of the fabric, the sensuality and vulnerability of the scene that my MC would only show if she was sleeping... So much inspiration in this one work of art and yet it was auctioned off in the 60's for $140! Someone should be kicking himself now! :)


The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse floated around with me for years too, and it's still one of my favorites. It reminds me of my Arthurian stage and studying Hamlet in high school. It's Ophelia's fault that I'm stuck on the symbolism of flowers, btw. Rue, rosemary, ahh!

But what does this have to do with Sultans?  Maybe some of you have read stories of Sultans paying any price for a beautiful redhead? Sultans are part of the reason my MC has red hair, but the Pre-Raphaelites are my primary cause. Yes, Sybil has Pre-Raphaelite hair... :) Modernized a bit because it's straight, but the root of my inspiration none the less! There isn't a single sultan in my story. (And doesn't a fiery djinn need red hair?)

Has art inspired you to write? Does it sneak in without you looking, or do you consciously make an effort to include art in your work?


PS... Untamed Pre-Raphaelite hair hits Chanel's Front Row in this related article:

• Chanel's Front Row: Celebrity Glamour Inundation [Good/bad/ugly] (jezebel.com)

Who's In Your Head?



via entertainment.blogs.foxnews.com

 I was planning on a post about M Theory today, because I just read The Marbury Lens. But last week was kind of serious so this week I though I'd take a break and be more...entertaining!

Barbara Eden here is an example of what a djinn does not look like (anymore). And they don't live in bottles either, but that and what it represents is another post. A real djinn is someone who blends in with the rest of us, which is a scary thought, but...

What I want to say is, when I sat down to write my MS, I had physical features in mind for each character. But somewhere between there and here, specific other people crept into my head. Because I watch TV, go to the movies, surf the internet...you know what I mean. I found real LIVE people who could speak the words I've had floating around in my head. I thought I'd share who they look like to me now.

Main character, Sybil:Molly Quinn
(I watch CASTLE. All the time. It's Nathan's fault.)


via BuddyTV.com

Extroverted BFF known as Alexis: Teenaged Reese Witherspoon
(Yes, they have the same hairstyle. I did that on purpose. BFFs do crazy things...actually, the muse arranged a photo shoot.)

via GoneElsewhere.wordpress.com

Romantic Interest, Haydon:Tom Wellings

(OK, I need someone who looks like him, because Tom Wellings is almost my age and we're not YA, but that's my visual.)




via TVSquad.com


My favorite bad djinn, Gregor:Kivanç Tatlituğ
This photo is Tart-worthy, ne? Have to tell her about it...


via the-hottest-guys.blogspot.com



Trickster, Bertrand:Jeremy Irons
(He's Jeremy Irons. I don't need an explanation!)


via lahiguera.net

I guess you could say these actors are some of my muses, or maybe my it's my muse who has connections, because she sent me to them!

So....who's in your head? And isn't blogger annoying? I had to upload each of these pics separately!

See you Friday!