Betsy Horvath

Month: December 2011

  • Naming Babies

    When pregnancies crop up among my friends and co-workers I, as an author, feel that it is my obligation, nay, my duty, to help come up with names for the babies. As far as I know, none of my suggestions have ever been chosen by the parents, but I remain ever hopeful.

    It has occurred to me that it might be time to provide a similar service to readers of my blog, in case any of you are in need of a baby name. In addition, I thought that if I marketed my baby naming services, I might be able to turn it into a lucrative sideline. Good, eh?

    First, I wanted to throw out a couple of names I think are very special, but you’d have to have certain last names to really make them work. For one of my coworkers, with the last name of “Burton”, I suggested the name “Ernie”. Then when the kid is seven or eight or so the coach of his sports team can call out “Burton, Ernie!” Get it? Bert and Ernie! HAHAHAHA! (I have to admit – I had help thinking up that one).

    As good as that name is, she walked away from it TWICE! No respect.

    Also, I once knew a guy who’s last name was Burgur. I suggested that he name his son “Hamilton”. Get it? Ham Burgur. HAHAHAHA!

    Yes, it’s just that kind of quality I’m ready to offer you today.

    Okay, so here are a few suggestions. The babies I am trying to name at the moment are all due in the spring, so these names are geared for that season. Also, just as a side note, you’ll see that these are mostly names for girls. But don’t let that box you in. It is my opinion that any young boy would be proud to carry one of these names around with him like a burden he can’t get rid of.

    As I said, these are spring names. First, we have seasonal:

    Cherry Blossom
    April Showers
    Daffodil
    Tulip
    Forsythia (for something a little more formal)

    Next, we have Easter holiday specials:

    Cadbury
    Bunny
    Jelly Bean (you could call him/her “Beanie”)
    Hershey Kiss
    Peep (but not “Stale Peep”)
    Chick
    Egg (which came first? hahahahaha)

    Then, here are some miscellaneous suggestions:

    Titania (just be careful how you shorten it)
    Pippa (you can buy her an ugly hat)
    Cobweb
    Peasblossom (Shakespearean)

    Oh, there are so many possibilities.

    I hope that I have stimulated your own creative musings. Come on, don’t be afraid to help your friends, relatives and coworkers out. They appreciate it – really they do.

    And don’t worry about the kids. They’ll be fine.

    Eventually.

     

  • Does It Need To Be Fun?

    The original title of this post was “It Should Be Fun”. I was planning on talking about how writing needs to be enjoyable. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that wasn’t quite what I believe.

    It’s not that writing shouldn’t be fun. It’s that “fun” is too weak a word for what writing is. And writing is not always “fun” in the “it’s party time” sense. I don’t think it should be.

    Writing should be a passion. The passion for telling a story is what drives you back to your computer or notepad day after day, even when you’ve hit a roadblock. Even when you just want to play video games.  The passion makes you despair at what you’ve written, and makes you strive to be better.  The passion is what hooks you and keeps you at it until you are pummeled into submission.

    Writing should be intense. I don’t care what you’re writing, whether it be a children’s book, a romantic comedy, a thriller, or the next War and Peace, writing is an intense experience. Something about the act of creating a story will bring forward emotions and thoughts you might not wish to face. You are the god or goddess of your writing universe and that, my friends, is an intense and often wrenching experience.

    Writing should be important. Writing should be taken seriously. What you write might not be serious, but the act of creation is serious. This is a gift that you are giving to yourself and to the other people who will read what you’ve written. It should have importance in your life because it is miraculous. If done correctly, other people will see what you see, hear what you hear, feel what you feel. Being a writer, creation of any kind, is an awesome privilege.

    Writing should be gratifying. There is such gratification in watching something you’ve created come to life in your hands. There’s nothing like coming up on a roadblock in your story and finding your way around it. There’s absolutely nothing like looking back at your story and thinking “I wrote that. That world did not exist, but now it does. That story was not told, but now it is.”  When you write, you take things you’ve observed and heard and internalize them, then mold them into something else like a kid in a mud puddle.

    And, finally….

    Writing should be fun.

  • Not Every Idea Is A Good Idea

    Sometimes I am a strange mixed up mess of a girl. I know this shocks you – especially if you know me in “real” life. But it’s true. Sometimes I can’t remember whether or not I put on pants that morning. Monday I looked at a water bottle I use to spray the plants and wondered who had filled it. Since I live alone with cats, the answer would seem obvious. But I could not for the life of me remember filling it. And if you call that a “senior moment” I’ll have to track you down and hurt you.

    On the other hand, sometimes I get an idea in my head and it keeps buzzing around in there until I’m forced to do something about it. I suppose that’s a good trait for a writer. After all, if I could easily push my ideas to the side, I’d be spending my life playing Final Fantasy or Sims.

    Unfortunately, in muggle life, not every idea is a good idea.

    For example:

    It was not a good idea for me to go to a sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert without tickets, and with a girl I didn’t really know. It was not a good idea to try to find her house in a section of Philadelphia with which I was not familiar when I couldn’t remember her last name. Yeah. Angels were watching over me that night.

    It was not a good idea to spend all of my cash money at another concert only to get turned around so I was heading to New Jersey in the exact change lane of the Walt Whitman Bridge with no money in the car. My friend and I scrambled through the ash tray where I tossed spare change (among other things) and dug out enough money to get over the bridge. Then we didn’t have any money to get back. So we drove around New Jersey late at night trying to find an ATM. The angels had a shot of bourbon after that one.

    It was not a good idea to trade in my dearly beloved Chevy Nova to purchase a Ford Mustang as soon as the Nova was paid off. It was especially not a good idea to get a T-Roof, but no air-conditioning because I couldn’t afford both. It was like driving around in a portable greenhouse.

    And, most recently, it was not a good idea for me to decide to move my desk on Sunday after I had fallen in the mud – twice – on Friday.

    I know I told you that I wasn’t going to move my desk, but it was one of those ideas that wouldn’t give me peace. Before I knew what was happening, I was moving books and bookcases. I thought to myself “WTF? What are you doing?” But it was too late.

    My timing sucked because on Friday I’d lost my footing walking to my car and fallen face first in the mud. Hard. Then, as I was trying to get up, I’d fallen in the mud AGAIN. *splat* *OOF* Curse words were spoken. All of which meant that I ached BEFORE I started moving all of the furniture around.

    Monday morning, after my furniture moving frenzy, I woke, stiff, pained, and feeling more than a little senior. Once again the bitter truth dawned.

    Not every idea is a good idea.

    But the desk? It looks MAHVELOUS.

    So maybe it was a good idea after all.

     

  • “Titus Andronicus” With Spoilers

    I’ve been listening to the audio book for Simon Schama’s A History of Britain, and it made me think of my favorite British subject – Colin Firth. No, no – I’m kidding. I mean William Shakespeare. Really. Shakespeare.  Uh, yeah.

    Anyway, I find it comforting to remember that even the glorious Mr. Shakespeare wrote some real oinkers in his time.  As a favor to budding authors, playwrights and English majors everywhere, I thought I would offer up a summary of one such play today – “Titus Andronicus”.  Let it be known that staid English professors across the land have made it their career goal to prove that Bill never wrote this play.  But since they can’t prove that Bill actually wrote ANY of his plays, I feel we can assume it belongs to him and he’s just going to have to own it.

    According to Wikipedia, “Titus Andronicus” is Shakespeare’s “bloodiest and most violent work, and traditionally is one of his least respected plays,” but it was extremely popular back in the day.  In other words, this is the  “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” of Shakespeare plays.  Except in the Renaissance, the blood was real! MWHAHAHA!

    Okay.  The play is about an ancient Roman general named Titus Andronicus (as fate would have it), who gets embroiled in ancient Roman antics.  First he returns from battle with hostages and kills one of them, earning vows of revenge from Tamora, the guy’s mother.  Then he props up an emperor who says he’ll marry Titus’s daughter, Lavinia.  But Lavinia is already betrothed to the emperor’s brother and he and Titus get in a fight.  Somehow Titus kills his own son in the scuffle – big oops.  For some reason the emperor is ticked off by that – I’m not sure if he’s angry because of the fight, or because Titus is stupid.  The emperor marries Tamora (the evil mother) and disowns Titus.

    Following this so far?  It gets better.

    So then Tamora’s surviving sons track down Lavinia and rape her and cut out her tongue and cut off her hands so she can’t tell.  Then two of Titus’s sons are arrested for treason.   Tamora’s lover comes to Titus and tells him that the emperor will spare his sons if Titus, his brother, or his remaining son, chop off their hand and send it to him.  They chop off the lover’s hand instead and send it to the emperor, who chops off the heads of Titus’s two sons.  Guess he didn’t like THAT hand.

    And now we head to the finale.  Lavinia writes the names of her attackers in the dirt using a stick, so Titus knows it was Tamora’s sons who attacked her.  There’s some machinations, then Titus grabs Tamora’s sons and kills them.  He kills Lavinia.  He bakes Tamora’s sons into a pie, which Tamora eats at a feast.  He kills Tamora.  For that Titus in turn is killed by the emporer.  The emporer is killed by Titus’s surviving son.

    The end.

    There.  That was a Shakespeare play.  Now doesn’t that make you feel better about your own works in progress?  And I figure that if he can write this and still write the other beautiful things he did, well, then I there’s hope for me too. 😀

     

  • Relationship Crisis

    Hello?

    *silence*

    Hello, is anybody there?

    *crickets chirping*

    Blogosphere? Are you there? *clicks tongue* Here Blogosphere! Come here, little Blogosphere! Sweet little Blogosphere…

    Excuse me, but did you really just call me like you would call a dog?

    Oh, Blogosphere! There you are.

    So, are we talking again?

    Of course we’re talking! When were we not talking?

    How about for the last two or three weeks.

    I talked to you. I posted regularly and I was on Facebook and Twitter and–

    I don’t give a crap about Facebook and Twitter.

    But aren’t they part–

    Epp! *slices finger across throat*

    Sorry. You were saying?

    You backed  off. You wrote some big dramatic blog post about how your time was so “precious” *sneers* and you didn’t have any left for me.

    I did not! I said that I was going to post twice a week, but I never said that I didn’t have time for you!

    That’s not what I heard. That’s not what your “public” (and I use the term loosely) heard. They heard that you were backing away from me. They heard that you were spurning me. They saw you flip me the finger and walk off.

    No! No that’s not true! I would NEVER walk away from you, Blogosphere! It’s just that my time–

    Oh, please. *saws forefinger over thumb* See this? This is a little violin playing just for you.

    Time is important!

    Cry me a river.

    And you want me to keep writing, don’t you? Well… don’t you?

    Yeah, sure. Whatever.

    Besides, I decided that it was a mistake to go to twice a week blog posts.

    Oh, really?

    Yes. You’ve been so cold. So distant. I just can’t tolerate this new…tension between us.

    Uh, huh.

    Really! You’re important to me, Blogosphere. Our relationship is important. I’m not going to just toss that away.

    Hmmm.

    Honest. I’m writing again, Blogosphere. I’m writing regularly. And…and I want to come back. I want to come back to three times a week blog posts. I can’t, well, I can’t get by only seeing you twice a week. I need more of you.

    So you’ll do me three times a week again?

    Uh, yeah. I guess you could put it that way.

    You’ll  Follow Friday on Twitter again?

    I thought you didn’t give a crap about Twitter.

    Just answer the damn question!

    Yes, yes, yes! I’m going to tweet and post and Facebook and I’m going to “like” and respond and read emails and be the bestest social media queen that you ever saw. I’m going to interact with you like you’ve never been interacted with before! Our relationship…it’s entering a new phase. A better one. More mature.

    Mature, huh?

    Yeah, mature. I’m sorry I stepped away from you, Blogosphere. I was…I was…wrong. *sob* You’re so important to me… Take me back. Take me back, please..*sob*

    Geez, get a hold of yourself.

    *whimper* I’m trying.

    Okay. Look, it’s all right.  I understand.  How about you just do your best and I’ll pay exactly as much attention to you as I ever did.

    Really?

    Really.

    Thank you, Blogosphere. Um, how much attention was that again? Blogosphere? Blogosphere are you still there? Hello….

    *silence*

    Um, thank you.

    I think.