BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Uh-huh…

And that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. At the moment I am parked at a table in the lounge area of a wonderful metaphysical store in Sanford, Maine, called the Universal Healing Center. Just like the last time I was in Maine, it is rather warm outside. Not quite as bad as the last go around, but warm nonetheless. Fortunately, this place actually has A/C.

But, as usual, I digress…

We have been on tour now since Thursday last, (5/17) and it has been a long road. The tour itself has been wonderful, filled with visits to great stores and with wonderful people. In many cases even old friends.

Since I am currently at a store, I am technically “working”, however I had a few minutes of down time so I thought I would check in as promised. This is actually the first unfettered access to the internet we have had during the tour. That, in and of itself, is a story.

Either way, the purpose of this blog is to let everyone know we are alive and well– basically that means I haven’t killed Morrison yet (GRIN) and she hasn’t killed me– seriously though, things are rocking along and we have been having a great tour. Of course, we HAVE had our obstacles…

Blog topics you can expect in the near future (once I have returned home and have time to type them in) will be such things as the following:

Pigs On The Wing

Kicked Out Of Wendy’s – An Indianapolis Odyssey

Low Batteries and Driving In Pittsburgh

Mister Patel’s No Tell Motel and Escape From New Jersey

Jane: The Bitch in the Box

Morrison and the Booze Run

Who Needs Sleep?

PIZZA PIZZA PIZZA!

And many more…

Some of these topics will be combined for blogs, but hopefully that list of titles will give you an idea of what we have been up to for the past 10 days.

BTW, Morrison is reading over my shoulder and she says hi.

Till later!

Murv

No. I have not forgotten how to spell. Yes, I do perpetrate a typo now and again, but don’t we all?

The title of this blog, in point of fact, means something. (No, not like Roy Neary in Close Encounters running about screaming “this means something”…Nor the spoof, Closet Encounters and Roy Dreary…Betcha’ thought I wouldn’t know that one didn’t you? Uh-huh…)

So, anyway, today’s babbling is about vernacular, accents, and “how ta’ tawk rite.” Those of you who are familiar with the Rowan Gant series know that everyone’s favorite 6 foot 6 cop, Ben Storm, has a tendency to clip his speech, and pepper it with expletives. In order to get it across to the reader, some of his dialogue is intentionally misspelled, or words are truncated by omitting letters and adding that wondrous little thing called the apostrophe. This is NOT something I did because I thought it was cool. I did it because the real life cops upon which he was based in part, actually talk that way. The one and only way to make the dialogue read the way it should sound is to truncate and generate my own phonetic spellings.

Now, those of you who have been following the series right up to the cliffhanger ending of All Acts Of Pleasure also know that Rowan is no longer in Saint Louis. No, he hasn’t moved, but he did have a need to go to New Orleans, which is where a modest portion of The End Of Desire actually takes place. This is what brings us to “tawkin’ rite.”

There is a particular bent to the New Orleanian mode of speech that you won’t find anywhere else. Having been there on more than one occasion, I know this to be true. And, no, I am not talking about Justin Wilson. From what I’ve been told, his accent wasn’t really that thick. He was just a hell of a showman. Either way, folks in New Orleans actually do have a particular mode of speech that will not be found anywhere else.

In social anthropology texts that deal with regional dialect and linguistics, the New Orleanian accent is often described as Brooklyn meets the deep south. Additionally you have a blend of French, Jamaican, Italian, Irish, and just about everything else in between making up the dialect.

So, why am I running off at the mouth about this? Like I said, a modest portion of The End Of Desire occurs in New Orleans. Therefore, in order to set the scene and be true to the region, I have had to not only recall my times there and spend time emailing a dear friend who lives in NOLA (Thanks Velvet!), but I have literally had to learn NOLAspeak in order to write the dialogue for a few of the characters.

Let me tell you…It REALLY is almost like learning a second language.

At this stage of the game there are still some tweaks that may be necessary to the incidental dialogue, however, don’t be surprised if The End Of Desire comes equipped with a one page glossary appended right in the front.

(Actually, not really…But, it crossed my mind )

That’s it for now…Time for some sleep, a couple of nightmares, and then back to writing!

MR/Murv