With the upcoming release of Ascent of the Nebula on February 9th, I recently updated the Chronotrace Sequence Glossary on my downloads page with terms from all three books. And today I’d like to give you a little behind the scenes look at how some of these words made their way into the series. I consider the inventing of …
hiatus Hiatus is not all that uncommon of a word. In case you’ve never heard of it, it refers to a pause in a sequence or a break from a routine. And thus it is a very appropriate word for what I’m planning on doing for the Wednesday’s Word feature. You see, I track which …
sagacious This is a wonderful word. It denotes something wise, whether a person or some advice or a course of action. It his its roots in the word “sage”. I’m not talking about the plant which was sung about by Simon & Garfunkel, but a wise person. A sage is someone who isn’t seeking wisdom, …
pandemic This is a scary word. It’s closely related to another word which you’re probably familiar with: epidemic. An epidemic is the outbreak of an infectious disease in a given place or time. But a pandemic is much worse. It isn’t confined to a particular place. A pandemic takes place across a whole country or …
virid If you’ve been reading this series for any length of time, you probably know that I have a penchant for older sounding words. I just find them generally more eloquent and expressive than more modern sounding phrases, I suppose. I also feel that they broaden my horizon as a writer and allow me to …
inflammable One of the things about being a writer is that you have to pay attention to things like grammar and punctuation. And some days with English it feels like you can’t see the forest for the weeds. I’m actually fluent in Spanish and I can tell you that it seems a lot more well-behaved …
glaive Unless you read historical fiction or fantasy or have an interest in ancient weapons, you might not be familiar with this word. It refers to a long bladed spear or lance which might look something like this: The word comes from the French, however it was probably taken from the Latin word gladius which means simply, …
charity This is another word that is very familiar. We typically think of it as relating to organizations or activities involving helping those who are less fortunate, who are needy. We give money to charity, we perform acts of charity, or we attend charitable functions to raise awareness or resources for various causes. And yet, …
