At 11:55 AM 2/16/2003 -0600, you wrote:
 >sounded like "well-aged Caumeneur."

No takers here.  The neighbor next door once decided to "pump up" his lawn 
with chicken droppings.  The entire area stank for weeks.  especially when 
his watering system came on!

I often wonder where some of the creative misspellings in the classifieds 
come from.  The guy selling "gently used saddles, tack, and *bridals*" 
intrigues me.  I've heard of disastrous weddings, but. . . .

This reminds me of the character Cathair.  I was in the Dimbulbs[TM], a 
critique group formed long ago, and we were going over somebody's 15 pages 
for the month.  Someone gave some long, involved advice about this 
character, whose name she pronounced "Ka-Thair," which seemed reasonable 
enough.  And why the name was a good one, and that it was related to the 
other names invented for the story and the language, and why it was so 
grand that she'd done all this work on her language and spellings to seem 
like a real language, etc.  Well, the author went from looking amused to 
suppressing a grin to snickering, and finally burst out laughing.  Authors 
weren't allowed to talk until the end of all comments, by the rules (most 
groups are like that), so she apologized and composed herself.  At the end, 
when it was her turn to talk and ask for clarification, she said, "I'm 
sorry, but I forgot to change that character name.  He's a villain, and I 
hate him, and so I couldn't think of a name, and I looked over on the couch 
where the cats had been sleeping and they'd been shedding, so. . . ."  She 
fell out laughing again, and all had a merry time.

Anyway.  That group came out of nowhere and is still operating, as far as I 
know.  What happened there was that my long-time friend and 
ex-college-roomie was at the house and saw my stack of pages ready to be 
mailed out to someone for critique.  Honestly, she'd never realized that I 
actually wrote novels, though she had some foggy idea that I did a few 
essays or short stories--she was and is a very self-involved person who can 
talk the whole time she's at your house and not notice you've said zip, 
even if you've redecorated or had a baby, but she's good-hearted, she's 
just that way.  She's now teaching school and is a little better about 
that.  Anyhow, she saw this and it was duly explained, whereupon she 
exclaimed, "Oh!  If YOU can do it, then *I* could be great at it!  Why 
didn't I think of this before?  I'll write novels like the ones I'm in 
fandom for, and I'll meet all the authors and they'll become my friends and 
we'll all hang out together. . .. "  And she was off.  She recruited 
several other people who were game, and the Dimmies were born.  Hee!  (Her 
major had been computer science, like mine, and she'd minored in Russian 
language and literature, but she had little grasp of English and its 
nuances.  In her defense, I'll say she has come a LONG way, has discovered 
her own voice years ago, and went through the learning curve of how to 
write fiction for publication very quickly.  She's a very high-IQ 
person.  That's prolly why she was interested in being friends with me in 
the first place, :GRIN: :*P  On the other hand, I have written fiction 
since I could hold the crayon.  I made my own "coloring book" out
of typing 
paper at about four or so--Mama still had it until a few years ago.  It 
even had a picture of God, mostly hidden by clouds.  I'd like to get 
another look at that portrait and how I got Him to pose.    Anyhow, 
many, many people have NO idea what it is I do.  I'm odd that way--they 
pour out their life stories and forget to ask what I was waiting in line for.)

If you were wondering, that is.    (If you weren't interested, never 
mind.)
- - - -
Nine out of ten doctors recommend reading my books.  The tenth is a quack.
Shalanna Collins                                          shalanna{at}attbi.com
_Dulcinea: or Wizardry A-Flute_ by Shalanna Collins (e-mail me for excerpt)
ISBN 0-7388-5388-7 trade paperback  http://home.attbi.com/~shalanna/>

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha