On Strong Female Characters

I'm not going to lie to you. Many of us who write strong female characters have begun to wince when we're asked to talk about them at panels or during an interview. It's not because being a strong female is a trend that has passed, but because it was never a trend in the first place.

Women were strong before Katniss picked up a bow or Tris jumped off a train. Read The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder - a true story - and you'll see a young girl braiding sheaves of straw together until her hands bleed so that her family has something to burn in their stove to ward off the bitter temperatures. Read that book as an adult and you'll understand that the family is dying, slowly starving to death while malnutrition and ennui sets in.

I dabble in genealogy as a hobby, and have traced my German line back to the 1500s. There I found a woman who gave birth to 15 children - and outlived all but two of them. I ran the dates, and in one week she lost two adolescent daughters (due to an illness in the home, I assume), gave birth a few days later, then lost the infant the next week.

She kept going.

There were seven other children still at home that needed care. She went on to raise them, and deliver more healthy children that grew into adulthood. She lived to be nearly 100 - certainly an accomplishment in the 1500's - and buried all but two of the children she gave birth to.

I bring up this ancestor from 500 years ago when I'm asked about writing strong female characters. This mother of fifteen didn't know about YA literature - in fact, she probably couldn't read - but I'm pretty sure she would have laughed at the idea of strong women being a trend.

Women were strong then.
Women are strong now.
Women will continue to be strong.

Thursday Thoughts

Thoughts lately:

1) If you tell someone there's a grammatical error in something when there's actually not, they'll stare at it until they've come up with a new rule for the English language.

2) Cars are so stressful. Even thinking about things like mileage and gas power vs. electric, having to worry about oil changes and tire rotation, tread wear and not to mention What IS That Bad Smell and Where Could It Be Coming From? really makes me think that I'd rather just own a horse, feed it, and shovel its poop. 

3) Actually, I'm considering just doing all of my travel by waterway. It would be conceivable for me to kayak into town and back. But, I don't know if anyone would take it as an acceptable excuse for not making it somewhere if I tell them that my kayak won't start.

Wednesday WOLF - Cat Got Your Tongue?

I'm a nerd. Yes, I'm in fact such a big nerd that I tend to look up word origins in my spare time because I'm fascinated by our language. The odder the origin, the better. I've got a collection of random information in my brain that makes me an awesome Trivial Pursuit partner, but is completely useless when it comes to real world application. Like say, job applications.

In any case, I thought I'd share some of this random crap with you in the form of the new acronym-ific series. I give you - Word Origins from Left Field. Er... ignore the fact that the "from" doesn't fit.

Today I thought we'd figure out why people ask those who don't wish to speak if the "cat's got your tongue?"

It's not something that's asked of me much, I'll admit.

It doesn't look like there is a dead-on answer for this one, as is the case with most idioms. However, there are some great, horrific possibilities.

The cat-o-nine tails was a nasty, nine-fingered whip with broken glass braided into it, or hooks attached to the ends. It was typically used on board ships to keep mouthy sailors in line. I suppose if my captain asked me if I had anything to say and he was holding on of those, I'd keep my mouth shut too.

Another reference I found was an ancient Middle Eastern practice of removing the tongues of liars and thieves and feeding them to cats.