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Dear Reader,
Today's Dear Reader column is written by author Blaize Clement. I'm on vacation and good friends, like Blaize, have offered to fill in for me. Blaize and I first met when I featured her book, Curiosity Killed the Catsitter. I loved the book and so did my cats. (Well, they fell in love with the catnip bookmarks that were attached to it.) Blaize has also written Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund and watch for her upcoming book in January 2008, Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues.
Blaize would love to hear from you. Be sure and send her an email and when you do, she'll enter you in her giveaway drawing. Three copies of Curiosity Killed the Catsitter (including those famous catnip bookmarks) are waiting for readers. You can reach Blaize at: blaize@blaizeclement.com --Suzanne Beecher
Take it away, Blaize...
Dear Reader,
Suzanne and I were at our favorite Tex-Mex place eating hot stuff and talking writing, when I said there were certain words I love but never have an opportunity to use. She asked which word in particular I would like to use, and I said, "Numinous."
Quick as a flash, she said, "You can write a guest column while I'm on vacation and use it."
I was thrilled. All the way home, I said the word to myself. Noo-men-ous. I just love that sound. As soon as I got home, I went to the dictionary to be sure the word meant what I thought it meant. Yep, it means an invisible something that causes a feeling of awe or belief in the holy or supernatural, the "wholly other." Since I write mysteries about a pet sitter, you can see why I've never been able to work it in. Cat hair in the butter is not numinous.
The very next night while I was in bed reading, the word jumped up at me from Husband, by Dean Koontz, when a creepy character says something about "this numinous room." From the point of view of the character in the book, the word was sort of justified, but I was shocked. Here I'd been tiptoeing around that word for years, and Koontz had just tossed it in like it was something people say all the time. How could he be so cavalier about my beloved word?
For several days, I was pretty bummed out about it. I kept telling myself that Koontz is a magnificent writer. He wrote an entire book in iambic pentameter, for Pete's sake. So who am I, who barely know what iambic pentameter is, to question him? Then I began to wonder if Dean Koontz had been wanting to use "numinous" all his writing life, too, and after writing more than fifty novels, had decided he would never find the right place. Maybe he'd said, "I don't care, I'm using it anyway."
For some reason, I liked the idea that a top-notch writer like Koontz could jump free of dictionary inhibitions and use a word any way he dang well pleases. I have forgiven him for stomping on my word. In fact, now that I've recovered, I think I may be a better person for the whole experience.
Heck, maybe cat hair in the butter is numinous after all.
Thank you, Suzanne, for all you do for word lovers, and for letting me write a column in which I can finally use the word "numinous."
Blaize Clement
Visit Blaize's website at: www.BlaizeClement.com Email her at: blaize@blaizeclement.com
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