Month: October 2014

Categories
Day in a Life

A Day In My Life: October ‘14: Tidewater Comicon

dayNlife

You may or may not find this surprising, but as a writer I’ve never been much of a journaler (I like making up words). I’ve always kept writing, sketching, and poetry notebooks, but I’ve never really liked writing about myself. This monthly post is my attempt at rectifying that and is an opportunity for me to get a little personal, as I share a single event from my life.

Tidwater Comicon

Well it isn’t exactly the big event they have in San Diego, but it works for me. Every time I’ve ever had an opportunity to go a con, something has always gotten in the way, but not this time. I celebrated my birthday early this year by having a fancy breakfast, going to a Comicon, and then catching an Admirals hockey game. Of course they lost; they never win when it’s my birthday…maybe it’s me.

Anyway, here are some pictures from my Tidewater Comicon adventure a few weeks ago.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
31days

Day 29- First Name: What’s in a Name? #write31days 2014

31day-edit

 

Term of the day: first name: individual proper names; names given by parents or guardians to distinguish charges or siblings; given name.

Thoughts:

Let’s just be honest. Unless you have a famous family name or surname that you just love to flaunt, you prefer being called by your first name. While there is a time and place for me to be addressed as Mrs. Thomas, I always feel more comfortable when people call me Toinette. However, I don’t like it when a child calls me by my first name. That’s not how I was raised and not how I roll…Sorry for the rant.

What’s so funny to me about first names is that people tend to either love their name or hate it. Some dislike their names so much that they have them legally changed when they turn eighteen. Then there are those celebrities and special individuals who only use one name to identify themselves. It’s not like anyone has thought, “Cher who?” So I guess that works.

Sometimes I wonder, though, about the names parents give their kids. I get it that sometimes they are trying to be clever, but sometimes I think they are punishing the kid for no reason.

Name of the day: Lisa.

Breakdown and meaning:

Would ever think there was a relation between Lisa and Elizabeth? When I think of pet names for Elizabeth, I usually think of Beth or Liz. In actually Lisa is derived from Elizabeth. With Hebrew, English, and German origins, the name means “devoted to God”.

Lisa is a major character in my up-coming romance, It’s Like the Full Moon. She’s Rebecca’s best friend and the source big drama, but with the best intentions. I can’t wait to share her story.

Well, that’s it for Day 29. See you tomorrow.

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Go back to the beginning to see all the posts in this series.

Outside of my own personal search throughout the years, basic meanings and definitions of the terms used here can be found at the following websites:http://www.meaning-of-names.com/, Google search http://en.wikipedia.org/, and http://dictionary.reference.com/.

Learn more here.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
Books

Review: Grimm’s Fairy Stories

Grimm’s Fairy Stories by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

I give this book a 4.

 

This is one of those cases where you’ve heard of something for so long that you think you’ve already experienced it, but then you realize that you haven’t so you give it a try and it’s not what you expected…Does that make sense?

Everyone is familiar with some aspect of the Grim Fairly Tales, but how many of us have actually read any of the original stories. A fan a fairy tales for as long as I can remember, I decided it was time for me to right a great wrong I had committed against myself. I had never read any of the Grim stories until recently and I was shocked, amazed, weirded out, and a little disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved these stories, they were awesome, but they were not what I think of as fairy tales. I have been so brainwashed by mainstream modern thinking that I almost wouldn’t allow myself to enjoy these stories for what they truly are, brilliant.

I think the main two reasons I didn’t give this book a five is: 1. that I would never actually read these to any child under the age of 10. If a nine-year-old happened to pick these up and love them, good for them, but I’m not planting crazy dreams into the minds of any kids anytime soon…oh and fables these are not; not many good lessons to be learned here. 2. Some of the stories seemed to overlap or repeat. I know that in this day and age, everyone borrows ideas from everyone else, but I figured back then, these guys should have been able to come up with a collection of stories that didn’t all sound the same…but of course, I’m exaggerating. Most of the stories were quite original, but the little bit of repetition there was, drove me crazy.

I must give the brothers Grim and whoever influenced them, some French guy I can think of, a clap of praise for inspiring and influencing storytellers for centuries beyond their time. I might, just for fun, one day write my own versions of these wonderful stories. I mean, they are now permanently stained onto my brain, I might as well do something with them…Truthfully, I’d recommend this to anyone ten or over, but a mature adult mind may appreciate them better.

This review has been posted to GoodReads. If you’d like to obtain a copy of this book, try this link.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords