A serial writer’s notebook ~ from the pen behind Lore of the Underlings, an episodic epic…

Ever notice that the English language is full of painful expressions and potentially injurious idioms? It’s a little troubling really, but also great fodder for a pun-ishing epic like the Lore!

Here’s a quick list right off the top of my head. I didn’t need to rack my brain or tear my hair out (ouch!):

• Pick your brain
• Prick up your ears
• Pay through the nose
• Get your nose out of joint
• Keep your eyes peeled
• Give your eye teeth
• Bite your tongue
• Be tongue-tied
• Cat got your tongue
• Eat crow (pairs well with a fine whine)
• Eat your own words (especially in hardcover)
• Put your foot in your mouth
• Drown your sorrows
• Jump down your throat
• Have a frog in your throat
• Stick your neck out
• Be a pain in the neck
• Weight on your shoulders
• Monkey on your back
• Stab you in the back
• Bend over backwards
• Twist your arm
• Have butterflies in your stomach (if you’re ticklish)
• Hit you in the gut
• Tear at your heart
• Break your heart
• Break a leg
• Shoot yourself in the foot
• Be hoisted on your own petard
• Run into a brick wall
• Sit on pins and needles
• Hit a raw nerve
• Have ants in your pants
• Or a bee in your bonnet

Get the point? I’m just scratching the surface.

My friends and I have long dreamed of publishing an illustrated coffee-table book. Maybe someday… But for now I’ll keep my nose to the grindstone writing the Lore.

Yow!

[Photo: View of the Ottawa River and Gatineau, Quebec, Canada]

~~~ The Lore is available in paperback, ebook, and audio formats ~~~