Word of the Week – Interest

Word of the Week – Interest

It can be so fascinating to look at the history of incredibly common words. And the history of interest is definitely, well…interesting. 😉

When we think about our common uses of the word today, we probably think first of the meaning “a feeling that accompanies or causes special attention to something or someone.” According to Merriam-Webster, that is the first definition. Second is “advantage, benefit” (think self-interest). Then comes “a charge for borrowed money.” And finally, “right, title, or legal share in something.”

Well, when looking at the history of the word, reverse the order of those definitions. Interest joined English in the mid-1400s, coming to us from French to mean “a claim or legal right.” The French word actually meant “claim or legal harm,” and it in turn came from the Latin word of the same spelling, which means “it is important, it makes a difference.”

So the first meaning of interest was the legal one. Then came the financial meaning, around 1520, then “advantage” around 1620, and our current first meaning of “feeling of curiosity or that something is of concern” didn’t come around until–get this–the 1770s! Who knew it was that recent?!

These are of course for the noun uses, but the verb and adjective variations evolved similarly. Interesting, huh?

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Soft Start

Soft Start

I love dreaming. Planning. Setting goals.

Every Friday, I take stock of what I’ve accomplished that week. Every Friday, I write out my list for what I need and hope to get done in the week to come. The lists are fluid, yes–sometimes things crop up that I’d forgotten or hadn’t known were coming. Sometimes we have sick days. Sometimes my finished list bears no resemblance to my goals list. But still, I love doing it.

Part of it is because by writing it down, I’m no longer caught up in how I feel the week went–instead, I’m looking at the fact. Far too often, one frustration makes us feel like the whole day or week has been a waste, when in fact, the impact to the facts is much smaller than that. Or conversely, sometimes I feel like I’ve gotten a lot done…but my list says otherwise.

When the calendar year turns over, I always take it as an opportunity to reflect on the whole year that has just passed and look ahead to the year to come. I make lists, set out my goals, work on my plans. I know they won’t all happen, but by putting down all my thoughts, I then have something I can refer back to when it comes time to prioritize what to do each day, each week, each month.

My goals for 2025 are…ambitious. But for the first time in the history of my yearly list-making, they’re also delayed.

Radiation therapy started for me on December 26, 2024, and the scheduled end date was January 16, 2025. As I was making all my plans, I kept looking at the calendar and realizing that I couldn’t really start on much until that biggie was out of the way.

I didn’t know how tired I’d be–they warned that by the end, exhaustion could hit hard.
I did know that a lot of my time was going to be spent traveling to and from the hospital 90 minutes away.

Mornings are usually my time for devotional and Bible reading, for morning prayers, and then for creative work. But those first couple weeks of January, I didn’t know what I would be able to do.

So…I kept my plans for the first 16 days of the year pretty minimal. I thought of 2025 as having a “soft opening” or a “soft start.” Time to work out the kinks. Time to plan in more detail so I could hit the ground running in February. Time to focus on a few limited things.

Last year I got my husband planners called the Monk Manual, which focuses not just on what you have to do, but on your attitude, your feelings, your relationships, your gratitude, and your insights. He really enjoyed the process, so this year we both got Monk Manual annual planners, which has calendar pages for the whole year as well as weekly planning sections, room for notes, and so on. I loved sitting down with it in early January and getting it all set up. Putting down the things I know will be on my schedule, and getting to know the weekly sections.

I love that each day, there’s room to write down your priority tasks. At the end of each day, there’s space to write down your gratitude and your insights. There’s space for listing your biggest accomplishments of the week, your meaningful moments, what God has taught you. There’s encouragement to pay attention to the habits you want to build, a change you can make in the week to come, how you’ve tended your relationships, and even what you’re looking forward to.

All of this comes down to what I’ve been working to embrace in the last several years–intentional living. Because it isn’t about what we do, it’s about who we are. And who, through that intentionality, we become.

2025 has started off with a lot of doing…but oddly, the time that doing requires has also given me more time than usual to focus on my being. Car rides are great time to think, to talk things over with my husband (on days he’s driving), to tend the relationship with my dad (on days he takes over). Those unexpected overnight stays in a hotel near the hospital so my treatment isn’t interrupted by snow give some time away from the chores of home where I could focus on spending time with God and working out that intentionality for the weeks to come.

And I’m especially excited because in February, I’ll be doing another soft-start, for a program I’ve had it in my heart to build out for several years, called Writers’ Cross Training. The idea behind this program is just like physical cross-training for athletes–where we keep in mind our primary focus (say, writing books), but strengthen that by working on all aspects of our life, including physical activity, healthy eating, family time, community building, marketing, reading… It’s all about intentionality and balance so that we avoid creative burnout and make ourselves stronger all round. I’ve invited a few people to join me February through May at various points in their writing journey, and with their help, I intend to get this program fitted out so that it works for ANY creative (especially writers) at ANY point in their own writing. I can’t wait to see how it goes! January has been taken up a lot by planning for this, and I’m loving it.

As always, I have to smile at God’s timing for it too. I’ve had the idea for at least two years, maybe more, but lacked the specific ideas for how to implement it. As I was on vacation in December of 2024, though, those specific ideas began to come, and excitement built in my heart, so I reached out with my ideas to those writing friends at various stages. And oh, the quick replies…of how several of them had just (as in JUST when the email came in) been praying about this very thing, and my email brought tears to their eyes and hope to their chest. Which in turn let me know that this really is the right time to get the program put together.

So while 2025 may be a rolling, soft start for me…it’s an exciting one. This is the year I’ll finish cancer treatment. This is the year I’ll launch this new program. This is the year I’ll take my new intentionality to a new level. And I can’t wait to see what God does in the next few months.

Word of the Week – Wicked

Word of the Week – Wicked

With the proliferation of the book, musical, and movie Wicked, I thought it would be fun to look at the history of the word. (Okay, so in fact, I saw a fun article on it on www.EtymOnline.com and that 100% inspired me to borrow the topic, LOL. Click the link to read their very thorough explanation! This is a muuuuuuch shorter version.)

Did you know that wicked witch is actually redundant? They are, in fact, different modern spellings of the SAME Old English word. In Old English, we had the word wicca, the feminine version of which was wicce, which was pronounced like “witch.” Both spellings meant “witch,” and there was also the adjective wick to describe them, meaning “bad, evil, false.”

So why that -ed ending? That’s one of the things that make etymologists smile…or shake their head. The -ed ending implies a past tense verb, but in fact there never was a verb. Wicked, however, developed as if there had been that action word.

The words wicked and witch have of course been separated for many hundreds of years at this point, so it’s reasonable for modern speakers to put them together again for emphasis and to separate them from “good” witches like we see in The Wizard of Oz. Of course, theologians insist that “good witch” is an oxymoron. 😉 But in the realm of fiction, we can appreciate the choice between using power (of any source) for good versus evil.

Have you read or watched Wicked? I confess I’ve yet to see any of the productions, either film or stage. I have the book but haven’t yet read it…I’ve heard, er, conflicting reports on it, LOL.

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Cover Reveal of Awakened

Cover Reveal of Awakened

It’s Time!

For Another Cover Reveal!!

Up until now, all of my books have been either historical…or at least with a historical thread (like my Guideposts books). And I LOVE historicals, both writing and reading them.

But I have another literary love too. I’ve long been a sucker for a good fantasy romance, and in the past few years, that’s where I’ve often turned for my reading while I’m juggling a lot of contracts, in large part because it’s not my primary genre. Harder to compare and second-guess myself with reading that’s not too much like my writing!

Of course, when you read something a lot, as a writer, it’s not uncommon to decide to “play” with that new genre. I started playing with fantasy, and I loved this story so much that it was soon finished too!

I polled readers to help me come up with the title, Awakened, and I also did a poll for some cover options…none of which I ended up using. Why?

Because the winner by far was a photographic-style cover with a woman on it, which was fun for me to make, but…well, but NO successful fantasy romances in today’s market have a photographic image of people on them. While that’s what my historical readers expect, it’s not what romantasy readers expect.

So I went back to the drawing board. Or rather, had an artist friend go to the drawing board for me. And I am SO in love with what she created!

Let’s meet…

Arden Bleu

Arden is the daughter of the High Guardian of the Barrier Banks, but it’s her stepsister, Jade, who is the special one. And when Jade is kidnapped by the mer, Arden will do anything to save her, even if it means facing down the one man she’s long lived in fear of–King Seidon, who is the only person in the empire who could take her father away from her.

The mightiest king Daryatla has ever known…

Seidon

Seidon has already been king for 200 years, and it’s taught him a lot about judging people. He knows as soon as Arden demands help in finding her sister that she’s going to be a friend, just as her father is. What he doesn’t know is how to find the young woman the mer have seized…though he knows exactly why they took her. He felt her blood in the water during the scuffle, and the magic in it was more powerful than any he’d felt before. Is Jade the one he’s been waiting centuries for?

An evocative setting

Daryatla

In a post-cataclysmic Earth many thousands of years in the future, technology and gift from God have combined to create power over the elements that is called “magic.” In what used to be the eastern seaboard of North America and the Atlantic, a new empire has emerged–Daryatla, the land ruled by the Sea King. But under the waves, humans who have evolved to withstand the pressure of the ocean depths live in an undersea kingdom called the Sunken Cities. And the mer rulers are known for their ruthlessness. If they unleash the power they all suspect lies dormant in Jade’s veins, it could mean devastation for them all.

Roseanna’s first

Fantasy Romance

A unique take on mermaids, a powerful but down-to-earth king, an overlooked heroine, and a young woman desperate to just be normal all combine to bring you the world of Awakened.

Ready? Here it is!
The cover of Awakened!

What do you think??

I LOVE how this turned out! The beautiful drawing of Arden comes to us courtesy of the amazing Caroline Smith of Caroline Calligraphie (one of my P&P ladies). I added an overlay of ocean waves to her skirt, combined it with oceanic colors for the background, we super-imposed the Awakening mark (which appears on the palm of all Awakened people in the book), and then of course had the title in a fun gild.

“The speculative fiction bug has been awakened in prolific author Roseanna White, and her fantasy debut does not disappoint! With a refreshing and imaginative spin on mermaid lore, Awakened offers a richly woven tale of love and loyalty in the collision of two vibrant worlds. White’s masterful storytelling and vivid world-building will draw readers into an epic adventure that explores the depths of sacrifice and the power of unity. A thoroughly enjoyable and captivating read—I eagerly await her next foray into the fantasy genre!”

—Jill Williamson, Christy Award-winning Blood of Kings author

The Official Description

Where sea and land meet, two worlds clash in a fury of wind and waves.

Arden Bleu has always known that her stepsister, Jade, was destined for great things. In a world where beauty follows magic, she has no doubt that their upcoming Awakening ceremony will reveal that gorgeous, kind, compelling Jade is far more than a mere mortal. But when Jade is kidnapped by a mysterious sect of mer on the eve of the newly-returned king’s ball, Arden will do anything to save her sister. Even face down the man she’s always dreaded meeting because of the power he holds over her family, the man to whom her father swore loyalty long before she was born. The Sea King.

Seidon, the Sea King of Daryatla, has grown only more powerful as the centuries have gone by, but lifetime after lifetime have failed to give him what he most yearns for: a family. He knows that it will take a woman of extraordinary power to match him enough to create a child, and no such woman seems to exist…until he feels her magic calling to his one day in the water. And when Arden Bleu, daughter of his most trusted official, arrives to tell him about her missing stepsister, he knows this Jade, with a new magic so coveted that the mer would risk war with his kingdom to steal her away, may be the one he’s waited centuries for. But how can he and the determined Arden ever hope to find one young woman trapped beneath the waves? Perhaps the Great Golden Sea Hawk who has guarded the sisters all their lives holds the key.

In a world on the brink of war between the mer and the land-dwellers, friendship, faith, and love demand the ultimate sacrifice as both kingdoms seek to unlock the prophesied magic waiting to spring forth: the magic of wind and sky. To the mer, it would mean the freedom to return to the land. To Seidon’s court, it would mean safety from every storm. But how can any human hand wield the wind?

Word of the Week – Catalog

Word of the Week – Catalog

As someone who studied Ancient Greek in college, I occasionally get excited when I realize that an English word has its roots in that language…and especially when it’s a logos word.

Why? Because logos might mean “word” most specifically, but it means SO MUCH MORE. The logos of things comes up a lot in ancient philosophies. The Biblical Greek word for blessing is a logos word, for example. And of course, the Gospel of St. John begins with Christ as The Word, the logos, through whom all of creation was made.

I had never, however, drawn the connection between catalog and logos, perhaps because I usually favor the British spelling, catalogue. It’s been in the English language since the 1400s, always with the same meaning of “a list of items.” But my husband pointed out recently that’s literally “according to [kata] + the word [logos].” That just struck me as cool. Because a catalog is indeed a word-list of something, and that very word-list is what gives it order. Given that the logos is the thing by which the whole universe was ordered, that’s just cool.

And while I’m not physically the most organized person in the world, I’ve come to really love my catalogs of things like books, especially the ones I’ve read in a year. In 2025, I also started an actual TBR list, with pages for each genre. Do you keep a catalog of anything?

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