I’m a Texan. And proud of it. You know the old saying “Everything’s bigger in Texas”? Folks here don’t just say what it is, we illustrate it. We don’t get thirsty, we get “so dry we’re spitting cotton”. We’re not busy, we’re “busy as a one-armed paper hanger. Weather is “hotter than a summer revival” or colder than a well-digger’s knee (or other parts of the anatomy). If we feel like someone is dishonest, we “wouldn’t trust him any farther than we could throw him,” because none of us “fell off the turnip truck yesterday.”
If my grandmother shivered involuntarily, she “bucked a rigor”. Instead of swearing out loud and getting switched with a peach tree limb, my uncle muttered “GARDEN SEED” whenever he got angry. At the end of a lecture, my mother always told me to “put that in your pipe and smoke it.” If someone came to visit, my grandfather sometimes said, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
I never questioned this colorful slang until I started writing. Some people love it. Some people don’t like it at all. They consider it cliché. Or they don’t know what it means.
My next book will be about girl who lives in present day deep east Texas, and I hope to use some of the colorful sayings I love the most. Either people won’t “cotton to it” or it will work “slick as a whistle”.
Susan A. Royal
Xander’s Tangled Web (fantasy, mystery)
https://tinyurl.com/yconklde
In My Own Shadow (fantasy, adventure, romance)
https://tinyurl.com/bqbxm41
Book trailer
https://youtu.be/Wbg8Z-12ojY
Not Long Ago (time travel, adventure, romance)
https://tinyurl.com/85vgye3
Book trailer
https://youtu.be/vOIQVdWUigU/
https://susanaroyal.wordpress.com
https://susanaroyal.com
All books available at MuseItUp, Amazon, B&N, Goodreads
About the Author
Born in west Texas and raised in south Texas, Susan shared a 100-year-old farmhouse in a small east Texas town with a singing ghost for years. Now she lives in the country.
Mother of three and grandmother of six, she comes from a family rich with characters, both past and present. Susan’s grandmother shared stories of living on a farm in Oklahoma Territory and working as a telephone operator in the early 20th century. She learned all about growing up in the depression from her father and experienced being a teenager during WWII through her mother’s eyes.
Susan loves taking her readers through all kinds of adventures. So far, she’s written two books in her It’s About Time series, Not Long Ago and From Now On, and is working on book three. They are time travel adventures about two people who fall in love despite the fact they come from very different worlds. In My Own Shadow is a Fantasy adventure/romance. Xander’s Tangled Web is a YA fantasy with romance. Look for her books at MuseItUp/Amazon/B&N.
Want to know more? Visit susanaroyal.wordpress.com for a peek inside this writer’s mind and see what she’s up to. You never know what new world she’s going to visit next.
