‘Prose’ by any other name is still ‘Prose’

Creating a blog post title was fun! My last name is Probst and ‘Probst Prose’ sounds a bit catchy, don’t you think? Just don’t try to say it too fast because your mouth won’t be able to keep up. I also like that ‘prose’ has ‘rose’ in it which celebrates my award-winning novel, ‘Death by Roses’.

But people keep asking me what ‘prose’ is because it’s not a commonly used word (which shocked my linguistic self). My social media director hadn’t heard it before, so I decided it’s time to reveal! Voila! Here’s a Probst blog post about ‘prose’. I hope it makes sense because I’d like to keep my blog title.

According to tha* Merriam-Webster dictionary, prose is “the ordinary language people use in speaking or writing.” Pretty basic. Anything we say or write is considered prose unless it rhymes, like a poem.

Yes, ‘prose’ is an old word that has fallen into disuse, but it’s still ‘valid’ as my young assistant assures me.

Bye for now.

Vivian Probst

*Probst likes to write in what she calls ‘WEnglish’, an inclusive form of English that respects all gender preferences. To do that, she extracts approximately 30,000 unnecessary ‘man’ words from her writing. More at vivianprobst.com/WEnglish. ‘THE” is our most common word in English. Probst takes ‘he’ out of ‘the’ and spells it as it is most commonly pronounced, THA.

Vivian Probst is an award-winning author. Her latest work, ‘The Woman Who Forgot Who She Was’ is a fictional five-book series (so far). Book One, subtitled ‘Dissolving Her Despair’ is available as an e-book and as a paperback book on Amazon. Book Two: ‘Waking From Her Weariness’ is expected to be released by April 30th. Probst is writing each book in both English and WEnglish™, her linguistic attempt to make English more gender inclusive for all. More at vivianprobst.com

Discovering Character Names, Persunalities* & Other Delicious Details

What an incredible experience to see characters come to life in a story, especially as their

names and personalities develop.

When I first began writing ‘The Woman Who Forgot Who She Was’ I focused on my

grandchildren’s names because I wanted to memorialize these precious children all time in a

story. Avery Victoria Spencer was an easy choice. I wasn’t even thinking about how stunning a last name like Spencer would play out. Princess Diana was not on my mind-just my

grandchildren. Over time, tha fictitious Spencer family would work its way into my writing, but not for years.

(Nor was I thinking that such a name could also spell “A Very Victorias Pen Sir”!)

My character, Avery, suffers from dissociative amnesia due to a major life trauma. She doesn’t recall her husband, George Robert Logan, but I will never forget the day I arbitrarily typed the

name ‘Logan’ into my computer and discovered an old Scottish family line with a past that was perfect for a work of fiction. Lords and ladies, castles, King James VI of Scotland (also James I of England), even an unsolved mystery! Check out ‘The Gowrie Conspiracy’ on-line if you want to know more or wait for me to write a possible Volume Six. (I’d check on-line if I were you and if you want to know more right now). What’s in a name? A more exciting journey than I had ever imagined!

Tom and I traveled to visit places that now discovered, influenced my book plots. Places like

Rosslyn Chapel, museums in Edinburgh, London, and others, rich with details about tha 17th century. We even found Fast Castle (not much left) on the shores of the North Sea, which was

the ‘home’ of an unsavory character who (perhaps) got the Logans involved with the Gowrie

plot to (supposedly) kidnap King James. It ruined tha Logan family’s good name, at least for a while. When one writes fiction, anything is possible!

Remember, Book One is now available as an e-book or paperback on amazon. Check it out and I will cherish any review you are willing to write.

Bye for now.

*Probst likes to write in what she calls ‘WEnglish’, an inclusive form of English that respects all genders. More at vivianprobst.com/WEnglish

Vivian Probst is an award-winning author. Her latest work, ‘The Woman Who Forgot Who She Was’ is a five-book series (so far). Book One: Dissolving Her Despair is available as a Kindle’® e-book and as a paperback book on Amazon. Book Two: ‘Waking From Her Weariness’ is expected to be released by April 15th. Probst is writing each book in both English and WEnglish™, her linguistic attempt to make English more gender inclusive for all. More at vivianprobst.com