Ana Morgan Author

The trouble with describing colors: green

2011-09-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

Each spring as the trees around my house break their long winter dormancy, I marvel at varying hues of green. I become jealous of photographers, who can record colors as the sun moves higher in the sky. I envy painters, who can add a dab of this or that, spin their brushes, and mimic Nature on a canvas. How can I, a simple lover of words, recreate for a reader what I see so vividly all around me?

I was gifted an old PMS ink selector by my local print shop. The colors, five up on a side, have numbers that are linked to the formula that creates each color. No silly names, like those in retail paint stores, but still, no names.

My Flip Dictionary lists seventy-two words under ‘Green.’ Spruce is accessible, although needles on the spruce trees in our farm’s windbreaks have more than one color. The new needles are pure baby spruce green. They’ve not baked in the summer sun or been covered with hoar-frost on a sub-zero winter morning. Older, weather-tested needles are thick and dark, true spruce green. Then there are the dying needles, yellowing slowly from base to tip, no longer useful to the only tree they’ve ever known.

Niagara Green. I think of Niagara as the falls. Billions of gallons of foaming white and blue water crashing down hundreds of feet. I don’t get green, except possibly from the economy-supporting money local restaurants and motels make off honeymooning tourists and the occasional over-the-falls-in-a-barrel daredevil.

Parrot has me stumped. I think of parrots as raucous, multi-colored birds perched on a one-eyed pirate’s shoulder.

Emerald is easier. So is olive, and lime. I can look up Myrtle in a plant identification book.

Leaf green: That’s ridiculous! There are so many shades of green just in the Brassicas in my garden. Broccoli green is different than cabbage green and cauliflower green, not to mention all the various kales and Brussels sprouts.

Dark green. That color in the crayon box.

Hunter green. The green in camouflage.

Bottle green. German beer bottles.

Clair de lune sounds like the greenish, witch-y, I-can-drive-without-headlights-at-midnight glow generated by a full moon at perigee.

Envy green. Not in the 64-ct crayon box.

Eau de Nile. Anybody know what color green this is?

HWH Blogfest! My first adult book

2011-07-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

The first ‘adult’ book I read was ‘The Story of O.’ I was fourteen, and I bought it in an airport news shop before a trans-Atlantic flight. I was flying with my older brother, who ignored me as much as possible. This make it possible for me to devour 'The Story of O' from cover to cover.

‘The Story of O’ is about a young woman willing to prove her love for a man by being his sex slave. He trains her to be the sex toy for his discreet men’s club. She is always blindfolded, but is sure she knows when he engages her.

It is acceptable erotica in today’s doors-wide-open world, but back in the ‘60’s, it was billed as taboo.

I learned a lot that flight.

He's my Guy!

2011-07-19T17:17:00.000-07:00

Bollywood movie stars with heavy eye make-up. The rugged Marlboro man. A courier in Louis XIV's court with a white perfumed wig and lace cuffs. An African hunter with intricate body scars made by rubbing wood ashes into knife cuts.

Astrologers and biologists assert subtle, yet powerful, attractions such as compatibility and pheromones. Culture (and advertising agencies) dictate prevailing standards for attractiveness, but I feel the attraction for a hero should be deeper than his skin tone. My kind of man doesn’t have to have rippled abs or azure eyes.

My eyes might linger on a man with physical beauty, but as soon as he opens his mouth, or fails to hold open the door, I know.

Oh yes, I know.

So what makes a memorable hero? What I find desirable may not be what turns you on, but I like a man who has:

1. intellectual curiosity

2. ethical values

3. above average vocabulary

4. interesting career path

5. honest charm

6. a nice butt

7. lovemaking skills (and the capacity to experiment)

8. dishwashing ability

9. showers regularly

10. kind eyes

What traits do you value in your heroes?

Here I am!

2011-06-19T16:55:00.000-07:00

I'm a romance writer. My to-be-completed-next-winter time travel romance explores the idea that lovers separated in the past can find each other again in the future. The power of love is strong enough to reunite those destined to be together. I'll post about completing this novel (my second) and shepherding it to publication.

I'm an organic CSA gardener, and THIS is gardening season in northern Minnesota. I'll post about gardening and cooking good food.

I'm an astrologer. Constantly I see proof that there is wisdom in Star Science. I gave readings at a summer festival yesterday, half to returning clients and half to women I just met. The readings provided individualized options and assurances of stability in a world that feels so uncertain right now.

I'll find (or take) a photo of myself that I like soon.

Thanks for visiting, and come back soon.
Ana