Because I Didn’t Write About Baby Sea Turtles

My latest short story is up at The Hanging Garden! This cycle’s theme was water, so initially I thought, “Of course I have to do a story that involves baby sea turtles!”

Look at how cute he is! Go, baby sea turtle, go!

But then I heard a news report of a tragic accident that involved a group of teens who went swimming, and immediately I knew that was the kind of story I wanted to write. A lot of times, these kinds of accidents happen to young adults who are doing something vaguely dangerous. 9 times out of 10, no one gets hurt, but that 1 time is disastrous. Your life is safe until it’s very, very not.

Click through to check out the story, and, if you want even more gif-inspired fiction, check out the entire back catalog of Hanging Garden stories.

Gif-fiction with the Hanging Garden

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of gifs. So when Natalie Parker and Julie Murphy approached me about The Hanging Garden, a project in which 2014 debut YA authors write fiction inspired by gifs, my reaction was something along the lines of:

Our first challenge: write a short story inspired by one of two gifs. Every Monday, a different author shares their work. When I read the stories posted so far:

Then I realized I’d have to follow up these amazing writers:

My writing process:

But eventually I put together my very first gif-inspired short story and now it’s live on the Hanging Garden. Woohoo!

In grad school I mostly wrote short stories, but since then I’ve mostly worked on longer projects. It’s been really fun to dive back into a shorter form and write down ideas that can exist in their own little world. Looking forward to lots more gif-fiction challenges with the Hanging Garden team!

Gif vs. Jif: Keep Your Peanut Butter Out of My Moving Images

Apparently, the creator of the gif says that the term is pronounced like the peanut butter brand, Jif. I can’t see how this can be true because, as Salvador Rodriguez points out in his article: “But why “jif” and not “gif?” I mean, its a “graphical” interface format, not a “jraphical” one, right?”

My question: can you create a word and get its pronunciation wrong?

Yes. Because I’m on team gif. When I hear someone pronounce it jif, this is me:

Sorry, Wilhite. I will always appreciate what you did for the internet and how I express my emotions, but I can’t stand with you on this one.

PS–I’m going to pretend this post is related to writing because it’s about language. That counts, right? Whatever, more gifs!

When Words Aren’t Enough, Use GIFs

GIFs may have been around for a while, but they’re certainly having a good time in 2012. I’m certainly happy that GIF was picked as the Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012. Of course, Dumbledore expresses it better than I can:

Where would we be without GIFs? In a land of sadness, that’s where. A few of my favorite GIF-related blogs:

Feel free to share your own GIFs in the comments. Happy GIFing!