Source: Mary Robinette Kowal

Excerpt:

Athena’s Favorite Bit:

“She cursed like a sailor.” As I was writing Waves Take Your Bones, I knew I couldn’t have a novel about a seafaring society without including some colorful cursing. Besides, who wouldn’t start swearing a bit when confronted by zombies?

The problem was, I was writing a young adult novel. When I was deepest into my drafting process, I was a teaching assistant working with 6th graders. I wanted to write something that my students could read and be appropriate to feature on their classroom’s bookshelves or in a school library. So, most existing swears were off-limits, and I couldn’t keep using the line “she cursed under her breath” over and over again. I had to invent my own colorful language.