I’m working on a book right now for HQN’s Silhouette Nocturne line in which one of the characters is from Mexico. And in the tradition of all hack writers, I shall denote this most clearly by throwing Spanish phrases into her dialog. This task would be made easier if I remembered any of the four years of the language that I took in high school.

Heck, I once translated Don Quixote, and yet a few weeks ago, I couldn’t have remembered more than two words in Spanish. Hola and Adios. That was about it.

But a strange thing has been happening since I started doing my research. I was reading an amazing book called The Hummingbird’s Daughter (in which a decidedly un-hackish writer who throws Spanish phrases into the dialog) and words started coming back to me. It happened slowly–like, I was flipping through channels, hit a Spanish Soap Opera and realized that I actually understood some of what was being said even though I couldn’t compose a sentence.

Then I started dreaming in Spanish. Or at least, a dream version of Spanish in which I know more of the words. Today I remembered useful phrases such as ‘Where is the bathroom?’

The only problem is that now it won’t shut off. Every object I look at, my mind starts searching for it’s name in Spanish. It’s kind of freaky.

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