October Novel Prep Challenge

Medi, it's that way with my accent. I grew up moving a lot and though people claim there is only one Arkansas accent they are so very wrong. There are actually three. From my birthplace in North East Arkansas down the eastern delta area and across the southern section where the largest bayou in the world is. (Louisianna may have more but we have the biggest.) We speak what people think of as an Arkansas accent. We hit our r's hard and have just about as close to a Scotts and Irish brogue blend as you can get and still sound southern.

Then in central Arkansas, where we like to believe we are more sophisticated, it's softened a lot. People attempt to enunciate clearly and try to avoid sounding like a dumb hick. I remember my mother telling me, If I couldn't speak clearly with proper English people would never take me seriously. She worked hard to be taken seriously.

Then there is the North East Corner. Which is a strange place. We have crafters of all types come to the North East from all over the world. Want a blacksmith to make you some horseshoes for your horse the old-fashioned way. We have them. Need a reiki massage from someone working in the spa of the Haunted Hotel? Well, we have that too. I swear Eureka Springs had to be settled by gypsies. It's hard to explain their accent its a blend of the other two with some hints toward perhaps Native American.

I have lived in all three places plus central and southern Missouri. My accent is something of a combination of all of that with the added addition of a choir teacher who drilled into our heads that we must enunciate and sing tall not wide. No one ever knows where I am from.