Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Unwords
Roxanne, one of my writer friends, pointed out this great website - Unwords - which is a site for inventing new words for "for those hard to express things and ideas in your head."
Coast around and you'll find gems such as mahonkin, McFinch, meandrathal, Einstoned, Emotional Tourette's, enclownter, eufirstics, wickcellent, wober, and wordjones. Really, take a look and have a laugh. It's filarious.
Coast around and you'll find gems such as mahonkin, McFinch, meandrathal, Einstoned, Emotional Tourette's, enclownter, eufirstics, wickcellent, wober, and wordjones. Really, take a look and have a laugh. It's filarious.
Labels: unwords, words, writing
Monday, August 13, 2007
Over 1,000 Words
After having taken on a different writing project last Monday, I didn't have a chance to work on a story in the short story series I'm working on. I made up for it today, though. I added over 1,000 words to my story. Now, for some authors that might be peanuts as far as a word count goes. For me, though, it's quite good. Normally I log 500 to 700 words on a good day. Understand that I edit as I go, which is supposed to be a mortal sin in writing circles. Call me a sinner, I guess, but once I'm done with a story, there's very little editing left to do. (Although I'm sure some editors would beg to differ. To which I say, "Write your own story!) Once this story is done, I have only one left to go in the series (which I've already started). Today's accomplishment moves me closer to my goal.
Labels: authors, editing, short story, words, writing
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Family Language
Neil Gaiman totally started this, but he doesn't know it. I was reading his journal a few days ago and saw him pictured in his beekeeping outfit with a person he called "Birdchick." He's also got a Web Elf. I was thinking, how cute - being a writer, he's so creative that he renames everyone he knows with an imaginative nickname. My train of thought continued . . . . It dawned on me that we have loads of nicknames for our kids, along with all sorts of verbal oddities that the outside world would not get. In short, we have a family language, which has been created over the years we have shared rubbing shoulders in the same household. We have inside jokes based on our shared experiences, and movie scenes we regularly quote (i.e. "Let me fix you some eggs, Margie" from Fargo, or "Is that the machine that goes ping?" from The Meaning of Life). I pondered our family language for more examples:
The hubby loves to purposely mispronounce words. He says "red-eye" for "ready" when we are trying to leave the house. He says "cha (say the "ch" as you would in church)-mo (long "o")-mi (short "i")-lee" for chamomile. He does this with lots of other words, as well.
Some of the nicknames we have for our kids: Doodle, Dude, Daughter, Man About Town (or Boy About School), Young Son #1, Young Son #2, Bubby, and Buddy. Those are just the nicknames not based upon their names, but in the sake of privacy for them, I won't be revealing the name-based ones here. We each also have an opposite-sex name for the fun of it.
Young Son #2 calls me Mammy and his father Pappy. He does it with a twang, too. The daughter calls me Bob, which is how Mom comes out when she has a cold. (That's my opposite-sex name.)
The hubby calls me Lovin' Spouseful or wifey; to the latter I reply with husbandy. Of course, we're also full of the Honey, Baby, Sugarcakes, Sweetie names, too. Sometimes, hubby says, "Submit to me, woman!" in a joking manner and I give him a withering look and sometimes an "eff-you" with a smile. He says, "Okay."
When someones says, "Hey, I quacked!" we all know exactly what that means. This was something started in the extended family. Whenever someone has to get up from their chair and wants their seat saved for when they return, they say, "Quack, quack, seat back!" which has shortened to "Quack!"
We go really crazy over our kitties with the special family language. Rosalyn, the gray old kitty, is called Roz, Grumpy Old Lady, Cranky Old Lady, or simply Old Lady. Inky, who is white with black spots (and would have been called Rorscharch after the ink-blot tests if hubby had had his way) is called Rotten Spotty. It's a name my brother coined. Our white kitty was originally called Snowball, then Schmutz, and now goes primarily by Stinky. She is the sweetest cat ever, and we call her that often, too - "The Sweetest Cat Ever." Roz likes to meow at us in a grumpy way and I meow right back. Stinky says "brrrt, brrrt" to us and we "brrrt, brrrt" back. I like to call the kitties my puppies or babies. When we want the kitties to come running, we don't say, "Here, kitty kitty kitty." We make a pss, pss, pss noise. When the kitties start acting crazy and running all over the house (especially Stinky), we say they have brain worm.
Okay, you probably get the picture. Family language: it's worth a college thesis. If you're so inclined, feel free to share an example of your own.
The hubby loves to purposely mispronounce words. He says "red-eye" for "ready" when we are trying to leave the house. He says "cha (say the "ch" as you would in church)-mo (long "o")-mi (short "i")-lee" for chamomile. He does this with lots of other words, as well.
Some of the nicknames we have for our kids: Doodle, Dude, Daughter, Man About Town (or Boy About School), Young Son #1, Young Son #2, Bubby, and Buddy. Those are just the nicknames not based upon their names, but in the sake of privacy for them, I won't be revealing the name-based ones here. We each also have an opposite-sex name for the fun of it.
Young Son #2 calls me Mammy and his father Pappy. He does it with a twang, too. The daughter calls me Bob, which is how Mom comes out when she has a cold. (That's my opposite-sex name.)
The hubby calls me Lovin' Spouseful or wifey; to the latter I reply with husbandy. Of course, we're also full of the Honey, Baby, Sugarcakes, Sweetie names, too. Sometimes, hubby says, "Submit to me, woman!" in a joking manner and I give him a withering look and sometimes an "eff-you" with a smile. He says, "Okay."
When someones says, "Hey, I quacked!" we all know exactly what that means. This was something started in the extended family. Whenever someone has to get up from their chair and wants their seat saved for when they return, they say, "Quack, quack, seat back!" which has shortened to "Quack!"
We go really crazy over our kitties with the special family language. Rosalyn, the gray old kitty, is called Roz, Grumpy Old Lady, Cranky Old Lady, or simply Old Lady. Inky, who is white with black spots (and would have been called Rorscharch after the ink-blot tests if hubby had had his way) is called Rotten Spotty. It's a name my brother coined. Our white kitty was originally called Snowball, then Schmutz, and now goes primarily by Stinky. She is the sweetest cat ever, and we call her that often, too - "The Sweetest Cat Ever." Roz likes to meow at us in a grumpy way and I meow right back. Stinky says "brrrt, brrrt" to us and we "brrrt, brrrt" back. I like to call the kitties my puppies or babies. When we want the kitties to come running, we don't say, "Here, kitty kitty kitty." We make a pss, pss, pss noise. When the kitties start acting crazy and running all over the house (especially Stinky), we say they have brain worm.
Okay, you probably get the picture. Family language: it's worth a college thesis. If you're so inclined, feel free to share an example of your own.
Labels: cats, children, family language, husband, movie, neil gaiman, nicknames, quack, rorscharch, words
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Result - 10 words, 20 minutes
I took my writing exercise, 10 words, 20 minutes, to writers group last night. Each of the four of us set to work on the 10 words I posted on this blog a few days ago, only we had about 15 minutes to work, rather than 20. Strangely enough, all of us started what might amount to short stories, even though we had a couple of poets in the group. The words were thus:
cream, irony, notch, beg, scarab, taste, harmony, juvenile, leather, scribble
Upon hearing the list, one of our writers said that it sounded vaguely sexual. Hmmm.
Here's what I came up with during the exercise:
"He sat back in the chair, thumped his heels on the wooded table, and put his hands behind his head. He was pleased with himself - another notch in his leather belt, is what he was thinking. If he'd had a cowboy hat, he would've tipped it low and tasted the irony. His mother would've called his coup no more than the workings of a juvenile delinquent. Instead, he was lapping up the cream of his antics.
They were begging him to join Scarab Industries. The company's representative was sitting here before him, scribbling an offer he couldn't possibly refuse on a napkin. He'd take his sweet time giving them an answer - long enough, but not too long. Couldn't let them think he was too eager. He had to see if the figure the company rep was about to show him was harmonious with his lifestyle."
By far, the most difficult word to deal with in this list was scarab. It's an interesting word, though. One of our writers came up with a scarab ring. I thought my use of the word as a company name was a bit of a cop-out, but when I consider it further, I want to know what exactly Scarab Industries produces. Bit of a mystery there.
cream, irony, notch, beg, scarab, taste, harmony, juvenile, leather, scribble
Upon hearing the list, one of our writers said that it sounded vaguely sexual. Hmmm.
Here's what I came up with during the exercise:
"He sat back in the chair, thumped his heels on the wooded table, and put his hands behind his head. He was pleased with himself - another notch in his leather belt, is what he was thinking. If he'd had a cowboy hat, he would've tipped it low and tasted the irony. His mother would've called his coup no more than the workings of a juvenile delinquent. Instead, he was lapping up the cream of his antics.
They were begging him to join Scarab Industries. The company's representative was sitting here before him, scribbling an offer he couldn't possibly refuse on a napkin. He'd take his sweet time giving them an answer - long enough, but not too long. Couldn't let them think he was too eager. He had to see if the figure the company rep was about to show him was harmonious with his lifestyle."
By far, the most difficult word to deal with in this list was scarab. It's an interesting word, though. One of our writers came up with a scarab ring. I thought my use of the word as a company name was a bit of a cop-out, but when I consider it further, I want to know what exactly Scarab Industries produces. Bit of a mystery there.
Labels: exercise, story, words, writers, writing
Saturday, February 24, 2007
10 words, 20 minutes
Hey, hey! It's snowing! We haven't gotten much, so far, just a coating over the grass, but it's picking up speed. I vaguely remember hearing thunder last night - how weird is that?
Anyway, I promised a writing exercise for this weekend in one of my comments. I call it 10 words, 20 minutes. I'll give you 10 random words. You have 20 minutes to do something with them. Use them to write a poem or essay or song, heck, draw a picture using them if you like. The only rules are that you have to use all 10 words and you have only 20 minutes to do it. (You can fudge the time a weensy bit if you're finishing a thought when time's up, but don't keep writing on and on forever.) Feel free to alter the words using generally accepted English language principles, i.e. snow can become snowing, or snows, or snowed.
Ready? Here are your words:
cream
irony
notch
beg
scarab
taste
harmony
juvenile
leather
scribble
If you need to look up any of the words, your dictionary time doesn't count towards the 20 minutes.
Gather yourself together and Go!
Anyway, I promised a writing exercise for this weekend in one of my comments. I call it 10 words, 20 minutes. I'll give you 10 random words. You have 20 minutes to do something with them. Use them to write a poem or essay or song, heck, draw a picture using them if you like. The only rules are that you have to use all 10 words and you have only 20 minutes to do it. (You can fudge the time a weensy bit if you're finishing a thought when time's up, but don't keep writing on and on forever.) Feel free to alter the words using generally accepted English language principles, i.e. snow can become snowing, or snows, or snowed.
Ready? Here are your words:
cream
irony
notch
beg
scarab
taste
harmony
juvenile
leather
scribble
If you need to look up any of the words, your dictionary time doesn't count towards the 20 minutes.
Gather yourself together and Go!
Labels: create, dictionary, exercise, snow, thunder, weather, winter, words, writing
