Emily Has A Great Vocabulary

For proof, reference this (note "shenangegans": http://movementofcolors.blogspot.com/2011/11/losing-battle.html


50,000 words is just not going to happen, folks. I blame you all, mostly. Also, I blame flying and driving and National Youth Worker's Conventions and weddings galore (I have another to attend in Dec.) that keep me so busy that even when I do find time to sit still and be exhausted, I fall asleep. In a fluffy Mariott-cloud bed, or sitting up on my headboard with my neck at a 90 degree angle. I also realized this weekend, when the author Doug Fields was talking that he mentioned behing completely wiped out when he was writing his book, and begged for his work to be through, and that I have not pleaded to anyone for an end to my book yet, so therefore, I must not be quite putting myself into it the way I could......

Emily had a good idea when she challenged me to use the word "battened" in the novel I am writing (still writing, just not gonna meet the deadline.  Let the militia swoop down upon me Dec. 1), and I really hope that you will participate, all you creative and/or snarky people (like, all 6 of you). My request quite easy.

Give me some not-so-traditional words to use! Give each other the same thing! In the combox! Those old words that still work even though one might sound like Shakespeare when using them in regular language. Like "musn't," or "tarry," for example. Or, an option would be to suggest words used commonly by our fellow English-speakers under H.M. the Queen, such as "queue," or "boot" (for car trunk) which make sense in context but never alone for us poor Estadosunidense. Or perhaps some math vocabulary. Bring it on.

I know many of you have them.  "What a spectacular word!" you say to yourself. "The objective noise it makes somehow expresses exactly it's meaning! Why did this phrase die out?! How exact is this little definition exactly what I really meant to convey!"

Go crazy, kids. (Definitions to more unique words appreciated. But in light of our search engine world, it won't be hard to figure it out if you are typing with one hand because you're eating an apple.)

Cheers!

This Calls for a Show on TLC

The maid of honor flowers are hanging and half dry, November is looking more like Thanksgiving (as I type the rain is pummeling my window), and I am less than a quarter through my novel. 

I'm not super concerned, which is wierd because usually I beat myself up about not finishing something to which I committed.  Don't get me wrong, I am a little upset. It would be great to have this book rolling and be on the way toward the end, but I am not and there is nothing I can do to change that. I just don't have the time to make up what I have lost, but I'm certainly not giving up yet!

And, I do have two 8 hour drives ahead of me this weekend.  Perhaps those will help me catch up a little!

How do authors do it? The real ones? It strikes me that I have never looked in to this, but only noted how the big events of authors' lives panned out. Shelly died at sea, Greene was a philanderer, Austin an old maid, Hemingway an expat. But how did they write? before they were famous or paid well, when they worked in mills and cafes and whathaveyou - what techniques kept them at the table?

When did you find time, Dickens, when?!?!

 What was it? Insomnia? Reclusion? Total abandonment of all non-writing related activities and whithered away from loss of basic sustainance?

(That sounds about right, actually.)

This was much easier to do last year when I was frigthfully unemployed and lived with my mother. Humpf!

I could learn to manage my time more efficiently, however. I won't deny that. Although, I'm not willing to defer grocery shopping and showing up to work in order to write.

UGH! My moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth will have to continue on my own time.

Here is a somewhat appropriate tribute to my slackerness. But be warned, the lead singer has a big mouth and it wierd to watch. But the video doesn't make any sense anyway, so don't worry about what you see.

Writing is such sweet sorrow

Seriously, people.  Sometimes it sucks.

NaNoWriMo Day 5 aaaaaaand I'm already behind.  This of course, is my own darn fault because I have not exactly been devoted to my plot line and I think that my charachter is SO boring.  It's quite possibly this in itself that I can't get around. But who am I to blame but myself?  I mean, I made the dude and what's happening to him....grr! Mea culpa!

But at the same time I feel locked in to the story so much that I can't really manipulate it to be, well, interesting.

It's pretty bad if the author is already bored by day five. However, I have hope, because most people get bored with thier story about half way through.  Perhaps I'm just getting past it early?

So what am I to do about this? I've been scrambling around my story, writing blip by blip of different parts that I think should or will come up.  I figure I can turn back to them should anything important change. I'm tossing around the idea of just sitting down and writing a story line...I know, I'm such a radical.

Well, off I go then. A cup of tea would be nice to ease the pain.

Our Lady of Victory, pray for me. (I'm not kidding, Mary.)