100,000 Words

You may have noticed the little potato writer at the top of this blog before, steadily plugging away at what we can presume to be a novel. He's got a word count going, and an obvious goal. Well, that's me! I literally count my writing by words, and never before have I reached such an auspicious number. 100,000? That's a full-length young adult or adult novel. And since I am choosing to ignore age barriers here (after all, I read books marketed for children and I believe they could be marketed for adults as well. Why must we discriminate by age?), that's a really big book! (For me).

However, the novel is far from finished. Well, not very far, as I am nearing the conclusion. But it'll probably take me at least another month to finish. Just in time to print it out over Thanksgiving break.

Words: 101,207

Pages: 159 (Word, single-spaced)

Chapters: 22

Books: .8

The Irrepressible "It's"

I was reading over my latest blog entry and I realized something: it was incredibly vague. I used placeholders such as "it's" to talk about my story, but I never mentioned a thing about it.

In fact, I believe I can now consider it a "pesk" word for that post. Yes, I realize "pesk" isn't a word (my browser is continually informing me as I type it in and it underlines it in squiggly red) but I once had the incredible opportunity to have an editor read a short piece I had written, and that was the word she used. I incorporated it into my vocabulary then and still use it to this day.

What is a pesk word? We all have them, but we rarely realize that they are there. Even for those of us who don't write on a daily basis can find them in our speech. The word "like" is a common placeholder, and therefore overused. A pesk word. I, myself, use the words "also" and "awesome" in my speech on an hourly (sometimes minute-ly) basis.

In my writing, the word "just" was my biggest pesk word a few years ago, and a "highlight all" search through my stories would reveal a ratio that is too embarrassing to repeat of "just"s to other words. Lately, I've been editing them out as I go (it's hard for me not to see the word just now...it pops out like a grammar mistake) and I have very nicely come to the 166/94,304 ratio I currently stand in. However, other words have picked up the slack, such as "that" and "even". I really need to work on that.

It's just that even small words can be obnoxious. (See what I did there?)

One small step for (wo)man, one giant leap for authorkind!

Today, I have reached a milestone. 88,000 words! It's the longest thing I've ever written, and several times longer than most things I've written. It's not finished, not by a long shot, but hopefully it will be before Thanksgiving or Christmas break, which means I'll be able to print it out and bind it at the office, and start editing! Considering the fact that it's taking me years to do the same for my first finished novel (which is about 10,000 words shorter), I'm not sure how long this one will take me. Perhaps I'll get around to it more often. At the moment, it's also the best thing I've written, but it's by no means good! It's a rough, rough copy. Good thing this is my hobby, and I don't have any deadlines! I love not being under pressure.

If you're curious, it's about 140 pages in Word, single-spaced, but that's including half-pages at the ends of chapters. It's 18.5 chapters so far, and my chapters range from 6 to 9 pages long, although they are generally 7 or 8.

It's difficult to work up the courage and patience for writing of any kind, so my advice to anybody in my boat is to just make time to write in the evenings. Five minutes is all it takes sometimes, although usually my five minutes runs into an hour or two. If I haven't come up with anything to write in five minutes, then I quit for the day. I don't force it. My personal advice is to let the writing flow. Things seem to work out better that way.

Although sometimes you just have to push through to get to the part you've been waiting for. :)

I saw this on my friend's facebook status and had to post it here. :)

"There are only two meaningful occupations in this world that can do something for the dead, for things lost. They are writers and detectives. Only writers are capable of reviving them in imagination, Only detectives are capable of digging them up from graves and reciting them into information."

Shoot a Look, Toss a Grin

I love English. There is so much you can do with it, especially with metaphors. I was writing just now and I realized how many expressions I use that any non-native speaker would be extremely confused about. After all, how do you exchange a look? What does it mean when someone tosses something as intangible as an idea around?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, no ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Is it not crazy that you can make amends, but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think the first 'teachers of the language' should have been committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. How is it that people recite a play and play at a recital, ship by truck and send cargo by ship, or have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down; you fill in a form by filling it out and an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. This is why when the stars are out, they are visible -- but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

What's not to love about a language like that?

A Thousand Ways to Walk

One of the things I spend my time thinking about as a writer are synonyms. And not just synonyms, but powerful ones. Powerful, accurate, and descriptive are what I look for in both my writing and my daily life.

For example, people don't just say things. They can, but if they do it's in a normal tone of voice. If they yell things, that's a bit better--and definitely louder. They can also whisper or drone, which are a little bit better.

Take laughing for example. You can laugh, but you can also chuckle, titter, giggle, and bray. You can honk. Depending on the mood and the character, you can define someone's entire personality by the way they laugh.

One of my favorite things to do in the daytime while I am suffering from writing withdrawals is to describe my own walk, and the walk of people around me. There are so many different words for "walk", I probably can't even list them all. I might be tromping through the snow, meandering across the mall, hurrying to class, strolling through a park, or traipsing about in the wilderness. I can glide gracefully, skip merrily, and trudge unhappily to a test. People can stomp, stagger, stride and saunter. We can pace, hike, amble, and march. Toddlers can toddle, the elderly can shuffle, the wounded can limp, the young can spring. We can hobble, trundle, shamble, bounce, wander, and mosey. We can even merely run or jog.

Kind of makes you re-think the awe we hold for Eskimos. What's a hundred words for snow compared to a thousand ways to simply walk?

In my book, you never "simply" walk.

Playing Ketchup

I've missed two months again. Am I going to make a habit out of this? Probably.

The reason I've missed so much time is because I haven't gotten very far in my writing life lately. I'm on chapter 9 of my novel, finally. It took forever to get through chapter 8, because it was so bad I decided to re-write the whole thing. So I pretty much left it all blank for revisions later.

I'm starting a new story as well. I don't know if I'm actually going anywhere with it, but I'm at the end of the second page, which is good.

I got a Kindle for Christmas, which I can put ebooks on, so I plan on putting my own books on there. :) Don't know how that's helpful, or even relevant, but I like the idea of it!