July 10, 2007
Living Verbs
You might be a word dork if…
…late at night, lying in your bed, you hear something upset the hens outside. (And, yes, it is super strange that one of my suburban neighbors keeps chickens.) Anyways, the hens cluck. As always. And you think to yourself “Ah, the hens cluck. What could be more natural than that? But, gee, I’m glad this guy doesn’t keep a rooster. A rooster would crow.”
Wait! Stop the tape. Back it up and play it again.
“A rooster would crow.”
That makes ZERO bloody sense. Roosters shouldn’t crow. Crows should crow. Right? The sound a crow makes is also a crow just like the crow is a crow. Read the rest of this entry »
May 22, 2007
Neognomancy
So I’m spending most of my hours now in coffee shops dreaming up semi-mysterious ideas that might fit into a book two.
Only 5k words of the manuscript presently exist, so obviously it might take a totally different path…but as of right now I’m guessing that much of the story will revolve around the idea of “neognomancy”.
Let’s go ahead and define that:
Neognomancy: a semi-magically process that allows one to think thoughts that were previously unthinkable.
In Nicodemus’ world, neognomancers are spellwrights capable of crafting texts that once cast on a mind allow it to think incomprehensible thoughts. It follows then that these neognomatic spells allow one to understand more of the universe and correspondingly perceive more of the universe. The obscure is revealed; indecipherable texts become readable. Read the rest of this entry »
May 8, 2007
Anticrastination
So I’m procrastinating by doing a lot of non-writing work for Spellbound. Mostly that means outlining and researching a number of random topics–savanna ecology, oak trees, lycanthropy, virology, Californian Indian culture, early Moorish culture. Also writing this blog I guess counts as non-manuscript work. So does updating the website. Just set up a graphical web counter that will note from where each visitor is tapping into spellwright.com. Soooo geeked about that. I can tell already I’m going to be adding checking said counter to my list of things to do on the Internet when I don’t feel like working. Also thinking of buying a cartography program some rpg gamers use. It’s not cheep but considering my drawing talent could be outdone by a drunken epileptic doodling while riding on a derailed train.
So I’m in a state of procrastination. Funny word, procrastination. I mean I guess it makes sense: pro, “forward or for” and crastinus, “of tomorrow”.
But then shouldn’t we be able to anticrastinate when we’re getting things done before they need to be done? Or what about simply crastinating when we’re doing what we ought when we ough.
Okay, I’m’a go work my way into anticrastination.
May 4, 2007
Mellacerbic
“Bittersweet” makes a strange crayola color, but as a metaphor it is wonderfully evocative. We can almost see the flinching, puckering face inspired by the tartness. We feel the pain first when we rediscover a gift from a estranged family member or hear a lost friend’s favorite song. But then comes the flood of consoling memories–the sweet aftertaste. We realize how completely we have grown despite or because of our loss.
Note the flow of feeling: pain the first-added ingredient followed by the flawed but honeyed pleasure.
Strangely, we don’t have a word for a similar but oppositely flowing realization or reminiscence. That is to say, “bittersweet” makes perfect sense, “sweetbitter” perfect nonsense. Read the rest of this entry »
May 2, 2007
Picine
Few people laugh when they read the dictionary. I do. You should too.
Let’s look at the word “Picine“. It’s an adjective meaning “of or pertaining to woodpeckers”.
Come on now, that’s just bananas funny.Think of the possibilities.
Exempli Gratia:
- “Jesus! Watch James eat that corn on the cob. Look at him go! Does his dentist know about this? He’s positively picine. I mean, Holy God, how did he develop the neck muscles for that?”
- “When I asked the male med students if they were nervous about administering their first pelvic exam, it set off a picine commotion of nodding heads.”
- “Dr. Follywitz didn’t regret genetically engineering tap dancing mice until she heard the constant, picine racket a lab full of the rodents produced.”
April 10, 2007
I want a word that means “to learn about by fiddling with”, how about ‘Didactodabble’?
So here’s the first post as I try to sort this whole thing out. I just submitted what I hope will be the penultimate draft of Spellwright to Jim and am not quite ready to dive into Spellbound. Ergo, I’m here trying to get a blog off the ground. If I were smart, I’d probably search for some systematic way of learning how to do this. But that’s not really my style. I much more of a didactodabblist. I think I developed my prose style–such as it is–from didactodabulation. I think most writers develop their styles in this way. Most likely I’ll have to give this up come gross anatomy. “Mr. Charlton,” I can imagine a prof saying, “please refrain from didatodabbling that liver; it doesn’t go back together as easily as it comes apart.”
Science, Magic, Medicine Show 
