Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »
On a typical day, I usually have X number of words in me. On days when I use those words for, say, an epic treatise to friends on the efficacy of my experimental new toothpaste, I turn to the words of others. Time to make a start on 2023’s to-be-read list.
“Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.”
― Harvey Pekar
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, reference tools, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Today, an old tool with a twist I find useful: the visual thesaurus. My Writers of the Future editor asked for some last updates, and I got stuck on one that should have been simple but was not.
The problem was that beta readers didn’t quite understand the meaning of the phrase I used, and I had to replace it with a completely different word that still captured a complicated feeling. I don’t usually use a thesaurus, but sometimes needs must. My computer’s built-in options don’t handle phrases well, so online I went.
A quick search led me to stumble on one with a visual, as well as a list, interface. (Has this been around forever? Probably, but it was new to me. Perhaps to you too?) Here’s an example:
Care synonyms, care antonyms – FreeThesaurus.com
Each word’s multiple meanings are clustered with related words, antonyms and links. I can always read the options as a list, of course, but I found this presentation surprisingly helpful when it came to brainstorming options.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Fiction, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on January 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?… If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »
So there I was, wading through old backups and oddly named files and all the other detritus that accumulates on the drives of most computers, when I stumbled across a story start. At some point in the hazy past, I was writing/still half-dreaming/avoiding other work when I came up with a snippet. (I do this a lot. Most of my story starters are corralled into a central file, but apparently this one escaped.)
Does the idea still speak to me? Maybe. Here is its beginning.
The room was twenty feet wide by fifty or so deep, and high enough to stash a semi trailer. The basement warehouse hid inside a larger complex designed to cloak all manner of shady dealings. The walls were concrete, bare in some spots and painted a dull grey in others. Dim afternoon light filtered in through a series of filthy windows set just below the ceiling. The west wall contained a pile of musty wooden crates stacked head high, and the door sported a series of aging and graffitied corporate memos. Whoever Toby was, I could call him for a good time. Dust bunnies occupied the corners. It was the dullest den of iniquity I’d seen yet.
Still, I wouldn’t have minded the decor so much if it weren’t on fire…
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »
“A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.”
– Elbert Hubbard
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Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, social media, technology, Thoughts, Writers on December 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Brief social media aside:
So, Twitter continues to be a cross between a quagmire and a cesspool, and many users are looking for greener pastures. If you are one of them, or just happen to have an interest in other forms of this thing called social media, you may have heard of Mastodon. It operates on a decentralized platform, it’s cool and it’s just a tiny bit confusing.
In the interest of clarifying the model and the process of getting started, Joanna Stern over at The Wall Street Journal (of all places) put together a short, free explainer.
How to Use Mastodon, the Social-Media Platform Blocked by Elon Musk’s Twitter – WSJ
Important note for those of us who are still five at heart: messages on Mastodon are called toots.
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Posted in Likes, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, hope, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers on December 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »
“When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”
― Fred Rogers
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, genre fiction, inspiration, Writers, writing on December 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »
I could read these Starfleet job postings all day:
The Best Jobs in Starfleet! Shares a new Starfleet job posting every half hour.
Users may request a job by using keywords “engineering”, “arts”, “counseling”, “trombone” or “user research”.
But of course it’s Monday, so I won’t.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, creativity, Fiction, haiku, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »
I’m still working through my tech to-do list, and while there are still a few issues popping up, I’m close to being back on track. So no, I have not spent the weekend working on writing projects as planned, but I am ready to hit the ground running, swing into action, get cracking, or your preferred cliché here, etc. etc.
I also ran across a stack of notes that contained to-do lists from before we bought house. A decade ago. The pile also included story ideas, the lifetime warranty for my lucky fishing hat, and a random page of haiku. The poetry ranged from bright and sunny to, well, I’ll let you be the judge.
One cold, dark night.
Knee-deep mud and a shovel.
But that’s love for you.
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Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2022, learning@lunch, Thoughts, Writers, writing on December 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »
My editor informs me that words ending in -ly aren’t hyphenated, even in phrases where it would normally make sense.
For example: “heavily armed killing machine.”
And this has been today’s edition of Learning@Lunch.
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