A Writer’s Book of Days

There are a great many books out there purporting to be wonderful tools or aids to writing. A frightening number aren’t particularly helpful for anything other than lightening one’s purse a bit. This one, however, I’ve found helpful for writers at many levels, from exercises and writing advice to tidbits for emotional and physical support. Allow me to introduce you to Judy Reeves’ A Writer’s Book of Days (ISBN 0-965-004136). Continue reading “A Writer’s Book of Days”

We Are Not Bemused

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,
“it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

 

Language is not a stagnant thing; it grows, changes, and evolves, as long as there are people around who still use it regularly enough to need it. Latin is called a “dead” language in that there are no new words being made. Sometimes, a language can be infiltrated by uses of certain words or inclusions of words from a language different from their own, creating what is called a patois or a vernacular. There are times, however, when language seems to undergo bits of mutation that serve only to wear down the value of the language itself. When these monstrous word-creatures take over a language sufficiently, we get what is termed a dialect. As Professor Henry Higgins notes in the musical My Fair Lady, “There even are places where English completely disappears; in America, they haven’t used it for years.” (The play on which the musical is based, George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, was published in 1913.) Continue reading “We Are Not Bemused”

Why Write Furry?

“Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reason.”  —Robertson Davies

The genre of furry, or anthropomorphic, fiction deserves a few specific comments as to the how, why, what, and so on. I’ll start right at the beginning and answer the question on most writers’ (and readers’) minds: Why write furry? Continue reading “Why Write Furry?”

Writing — The Ten-Minute Warm-Up

For all you writers out there who are toiling under the misdirection of the so-called experts, I’ll let you in on a little secret: There’s no such thing as the “correct” way to write a story. In some instances, you don’t even need sensible grammar and punctuation (witness the “Benjy” section of Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury, or any reasonably long segment of James Joyce). As a rule, unless you intend for the narrator or the book to be taken as being written by someone for whom the English language is a bit of a mystery, you should observe proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling (or GPS, as I frequently refer to it). Other than that, you’re free to do just about anything you want when telling a story. Continue reading “Writing — The Ten-Minute Warm-Up”

Oh, it’s SO on…

logamachy (low-GAH-mah-key) n. — a dispute over or about words

I hereby declare myself a Knight Errant and Defender of Logos in the ongoing war over words, neologisms, the purpose and flexibility of language, and the Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Let the controversy begin. Continue reading “Oh, it’s SO on…”

Welcome to Wordsmything

My Handsome Wolf Self
Let’s Talk Words…

These segments in the blogsite are about words. The use of words. The origins of words. The changing nature of words. The outrageous character of words. The raw beauty of the perfectly chosen word. The outright hilarity of the ill-chosen word. The power of words to invoke the worst and the best in each of us. My goal here is to inform, amuse, educate, incite curiosity, provoke response, and – to the very best of my ability – to entertain. Continue reading “Welcome to Wordsmything”