Word for the day…Weird Words beginning with ‘A’

“Weird and Wonderful Words” is a nifty book edited by Erin McKean. I don’t remember when I bought it, but it has given me many hours of hilarity, as I meander through its pages.

Here are 3 Weird and Wonderful Words beginning with A:
-aboulia means the loss of will or volition. It’s related to the Greek word for ‘thoughtlessness’
-agliff is a verb meaning frightened, it is related to the obsolete word ‘gliff’, meaning ‘to alarm’

and my favorite- alogotrophy, (Greek for ‘protection’) meaning excessive nutrition to any one part of the body resulting in deformity (like Popeye the Sailor Man’s arms!).

Writer’s Tip for the Day……..reward yourself!

There are many tasks involved in professional writing: the creation of the written word, editing your work, researching the subject, rewriting, producing the final piece and promoting it.

Not all of the tasks are going to be fun, or your favorite part, so in order to get through them all, here’s a little mind trick I employ.

Make a list of your tasks, then put them in the order that makes the most sense to you. After the first task is finished, do something that you enjoy (whether it be reading, researching for a new article, playing a brief online game, talking to friends, etc.) but set a timer for 15 minutes. Then go on to your next task and repeat the short break afterward.

Your mind will become accustomed to the reward and look forward to the completion of each task as your day progresses.

In this way, you will teach yourself that even though you don’t enjoy a particular part of your work, you will be rewarded for each part of your task. If you start to do this, you will fly through even the most onerous part of your day, knowing that there will be a bit of fun after you accomplish each task! Try it, try it I say!!!

Book Trailer for “Anti-Vigilante and the Rips in Time” by Diane Tegarden

Anti-Vigilante and the Rips in Time- book cover art

Kristine Sheehan, who helped me design the interior and exterior of my sci-fi epic “Anti-Vigilante and the Rips in Time” just made this trailer for me on You Tube…how cool is that?

Here’s a link to the trailer: http://youtu.be/T6UE01xgc4I

Word for the day….The Color Purple (And I’m not talking about the movie!)

I found these two beauties on Word Dynamo, a favorite word website. This test was about various cool names for colors, and as purple is my favorite color, I thought I’d share a couple. First, solferino is a vivid purplish pink.

Also, aubergine is the name for a very dark purple. Curiously enough, the etymology of the word explains it all…[French, from Catalan albergina, from Arabic al-binjn (the eggplant), from Persian bdenjn, bdengn.]

Feel free to share your recent word treasures on this thread!

Writer’s Tip: How To Write a Short Book in a Year!

How to Write a Short Book in One Year
In order to write a book, you must write consistently. Choose one day a week when you know you’ll have the time to write and write at least 2 pages (more is OK, but start with at least 2 type written pages.) Later on you can expand this to more days per week, but start with one day and make it a consistent habit.

Figure out if your best writing time is in the morning, afternoon or evening and set aside a space to write in. You can write with a notepad, in a journal, on the computer, on a typewriter, whichever method feels the most comfortable for you.

Pick a subject that you are passionate about, it’s easier to write about something you care about.

After you have your two pages, throw them into a file, don’t look at them again, or try to edit them, just start collecting the pages.

After three months, take out the pages and put them in a sensible order, then go through and print them out double spaced so you can do an initial editing job on them. Check them for spelling, punctuation, grammar, fact check them and then make those corrections to your writing. Fill in the information and transitions from one chapter to another.

If you have not already done so, create a story board or an outline of the chapters and subjects you’d like to cover in the book and reorganize the chapters so they make sense.

Continue to write in this manner and in a year you’ll have a 104 page manuscript.

I hope this helps!!!

BTW, I wrote my latest book about Budgeting with this method, only I increased the number of writing days to four per week, so the manuscript would be done in 8 months, then spent 6 weeks at my editor’s desk (with suggestions and corrections flying back and forth until we got it right and tight.) Then another 2 weeks at my book designer’s (for the interior and exterior design), so that the book was completed by November and in the stores for Christmas!

Op-Ed: Choosing between printing hardbound vs e-books

Op-Ed: Choosing between printing a hardbound vs an e-book for your self-help books.

When it comes to printing and publishing a “how to” or self-help book, the choice of whether to go with hardbound or E-book is a no-brainer. Why? Because, information changes, particularly with self-help books. For example, if you’re giving your readers a list of telephone numbers and contact information, that information can be outdated at any time and you may need to change it to keep the information current. Or, new methods of dealing with a problem may arise or old methods may no longer be viable. If your book is in hardbound form, it is very difficult to upgrade or update the information without spending a great deal of money.

Let’s say that you’re writing a self-help book on how to do your personal income taxes. Every year, the tax code changes, minimums and maximums allowed for different categories are changed, and certain deductible categories may disappear entirely. Instead of having to go through the expense of correcting and reprinting your hardbound book, you may want to choose an e-book format so you can simply rewrite the updated information and upload your new version.

With e-books, you can correct website links, update statistics, or include new information without incurring a huge cost. You can expand certain chapters, add chapters or delete chapters, depending on what you’ve learned in the last year.

I’ve published both paperback and e-books, and if you’re working in nonfiction writing, it may be a better choice to publish your work as an ebook. You will have more flexibility and less cost if you choose this format for self-help books.

Writer’s Tip for the week…if you can’t remember, use mnemonics!

A mnemonic is a device to help you remember a piece of information. One simple example is when to use the word dessert vs desert. Recently I noticed a menu that offered several deserts, and it had me cracking up. When Wade asked what was so funny I pointed out the desert menu and he didn’t understand the joke.

A desert is a big, sandy, dry piece of land, whereas dessert is a sweet treat. If you want to remember which to use, just think “when it’s dessert, I want seconds” because there are TWO S’s in the word!

What are some of the mnemonics you use to remember which word is the right one to use?

experimental poetry….”on one hand” by Diane Tegarden

Poem- On One hand-An Experiment in left-handed writing
by Diane Tegarden
(C) August 4, 2005

One day while waiting for a meal in a restaurant, I took out my ever-present writing pad, and decided to write a poem, the first half with my left hand and the rest with my right hand.

on one hand …

the alienation.
the external Gift of an
ancient, hollow life,
the remnants of civility
finally cast aside.
no more lies.

naked truth
is for the callous.
we need a blush of fantasy
to color the
starkness
of our inner canvas.

I turn the page and a chorus of music came to me:

paint your body
paint your mind
you can only fool yourself
about some things
some of the time.

I turn the page and put the pen in my right hand.

On the Other Hand …

I speak to you in
clear crisp terms
this way
I’m sure to be heard.

I don’t bother with
popularity.
I demand respect
and get the final word.

********************

Author’s Notes:

I purposely ignored the correct punctuation for the left-handed writing and reverted to formal punctuation with the right-handed writing as a device to separate the left and right functioning of the brain and to show how the Experiment affected my own writing style.

The World Water Wars (Anti-Vigilante and The Rips in Time)

I’ve written an unusual science fiction novel “Anti-Vigilante and The Rips in Time”.  Creating my own world, peoples and language, the book is a “preventable vision of the future” with its hooks deep into renewable energy and the impending World Water Wars.  The science in my book utilizes ocean energy and photovoltaics to power their daily world. People from the past become the Gods of the Future as they appear through the Rips in Time.

You can find “Anti-Vigilante and the Rips in Time” at Amazon.com today, just follow this link: http://www.amazon.com/Anti-Vigilante-Rips-Time-Diane-Tegarden/dp/0974536911/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350751953&sr=1-2&keywords=Anti-Vigilante

2012 in review…thank you to all my readers, fans and friends!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 13,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 3 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.