NearlyANerd.com » Lit

Writing?

Dippold — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:34:20 +0000

Is.

Writing.

And.

Reading.

Coming.

To.

This?

Breaking.

Up.

Everything.

Into.

Small.

Bits.

With.

Lots.

Of.

Bold.

And.

Bullet.
Points?

I would write a lot more like this if it meant recipients would actually read it and it could aid their reading comprehension.

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Stuff David Foster Wallace circled in his American Heritage Dictionary

Dippold — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:22:26 +0000


David Foster Wallace circled “Osmium” and about 500 other word entries in his American Heritage Dictionary.

My near obsession with David Foster Wallace continues. As I exert concerted effort to finish the last 16th or so of Infinite Jest, I keep happening upon other DFW internet material like the DFW Audio Project (horrible picture of him there, BTW, but that site is for listening, not photos) and this list of words you see here; words David Foster Wallace circled in his dictionary — shamelessly ripped from a Slate article:

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$1,000 edition of ‘On the Road’?

Dippold — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:58:22 +0000

In my youth I idolized Jack Kerouac. Ran across this upcoming edition of his “On the Road” on Amazon. It lists for $1,000. I’m sure it is extremely limited with many great unreleased photos but still. I’m almost curious to learn more. I won’t ignore more details about it if they present themselves, but I’m not seeking out anything further either.

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Distilling ‘Ten rules for writing fiction’ into one or two words

Dippold — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:11:22 +0000

I’ll now slaughter the multi-authored Guardian.co.uk article “Ten rules for writing fiction” by cutting several of the “rules” down to one or two words which may make more sense after reading the article. Many of the rules could apply to other forms of writing, and possibly, some to life.

Write
Write
Write
Avoid prologues
Excise skippableness
Read aloud
Cut
Rewrite
Safeguard text
Hold attentions
Don’t whine
Show friends
Pray
Read often
Write quickly
Quality later
Title early
Less Internet
Hide thesaurus(es)
Change mind
Create rhythms
Reread, rewrite
Trash it
Memorize poems
Take walks
Forget posterity
Love survives
Write privately
Shun commerciality
Better-ize autocorrection

Journal entries
Regrets fuel
Simultaneous ideation
Beware! Clichés!
Write daily
Give up
Come back
Persevere
Use pens
Use pencils
Type
Fill pages
Take stands
Be accurate
Necessity matters
“Realness” doesn’t
Break rules
Change it
Changes you
Frees you
Have fun
Marry believers
Be childless
Shun reviews
No shit-taking
Autobiographical inventions
Uninteresting verbs
Cut metaphors
Cut similes
Magic aloud
Trust readers
Discipline
Eliminate interferences
Finish it
Put aside
Read anew
Fix it
Keep moving
Assurance
Confidence
Say something
Master jokes
Choose understandability
Increase vocabulary
Read widely
Read discriminately
Study others
Have experiences
Have humility
Push limits
Defend others
Defend writing(s)
Defend yourself
No fear
Love writing
Edit
Write

There’s a Part Two to this article!

87 misrepresentations from Part One is enough. I’m off to read the second part. But first, three rules verbatim:

“Fiction that isn’t an author’s personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn’t worth writing for anything but money.” –Jonathan Franzen

“Only bad writers think that their work is really good.” –Anne Enright

“Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome.” –David Hare

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Esquire’s ‘The Language of Men’

Dippold — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:36:00 +0000

“Dude” is declared dead. “Cool” has been banned. You could and should be spouting euphemistic phrases like “wetting the sugar” and “spreading the mulch.”

Esquire’s set of articles, The Language of Men reports on current state of the male lexicon. Words to use more of, words to eschew. You’ll learn plenty of new slang and euphemisms; great quotes for many occasions; how to pray; archaic phrases in need of revival; etc.

I already twittered some of more colorful words and phrases for drunk. Here’s all of them from the article:

ossified, pifflicated, plonked, plotzed, polluted, activated, banjaxed, bewottled, bruised, comboozelated, corned, electrified, fractured, honked, lathered, pafisticated, parboiled, pickled, put to bed with a shovel, scammered, schnoggered, soggy, steamed up, swozzled, walking on rocky socks, zunked

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Less hyphenated words in new dictionary

Dippold — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:46:08 +0000

Reuters reports on the new absence of so many previous hyphenated words in the new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Some of the 16,000 hyphenation changes in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, sixth edition:

Formerly hyphenated words split in two:

fig leaf

hobby horse

ice cream

pin money

pot belly

test tube

water bed

Formerly hyphenated words unified in one:

bumblebee

chickpea

crybaby

leapfrog

logjam

lowlife

pigeonhole

touchline

waterborne

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