Did you know that William Shakespeare (yes, the guy wot wrote the plays) used about 17,000 different words in his writing, and he MADE UP about 1,700 of them. I read it on Yahoo, so it must be true.
Wouldn’t it be great if writers had such freedom now? Instead of spending hours checking thesauri (is that the plural of thesaurus?), dictionaries etc. etc. we could just make up new words to fit. I have never known how to properly describe the feeling you get when you have lined up outside a store for hours in a sale and an old lady barges in front of you to grab YOUR coveted item. It’s an old lady, what can you do, without risking a felony charge? Anger? Frustration? Rage? – none of them even come near it. How about Incanplosive? Strangulacious? No, no, they still do not properly express your feelings.
I think Lewis Carroll got it right when he wrote Jabberwocky - `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.’ If he wrote that today, we would all assume he had written it after a night out with the boys, forgotten to turn on his autocorrect, forgotten to run spell check AND had not bothered to get it professionally edited. But in those days (1872) he could get away with it.
Enough of this now. If I carry on, I will be tempted to primple the whole thing out of all bulgatiousness, and I think we all agree, that would be very frangimlish.
Please do not think I am always complaining, I try very hard not to, but I fail a lot. I keep trying to convince myself that things really are not bad at all really in the book world. Writers can hold their published work in their hand in professional paperback form without it costing them a penny (see my book ‘Publish for free’ on Smashwords, or let me send it to you for nothing if you subscribe to my blog. Look for the box somewhere on this page).
Readers can pick up amazing books for 99 cents or for free – so no-one can ever say anymore that they cannot afford to buy a book. I have made my feelings well known in earlier blogs about the low prices of ebooks - but that is another matter.
If you want to learn anything, there are plenty of self help guides available – again for free, so you can learn computer programming, any foreign language you like, plumbing, ferret breeding, .... absolutely anything – it’s all there in your ipad, phone, computer, whatever.
We really are lucky, and pampered. We have to make so little effort these days. I suppose we should embrace and welcome all these positive things – I guess we have no choice anyway.
There are still things I WILL complain about though, just to get it off my chest.
1. Why can I not get Google Analytics to work? – Yes, there is a help section, but there is not a ‘help you understand the help’ section.
2. Am I the only one who cannot believe the level of repeats on the television? I sometimes think I am in a time warp which I will never get out of when I see the same thing not just one or two times, but time after time after time – do not the many adverts we are subjected to pay them enough to make new ones? Obviously not.
3. My third and final gripe (yes, that’s a real word – look it up). Unsolicited texts, and phone calls – especially with machines at the end. (I will put up with unsolicited letters – I feel empowered when I throw them away). I long ago decided that I would NEVER buy anything that was promoted in such a way – if we all did that they would soon stop doing it.
There, I feel much better now. It really does help to ‘get it off your chest’ as they say. I wonder where that saying came from – it really is rather ridiculous! It’s a funny old world.
On Friday I will be blasting another blog your way – it may or may not be up to much, sign up to make sure that you do not miss out on my mediocrity.
If you are new to my blog, you should know that each blog is unashamedly accompanied by various fluffy balls of cuteness. They make me feel better, maybe they will do the same for you!
Bye for now, and happy writing. Arthur.
I think Lewis Carroll got it right when he wrote Jabberwocky - `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.’ If he wrote that today, we would all assume he had written it after a night out with the boys, forgotten to turn on his autocorrect, forgotten to run spell check AND had not bothered to get it professionally edited. But in those days (1872) he could get away with it.
Enough of this now. If I carry on, I will be tempted to primple the whole thing out of all bulgatiousness, and I think we all agree, that would be very frangimlish.
Please do not think I am always complaining, I try very hard not to, but I fail a lot. I keep trying to convince myself that things really are not bad at all really in the book world. Writers can hold their published work in their hand in professional paperback form without it costing them a penny (see my book ‘Publish for free’ on Smashwords, or let me send it to you for nothing if you subscribe to my blog. Look for the box somewhere on this page).
Readers can pick up amazing books for 99 cents or for free – so no-one can ever say anymore that they cannot afford to buy a book. I have made my feelings well known in earlier blogs about the low prices of ebooks - but that is another matter.
If you want to learn anything, there are plenty of self help guides available – again for free, so you can learn computer programming, any foreign language you like, plumbing, ferret breeding, .... absolutely anything – it’s all there in your ipad, phone, computer, whatever.
We really are lucky, and pampered. We have to make so little effort these days. I suppose we should embrace and welcome all these positive things – I guess we have no choice anyway.
There are still things I WILL complain about though, just to get it off my chest.
1. Why can I not get Google Analytics to work? – Yes, there is a help section, but there is not a ‘help you understand the help’ section.
2. Am I the only one who cannot believe the level of repeats on the television? I sometimes think I am in a time warp which I will never get out of when I see the same thing not just one or two times, but time after time after time – do not the many adverts we are subjected to pay them enough to make new ones? Obviously not.
3. My third and final gripe (yes, that’s a real word – look it up). Unsolicited texts, and phone calls – especially with machines at the end. (I will put up with unsolicited letters – I feel empowered when I throw them away). I long ago decided that I would NEVER buy anything that was promoted in such a way – if we all did that they would soon stop doing it.
There, I feel much better now. It really does help to ‘get it off your chest’ as they say. I wonder where that saying came from – it really is rather ridiculous! It’s a funny old world.
On Friday I will be blasting another blog your way – it may or may not be up to much, sign up to make sure that you do not miss out on my mediocrity.
If you are new to my blog, you should know that each blog is unashamedly accompanied by various fluffy balls of cuteness. They make me feel better, maybe they will do the same for you!
Bye for now, and happy writing. Arthur.
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