Word Geek

If you are like a lot of people, you probably do some form of writing now and again. And no I don't mean any sort of dissertation on who was a better captain, James Kirk or Malcolm Reynolds, although I would be interested. I've been writing since I was old enough to hold a pencil. My first fit of writing fancy was a small construction paper book about a day at the beach which I made at the tender age of five. Probably my only great literary work to date. I love the meaning, the nuance, and the pure sadistic fun of stringing words together. I have actually looked up words in the dictionary just to learn the meanings. Now its time to put my words to better use rather than torturing my readers with yet more terrible puns.

There is even a month to celebrate putting large amounts of words together. November is National Novel writing month. So get out your laptops and start typing. At the Nanowrimo website you can sign up for your own novel writing challenge - write a novel (50,000 words) in a month. Of course its a huge undertaking. That's why its a challenge. Need help? How about a quick guide to writing a novel in 100 days? But you still only get 30 days for the challenge. Sorry.

Wonderful podcasts can help get you moving, answer those hard writing questions, and interview people who write for a living. Mur Lafferty always makes me laugh and her podcasts are a great place to sample some of her writing as well as great info on writing. You can find her at I Should be Writing, Geek Fu Action Grip, and one of her stories was featured recently at my favorite place for podcasted short stories Escape Pod.

Of course writing means using a lot of words. If you want to get wordly adventurous or double check your facts, Wikipedia is a great place to go. There's now also a wiki for quotes, a dictionary & thesaurus, and free textbooks. Everything you could ever need to be accurate (or inaccurate; hey, its your story).

But don't forget your most basic tool: your imagination. Go get your word geek on. Maybe you'll be the next Salinger. Because its definitely not going to be me.

This has been your fascination facilitation word Geek Find of the Day.