Word Nerd Linkage

It's a day late for Word Nerd Wednesday, so I thought I'd do something a little different: show you some of my favorite nerdy places to hang out.

Oxford Dictionaries Online and their Word World blog brings me no end of joy. I follow their Twitter stream, and it always points me toward posts that cheer the nerd inside me. (Up today: Five Events that Shaped the History of English)

Check out this fun Michigan Today post about obscure words. (It even mentions mondegreens, which we talked about more than a year ago HERE. In related news, we bought Mad Gab for Christmas.)

Grammar Girl. I'm going to admit here that I first learned about Mignon Fogarty, known better as Grammar Girl, when she appeared on Oprah to clear up some grammar confusion. She has a great podcast and blog (and a book and regular vlogs on YouTube) where she addresses a wealth of grammar and usage issues. (I admit I've learned a few things from her.)

"The Alot" on Hyperbole and a Half. The writer here is hysterically funny and does a few other posts related to language, like the one on the semi colon. (Note that the entire blog isn't about language or punctuation, and some posts are somewhat PG-13, definitely not appropriate for kids.)

Fake Editor and Fake AP Stylebook. Both of these are on Twitter, and their streams keep me in stitches. (November had a Fake NaNo Tips feed. Holy crimeny, I laughed.)

Also on Twitter, and showing that his wit is just as sharp with 140 characters as it is on the silver screen, is Steve Martin. He's a great writer as well as actor, and his tweets show an awesome grasp of not only what Twitter is (and how to poke fun at it) but how to craft a great tweet with the language. (Like how he used "FYI" and went on to explain that it means "for your information" but FYI is shorter . . . all in the same tweet.)

Common Errors in English. This site is a treasure trove of information. Stuck on whether it's wrack your brain or rack your brain? What about the difference between discreet and discrete? The guy behind the site is thorough and easy to understand, and the it's all arranged alphabetically. Just click on the letter of the word you're wondering about. (He has a book version and a calendar. I think I need that.)

Proofreader's Marks, courtesy Merriam-Webster. I do a lot of freelance editing, and while most in digital, every so often I get a hard-copy job. Once or twice, I'll get a brain freeze (which was the right way to insert a hyphen?), so I pull up this bookmarked site and double-check.

National Punctuation Day. Yes, it has its own website. Remember this one when September rolls around.

Funds for Writers has been listed as one of the top 101 best web sites for writers by Writers Digest for over a decade. It's a fantastic resource. (Tooting my horn here: I won the 2009 essay contest. Felt kinda cool.) The owner, C. Hope Clark, has a sister blog, updated regularly in addition to putting out three regular newsletters with oodles of great information for writers.

Not that I'm even a little biased (Hahahaaa!) but I think Precision Editing Group's Writing on the Wall blog is pretty great too.

I could list more word and writing-related sites, but I'll stop there and leave you with one that's for the pure fun of it. It's where we see inside the lives of the people who inhabit those picture-perfect catalogs like Pottery Barn: Catalog Living.

Check it out and laugh.

Why I Am (and Will Be) Crazy

I have decided to dip my toes into uncharted waters. (And possibly mix metaphors in the process . . .)

Novembers past used to be the most insane time of the year for me. And that didn't count preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The whirlwind used to be because of my work as assistant director of the Utah Chocolate Show. Even after I pulled away from that (something had to give, and it wasn't going to be family or my writing), the fall was almost always loaded with book promotions (when I had a fall release) PLUS trying to get my latest book polished up and ready for submission.

This year, I have none of those excuses. (Okay, I do have the promotional excuse with THIS beauty, but not the "get that book turned in" one, nor do I have the chocolate show one. Oh, and yeah, I guess I did promise to get a rewrite back to my editor ASAP. I'll do both. I swear.)

As one writer on the Kindle boards put it, if you're a writer and don't have a good reason to not to NaNoWriMo, you should do it. He says it's "like jury duty." (Only I'll add: more fun. I hope.)

For my non-writer friends, here's what's I'm talking about, a song that explains why November is going to be NUTS.

(It's a song parody on one of my old favorites, "That Good Ol' A Capella." I love the version sung by The Nylons.)

That's the gist.

Basically, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's when thousands of writers use that month to write a brand-spanking new manuscript in one month: 50,000 words of one, at least.

(That's usually not a full novel unless we're talking a Middle Grade book. My novels range from about 75,000 to 115,000 Still.)

Let's spell it out:

FIFTY.

THOUSAND.

WORDS.

IN.

ONE.

MONTH.

For pantsers (people who have no clue where their story is going and just write), it can be a nightmare. For outliners, October is NaNo prep month, where they make lists of scenes and plot out their stories. I think I'll be somewhere in the middle.

Why am I doing it? Because I'm in a weird writing funk, and I think it'll take something drastic like 50K in a month to knock me out of it. I've got a couple of book ideas rattling about in my head. I've picked which to use, figured out some scenes and major characters and plot elements, but I should have outlined it. (Although I've always landed in the middle of the panster/outliner spectrum, so maybe I'm okay . . . I hope.)

So, my beloved readers, here's how this will affect you:

With the exception of a few posts here and there, I won't be blogging much in November unless it's to give a brief update on my madness and/or put up a progress toolbar so I can be publicly humiliated if I don't reach my goal.

I'll be largely absent from Facebook and Twitter. I'll try to keep my e-mail time minimal. (I can't NOT have SOME e-mail. I'm not a caveman.) I may treat myself to a Google Reader fest to check blogs if I've reached my word count for the day.

But if I don't swing by your blog in November, don't feel neglected.

Know it's nothing personal. I'm just feverishly losing my mind as my keyboard smokes.