Category Archives: Words

Words Per Day

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Tree cutting on the island.

Well, I said i was going to talk about word targets, so here I am. I have Checked the shopping list for Saturday, read emails (there were just two), checked WP (again, just a couple of comments, not needing much work) and turned to blogging. It is now 7.53 and I got out of bed at 7.31. That’s 22 minutes.

I didn’t experience an avalanche of regrets from people who preferred word counts to woodpeckers, so I’m going to take it that nobody is too concerned about the subject, except me and maybe a few passing writers.

Hemingway did 500 a day, Stephen King does 2,000 and a lot of people are somewhere in between. A thousand words a day seems to suit many people. I have written several book length accumulations of words and know that I can certainly do 1,000 to 2,000 a day. For an average sort of novel that means You should be able to do it in three months. At that rate, I can also polish a lot of it as I go along. What I can’t do is all the other stuff that goes into it. I end up, like Dr Frankenstein, with a pile of spare parts stitched together with good intentions (I think that’s part of a quote from Augusten Burroughs –  I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. My words do not live, and they certainly don’t build into a book. That’s why I turned to blogging (which is just rambling) and poetry, where you can get away with a handful or words, some mystery and a decent editor. Indecent editors, in case you are wondering, are the ones who don’t recognise my talent.

Mandarin drake at Arnot Hill Park, Nottinghamshire

Even with a diversion to check numbers and the quote I have just done 224 words in 14 minutes. Words aren’t the problem. Even good words aren’t the problem. The problem is that I’ve just gone back to add a bit and that’s another 6 minutes gone.

I’m now suspending writing at 8.12 to make breakfast for Julia as she is going out this morning and I try to be attentive.

But first, I will kill another minute or two reading back what I just wrote. That’s what writers do.

I bet Stephen King doesn’t have to stop and make breakfast for his wife. He probably has a housekeeper. I’ve read his book about writing but I don’t think he covers domestic staff.

8.14, I’m definitely going . . .

9.12 and I’m back. We had a moderate breakfast as Julia won’t be home until early afternoon, chatted and watched birds on the feeders. Nothing happened that needs noting down and it’s time to get back to work.

Nuthatch at Rufford Abbey

I was going well, but the pause has stopped me in my tracks. I re-read what I wrote earlier and am now staring at the screen. A lesser man would have writer’s block, I just can’t think of anything to say right now.

I’m examining word count from the point of view of a man trying to do many things. Tomorrow, for instance, I will be baking, amongst other things. I once read something that said it takes about fifteen minutes to change tasks and get back into the next one. That’s why multi-tasking, despite its almost mythic status, doesn’t really work. I researched that while I was working in the office at Quercus, as we used to call the corner with the desk in it.

That’s one of my problems with productivity, I’m trying to do too many things at a time and each one swallows up a small portion of time as you swap between them. It might be more like 5 minutes than the 15 minutes the research suggests, but do it a dozen times a day and that’s an hour gone for no result.

There’s also the time spent on research. Sometimes I can rip through something fairly quickly if I’m carrying the facts in my head (though they still need checking). Other times it takes a long time to gather all the facts and get them into order. It’s an imprecise calculation because sometimes I know what I need, or know where to look. Other times I just have to search, and search . . .

Gadwall

An example of that is a group of medals I’ve just been researching. Just before calling it finished, I checked the article and decided to run a quick newspaper search on his sons.  One went farming in Kenya after WW2 (having served in the Army since before the Great War). His grave showed him as a Lt Colonel, but I had a gap between him retiring in the late 1930s and reappearing on a gravestone in 1955. Reports of his death, which were printed in several newspapers, indicated that he had been in the Home Guard in WW2, before going to Kenya to farm. He had been gored by a rhinoceros which charged him as he was walking with his wife near their farm house. He pushed her behind a thorn bush for safety and tried to fight off the rhino with his walking stick. It has little to recommend it in some ways, as I was really researching the father, but it’s an interesting story to round things off. However, it probably took me half an hour to find the three reports and patch them together. It’s taken me a while here, as I’ve amended the last paragraph a couple of times to make it flow.

9.39 now. By the time I finish, I will have done a thousand words, just like a proper writer. It’s easier, of course, when you can just ramble rather than having to worry about plots and pacing and possibly, with my thoughts on detective fiction, probably poisons. Prussic acid, strychnine or perhaps the poisonous mushroom tha is only lethal when taken with alcohol. Sorry, I just wandered off to have a look at poisonous mushrooms. The facts don’t seem quite as cut and dried as stories I have read about it. It would be great if you wanted to make someone very ill, less good if you wanted to kill them. And it took me eight minutes to read.

Lomg Tailed Tit at Rufford Abbey

9.49 and I have passed 1,000 words. So, my point for today is that words are simple, even in quantity, but organisation and research, and domestic tasks, are making me less efficient. I will think about this, as I think their are large efficiencies to be had from organising, making lists and doing the research before the writing rather than alongside. If anyone has hints of efficiency please let me know.

1087 Words. 9.52. Allowing an hour for breakfast that’s a thousand words an hour. A touch over that if you add the final reading I just did.

Now, in my disorganised way, I will waste some time wondering what to do next . . .

They say, in case you are interested, that Edgar Wallace could write a 70,000 word novel in 3 days, using wax cylinder recordings and secretaries. That’s quick.

Heron at Arnot Hill Park

The Mystery of Editors and Some Thoughts on Writer’s Block

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

I had my first acceptance from the July submissions on Monday. It was a tanka that had actually been rejected in June, but after a quick check I decided that it was ready to go again.  It was part of a group of nine that had been returned after the tenth was accepted, so I only needed to write one to make the submission up to ten.

It’s one of the age-old questions writers have. I send out ten poems, one is accepted, does that mean the other nine are not good enough?

Sometimes I’ve had an editor ask if they can hold one over for the next edition. I always say yes to that – it saves me work and I assume it saves them work too. If it wasn’t for editors there wouldn’t be any magazines. And if there were no editors and magazines there would be no competition for publication. That’s why I mainly only blog poems that have been published – it means that someone who knows more about it than I do has decided that it merits space.

I’ve also had editors select two or three poems (very, very rarely) and a couple of times they have told me the rest weren’t bad, just not what they wanted for the moment, and I could submit them again at the next submission window. This is very rare – remember we are talking about something in the region of 400 submissions and this sort of thing has happened a handful of times.

Photo by Burst on Pexels.com

It all tends to indicate that several of the ten are publishable, and that they can all be recycled. That’s why I like editors who give quick decisions. If they reject something in the first few weeks, I can use them for another submissions and don’t need to write as much.

This may be a bad attitude, and more akin to the approach of a  worker on a production line than an artist but  this month I’ve just had an article on collectables published in a magazine, plus four Facebook articles for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire and  a couple of longer articles  for the Peterborough Military History Group. If I waited for aesthetics and inspiration to align I’d struggle. Dawn comes, I drag myself from bed, I make tea, then I start writing. I hate mornings. I like tea and I like writing. I have no time for Writer’s Block and curlicues. And I’m more likely to suffer from dehydration than a shortage of words. I have no time for the introspection in the article behind the link. It’s very interesting, and more than slightly familiar, but I can’t afford to let such thoughts take root.

Photo by Roman Koval on Pexels.com

 

Two New Words

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I have a Word of the Day sent to my email every day, and don’t normally open the message as they aren’t often new words to me. Yesterday I got the word canicular. I wasn’t familiar with it so I clicked to read. It means “of or relating to the period between early July and early September when hot weather occurs in the northern hemisphere”.

So that would be “summer”.

I’m not sure I can think of a use for canicular. Apart from the sentence “I’m not sure I can think of a use for canicular”.

That might be the last time I use it unless I need a rhyme for funicular and have already used particular. That is, realistically speaking, an unlikely scenario. For several reasons.

I do have another new word if you want one – shitsuren. It’s Japanese and it means “broken heart”, “unrequited love” or “disappointed love”. It’s probably as useless as canicular, but much more fun to use. And if I ever write my Limerick cycle on the US Presidents, I will have a rhyme for Martin van Buren.

More About Words

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I’ve been looking at the list of words that should be banned from poems, as mentioned in a previous post. They have been nagging at me since I looked at the list in preparing the post. I’m now worried that I’m unacceptable as a writer because I’m using unacceptable words.

To get things straight, I’m going to carry on using the word “rectal” no matter what. The amount of times I’ve been in hospital recently I want to be very clear when discussing thermometers as the consequences of a mix up could disturb my dreams for a very long time.

The same goes for the following list, though for different reasons. Ammonite, blob, candyfloss, daffodil, destiny, fester, frond, golden, gossamer, heartbreak, Jesus, mango, milt, poised, prayer, shimmer, shriek, snot, soul, sunset, tesserae and ziggurat.

They are mostly unexceptional words and if you are writing about fossils, flowers or fish breeding you are probably going to struggle to do without them. We went to Cirencester once, where they have a great display of Roman mosaics. It would be tough to visit without being armed with the word tesserae. Same would apply if I ever visited a museum of Assyrian temples. There are just some words you can’t do without.

I daren’t use the word shards, because it’s been universally decried over the years, and anyway, if I need to discuss broken pots with an archaeologist I’m sure that potsherds, as they used to be called in my youth, will suffice.

I can’t say the same for some of the other words. Some are just dreadful words – loo and humdinger – and have no part in my vocabulary. When the world is so full of words for toilet (yes, I know it’s non-U) why bother to use one so loaded with class connotations? We have bog, jakes, ajax, thunderbox, water-closet, house of ease, WC, to name a few of te politer ones. (No thesaurus was used in the listing of loo substitutes, I just have a very unsophisticated vocabulary). As for humdinger, I really don’t have a use for it. If something is splendid I shall say so. I don’t need humdinger and I certainly don’t need awesome. Awesome isn’t actually on the list – but unless something inspires awe it’s not necessary. That, of course, is just mt biased opinion.

You then move on to archaic. over-used and complicated words – epiphany, harbinger, hark, lambent, myriad and sapient. I have used several of them in prose, but they are a bit overdone in poetry. However, if I ever need to write a poem about a hard of hearing, knowledgeable forerunner who gets licked by a lot, and I mean a lot, of intellectuals and experiences a life-changing moment, I may have to use them.

That leaves palimpsest, plethora and snedder.

I like palimpsest, though I have never used it. I don’t tend to write about re-used parchment. I have used plethora recently. As for snedder, there’s a limited number of times you can use it. Seamus Heaney, as far as I know, only used it once. That’s probably once more than most of us will use it. Unless you write poems about turnips.

 

 

 

 

Words, words, words

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I need 250 words and I’m struggling so find them. Well, that’s not strictly accurate, I have access to a head full of words but they need putting down in the right order, and it needs doing quickly because I have other jobs to do.

Biblioperigrination is always a good word but it has limited use – partly because there are only so many stories you can tell about books wandering round a house, and partly because it’s one I made up, so few other people understand or use it. I could cite previous uses, but that would involve me…

… for evidence of previous use see this link on biblioperigrination. It suddenly occurred to me that I could use the Reader function to search for it. It was a lonely post, sitting there on its own, but at least it saved me searching through months of posts.

This leads on to tsundoku. It’s not such a lonely search as there are a number of people who have blogged on the subject before.

I’ve just consigned 43 words to oblivion. I didn’t like the way they fitted, and as they were all common words (as in plentiful, rather than in sitting round watching horse racing from Kempton Park whilst drinking supermarket lager straight from the can). Other race courses and cheap alcohols are available.

Having said that, alternative venues and drinks may not convey the same picture. Watching racing from Goodwood whilst drinking brown ale from the bottle conveys a more summery and 1950s picture – I almost expect the Larkins to pop up somewhere.

Before I go on, and I admit I can go on a bit, my knowledge of the racing venues of the UK is not based on years of building up interesting material for my life story, just on years of dealing in collectables. Race courses issue passes to their members and these passes are collected. You need to know the courses, their size and if they are still open.

My knowledge of cheap alcohol, on the other hand, is based on a more hands-on approach, and a wide-ranging testing programme that has left me with several gaps in my memories of the 1980s. My current attitude to drinking, which is one of the few things about my lifestyle to draw approval from my doctor, is actually the result of accidental aversion therapy.

A similar approach to curry, kebabs, chips and fried chicken has yet to show any result. Well, not entirely true. It has yet to show any positive result. Again, alternatives are available – burgers, baltis and bacon cobs being the more northern form and tripe and trotters taking us back to the 1950s again.

My extensive knowledge of junk food has just frightened me.

However, by the magic of blogging I have now produced over 450 words, and telling you this has just added another twenty to the total. I can now bring this post to a close, apologise for the lack of photographs (food is never around long enough for  a photograph) and get off to do the washing.

I’m tempted to bring it home wet, as Storm Brian is providing some pretty brisk drying weather.

 

 

 

Books, Books, Books…

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I’m in the middle of sorting my books out. They aren’t necessarily the biggest problem in my life, but they are one that I can do something about. I don’t feel too bad about getting rid of books because they can go to friends, neighbours and charity shops.

Clothes can go to charity shops too, as can various other things, but I feel guilty about merely throwing things away. After years of keeping things “because they may come in useful”, I have a lot of useless junk, but keep hold of it because…well, you can guess.

Some of it is actually second and third hand, having been passed on to me by my father and grandfather. If you ever need a tester for thermionic valves or a magnifier for a 1950s TV screen I have one. (My grandfather was part of group that built their own TV sets in 1953 in time for the Coronation, in case you were wondering.) On the other hand, if you want stationery in pre-decimal sizes, my father has provided me with a large selection.

However, back to books.Do you know how many words there are to describe conditions related to books?

Try these.

Bibliophilia – love of books

Bibliomania – accumulating books, including multiple copies, books of no collectable or financial value and numbers of books far beyond the collector’s capacity to read them.

Bibliophagy – book eating

Bibliokleptomania – compulsive book theft

Bibliotaphy – book burying

My favourite is a word my sister recently emailed me, with the words “I think this applies to us.”

Tsundoku, a Japanese word meaning the state of buying books and storing them without reading them.

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So many books, so little time

I hold my hands up to bibliophilia, bibliomania and tsundoku.

I’m even considering Bibliophagy, on the grounds that books are high in fibre and low on digestible calories.

If you put them through the shredder a book has to be at lest as tasty as the spiralised butternut squash “noodles” we had last week.