WordVixen.com

Oh yes- the infamous Rabbitania post. Want to feel better about your writing skillz? Just a quick glance at this list of stinkers from submissions to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine should make you feel a lot better about your writing.

At least, until you remember that you’re competing against good writers, not the bad ones. But, at least, you’ll get a laugh. Maybe tears. Maybe nightmares. But laughs.

My original intention for this post was just to mention the Goog’s PR updates. I haven’t managed to recapture PR on my blogs, but VixenCrafts has hit a PR2 (yay!), and BandVox is holding steady at PR, um, 2. Despite my not posting on either for several months. And The Nicher is a PR2 as well, though I only started it a month or two ago, and only post when I want to talk about my affiliate marketing projects.

But then, I started thinking about naught. A lot of my British friends say “naught” where we would normally say “zero” or “nothing”. I was just thinking of how to word the post title, and “not naught” popped into my head. And then I realized- not is naught.

Ok, so it was just a theory. But I thought about it some more (I was in the shower, otherwise I’d have looked it up instead). Saying something is not something else, or that you’re not doing something is like saying you’re doing zero of whatever. Think of it this way. “I’m picking up zero clothes” is the same as “I’m not picking up any clothes”.

And then I got out of the shower and looked it up.

Can you believe that I was actually right? Etymology is a wonderful thing. I looked up etymonline and did a search for “not”. And up comes

not
negative particle,
c.1250, unstressed variant of noht, naht “in no way” (see naught). As an
interjection to negate what was said before or reveal it as sarcasm, it is first
attested 1900; popularized 1989 by “Wayne’s World” sketches on “Saturday Night
Live” TV show. To not know X from Y (one’s ass from one’s elbow, shit from
Shinola, etc.) was a construction first attested c.1930. Shinola was a brand of
shoe polish. Double negative construction not un- was derided by Orwell, but is
persistent and ancient in English, popular with Milton and the Anglo-Saxon
poets.

So there you go. The next time you’re searching for something clever for a character to say, or just an unusual way to say it- go ahead and bring your thesaurus. But check out a word’s origins too. You never know what you’ll come up with.

And by the way, don’t you just love how they use shinola as an example?

I know I missed My Town Monday this week (again)- despite having all the pics. Sundays are spent cooking for the week, and last night I was baking a cake (to use up the over ripe bananas), and bran muffins (they’re good for you! even if the chocolate chips aren’t), and breakfast for the week, and something for last night. Yeah. I was cooking for over two hours.

Plus I’ve been feeling really blah for the past few days. I swear I had a slight fever, but I’m not convinced that I’m sick. I do suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder year round, though. I work second shift, and my tiny, dirty window at the office is often blocked by trucks. So, lousy lighting. And the artificial sunlight lamp buzzes when it’s on, so that drains my brain too.

I tend to binge on things, and it seems to go in cycles. Around winter, all I want to do is craft and make jewelry. Summer, I just want to read. Internet, writing, and movie watching are kinda up for grabs. Right now, I’m burned out on the internet.

So, I’m going to take a few days and just relax. Do exactly what I want to do, whenever I feel like doing it. Maybe even clean the bath tub. Obviously this only counts during non-work hours, and when I’m not doing necessary things like washing dishes and cooking. Usually a few days of just hanging out fixes me right up for a month or two. Sometimes just the plan to relax gets my creative juices flowing again, and I never actually take my break.

Which is why I’m saying that I may be here, and may not be. The way I usually work, now that I said I probably won’t be around, I’ll be everywhere! It happens.

I’ll try to keep up with reading most of your blogs, and may post here. You may not even notice that I’m missing- but comments will probably be low for a bit, and I won’t be hanging around Twitter as much until I’m feeling productive again. Right now, I just really want to talk my husband into watching Enchanted with me, and catching up on those extras on DVDs that we’ve already watched. I want to keep my progress going on my WIP (7 pages on the weekend, another 1-2 last night before I got trapped in the kitchen). And, maybe play some games.

I’m gonna relax. Be back soon.