Suggested Word List
Previously on POSSIBLE INSECT SWARMS AHEAD, readers suggested some words for my novel. So far these have helped greatly, in one part adding a sequence involving strange office politics that included arguments over what constitutes an actual long word and a series of violent explosions that ended up clearing out some plot problems in my effort to use the word peripheral.
The list and its victims so far:
- Narcissistic
MagniloquentAmpersandAntidisestablishmentarianismSesquipedalian- Assonance
- Rapscallion
Peripheral- Euphoric
- Psyche
Three of the words seem destined for an as-yet-unintroduced character, namely, the villain. Assonance, you’re on notice.
As Promised: Excerpts
First, I present to you a paragraph that wierded me out as I wrote it. It seems that there are strange recesses of my brain that want to relate the unrelatable. (please note that there is deliberate wordiness and not editedness):
Sarah and Henry arrived safely at the airport. After successfully avoiding a random car search upon arriving at the airport, she pulled the car to a stop beside the large main building of the airport, the one with the tall windows and a steep, graceful curve of a the concrete roof. For some reason, the building made Henry think of Audrey Hepburn. Maybe it was because of the word graceful. He wondered if she ever flew in or out of Dulles. Certainly, she must have, thought Henry. Sarah wondered what Henry was looking at, so she asked him. “It’s a good looking building,” said Henry.
The single word I am most ashamed of in my burgeoning novel:
Islamofascism
My first (and probably not last) depiction of casual drug use:
Michael shoved a hand into a pocket and extracted a short orange prescription pill bottle. He stuck it out into the air between Henry and himself. “Sleep deprive yourself a bit tonight, then swallow one of these at take off. I can’t sleep in hotel rooms and I’m sure it would work just as well on a 14 hour flight to Baghdad,” said Michael.
Finally, an excerpt illustrating modern consumerism:
Bryan was enjoying the day on his ass in front of the TV. But it was not any TV. It was a 50-inch Liquid Crystal Display High Definition Television. After rebates and convincing the manager to give him a price match on a similar TV at a competitor, the piece of consumer electronics now standing, imposing itself, in the front of the Rogers’ living room cost a cool $1300 plus taxes. Bryan considered it to be the best $1300 plus taxes he ever spent. He watched reruns of M*A*S*H on that TV that made Alan Alda’s head uncomfortably large. The day before, he watched football and the linebackers looked like they might have been life sized. The Home Shopping Network’s baubles looked the like the pieces of junk they probably are. He rented some Chinese movie—Hero—and watched Jet Li kick ass in the biggest way viewable in the modern American single-family home.
And that’s all I’m giving you until April and you’re one of my selected 2nd draft readers.
Tags: {friends, nanowrimo}
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I don’t have a TV.
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— Whitney 11/19/2005 11:37 AM #
The number of times you use the words “the airport” in the first sentence causes me actual, physical pain. But I realize that you are doing it on purpose.
If you change the second sentence in the last paragragh to read “But it was not just any old tv,” it will actually make more sense AND contain more words.
— The Girl 11/19/2005 08:52 PM #