Word Pirates

Dear Tiny:
I’m a geeky bookworm, so I don’t attract guys. But lately my other bookwormy friends have been getting attention from boys. What can I do to have them notice me too?
- Easy Reader
(Via)
(I’m totally copying Bookslut in this entry.)
~ Joy

I do not think everyone should be a writer, but I do think that everyone should write… or paint, or craft, or build things, or bake. You can make a pretty strong argument that the point of life–or one of them anyway–is to create. Or maybe I just come from a family of artists/craftsmen, so […]

I hate coming up with a title for something I’ve written! I hate it, and I am really terrible at it. Of course, a title isn’t more important than your writing. However, I think the title is an important part of the work.
So I am completely amused and surprised by the, well, terrible titles F. […]

Librarything is a site where you can catalog your books. There’s a group on the site, titled “I See Dead People’s Books,” that collected the collections of some famous dead folks.
Always wonder if Tupac Shakur and Marie Antoinette read the same books? Now you can find out! (I’ll spoil this one for you … […]

Now, these are tattoos I like.
Sample:
~ Joy

Following yesterday’s post, what happens if David Foster Wallace is stranded on a desert island? (Via)
~ Joy

Don DeLillo in The Onion magazine:

~ Joy

I enjoyed Slate’s poetry FAQ, where Robert Pinsky answered “frequently asked questions about the business of verse.” It made me want to re-read William Carlos Williams.
9. Well, I like poetry that is amusing, that maybe makes me chuckle a little. I’d rather read something reassuring and light than something complicated or gloomy. Is that bad? […]

I prefer the somewhat utilitarian trade paperback to the hardcover book. I usually take off the jacket and am left with a bland inflexible book. However! I saw photos of the elaborate jacket and cover design for Michael Chabon’s new book “Maps and Legends.” And wow. Cool and pretty! Also: If you remove the jacket […]

Horton, my favorite—look how he’s been treated
Stuffed with tinsels and tassels and promptly excreted!
The puns! And the filler! The script fees you must save!
While I tumble and grum-humble around in my grave.

More here.
Via Bookninja.
~ Joy

Margaret Atwood wrote an intelligent, fascinating article about Anne of Green Gables, which is turning 100 this April. She goes over the history of the book, its continuing popularity, and the life of its author, LM Montgomery. And she asked some Japanese readers why these books are so popular in Japan. (Who knew?) Here are […]

I really enjoyed this list of 100 best last lines from novels–at least what I read of it so far. It reminded me how beautiful the English language can be. Here are a few that I liked:

You have fallen into art- return to life -William H. Gass, Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife (1968)
The offing was barred […]

Here’s an interview with Anita Thompson, wife of Hunter S Thompson. She talks about his last days, what it was like living with him, and the struggle with his estate. It’s all pretty predictable and gossipy, but interesting none-the-less:
“The best thing about our marriage was that it was like being married to a teenage […]

The Huffington Post has a fun thingy — FundRace 2008 –that lets you look up political donations based on all sorts of criteria. Searching for political donations by those who list their occupation as “writer” shows that writers donated almost $2 million … with about $1.7 million of that going to Democrats.
Some people I’ve […]

Word Pirates, let me introduce you to Gender Guesser. It claims it can tell whether a man or a woman is writing a paragraph. See, maybe you didn’t know, but women and men write differently. Men use ACTION verbs and women write about their feelings. Thus, using a handy algorithm, it can predict what sex […]

Every so often my Mom, who is an artist, talks about entering art contests held by, say, the National Parks Foundation or California State Parks. They are what I call literal art contests. They don’t want imagery or symbolism or abstraction–they want pictures of the parks. Half Dome in spring or a deer grazing on […]

I have a really hard time coming up with titles for things that I write, or naming things in general. After coming up with a killer first sentence, I forget that the first thing people will actually read is the damn title.
I normally end up with a boring title, erring on the safe side so […]

Hmmm… What do you think? Should I install a staircase like this in my house?

More here
~ Joy

A racy little digest read about bad girls.
“I’m working as a translator and interpreter now,” I boasted.
“That’s a rather obvious metaphor for someone who lives his life through others,” she observed.
“I’ve been in love with you for 10 years,” I swooned.
“Well, you’re a complete idiot then,” she said, “but if you want to go down […]

Hm. Maybe this is how I should decorate my walls. I must have an old dictionary I can use somewhere…

~ Joy

Maybe I should move? Other places have lower housing prices AND they are more literate overall. According to some people, the most literate cities in the U.S. are:

1. Minneapolis
2. Seattle
3. St. Paul, Minn.
4. Denver
5. Washington, D.C.
6. St. Louis
7. San Francisco
8. Atlanta
9. Pittsburgh
10. Boston

“The rankings, originated and […]

Cocktails inspired by Dickens.
Smoking bishop
“‘A merry Christmas, Bob!’ said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. ‘A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will […]

Here’s a really cool short story by Jennifer Egan in The New Yorker: Found Objects..
~ Joy

I guess technically this tree is made out of trees.
Link

There’s a book, “Toujours Tingo,” that showcases a bunch of unique foreign words that have no English equivalent. In some cases, we just start using these words in everyday English (think schadenfreude or ennui, coincidentally two of my favorite words). I often make up my own words for things. I love the English language and […]

This site features 55-word pieces of fiction. I like the idea of that kind of challenge. I’m not sure of some of the pieces featured on 55 Fiction. But I think it’s something we should all try, even just to make ourselves do something juicy and hooky.
–Marcia

Picture I took in the Mark Twain museum in Hannibal, MO. WPs, I thought of you.
~ Joy

September 19 is Talk Like a Pirate Day! In honor of that, I give you a ridiculous picture of a man who is obviously not a pirate along with some pirate lingo.

Here is some good pirate vocabulary for you to sprinkle into your conversations on this special day:
Ahoy! - “Hello!”
Avast! - Stop and give attention.
Aye! […]

Neato thing to check out: Largehearted Boy has a series in which authors create and discuss a playlist related to their book.
The authors and types of books featured vary. An interesting one was Chuck Klosterman talking about his playlist for “Killing Yourself to Live,” which is about his road trip visiting rock ‘n’ roll death […]

I like typewriters. I want to own a red one someday. Here is a page of amazing vintage typewriters. As far as I know, no famous writers used these typewriters. Still, pretty!

Link via Boing Boing
~ Joy

Word Pirates,
I feel you need to know which Jane Austen heroine I am. Here are the results:
:: L I Z Z Y ::
You are Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice! You are intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive. You have a good head on your […]

A writer for The Guardian judges the books on the Booker list by their covers. Pretty funny, although I’m pretty sure one of the Word Pirates could have done a better job with this concept. Some highlights:
Edward Docx - Self Help
Docx, if cover photos are anything to go by, is good looking and […]

I’ve never actually seen a bookmobile in real life, but I like the idea. Reading is important, blah blah children society. OK, now I can get to the awesome part: bookmules and bookcamels! Children! Excited about books! All right, no more exclamation points.
About bookmules in remote areas of Venezuela:
Anyone who was not out working the […]

Today, I read a post on StreetTech that gave me an idea for something I think as writers we should all take the time to do every once in a while: Let other writers know when their work has inspired us or simply made our day a little brighter.
Gareth Branwyn was relating his stories of […]

Ha! New potential member Ross wrote about the Word Pirates on his blog:
“Pretty good,” I said. “They seem like a good bunch of people. You’d have liked them. Did I tell you the name of the group yet?”
“No,” said Maddie. “At least I don’t remember if you did.”
“They’re called the Word Pirates.”
Maddie’s ears perked […]

Morgan, who is in Europe, sent the Word Pirates a postcard. Here it is:

Front

“Ahoy Word Pirates!
Behold the world famous pirate tower overlooking Ibiza’s Es Vedra island; it took me awhile to find a pirate-themed postcard in Spain, but it was worth the search. Salud!
– Morgan”
Thanks Morgan! Hope you’re having a great trip.

Stephanie sent us an article on piracy but I just want to look at the dog dressed up like a pirate.

New mascot?
Perhaps we should dress my new kitten Quill up as such!
~ Joy

Slate asked some writers what font they preferred. The winner seems to be Courier.
So that’s why I’m not a best-selling writer yet! Stupid Times New Roman…
~ Joy

Quick. Think of a really famous American writer. OK, is this person an alcoholic? Probably! The profession is filled with souses!
Writers – and other artists – are known as booze hounds. No surprise there. But I still find it really fascinating. I am hard-pressed to make a list of great writers that isn’t at least […]

From here.

Hehehe….

According to the search results for this page, many people are throwing pirate-themed bashes. So I will help out those who are looking for ideas by telling you the recipe to the Pirate Cupcakes I made for our reading.

Pirate Cupcakes are rum cakes, of course. Originally I was going to make cupcakes from scratch, […]

The Australian printed an article by Jenny Sinclair, who dislikes writing classes despite being currently enrolled in one right now:
EVERYWHERE I turn, it seems, I see advertisements for writing courses, writing workshops, writing weekends, writing holidays. All of them promise to help participants polish their prose and carve out their characters.
It should be stopped. […]

That’s right, our very own Steve Reid, fearless Word Pirate extraordinaire, submitted The Typing Contest to en fuego, an online magazine I have preached to you all about over and over again, and it has been accepted for publication in Issue 2, due out in March (or April — still working out the kinks.) So […]

I was originally going to post this on my own blog, but since it was inspired by Word Pirates, I decided to post it here instead. — Joy
I’ve been thinking lately that I ought to have more established ideas about the function of creative writing. Is it to entertain? Communicate? Recreate emotions? All of […]

Awesome, no?

I imagine that many people discuss David Sedaris like they would a band who became commercially successful following years of extraordinary indie popularity that was never supposed to make them so famous that even cheerleaders and jocks would listen to their music despite not owning their obviously superior earlier albums.
(My sister was all like “‘Me […]

ok, i’m totally a web-posting rookie. i put up the note about en fuego, then realized i forgot to put the category and it automatically slotted it as news, which it is not, so i just hit “back” and changed it and it published twice! crap. since i couldn’t figure out how to delete this […]

Y’all are boring! Do something to surprise me!

if so, check out the rant “writers anonymous” by dustin wells at somalit.com. (he was my classmate in grad school!) i thought it was pretty funny. hopefully it’s not just cause i know him. let me know what you think.
ALSO: i tried to reply to the post on our new monthly schedule, and i couldn’t. […]

The good folks at Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency are always good for a giggle. Here are some excerpts from a list they did that had me laughing out loud. Enjoy!
From “Thirteen Writing Prompts” by Dan Wiencek:

Write a scene showing a man and a woman arguing over the man’s friendship with a former girlfriend. Do not […]

I found this somewhere on the web. Change “artist” to “writer” and it might apply to you.

Bitch magazine is looking for pieces about “Green.”
When I saw the word “Green,” I first thought of naive and inexperienced. What comes to mind for you? It would be an interesting exercise to take one word like this and turn it into an idea.
Words are powerful beyond their literal meaning, so […]

Via Miss Snark I learned about Instant Query Letters Software.

As a writer, “Instant Query Letters” is the kind of easy-to-use software that you NEED to be assured that you have a complete, highly professional Query Letter to introduce your articles and books with. And just in case you’re absolutely computer illiterate, you can definitely feel […]

“Looking back at what and how I write, I seem to begin a new play with two people of completely opposite nature and temperament, put them in an intolerable situation, and let the sparks fly. The extra ingredient, and very important, is that they must both emphatically believe that their way of life is the […]