Tag: Word

#ROW80 11.13, NaNo, & Viral Accord

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized
Ampersand in plain and italics.
Image via Wikipedia

NaNoWriMo / ROW80 update:

I’ve been working on Molly but haven’t been averaging the 1667 words per day required to reach the target by the end of November.

According to the NaNo stats page, at my current rate, I’ll reach 50,000 words on September 28, 2015.

But there is hope—if I write 2,753 words each and every day for the rest of the month.

Is it possible to write 2,753 words in one day? Of course. Call it a blog post and I’ll write twice that.

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Sick of staring at Times New Roman, I switched to Accord SF.

Now MS Word 2007 asserts it independence by saving Accord SF in italics. The italics icon on the toolbar, however, isn’t highlighted, and no amount of clicking or unclicking it affects the text. Nothing affects the text. It’s in italics and it’s going to stay that way.

I think the dysfunction is related to repeated crashing of blog documents several weeks ago. I saved in Accord SF but after each crash reopened to italicized Accord SF. Why italics have leaked over into text documents, I cannot say.

If anyone can shed light on this case, please feel free. In the interim, and probably forever, I’ll be using Open Office, which I like better anyway.

Except for blog posts. I don’t have time or patience to read the OO instructions. And Word blog format is on its best behavior.

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They say the secret to winning NaNoWriMo is Never Delete.

That’s not my way. I revise as I go. Like this:

Word word word word word word word Delete delete delete Different word different word different word Word word Delete Different word…

It’s slow, but my OCD feels comfortable with it.

NaNo, however, despises it.

NaNo likes something like the following:

Word word word word Wrong word Right word Word word word word Wrong word Wrong word Wrong word Right word Right word Wrong word…

Which just drives me up the wall.

*

I saved. Word crashed. I reopened to italics.

What it will look like when it’s published to WordPress I won’t try to predict.

Just once, I would like to live through a day in which I don’t have to eat my words, my hat, or a large portion of crow.


Day 20: No-no words

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

A writer-friend introduced me to a new concept: the no-no word.

That’s a word you’re not allowed to use when you write.

She assigned her elementary students a composition, then told them they were not allowed to use the word was.

There’s a lot of talk going around about was these days. Several bloggers have written about the advisability of using it, and one of my online discussion groups examined the issue.

Should writers use was?

The answer to that question, I believe, is, It depends.

If I can find a more active or specific or colorful word, or a better construction, I use it. If I can’t, I write was.

When my teacher-writer-friend termed was a no-no word, however, and described the restrictions she had put on her students, I decided to step up to the challenge.

I stepped up.

I wrote.

I stepped down.

It was an enlightening ordeal.

Will I post the result?

NO.

 

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The image of No made out of jigsaw puzzle pieces used courtesy of Horia Varlan via Flickr, under Creative Commons 2.0 Generic license.