rantypants & snidbits: New words learned today

I learned two wonderful new words today…

rantypants || snidbits

— both self-explanatory, but not excessively so, since everyone knows pants don’t rant and bits do not snid; well… except that time in the fall — last September, I think — when bits became bites, the postman was annoyed and called the cops, who arrived amid sirens and rubber–laying screeches, pulled out their notebooks and began to snid the bits and their pieces together before making their arrest.

A slinky tom from the alley next door was hauled off to the clinker, but later released when 14 mice and one plump robin swore to his whereabouts elsewhere, murdering newborn rabbit kits.

The case cooled, the rantypants postman retired to his cottage in the Highlands and Tom began to hawk cat food on T.V., a big star with his own cage and personal appearances in the malls.

source

This entire rantypants snidbits was triggered by terribleminds.com, courtesy Chuck Wendig. (language alert)

all about Sophie

medieval-castle.com

Yes and no. I’m working on a story at the moment, based on my investigation of writing stories in short periods of time, referring to a number of prolific writers that we have all read about in our travels.

Sophie, the subject of the title, is a character, an infant who disappears early in the story — at this early draft point, in fact, in the first paragraph. She and her disappearance are the ‘hinge’ or triggering event in the story.

The gist is that a palace guard (this is fantasy) searches for the child as a favour to Sophie’s mother. As a result of that, the guard, Shell onSeton, ends up in a city called Fareach built and occupied by the dreams of a slave race called the Navvy.

But wait, there’s more… (sorry, I couldn’t resist that tired cliche)

The whole premise is that Fareach is located in the ak’asha (or aether), the source of all magic, which was damaged in ancient times and is now collapsing upon itself. A dragon, Lord Sumar is tapping into the Fareach dreamstate to save the ak’asha, but Fareach’s occupants, the Navvies, are now holding Sophie for ransom to force the guard’s help against the dragon.

Complicated. Not really, but I sometimes get rather convoluted in my effort to describe briefly — in other words, I start tripping over my own words.

To return to my first paragraph and writing over short periods of time, one of the problems with long stories is the difficulty of sustaining interest, enthusiasm, discipline over months or years pursuing the plot. In our modern world, it’s all about speed, fast writing, fast reading (how about flash fiction?), fast publishing, and so on.

So many intriguing new possibilities, both for authors and their readers.

Some fascinating resources in the real world:

• Fantasy Castles
• The Domesday Book
• 10,000 words a day
• Flash Fiction Online