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I’m reading a book right now that is just plain embarrassing. I feel like I’m intruding in the author’s head, and I don’t like what I find there.

Wedded to convention, unable to see their own bigotry, small.

The writer who can’t distinguish truth from a peanut-butter sandwich can never write good fiction. What he affirms we deny, throwing away his book in indignation; or if he affirms nothing, not even our oneness in sad or comic helplessness, and insists that he’s perfectly right to do so, we confute him by closing his books. (John Gardner, The Art of Fiction)

. . . the road meandered along hills lined with the soft grey-brown of winter trees stitching a white sky to the ground.
— from Mappa Mundi by Justina Robson

Did it again. Just had to check my word usage. Continue reading “Soda biscuit”

When I’m writing, I like to make sure I’m using a word or phrase correctly. If I don’t find it in my dictionary, I go to Google. Latest phrase checked: cow’s eyes. Not in the sense of dissection (lots of hits there!), but a particular look one person gives another.

Pain in the English gave a definition (“looking coy or docile yet clearly intending that the person looked at will find the looker attractive”) close to the meaning I understood, but I like to check more than one source. Mistake. Continue reading “Cow eyes”

From an anonymous book, chapter 1, paragraph 3:

I spread my arms wide and leaned into the oncoming mass, blowing a whistle that was more noisome than effective.

(The protag is a police officer assigned to riot control.)

Heh heh. Let’s try that again:

I spread my arms wide and leaned into the oncoming mass, blowing a whistle that was more malodorous than effective.

Per Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary:
noisome
1 : NOXIOUS, HARMFUL
2 a : offensive to the senses and especially to the sense of smell noisome garbage b : highly obnoxious or objectionable noisome habits
synonyms see MALODOROUS