WIP Challenge Check-in, Day 29 -- Wednesday

[linaewen]

Greetings on Wednesday!

Here's a worthy quote on writing from a favorite author of mine:

Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary,
how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

~Nathaniel Hawthorne

That said, how is it going for you today in combining words in potent fashion?  Are you getting words actually written?  Are you looking for the right words by doing research, fact-checking or outlining?  Are you thinking about your story while in the midst of other work that has become more demanding at the moment?  Let us know how it's going, so we can rejoice, encourage or commiserate with you!

For Discussion:  What kind of tools do you use to help you find the right word when you are writing?  When you can't think of the right word, do you stop writing and search for it, or do you keep going and come back to it later?


Yesterday was Tuesday, which means no writing for me.  I actually got home early but was too tired to think of writing!  I'm hoping to make some progress today, however.  When searching for just the right word, I make heavy use of an online thesaurus, as well as the Online Etymology Dictionary.  I tend to look up words as I go, but I will also leave a placeholder for a word if it proves elusive and come back to it when I am doing a more thorough round of editing.  This is also a good time to make sure I'm not overusing a certain word, and that's when the thesaurus again comes in handy. 

Comments

[merryghoul]

Writing-wise: Still writing (another piece for Porn Battle, which I forgot to add earlier). Mostly research of all sorts yesterday, though.

I try to keep my vocabulary simple, but when I don't need it to be simple, I go to dictionary.com/thesaurus.com to make sure the words I'm using are correct.

[lea_hazel]

I got a lot of raw words down and so I have a lot in the metaphorical editing queue. Happily, one of them is a draft for my first trope_bingo fill.

I use an online thesaurus and several dictionaries, especially if I suspect I might be misusing or misremembering a phrase or idiom. I find great use in Wiktionary because it contains phrases and also, lists translations of most words in many languages. Sometimes I still have to give up and admit that the word or phrase I want don't exist in English.

[lilly_c]

Mainly editing this week which I should be done with by tomorrow evening. It's my day off, so I'll have more time.

I mainly use the Oxford dictionary and thesaurus when I'm writing and I keep a copy of Roget's thesaurus for when the OET fails, I think Roget is also available online. On my laptop I have a combined dictionary/thesaurus program called TheSage which is free and I find that quite useful.