fileg's flight

Seen all over lj:

If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach. — Alfred Hitchcock (we *almost* share a birthday)

When I write a story, what do readers immediately look for?

The International House of Logorrhea, a free online dictionary of weird and unusual words to help enhance your vocabulary.


The International House of Logorrhea is the sort of site I love, but don't really use effectively as intended - I'm not really good at looking for an alternate word in the midst of writing; it breaks my flow.

I do play with Thesaurus style reference while editing, but I'm still more likely to beat myself about the brain than to actually look words up.

But I am the kind of logophile who loves to read this type of reference.( I was a great dictionary reader starting as a kid. I really don't understand people who can just look up a single word without being led down a never ending path.) If I can cram them into my brain, I can use them that way.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this link, in case you are one of any category of word reference users.

It includes interesting glossary groupings, which I am hoping I might use during the my process, and it is a component of The Phrontistery, which has many other free word lists and unusual word related resources.

As some of you know, I write occasional (het) erotica at home. One of the things that keeps me from writing more, and keeps me focused on particular points-of-view, is language. There isn't a lot of language that is both erotic and comfortable for me. So I do check out the occasional het, or femme-slash story looking to pillage adjectives and nouns.


I encountered one in my travels this afternoon, and read it with Jim (notarysojac) who is still home sick.

It was SO bad that it was almost fun to read - I am easily amused by Jim, (who currently sounds like Tom Waites warming up to sing La Grange) clutching his head like a stuuned monkey and muttering *Good Grief* at least once a paragraph (it started before we got anywhere near the NC-17 section, too.)

It's easily in my current top two for headclutching bewilderment. (Jim is currently insisting it deserves the top *honors.*)

There was to be no pillaging of language here.

I don't mind if you decide to go for crude language - just make a choice. (actually, I do mind, but only because it's inappropriate for the fandom) But don't waver between totally clinical and language that would be inappropriate in a back alley when used by two perverts with only one cigar between them.

Obviously, I have no idea of the author's age or gender - and this story did nothing to convince me they have any idea about sex. But I do know that If you think oral sex is going to taste like strawberries, chocolate or cinnamon, I'm afraid you are in for a disappointment somewhere down the line.

But let me get to the point that drove me to recount this. Sir or madame: your heroine does *not* have "golden hair on her vagina," because the vagina is an INTERNAL organ. If you meant vulva, perhaps you should say that. And if, by some stretch of the imagination, you actually meant vagina -- I have no idea how her partner could possibly see that from where she was. But, just..... eeeeewwww.

" less of a sauce, more of a glaze"

this gets my vote for phrase that should never, ever have been used in a sexual context. But Jim was rather taken with "It is the one drawback of fellatio as conscientious as hers that it eliminates the chance for small talk and poetry alike."

The longlisted passages for the Bad Sex in Fiction award

just a quick note to people I am hoping to fic with -

I am still thinking about exploitable situations, but my sweetie came home from work with a miserable throat and completely congested. because of his blood pressure, there isn't much I could do to help. He took the last dose of "bp safe" robitussin in the house and fell asleep on the couch. I could not even put him to bed, because we have another leaky seam, so the bed is partially dismantled with a vise clamping the patch till tomorrow.

(yeah, now that he's curled up on the living room floor with his blankey, it's already funny to me so go right ahead and laugh) I am so glad we bought that inflatable mattress when we went to Boston! It was a great deal even at the time, and it has saved my butt twice now.

So, if you have an idea for shared fic, let me know -
you can write to me at *any of my names*@gryphonsmith.com

I recently had a request from a German LoTR archive that specializes in Gimli to translate my story "Gifts of Life." The archive is called Naugrim, and my story is here.

This was a real kick for me, since I seldom write dwarves, and in fact, I wrote this for the Crossover challenge at Henneth Annun where we swapped stories and had to write about a race of Arda we had not written for before. I drew Gimli without Legolas, and Orcs.

This story is Gimli and Merry sharing ale, traditions and making gifts for the wedding of the King. I have to say, a dwarf story just looks completely right in German. I can't wait to show it to Jim - he speaks a little German, (mine is rudimentary - mostly words I remember from my grandmother Muench, therefore mostly about food!)