Words Are Ebil

Yesterday I entered Revisions Hell.

Revisions Hell

It is not really a nice place to be, but maybe I can at least get a tan while I’m visiting.

I discovered, just while doing spell check, that I am a word addict.  Not in the general sense of ‘I’m a writer, I’m addicted to words.’  No, I fall into the ‘I just can’t help myself, I must use this word over and over and over again and misspell it EVERY DAMN TIME.’

I also make words up.  Particularly adverbs, which I should be limiting, not making up more of.

I cannot help myself when it comes to complicated sentences that look like comma confetti.  I cannot tell you just how many sentences I’ve had to pick apart, simply because they are impossible to read.

I have, apparently, left sanity behind at some point.  And the rules of grammar.  (Ok, my grammar isn’t too bad, I’m not often finding things that are glaring mistakes or massive mis-usages.  Which is just wonderful.  I am just prone to gross abuse of those rules.)  And there I go making up words again!

So, here is my little list of words I over use with a glorious disregard to conventions of literature:

Embarrass – FMC (female main character) is always embarrassed and I spell it wrong every single time.

Murmur – None of my characters are very up on diction and enunciation.  Go figure.

Scraggly – This is a particular favorite of mine.  Everyone needs to go get themselves cleaned up, since half my characters are described as being scraggly.

Eyes – I have a distinct obsession with my characters’ eyes and I refuse to use words like ‘orbs,’ and ‘optics’ to replace it.

Though – I have no defense, though I’m having a hard time getting rid of them.

Weird – This is another one I habitually misspell.  And yes, everything is weird.

Guilt – Not remorse, retribution, blame, culpability or any other synonym.  Just guilt.

There are more.  So many more.  I should keep a proper list and share the whole thing.   I have made good friends with a thesaurus to help with this horrible affliction.