SPEEDBO Update & New Resource for Writers

Life sure gets crazy, doesn't it? I was all set to charge into SPEEDBO and hammer out a novel during the month of March. Then we had to take my brother to Urgent Care with terrible stomach/back pains. From there we rushed him to the Emergency Room and he's been there for 15 days, now. He has acute pancreatitis.

I've been spending about 10 hours a day at the hospital with him. Haven't been able to work very much on my novel, because I don't want the clickety-clack of the keyboard to wake him when he's trying to get some rest and I want to be available for him when he's awake. I have gotten a few thousand words written in the hospital cafeteria during lunch, but that's all.

The novel is set in Emberwood Hall - here's a picture of my imaginary setting...

Don't you just love it?

 I'm enjoying the story concept, but really need some time alone to hash it all out in my mind.

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On another note - this morning I discovered an new resource for writers, thanks to a great article on writing fiction by Julie Lessman on Seekerville.  It's OneLook's Reverse Dictionary.

OneLook's reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word. You'll get back a list of related terms with the best matches shown first.

I typed in the word "desire" (since that's the running theme in romance novels) and got back 100 terms that you could use in your writing to convey that theme. How cool is that? You know, we're always searching for just the right word or for new words that help us communicate with our readers without being repetitive, so check out OneLook's Reverse Dictionary the next time you're stuck for the perfect word to use.

And while you're on the OneLook site, check out all the ways you can search...

Example searches

bluebird	Find definitions of bluebird
blue*	Find words and phrases that start with blue
*bird	Find words and phrases that end with bird
bl????rd	Find words that start with bl, end with rd, and have 4 letters in between
bl*:snow	Find words that start with bl and have a meaning related to snow
*:snow or :snow	Find any words related to snow
*:winter sport	Find words related to the concept winter sport
**winter**	Find phrases that contain the word winter
expand:nasa	Find phrases that spell out n.a.s.a.

Okay, I know your writer mind is going into spasms about right now with all the possibilities, so don't worry, I won't be offended if you run off to play at OneLook. In fact, I will probably be there exploring, too. Maybe we'll run into each other.

Happy Writing!
Jan

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