These are a few of my favourite words…

After reading through the final draft of my book, my sister pointed out I had a favourite word that kept cropping up time and time again. That word was “gingerly”. Thankfully, the editors at Macmillan New Writing spotted this too and took many occurrences out, but it just goes to show how wedded writers can be to certain words – favouritism if you like – so thank the Lord for a thesaurus, and a mindful editor.

I suppose words are sometimes like your best pair of jeans, or shirt, or trainers. You keep wearing them because they look good and feel good. But wear them too much and they become tatty, diluted, and sometimes boring even without you knowing it.
I always remember a review of Battlefield Earth - that John Travolta debacle from the infamous L Ron Hubbard book - discussing the dire scriptwriting where the word “leverage” was so over-used, the reviewer had begun to count the instances and joked it was almost into three figures. Indeed, I hear there was even a drinking-game based on this (whenever the word “leverage” was uttered you had to down your drink – I know it’s not very imaginative, but you have to be pretty drunk to sit through that entire film).

However, I don’t know about you, but I prefer “gingerly” to “leverage”, don’t you?

Sorry, I’m making excuses for myself. The fact is, in my writing I sometimes slip into bad habits – but then I’m not alone in this; many writers do. And in the first draft of The Burning Sands of Time, I’ve slipped into using favourite words again, such as “determination”, “sacrifice” and “growling” (though I love the latter – it does exactly what it says on the tin!). As my writing matures (hey, I’m still only 31, quite young in this game apparently) I know overuse of words will become a thing of the past, as will clichéd phrases like the last one ;-) .

Until then, please forgive my “determination”, my “sacrifice”, and my “growling”.

Afterall, these are only just a few of my favourite words…


Tell it like it is

Grumpy Old Bookman has a great piece on blogs today - well worth a look if only to explode a few myths about blogging to anyone reading this who is new to all this ku-phumphery!


...Dang, done it again - another favourite word (and it's made up as well).