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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Glottering: a new word

Yesterday I invented a new word, glottering--except, it turns out, it was invented long ago. Tuh. 'The stork glottereth, this is a kind of fictitious terms from the sound, chattereth.' -- R. Holme, in 1688. (Via the OED. Of course.)

But back to my word (Holme's word, the stork's word, whatever). Let me give you context. I was thinking about rain. Thinking about Hild standing under a tree when it starts to rain. And, half asleep, trying to catch the scent and feel of early summer rain, I jotted this:

Sudden rain pattered and slapped the leaves: glottering rain, thick and cold as mud slung from a shovel.

Why am I telling you this? Because it's an example of what my writing looks like as it arrives, naked naked and newborn. And if you pony up a few dollars to sponsor Kelley's Clarion West Write-a-Thon and if the total comes to $2,000 or more, OR (if you're a writer) you sign up for the Write-a-Thon and say so in the comments today, I'll promise to post more naked words here during the six-week Write-a-Thon which starts on Sunday. I can't promise I'll invent a new word every time (or steal one, or borrow one, whatever). But some of the snippets will be much more substantial. And sometimes I'll then talk about how I would/n't use said snippet, and/or how I'd edit it.

For example, I might rewrite the above snippet as:

Glottering rain slapped and slid through the leaves, cold as mud.

Or maybe I'd just leave 'glottering' out of it completely. It is a bit precious. There again, I like the hint of clot and clatter and glottal (with it's connotation of mucous) the word invokes. But mud does some of that work. Or I could leave out 'mud'. Or... Well, there are a score of ways I could approach this.

So go on. Go give some money or time to Clarion West. Or sign up to write for six weeks. You know you want to.

This blog has moved. My blog now lives here: http://nicolagriffith.com/blog/

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