A Writing 101 Production - Part 4 What To Do In Event Of Spambush or Tweettack

SPAMBUSH????

TWEETTACK???

What are these strange new words? Well, duh.  Don't be so lazy.  Go and look them up in a dictionary (as I always say to Lovely Son and Delightful Daughter). Oh.  Wait.  You can't.  I made them up.  At least I think I did.  Who knows in this fast moving lexicographical world of ours? Anyway, I'm claiming them for future posterity.  Dictionary nerds at Chambers and OUP, please note--you read them here first*. 

I'm writing this post at the behest of  @magelly from Twitter (aka Jack Ruttan), who said this: 'Unless it's too embarrassing, you should write a blog post about what happened and how you got out of it. (it would help others!) '  So here goes. Always helpful, that's me. And not embarrassed by much.

One bright and sunny morning (rainy and grey really, but that's just too depressing),  I woke to a flurry of worried Tweeple contacting me via my Twitterphone (Tweeple=tweeting people--get with the language, ok**?).  Had I REALLY sent them messages about weight loss and the miracle of acai berries at 3am?  WEIGHT LOSS?  ACAI BERRIES?? ME???? Anybody who knows me realises that with my comfortable proportions and strawberry shortcake eating habits I am NEVER going to send messages about weight loss.  Not to mention that acai berries are vile tasting and gucky. Nor that my passion for beauty sleep ensures that at 3am I am tucked up and dreaming of...well, never mind what I dream of. So that would be a NO. NEIN. NON. 

My excellent detection methods (ie a message from the Twitter powers-that-be) led me to believe that I had been tweettacked by unknown hackers, and had therefore subjected all my Twitter followers to an unexpected spambush.  This was my worst nightmare, akin to sending a penile enlargement gadget email to all in my address book (complete with graphic pictures).  Well, maybe not that bad--it could have been a lot worse than acai berries.  But embarrassing, anyway.  So what to do? Well the nice  and brilliantly helpful Twitter techies had already informed me by email that I must change my password at once as they had taken my old one away and substituted it with a secret nerdy one--and they also sent me a helpful link to enable me to fix things.  So I did that.  I thought my password was already secure (aka Very Strong), but apparently not: 

Rule 1: never assume that someone evil (in the manner of a Cthulhu demon) can't hack and tweettack even the securest password on a social networking site. Make sure your password is full of a combination of weird word, random numbers and symbols.  Don't use the same password for everything you do on the www.  That way you only have to change one if there's a disaster.

Of course, I had to change the password on Tweetdeck too**.   

Having fixed the password problem and got back into my account, I began the long process of apologising: 

Rule 2: Yes. I know it wasn't my fault.  But it's important to contact everyone who has contacted you to enquire what the hell is going on as well as putting up a general apology tweet to those who haven't asked.  It's polite.  And it makes you feel like less of a disempowered worm.  Take back the initiative and Just Say Sorry.  People will like you again.  Maybe. If you grovel enough.

Can you stop it happening again?  Probably not.  There are weird people out there who think this sort of messing you about is fun.  They probably live in darkened basements lit by irradiated fungus and eat stale wombat droppings for breakfast.  Stereotyping is too good for these people, in my opinion.  Personally, I should like to bite all their hacking fingers off, but I'm far too nice and polite to actually do that, as you know.  So I'll just do what I can--change my password often, and hope that I've already had my bit of bad luck.  But I know that hacking dangers are all part of the risk of being on sites like Twitter.  My computer has the highest and most up to date virus protection/firewall/ID protection/web shield/anti-spyware I can find.  I back stuff up regularly on a different hard-drive.  (And that's a whole other post in the making, so I'm stopping right there in case your brains explode with Too Much Information). 

Stay safe out there.  It's a dangerous place, the www.  But I wouldn't be without it for anything.

* Definitions for the dictionary geeks:
Spambush (vb): to send (via email, tweet or other techno means) a spam marketing or other message to many friends, contacts or Twitter followers (via a nefarious third party hijacking hacker) without knowing you have done so.
Tweettack(ed) (n.,vb): To suffer an attack on your Twitter account by said nefarious third party hijacking hacker, who then uses your account to spambush your followers.
**Yes. YES. YESSS! I know. I promised you a post on all that arcane Twitter stuff. I'll get to it. Just bear with me for now. You can complain to the person with the clipboard and the schedule later.

A Writing 101 Production - Part 3 Writing Resolutions

Resolutions are what you're supposed to 'make' at this time of year. New Year=New Start and all that.  Losing weight, being a nicer person, taking out the stress, going green. Laudable and excellent things, I'm sure, but it all makes me all a bit grumpy, really. Extremely grumpy and wanting to bite all those new starters in the bum, if you must know. But for you, dear blogreader and seeker-after-writing-wisdom, I will go to any lengths (some lengths? a few lengths? a length?).   Well, a bit of an effort, anyway. 

So...RESOLUTION (REZӘ-L-ŌŌ'SHӘN) from a writer's perspective....
And the interesting news, brought straight from a Chambers dictionary near you, is that nowhere can I find any actual definition reference to new starts.
There are:
 Act of resolving
 TV picture definition (Yep.  I resolve to fix that sometime.  Not.)
 State of being resolved
and loads of chemically-related bits which are all very well in their way, I'm sure, but not deeply germane to the subject in hand. (Which is writing, in case you'd forgotten that already, what with the New Year hangover and all.) And then there are these.
 Fixed determination
 Removal of or freedom from doubt

Now we're getting somewhere.  As a writer, I need a lot of fixed determination.  Writing a book is, to be frank, BLOODY EXHAUSTING.  No one believes this.  I mean, how tiring can it be MAKING THINGS UP for a living?  Well, let me tell you, at the end of a normal writing day which I've spent wrestling with a recalcitrant dragon (werewolf, owl or insert real or mythical creature of choice here), wrangling my stroppy teenage characters (like herding cats), killing people (entirely for the sake of my plot, you understand--I take no pleasure in it), or any of the thousand other jobs I ask my imagination to tackle I AM KNACKERED and my brain is mushed to baked beans. So yes, I'll take as much fixed determination as I can get to get the job done.  Apart from anything else I need it to combat the Horrible Procrastination Disease, which is the curse of all those writers who work on their own in a small, cold room and are tempted away from the task in hand by the siren calls of Facebook or Twitter, or the lures of a nice hot cup of Earl Grey tea and a strawberry shortcake biscuit. (Me?  Who said anything about me?)

As for removal of or freedom from doubt well, I could do with a bit of that, too.  Look into the secret places of any writer's brain, and you will see the Doubt Monster crouching, lying in wait, saying things like 'you know you're no good', 'they'll never give you a contract for that old rubbish', 'hey, let's have a look at the Amazon reviews--you need to know what awful things people are saying about your books', and similar gems of comfort and joy. Bad sales figures, a throwaway remark from agent or editor, a less than complimentary newspaper review (or no review at all)--all these things lead to doubts about talent and competence in even the most lauded prizewinning writer's mind. Freedom from doubt, even for a day, would be a blessing to any writer.  So I'll hope for it for all my writing friends, but I'm not holding my breath for it to happen to me any time soon.  (Hey, I'm a realist as well as a dreamer.)

This year, at the start of this new decade, I guess my resolution (and all the naggers in my house are going on and on at me to tell them what mine is), is simply this.  TO HAVE RESOLUTION (as defined above) IN MY WRITING  I'll let you know how it goes.  And how long it lasts....  Now where's my Twitter page and that cup of tea?

An Amazing Abecedenarian Alphabet - A's Part 2

The second part of my interesting A's is now here. And Chambers Online (who have an excellent wordy blog at http://chambersdictionary.blogspot.com/ ) and I are having nice conversations on Twitter, where they are following me, which is flattering. I hope you enjoy these delightful A's. There will be more eccentric offerings to come soon.

alcatras(n); name for large water birds including pelican, gannet, albatross, frigate-bird [Sp. Alcatraz]. So Alcatraz really translates as Pelican Prison?

alexia (n); loss of power to read. Not something I want to encounter - ever. Writer's/book lover's worst nightmare.

alforja (n):saddle-bag, baboon's cheek pouch [Sp]. Interesting lexical leap from one to the other. Now how shall I use it in current book?

allenarly (adv); solely, only (obsolete except in Scots law). But I want to revive it. "I allenarly had a wee glass, orfisher, honest. Hic!"

alnage (n); measurement by the ell: inspection of cloth [O.Fr aulne, ell]. A most English word. Should like to announce 'I am an aulnager,' and see what happens.

altrices (n.pl); birds whose young are hatched very immature & have to be fed in nest by parents. Won't be using in a picture book text, though! Don’t think ‘The altrices were being fed worms by the mummy bird’ would pass the editorial red pen.

alure n.(obs); a walk behind battlements.'Guinevere’s allure was obvious to Lancelot as he gazed down at her from Camelot's alure,' perhaps.

alveary n.; either an early dictionary of English, French, Greek & Latin, or a beehive. Take your pick. Prefer the ‘dictionary’ meaning myself—but then I am a confirmed lexiphile.

alvine adj.; of the belly. Has possilities...I ate too much, have been a swine and now I have a pain alvine. It’s hard to be poetic in tweets.

arnica n.; useful homeopathic remedy for bruising/shock Arnica Montana 200c Take every 15 mins (I put this in when I fell down the stairs—I know it’s out of alphabetical order).

amadou n,; tinder made from tree-growing fungi, also used as styptic. Useful to know next time you are in a forest & need to stop bleeding. Very Ray Mears sort of information.

ambages n.pl.;windings, roundabout ways, delays. My writing is full of ambages--and they usually take me to interesting intellectual places.

ambivert n.; one neither introvert nor extrovert. Indicates a serial fence-sitter, wine-in-the middle-of-the-glass type person to me. Agree?

ames-ace ns.; lowest possible dice throw of double one, ill-luck, worthlessness. Now I understand all those refs in Georgette Heyer novels to this word.

amentum n.; catkin. But I shan't be raving on about the beauty of the pollen-dusted amentums next spring. Will stick to catkin, if you please.

amissible adj; liable to be lost. This applies to almost anything Daughter owns. Or Son, come to that. We are a family full of amissibility.

ammophilous adj; sand-loving. I am decidedly NOT ammophilous, hating the very thought of sand in summer sandwiches or anywhere. Blearghhh!

amort adj; spiritless, dejected. Much how I feel about going on a school supplies shopping trip to Milton Keynes, the Great Wen of Buckinghamshire.

amphigory n; nonsense-verse. My Twittered witter is internet litter, but don't think I'm bitter-I ain't no Ruth Pitter (a poet much fitter).

analects ns.pl; collected literary fragments. What I have in my 'bottom drawer' of assorted book ideas, just-started novels, and related items.

analphabetic adj; ignorant of the alphabet, illiterate. I trust this does not describe me, as I am Alphabet Dictionary woman extraordinaire.

anamnesis n; the recalling to memory of things past. Very Proustian. A la recherche du temps perdu. Something I find hard to do short term, which is a little worrying at my age.

ancon, n; a breed of sheep with very short legs. Apparently. According to Chambers 20th Century. But do I believe them? (Of course I do! They are founts of ineffable arcane knowledge on all things ovine. Or so they tell me.)

anfractuous adj; winding, involved, circuitous. Like a shaggy dog story. Or the convoluted periods of, say, Dr Samuel Johnson.

angekkok n; Inuit sorcerer or shaman. Perfect and sumptuous word for a fantasy author—I shall use it at the first opportunity. (Chambers 20th Century Dictionary says 'Eskimo' but I prefer Inuit myself. They need to amend this—actually they probably have. After all, I am working from the last millenium’s version).

annicut n; dam (from the Tamil). Now I need to know how this became so much a part of Eng Lang that it got into the dictionary. How shall I find this out?

anoesis n; sensation or emotion not accompanied by understanding of it. Never quite get the ins and outs of pins-and-needles sensation myself.

anonyma (obs) n; showy woman of easy morals. Almost anyone in Heat mag, then? Great word—let’s bring it back at once. I want to see it in a newspaper article about, say, a Manhattan socialite madam.

ansate adj; having a handle. This morning's tea mug is ansate. Hmmn. Not sure it quite works, used like that.

Twittering the Dictionary

I am a writer. Words are my trade. These two facts are self-evident. But I am also a hoarder, a ferreter-out, a collector of the strange, exotic, ancient and arcane--at least as far as vocabulary is concerned. Every time I use a dictionary for its everyday purpose of checking a spelling or meaning, I get sidetracked by the many magnificent verbal treasures to be found on any one spread. The two most useful presents I have ever received have been dictionaries--one, a blue-and-gold leather bound edition of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary was an unusual wedding present which still lives in its original slipcase, smelling of twenty years of knowledge searching, the gold-leaf on the very tips of its delicate pages worn silver with thumbing. The other, a Chambers 20th Century, I was given as a leaving gift when I departed my life as an editor with Orchard Books. It sits to the left of my computer and is entirely invaluable to my writing life.

I love to know about and explore the sources of words--are they from High German, or Latin, or Greek? Might they be from another language altogether (like Amharic or Ashanti), and somehow, somewhere have slipped into English usage by the route of trade or fleeting fashion or simple lexical stealing? I love the moment where the meaning of a word suddenly makes sense when I see it broken down into its component parts--it's there in plain sight but I never thought of it in that way before.

There are many quiet pleasures to be had from brief browsings of a dictionary, but one thing I have never done is to read an entire one from cover to cover--until now. It all started with Twitter really. After all, what does Twitter really do apart from tell the world what Stephen Fry had for breakfast? Or what t-shirt Neil Gaiman wore last night? Or many other less interesting (I don't like to use the word boring) daily ephemera. I realise that in our celebrity-obsessed world these are things which many people like to know about. However, I wanted to try something different. Something which would be (perhaps) both educational and interesting not only for my Twitter followers, but also for me. What could I do?

The answer was sitting right under my elbow. Starting at A, I would work my way through the entire dictionary, tweeting the interesting words and definitions I found in 140 characters. Originally I planned to do this over 24 weeks (combining w and x and y and z), but I now know it's going to take a lot longer than that. Two weeks in, I have reached al-, and there's still a long way to go (60 pages) before I reach B, and I don't want to rush it. After all, I do have other (and bigger) writing projects to get on with.

Not everyone is on Twitter (or indeed any other social network), so I've decided to do a weekly roundup of interesting words here on the blog too. I'll be starting with the 'A's so far' on Monday. Have fun reading them. I hope you find a word or two that you like, (and maybe you'll even come up with some more of your own favourites that you think I should have put in). Let me know! All suggestions welcome.