RTW - Words I Hate, Words I Love

Today I'm hitting the pavement on YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday. Today's prompt:

What words do you absolutely hate? Which ones do you adore?

There are lots of words that fall into either category, and I'm sure that someone will chime in with a word in comments and I'll be like "Yeah! that IS a heinous word!" But I'm going to go with the first word I thought of, a word that I dislike ever reading, whether in a cookbook, a parenting magazine or a book: MOIST.

I can trace this dislike all the way back to elementary school. (And I can link it to my Tumble 4 You 80's crush, Duran Duran, too. How's that for talented?) In one of the many teeny bopper magazines I'd squander coin on, there was a picture of Nick Rhodes next to a painting. All I remember about this painting was that it was the word 'moist' in the Roy Lichtenstein comic style. Nick Rhodes is standing next to the painting pouting, his lipstick unusually, well, moist.

What's wrong with this word? Nothing really. I just find it distasteful. I hate the inbetween-ness of it - how equivocal it is - not wet, not dry, but some degree in between. Even when used to describe roast chicken or cake, I don't like it. It probably comes from my early reading addiction to lurid romance novels. You know, the purpler the prose, the better. If things weren't moist, you weren't having fun. Of course, when I was reading these books, I hadn't even kissed a boy yet, so I didn't know better. But moist remains a world I can't like.

I love a lot of words - much too many to name. Our family love words, we love playing with words, because words are supposed to be fun and flexible, liquid (not moist!) We have words that we've made up for our family - words that define us and that link us to each other, and our memories. But I can't tell you them, because they're private. But one word that I can think of is CRAFT. I like it particularly when used as a verb. I like it because even if you're just writing a scene, you're really crafting it. Crafting evokes a sense of being hand-made, of taking elements, like stone and metal, mud and clay and using the dexterity of your hands to fashion the elements into something other. Transmogrified. I like that word, too.

What about you, what words do you love? And hate?

RTW - Who Shall I Say is Calling?

Each week, YA Highway hosts Road Trip Wednesdays. 




Today's prompt:
If you couldn't use your own name, what would your pen name or pseudonym be?


Bank tellers, school admins and older ladies behind registers love my name. I know this because they often comment, "Oh, what a lovely name." I smile and say thank you secretly thinking, are you kidding?

It's not that I don't like my name, I do. My first name can be girly or masculine and I love that suppleness. My last name is foreign, but it has enough vowels in it so that most americans can pronounce it. I like my name so much that I kept it when I got married, not able to picture myself with my husband's wholly other (to me) last name.

But as a writer I have two problems with my name. The first is that I cannot imagine anyone buying a book with my name on it. When husband had my book printed on blurb.com as an xmas present, the only thing on the lovely cover he designed that looked wrong was my name. The second problem I have with my name is that it's my identity. I have a career that doesn't involve writing at all. And I don't expect to become a household name any time soon, which means that writing and working will happen at the same time. Would it be strange to have the two worlds collide?

Even building a presence online for me started with a pseudonym, magpie. And while I wouldn't publish with that name, I am comfortable being known in this little community with that moniker.

OK but that wasn't the prompt. So what would I choose as a pen name? Alex O'Donnell. And will I eventually do that? I don't know. Maybe.

Do you plan on using a pen name? If so, what is it?