I'm a bit burned out today, having seared my brain yesterday. So let's play. Words. I love words and you are reading this probably because you love words and not because you love me.

Remember Lolita? Nabokov's book knocked people loose when it was first published (1955 Paris; 1958 New York; 1959 London). I loved it, even wrote a poem about it. (I used to write a lot of poetry in those days.) And I have somewhere a notebook in which I wrote down all the words N. used that I didn't know, and their meanings as I looked them up. I learned a lot of words but I also learned a lot about Nabokov. He made up words. Not out of his head, as I think Lewis Carroll did (is there a root for borogove?), but out of legitimate, respectable Latin or Greek origins, often reviving obsolete forms or meanings. I used my big OED with the alternate and obsolete meanings at the bottom of each page, in order to put together my little glossary.

Nabokov was a logodaedalist - a magician with words - coming from logo, word, and Daedalus, the magician, you remember, who sent his son Icarus into the air with waxen wings. Don't you love that?

I have a Dictionary of Newfoundland English (University of Toronto Press, 1982), a respectably sized book, with words you don't find in the rest of Canada. I have used it, too. The first time was for Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, checking on words she used that were of Newfie origin. Michael Crummy is a wonderful Newfoundland author who uses his native language beautifully. I keep my dictionary handy when I'm reading him.

When I went on an Adventure Canada cruise, circumnavigating Newfoundland counter-clockwise with stops at significant ports, I picked up an alphabet book for children, but not just for children, all Newfie words, a useful reference work.

Moocher in the Lun: A Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Alphabet (Pennywell Books, St.John's, 2008) is a darlin' book, written in verse by Tom Dawe, and illustrated by C.Anne MacLeod. Moocher, by the way, is "the one who skips school/With all kinds of reasons/For dodging the rule." And lun is "A calm, sheltered spot." And there are more words in the glossary at the back than could be squeezed into a 26-letter alphabet. As I says, it's a useful reference work.

Oh, I am so blessed! I love words.

All I had to do today was write three pages. Three pages of a synopsis. Three pages of a synopsis based on material I know so well, that I've been working on for....ages. Oy. Not that easy. Hard, in fact. I worked ALL day and I am exhausted.

I wrote a lot. I wrote a lot more than three pages. I wrote about half of a treatment and realized I was writing too much telling too much giving too much detail. Scrapped it. Well, I didn't scrap exactly, just saved it under a different heading. Years ago a friend of mine said, "No energy is wasted, Bettyjane." (In those days, she said "Betty Jane", but I'm Bettyjane now. Please note.) Anyway, I believed her. No energy is wasted. You can always use it somewhere else, and if not, just think of what you learned. So I filed the half (baked? assed?) material and launched another attack,not an attack, really, more like a sidle.I sidled into a succinct summary of what's going on. I printed two copies of it so I can take a look and see how it reads.

Not now. Tomorrow.