Napper is an 18th century slang word for the head. Did you know that, or did you, like me, think it was a word for people who take naps?
Don't get caught napping and miss this free competition. If you use your napper and come up with something good enough to win, you'll have it recorded by a professional actor and made available on their website. Previously published work may be entered.
And here's a free to enter poetry competition.
And this is for Dr Who fans.
Elbows are of course the joint halfway down our arms which allow them to bend. They're very useful to writers!
A piece of piping shaped into a right angle, or any similarly shaped bend or corner can be known as an elbow bend or elbow joint.
If you jostle your way through a crowd then you can be said to be elbowing your way into a space, and those displaced in this manner are elbowed out. Once you have sufficient space around you, you'll have plenty of elbow room.
If you give something elbow grease, you've put effort into it. Giving a person the elbow is to dump them. Being out at the elbows (either a person or item of clothing) means to be tired or ragged.
Find yourself some elbow room, apply creativity and elbow room and enter this free poetry competition. If you win the £100 prize you'll be able to replace something you own which is out at the elbows. You'll also have your work published and illustrated and will receive a copy of the book.
Verdigris (pronounced verdegree) is best known as the effect on metals such as brass and copper when they're exposed to weather or seawater. In a short space of time they go from bright and shiny to a dull blueish-green. It's commonly scene on roofs, pipework and weather vanes.
The verdigris can be polished off, but will soon form again.
Historically verdigris was used as a pigment for artists, producing the most vibrant shade of green available in the middle ages.
Did you know that verdigris can also be used to describe sailors? I guess it could be quite apt if they're under the weather.
I'll be green with envy if you win this free to enter competition from Amazon. There's a £20,000 prize. All you have to do is write something great, polish it up, publish on Amazon.co.uk, enroll it in kdp select, sell lots of copies and get lots of good reviews and you'll be in with a chance!
Fictive means creating or created by imagination. It can also mean not genuine.
Are works of fiction, such as my lovely romance Leave Nothing But Footprints fictive? I don't think they are – at least not entirely. Although partly produced fictively there's far more to creating a novel than fictiveness.
Authors often need to research facts – I learned a huge amount about photography to write this book, drew on my memory for details such as campervanning disasters and toasting marshmallows, and took some of the walks through gorgeous Welsh scenery along with my characters.
I'd argue that even elements of a story which come directly from the author's imagination may still be genuine. For example Jess values the support of friends and learns to take pride in doing something well – those things are genuine, aren't they?
Then we come on to the actual typing out of the words, the editing, proofreading, cover creation, marketing etc etc. Some of these tasks may well require imagination, but the work doesn't stop there.
What do you think – are novels fictive?
If you've written something, fictive or otherwise, you may like to try this free entry writing competition. There's $4,000 on offer for 'the best short story, novel excerpt, poem, one-act play, graphic story, or work of literary nonfiction published by a new or emerging writer in Narrative.
There's still just time to enter the draw for a free book in last week's Friday Freebie.
Secrete is an interesting word in that it can mean almost the opposite of itself.
In some cases secrete means to put away, hide or conceal. I'm sometimes the secretor of seeds when visiting gardens (please keep my secretory secret!)
Secrete can also mean to produce something – a secretion. Our eyes may secrete tears (I'm not absolutely sure it is our eyes that do this, in fact I'm fairly sure it's a separate gland or duct or something, but the only alternative I could come up with was a festering wound secreting pus and frankly that's way too icky.)
If you've written a first novel, don't secrete it away in a draw – enter it in this competition and you could win a £20,000 advance, the services of a literary agent and guaranteed publication.
Reciprocity is 'the condition of being reciprocal'. It's doing something in return, mutual actions, give and take, inversely correspondent, complementary.
After I plant flower seeds, they reciprocate by blooming. This act of reciprocation is then follwed by another – bees visit to collect food, pollinate my plants and continue a recrocating cycle.
Have you ever behaved reciprocally?
If you win the £16,000 first prize, or even one of the three £8,000 awards for this free to enter playwriting competition, as a result of seeing it here, I hope you'll reciprocate my kindness in posting about it by buying me a cake. A big one. With a cherry on top.
p.s. I have a new collection of short stories out. Family Feeling is currently on sale for the reduced price of 99p (99c)
Lichen is the variously coloured mossy type stuff you often see on trees and rocks. It's composed of a fungus and alga in a symbiotic relationship. There are a LOT of different types.
Lichen is also the name of a skin disease, but let's not go there.
Lichenology is the study of lichens and things which have been lichened.
Personally I pronounce the word litch-in (as in litch-gate which I feel is appropriate because churchyards are a good place to see lichen). The alternative is to say it as though it were written liken.
Lichen forms when something just stands about doing nothing. You can't afford to do that if you want to enter this free crimewriting competition, as it ends at the end of the month. The prize is a two book contract with Avon (an imprint of Harper Collins).
To go withershins means to travel in a direction contrary to the sun's course and is sometimes thought to be unlucky. Another meaning of withershins is anticlockwise.
Withershins can also be wrtten as widdershins. I'm not sure which version I like best – do you have a preference?
Did you leave a comment on this post to be in the draw for a paperback copy of Escape To The Country? You have until midnight to try.
Cosy, as I'm sure you know, means comfortable and warm. It can also mean friendly, as in a cosy relationship.
Less favourably the word can be used to imply complacency. It probably is a good plan to leave the cosiness of the easy and familiar to try something different occasionally.
A cosy can be a canopied seat for two, or something intended to keep something else warm – usually a pot of tea or a boiled egg. My friend Anne Rainbow gave me this lovely tea cosy.
Cosy crime is a genre of writing, which although it may deal with terrible crimes avoids gore and gruesomely graphic details. I think this book qualifies – it's warm too.
The prize for this free to enter short story competition is a cosy pair of writing gloves. I've absolutely nothing against cash as a competition prize, but I have a soft spot for those which offer something more unusual. Perhaps that's because my first ever writing success (17 years ago!) earned me cake and books tokens.
What's the cosiest thing you can think of?
Napper is an 18th century slang word for the head. Did you know that, or did you, like me, think it was a word for people who take naps?
Fictive means creating or created by imagination. It can also mean not genuine.
Authors often need to research facts – I learned a huge amount about photography to write this book, drew on my memory for details such as campervanning disasters and toasting marshmallows, and took some of the walks through gorgeous Welsh scenery along with my characters.
In some cases secrete means to put away, hide or conceal. I'm sometimes the secretor of seeds when visiting gardens (please keep my secretory secret!)
Reciprocity is 'the condition of being reciprocal'. It's doing something in return, mutual actions, give and take, inversely correspondent, complementary. 
To go withershins means to travel in a direction contrary to the sun's course and is sometimes thought to be unlucky. Another meaning of withershins is anticlockwise.
Cosy, as I'm sure you know, means comfortable and warm. It can also mean friendly, as in a cosy relationship. 
