The Magic of Words as Opportunity

Deadlines and Other Powerful Words

 

 

Opportunity Writ Large…Again

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, multi award-winning author of the 
HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books for Writers

 

Deadlines. 

I’m not going to give you advice on meeting deadline because I’m in the middle of a booklet for my HowToDoItFrugally Series when I should be nearing the end. I’ve always believed in leaving early for social occasions, and to catch planes. And I’ve never had trouble with deadlines before. Now—suddenly—I’m feeling…inadequate and a little fearful of mentioning the word.

So here I am facing my November deadline for Writers on the Move. I just, well…sorta stole a little segment from the booklet I’m writing to share with subscribers and visitors to Karen Cioffi’s blog as well as her talented slate of regular contributors. 

It’s the story of how I came to write a booklet I’m working on. It’s little about deadlines, too, I guess. You’ll have to read between the lines.

Anthropologists tell us we humans have been storytellers since we first gathered around fires for warmth and companionship, long before we entertained the idea of writing. Stories were our entertainment. It’s also how we learned the easy way—from others’ experiences—rather than from our own shortcomings, our own seemingly insurmountable challenges, and our own oopsies. Having said that, when we do learn the hard way, sharing helps us see the value of applying humor to ourselves.

In important moments of working with my first editor, I found myself using the words saying or adage and immediately felt ill-at-ease about my vocabulary skills. I eventually acquired the more acceptable all-purpose word, apothegm when one was suggested in an editing class I was teaching and thereby expected to know about such things. It is somehow both more specific and more adaptable than sayings…and, yes, less humiliating. But it still didn’t let me bore down on the specifics I needed to communicated with editors--nor for my classes and the new book I was writing to use as a text in a class on marketing books. There were available books and texts galore out there but nothing that included public relations for authors, or promotional ideas or getting media attention for books. 

In the meantime, apothegms were leading me to all kinds of synonyms with slightly different meanings. They included more precise as well as well as subliminal interpretations for each: 

§  mottoes and catchphrases might suggest an unwanted commercialism.

§  proverbs imply a biblical passage; words of wisdom also connote religiosity or a philosophy that might or might not be appropriate for the title in consideration.

§  platitude smacks of cliché, something most of us work mightily to avoid.

§  maxims tend to be about rules of conduct. If an editor suggests you use them to introduce chapters and your book isn’t a “Miss Manners” book, explore the kind of apothegms they had in mind before spending good writing time researching quotations that probably won’t suit the tone of your book.

§  axiom, dictum, adage, and even the word sayings, itself! 

     As I started thinking of them as synonyms, it occurred to me to use a variety of the ones I was runningacross at the beginning of each chapter and as I found them, the book started feeling like a book rather than a collection of essays. When I couldn’t find what I needed, I started writing some myself. It felt like magic. Earlier this month, Terry Whalin published an article on this blog about grabbing down opportunity when it appears to you, and it occurred to me that was a bit of related magic. Sometimes we don’t recognize opportunity when it comes and perches itself on the bridge of our noses. The article made me realize that one simple word like apothegms isone of those opportune moments--one I nearly missed.

Soon I realized that very few authors use these, ahem!…sayings to make a book work as a full book and that maybe if I wrote a short book of vocabulary words related to the needs of authors, the content could help them apply this technique to their books. Different words might work differently for them, but each could be an opportunity for one of my fellows out there.

 I had found a way to make the interior design that would make my book more interesting than a theme paper. It wasn’t a new idea, by any means. But it had become an opportunity that kept growing. 

I had to self-publish because I was on deadline for my first class that fall. I started introducing each chapter with an apothegm or one of its semi-synonyms, depending on the topic of the chapter. One opportunity kept leading to others. Thinking of apothegms as opportunity, it’s a wonder they haven’t become an essential technique combined with the merest suggestion of interior design in seminars and presentations at writing conferences!  (If you are interested in reading Terry’s article, leave a comment at the end of this article and Terry, Karen, or I will send you the permalink a to make it easier for you to access!)

 

But back to my story. This one “accidental” piece of knowledge worked in favor of my flagship book, my UCLA Writers’ Department students, and is still making itself useful for me nearly three decades later. If you’re familiar with my how-to books for writers, you’ve probably already run across the motto or tagline I came up with early in the pursuit of clarity to replace my old sayings habit: 

 

“Careers that are not fed die as readily
as any living organism given no sustenance." 
~ CHJ

 

I still try to find somewhere to slip that one into all my how-to books for writers and promotional material. But it’s limited. It only works when I want to convince authors that they’ll need a “to know more about a lot of things they never suspected they’d need or wanted desperately to avoid.” It’s also an example of how the work you put into apothegms for one book might be recycled to benefit many books—even many promotional projects like handouts.

And here’s the icing on the cake. This (unfinished!) book has lead to another promotion I haven’t tried before. WinningWriters.com will be giving it as a gift to all those who enter their 2025 #NorthStreetBookPrize contest. If I’m lucky the contest entrants will tell others about it. Opportunity meeting opportunity. Speaking of opportunity! I mustn’t forget to add  WinningWriters’ clever pre-promotional idea to the next edition of my The Frugal Book Promoter. That would be its fourth edition. It seems a single word has more power than even I who love words could have imagined.

PS: Once finished, this booklet full of writer-related words, each a powerful opportunity, will be available from Modern History Press early in 2026.

 

MORE ABOUT TODAY’S WRITERS’-ON-THE-MOVE BLOG CONTRIBUTOR 

                                                                  Badge created by Carolyn Wilhelm for the HowToDoItFrugally Series of Books

 

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.  Carolyn writes nonfiction for writers, poetry, and fiction and has studied writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. J. She is especially thankful to Karen Cioffi for letting her share stories like this with her #WritersontheMove audience. 

 

When Words Don’t Say What You Want Them To

How to Avoid Embarrassment Using the History of Words

When Is Nice Anything but Nice

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the newly released
Third Edition of The Frugal Editor

My favorite resources for keeping up with ever-shifting English grammar appear to be games at first glance, something I prefer not to waste my time on but somehow also get hooked on. Still, I have several quickie newsletters that appear in my mailbox because with the first few—the likes of Word Genius and Word Smart—I realized they were great tools for editors—and for those occasions when all writers choose to break that rule about always hiring a professional editor. You know when you do it, and I know when I do it—usually when I’m in a hurry or when I’m writing promotional material. Ahem! 

I sometimes break another rule, too. I subscribe to these letters when new ones arrive unbidden, unannounced, and unrecommended. As an editor who knows that smart editors need to hire editors whenever possible, too, I find they help me keep my skills ahead of the curve. That I have never unsubscribed is informal proof of their value.

Sometime in about 2023 one of these letters asked,  “Have you ever stopped to think about the true meanings behind the words we use every day? While we may use these words without a second thought, they often carry deeper significance and historical context that we may not be aware of… .”

That quotation lead me to the word nice which I have long subconsciously avoided. And I have recently been annoyed with a new series of TV ads—probably a very expensive one—that assumes women everywhere prefer the word “nice” over “artistic,” “stylish,” or any of the other possibilities listed in about any thesaurus a writer might use. The producers must have no notion of the word’s history or even a built-in awareness that there might be times it is better avoided.

Of course, we have all used nice to mean something agreeable. But originally it meant something quite different and, as words are prone to do, morphed over time. Think of the  word bad as a recent example of just such a change. Occasionally one of those alphabetical generations who began to use it to mean its opposite. I am aware of it, but it still throws me for a loop when they do! 

A caveat: When you’re writing, you can’t count on the tone of voice to indicate satire. There are ways to do it with dialogue, description, context. But you have to identify the problem to use one of those techniques. 

Nice derives from the Latin nesius which means unknowing or ignorant. That eventually changed to suggest foolish or simple before landing on its current most-commonly used meaning. Still, occasionally we become aware of its double meaning, usually from the tone of voice used to indicate irony as in “Well, ain’t that just nice.” When the word nice comes to mind for us writers, it might be a good time to click on the synonym feature of your word processor to find a word that is less loaded with hidden meanings. 

Take special care with some words or phrases being used in the news these days. They have come to be referred to as dog whistles. In politics it might be referred to as code. You might not catch the meaning, but the most radical members will. Some of their history might impart an unintended association with the humankind’s least admirable tendencies. Of course, when you spot one it’s your decision to use it…or not.

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With each issue of Karen Cioffi’s #WritersontheMove blog, Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative). The third edition of The Frugal Editor from Modern History Press includes a chapter on some of the words most misused by the very people whose business it is to know them and to give publishers and authors the exposure needed to reach bestseller status. It is the second multi award-winning book in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers with lots of those important changes in it like the new uses for gender pronouns and a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to inform readers as well as nudge book sales all within the realm of acceptable practices—ancient or new. Find it on Amazon’s new buy-page offered in for paper, hard cover, or e-book series. (The availability of that new page for book series Amazon offers authors is another of the #FrugalBookPromoterTips she posts on Twitter (X).)

 

Dialogue’s Ten Basic Can’t-Go-Wrong Rules

 

Ten Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp
And Why the Average Author Needs to Know Them

 

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Author of The Frugal Editor: Do-It-Yourself Editing
Now In Its Third Edition

 

Let’s start with the second part first because you, the author, are reasonably sure 
your published work will receive attention from the best editors ever, 
and in the meantime, running small documents past friends, relatives, and even English teachers
likely won’t cut it. This article covers grammar and dialogue that
  English Departments’ don’t offer until college and then only if you happen
 to choose it as an elective or major in creative writing. 
PS: If you write nonfiction, and are avoiding anecdotes to make 
your work sparkle, you’ll have tools enough to make your characters speak!

 

Dialogue’s Ten Basic Can’t-Go-Wrong Rules 

 

1. Keep it simple. "He said" and "She said" will usually do. Your reader is trained to accept this repetition.

 

2. Forget you ever heard of strong verbs. Skip the "He yelped" and the "She sighed." They slow your dialogue down. If you feel need them, look at the words—the actual dialogue— your character used when he was yelping. Maybe it doesn't reflect the way someone would sound if he yelped. Maybe if you strengthen the dialogue, you be glad to ditch the overblown tag.

 

3. When you can, reveal who is saying something by the voice or tone of the dialogue. That way you may be able to skip tags occasionally, especially when you have only two people speaking to one another. Your dialogue will ring truer, too.

 

4. Avoid having characters use other characters' names. In real life, we don't use people's names in our speech much.  We tend to reserve using names for when we're angry or disapproving or we just met in a room full of people and we're practicing out social skills. Having a character direct her speech to one character or another by using her name is a lazy writer's way of directing dialogue and it will annoy the reader. When readers are annoyed, they will not be immersed in the story you are trying to tell.

 

5. Avoid putting internal dialogue in italics. Trust your reader and your own ability to write in a character's point of view. Whichever point-of-view you have choses for your narrative will let your reader surmise who is speaking.

 

6. Be cautious about using dialogue to tell something that should be shown. It doesn't help to transfer “telling” from the narrative to what a character’s is saying. Professionals will know what you are trying to do and your reader will just think that character is long winded.

 

7. Don't break up dialogue sequences with long or overly frequent blocks of narrative. One of dialogue's greatest advantages is that it moves a story along.  If a writer inserts too much stage direction, it will lose the forward motion and any tension it is building.

 

8. Avoid having every character answer a question directly. Some people do that (say a sensitive young girl who has been reared to obey her elders) but many don't. Some veer off with an answer that doesn't follow from the question asked. Some are silent. Some characters do any one of these things as a matter of course. Some do them purposefully, perhaps to avoid fibbing or to change the subject or because they are passive aggressive.

 

9. Avoid dull dialogue that doesn't help draw better characters or move the action forward. Forcing a reader to hear people introduce themselves to one another without a very good reason to do so is cruel and unusual punishment.

 

10. Use dialogue to unobtrusive plant a seed of intrigue. If a character brings up a concern that isn't solved immediately, you can heighten the page-turning effect until you are ready to supply the “great reveal.”

 

Though this article will have writers using professionally-written dialogue to liven everything from their nonfiction to their novels, I strongly recommend 

Tom Chiarella's Writing Dialogue published by Writers' Digest. For more on editing in general—from editing query letters to turning unattractive adverbs into metaphoric gold—find my The Frugal Editor in its third edition on Amazon.

 

Next month, right here on Karen Cioffi’s Writers on the Move
blog, I’m planning another list that
will give you ten reasons why knowing more 
editing than your do already might make

You a better (and happier) writer. 

 

MORE ABOUT TODAY’S WRITERS ON THE MOVE CONTRIBUTOR

 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson was an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writer's Program for nearly a decade. The first book in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books, The Frugal Book Promoter, won USA Book News' Best Professional Book Award and Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award. The second, The Frugal Editor, is the winningest book in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers (The first edition was named best of 2004 by USA Book News. ) It includes many editing tips on dialogue, the use of quotation marks and more and the third edition includes even more. Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com. 

 

 

 

 

How to Make Writing Come Alive for Readers and Writers Alike

Carolyn doing what she preaches, spreading the word, having the fun!

Connecting to Authors Counts

 

Carolyn Rants About How to Make Reading
 Feel Like the Real Thing

 

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, novelist, poet and multi award-winning author 
of the #HowToDoItFrugallySeries of Books for Writers

 

Many years ago when I was beginning to dedicate myself to writing—meaning writing real books and not having other work to attend to, the LA Times reported that Harper Collins had hatched a program to “draw authors and readers together.”

What a wonderful concept! It seems new at the time, a possibility that could be nurtured with the coming of the Internet. And, yes, I’m being facetious. 

 The giant publisher offered up their big-name authors for an “Invite the Author” program. Authors like Ann Patchett (author of Bel Canto) and Wally Lamb (author of This Much I Know is True) would speak by phone to the members of a very few book clubs—chosen by lottery, no less! It seemed like a great idea to me. I was working on my the first book soon to become part of a series for writers (The Frugal Book Promoter, now in its third edition).

Of course this was a new idea of inspired by the best of marketing’s intentions—to make PR more about serving the public than mere “selling” which was okay by me especially since they publish lots of excellent titles that can be classified as literary, a genre I saw as losing ground since my days as an English major. What T’d me off is that these ladies from one of the chosen clubs, the Digressing Divas Book Club in Michigan, were so excited because they “had never met an author or talked to one before.” Can you imagine? Weren’t bookstores doing that? Libraries? But it me realize there must be avid readers who think that authors are a bit untouchable. It convinced me of what I had started to observe on my own. We all could do more but the newly minted POD authors otherwise known as the self-published had been eschewing marketing of all kinds because from what they observed it was a job for publishers and beneath the talents of creatives—that is, authors! 

Today, things have changed. I was a slog to get us to realize that not matter how we publish we are at least in part responsible for our own book’s success, our own relationships with our readers. Many authors of literary works (and other genres, too) had been keeping themselves cloistered but not all. Today even the most literary, most hightly paid ones have websites—even participate on the content we find there.  They have easily accessed e-mail addresses. They have blogs and newsletters! They have bared their very souls to their readers in their writing, for heaven’s sakes!

Today it’s easy to find authors. Look up their names on Google. Once found, visit their site and sign their guest books. Most (at least the smart ones) would be pleased to send you a signed bookplate if you ask. Most will answer your note.

Lacking an e-mail address or an interactive feature on their website, authors can be reached by writing to their publisher who passes these letters on to the author. This is not a new process. It has been going on for decades. What a concept! A personal letter with the distinct possibility that a reader will get a personal note back complete with a valued signature! 

Oh, and book signings. Well, granted some big chains got awfully uppity about who they allowed to appear on their premises, but most towns, large and small have realized the potential for an author to visit and chat with book lovers. So, if “Digressing Divas” everywhere are all that excited about chatting with authors, maybe they should be telling their bookstore proprietors about their needs. In fact there are lots of ways they can keep that author-reader relationship ball rolling:

~What would happen if B&N invited an author from a small press so their customers could get copy of an autographed first novel, maybe even a honest-to-goodness first edition? 

~And what if they actually promoted this new author? 

~And what if the people who came actually found a new voice, a new author to adore?

~“Digressing Divas” could also hound their libraries a bit. A former Nobel prize nominee, Dr. Alicia Ghiragossian, Stephen Veres, author of A Light in the Distance, and I spoke on “The Three Faces of Tolerance” at our local library. Other authors like Pat Morrison, Vincent Bugliosi and poet Bart Edelman have spoken to those in our not-so-large community as part of this same series. None of us said “No.” Some of these authors may someday be the Oateses or Faulkners or Roths of the literary world with—or without the help of a publisher.

Here’s more proof: We now have a Literacy Day. This year it’s on Mon, Sep 8, 2025.  We might still not have an opportunity to find the world’s most famous authors at every bookstore or featured on every segment of Ali Velshi’s book club (MSNBC), but it’s an opportunity to meet people who write, people with opinions and people with talent.

Our “Diva” book-clubbers could invite authors to come talk to their clubs, these days, especially if one live in their town or even region. I know several authors who have spoken to as few as twelve avid readers cozied around the fireplace at a club member’s home. One of those is Leora G. Krygier, author of First the Raven.

Some authors even teach at colleges in your area. Author Beverly J. Scott even took a road tour in one of her collectible Edsels so she could meet people in small towns!

 

Real Ideas for Making Readers and Authors Who Read
 Feel More Connected 

 

• Write to authors when you’ve read their books.
• Look up an author on Amazon.com. She may even have a link to a special biography page and/or an e-mail address.
• Check out AuthorsDen.com. Wow! What an array of writers!
• Attend book signings. Occasionally attend even if you haven’t ever read a book by the starring author.
• Join groups that invite authors to speak. Even investment groups are known to do that. I know. I was among the 300 guests in the banquet hall!
• Attend your local library’s events.
• Let your bookstore know when you have read something you enjoy, especially if you had to go to Amazon.com to buy it. Ask them to invite that author to visit their store.
• Read your paper’s Book Review section (you’ll sometimes find them in sections labeled “Opinion” or “Voices” these days); use some of the website addresses you find there to contact publishers and authors.
• Most of all, just ask for your bookish little heart’s desire. You might get it. Cross-promotion among authors is known to be one of the best promotions of all.
• If you find an author who isn’t receptive, find yourself another.

 

 

MORE ABOUT THE “WRITERS ON THE MOVE” CONTRIBUTOR

 

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.  Carolyn writes nonfiction for writers, poetry, and fiction and has studied writing at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University, Prague. She is also celebrating more than a year of writing this column for Susan Violante’s First Chapter Plus and occasionally contributes to Reader Views’ blog as well. Please follow her author’s profile page on Amazon at https://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile to receive notice of her new books right to your e-mail address. 

 

How Dickens Made a Word for Himself and Became Known for “Messiness"

Dickensonian Words for Inspiration

Creative Writing Isn’t for the Faint of Heart

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

I included a chapter in the third edition of my multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers for the kind of writers who can’t resist making up words, especially if they feel insecure about it. Of course, writers should reassess such “indiscretions,” but knowing a bit about renowned writers who did the same thing helps them feel more comfortable about straying from the usual. I love MSNBC’s motto, “the more we know…” and it benefits by adding  “the more equipped we are to break a rule.”

Take the admired Victorian writer Charles Dickens, famous for his A Christmas Carol (1843) and Oliver Twist (1838). He invented a slew of words by making an adjective like messy into a noun with by adding a suffix. Some adjectives like messy very nearly demand to become a noun and Dickens’ messiness was so successful it can still be found in some of the best dictionaries. 

I think of new words attributed to Dickens as inspirational. They to dare us to proceed when we are so tempted. Here’s a little list of his adaptations—some that caught on and have been used for decades now and some…well, not so much.

§  Comfoozled: Some say Dickens invented this word, some prefer to call it a coined word. He used it in one of his Pickwick Papers which appears to mean “a horrid state of love,” and “done over with.” Popular or not, I put in in a class with Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwockey.” A word doesn’t have to live long to be a lot of fun.

§  Sassigassity: Dickens said it means “audacity with attitude.” That makes it a superlative for audacity; you know, very sassy or very audacious. Perhaps it didn’t catch on because writers’ seem to have a natural aversion to redundancy. Today Dickens experiment might serve as an example of how we writers might evaluate our own creative efforts. In this case it did double duty for something we’re already uncomfortable with.

§  Whizz-bang met with greater success. Dickens used it to as a noun for the sound of gunshot. His word became popular during WWII to mean a small-caliber shell and it might have been adapted through the decades to describe a vigorous or smart person, but that theory might not be easily verified.

§  Jog-trotty: Apparently Dickens wasn’t thinking of jog-trot, a term used for the slow trot used by some breeds of horses. He seemed to equate it with it with something dull in his Bleak House (1852). That one, too, hasn’t found popularity.

 

Here are a few of Dickens’ words that have happily survived:

§  Sawbones is still occasionally used to refer to a surgeon. I suspect its tinge of humor has helped is longevity.

§   Mildewy was so useful Dickens used it twice—one in The Pickwick Papers and again in A Tale of Two Cities (1859).

§  Soupy, bulgy, swishy ,waxy, and trembly are all examples of how easy it is to add a suffix to most any word. Using that technique probably won’t add points in a game of Scrabble, but if your inventions are disputed because they don’t show up in dictionaries, you can try the old defense, “If it’s good enough for Dickens, it’s good enough for Scrabble.

I’ll be counting on your sassigassity to come up with some words of your own and maybe new techniques for the process. I’ll need new material for that chapter in The Frugal Editor I mentioned. It’s a favorite among poets and authors of children’s lit. You new words could be my excuse to pitch its fourth edition…and make your new word famous. Ahem!

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MORE ABOUT TODAY’S BLOGGER

 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. All her books for writers are multi award winners including the first edition of The Frugal Book Promoter published in 2003 now updated and published in its third edition. Her The Frugal Editor, also now in its third edition, won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award and includes an almost-new chapter for poets and other creatives who like making up their own words.

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.