Writing Gooder

So every Friday I’m going to try to give you an update on where the new YWS is and how it’s coming along.  This is how it looked last Friday:

This is how it looks now:

So as you can tell, a lot of progress has been made.  Although what you see above is still not the final version, it is very similar to what the final version will look like.  Of course, you do need some imagination!

At the very top you have the header, which is pretty much the same except that the nav bar is now below the header instead of above.  After using it for a bit, I actually prefer it this way now.  It makes navigation just a little bit easier, and it looks better.

The featured works are displayed in that rectangle box on the left, and the quote/word of the week is next to that.  Below that will be a “Staff PIcks” area with items chosen by members of Big Brother.  Anything on the site (or even off the site) can be displayed there.

Below Staff PIcks are the two wide columns, which will feature the ten latest literary works.  Short summaries will be provided rather than the 250 word excerpts that you see now.  Personally, I think there are pluses and minuses to both approaches.  In the end, aesthetics and organization weigh in favor of short summaries.

In the sidebar area, that first long rectangle box is the user info area, which will display stuff like your avatar, how many posts since your last visit, new PM alerts, new friend alerts, etc.  Underneath that you have the Google Ads, and below that you have featured member.  Finally, at the very bottom will be the ten most recent topics.

So that’s the home page.  Random member is being tossed (with over 7000 members, it doesn’t make as much sense to have it anymore), and the top 5 point leaders box is being moved to the leaderboards area.  Beyond that, everything else on the front page is staying.

Next on my to-do list are the forums, and that’s going to take a while.  In fact, they’re proving to be so difficult to layout that I may just end up doing other areas of the site first.  However, things are moving along now so keep tuned for more updates every Friday.

It’s the third weekend of October, and in the United States that usually means hayrides, raking leaves, or carving a pumpkin.  Personally, I’m not doing any of these things, but I’m just saying some people do those things.  Instead, I’ll be going to the last day of the Renaissance Festival here in Maryland.  That means tons of great food (I’m on a 24 hour fast before going), and watching a rousing game of human chess.

By the way, doesn’t the guy who’s leading the hayride look really creepy?

Pork and Beans by Weezer.

So what do you think are the most attractive book covers?  You can name how many you want (1, 100… doesn’t matter), and I’ll put together a list later this week based on the responses.

So it’s June 17 now, which means almost everyone in the Northern Hemisphere is out of school for the summer.  So, how will you be spending these sunny days?  Got a job?  Camp?  YWSing it up?

So most everyone knows that Shakespeare invented the word assassination, right?

Well did you also know he invented the words academe, accused, addiction, advertising, amazement, arouse, backing, bandit, bedroom, beached, besmirch, birthplace, blanket, bloodstained, barefaced, blushing, bet, bump, buzzer, caked, cater, champion, circumstantial, cold-blooded, compromise, courtship, countless, critic, dauntless, dawn, deafening, discontent, dishearten, drugged, dwindle, epileptic, equivocal, elbow, excitement, exposure, eyeball, fashionable, fixture, flawed, frugal, generous, gloomy, gossip, green-eyed, gust, hint, hobnob, hurried, impede, impartial, invulnerable, jaded, label, lackluster, laughable, lonely, lower, luggage, lustrous, madcap, majestic, marketable, metamorphize, mimic, monumental, moonbeam, mountaineer, negotiate, noiseless, obscene, obsequiously, ode, olympian, outbreak, panders, pedant, premeditated, puking, radiance, rant, remorseless, savagery, scuffle, secure, skim milk, submerge, summit, swagger, torture, tranquil, undress, unreal, varied, vaulting, worthless, and zany, along with well over 1,600 other words?

In fact, Shakespeare used only 17,677 different words in all his plays, and he invented 10% of those! His influence on the English language is so huge that whenever you say all that glitters isn’t gold, barefaced, be all and end all, break the ice, breathe one’s last, brevity is the soul of wit, catch a cold, clothes make the man, disgraceful conduct, dog will have his day, eat out of house and home, elbowroom, fair play, fancy-free, flaming youth, foregone conclusion, frailty, thy name is woman, give the devil his due, green eyed monster, heart of gold, heartsick, hot-blooded, housekeeping, it smells to heaven, it’s Greek to me, lackluster, leapfrog, live long day, long-haired, method in his madness, mind’s eye, ministering angel, more sinned against than sinning, naked truth, neither a borrower nor a lender be, one fell swoop, pitched battle, primrose path, strange bedfellows, the course of true love never did run smooth, the lady doth protest too much, the milk of human kindness, to thine own self be true, too much of a good thing, towering passion, wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve, or witching time of the night, you are quoting Shakespeare.

And that’s not even close to the be-all and end-all of it (again, a Shakespeare quote).

Normal Koran (Penguin Classics): 7.7 in x 4.8 in x 0.9 in; 11.2 ounces; 464 pages

Smallest Koran: 0.66 in × 0.50 in × 0.28 in; grams?; 571 pages

Published in Cairo in 1982, the world’s smallest Koran is unabridged, bound, and in Arabic.  It is currently owned by Dr. Muhammad Saeed Karim Beebani of Pakistan.

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So if you’ve made a comment lately, you’ve noticed that it needs to go through approval first.  I started doing this a few days ago because this blog has been getting a large number of hits due to a few posts made popular via stumbleupon.  While that’s great, it also means that the blog is now more open to the unclean masses, which means some have made some very inappropriate comments.

To keep these comments from showing, all comments must be approved now.  However, if you register with the blog, you only need to be approved once.  After that, all your comments should appear immediately.

Not sure how long it will stay like this; having to approve comments is a bit burdensome.

Dear Grammar Nazi Who Sits Behind Me,

I don’t know your name, although I think it begins with a B. You’ve been in my class for a few months now, and I feel quite foolish for not knowing how to address you. I’m often distracted by my own daydreaming, so please do not take offense that I cannot address this letter properly to you.

However, I want to thank you. I’m sure you don’t remember since I imagine you perform a countless number of these good deeds every day, but it happened the other day before our final exam in criminal law. I was sitting in front of you (I had a blue-green shirt on with an OBX logo on it) and was talking to a fellow classmate, who was sitting to my left. We were discussing our weekend plans when I began a sentence with “You and me.”

Without any prompting, you snapped your head up from your Apple brand, white laptop to quickly say “You and I.” I must have looked astonished at the time because you returned to what you were doing within seconds. But I am writing to you today to tell you that my astonishment was actually deep, heart-felt gratitude. I simply could not express the thanks and deep appreciation for your correcting me. And to imagine, I wasn’t even talking to you, and yet you went out of your way to correct me.

I am so sorry for interrupting you, and I can’t apologize enough for that. Of course, I can only assume you receive such thanks dozens of times a day, but please cherish this one. It comes from the heart of the middle finger on my right hand.

Sincerely,

Your Secret Admirer

Thought I’d try something new: I’ll make up a word, then everyone else has to come up with a definition for it.  The best definition will be chosen after an undetermined length of time, and the winner will have the honor of having invented a new word!

This week’s word is:

parathonal