Saturday, August 20, 2011

I Must Really Be a Nerd

Ann Hathoway was on Jon Stewart the other night and she referred to herself as a nerd.  Jon Stewart asked her "What sort of  nerdy pursuits do you have?" And she answered, "I'm a Scrabble fiend."

Well, if that is the definition of nerd, then I more than qualify.  At any given time, I am in no less than 18 concurrent games.  (at least 4 on my iPhone and 14 on Facebook)

But I think what really makes the case is this... I participated in a PB Makeover workshop on Write on Con this week, and it was THE MOST FUN I'VE HAD ALL SUMMER!

Yes, really.  Better than beaches and boating.  Better than wining and dining.

It really was a shot of adrenalin for me.

For example,

BEFORE

Beware the itching snitcheroo
with fingertips that stick like glue.
Make sure he never touches you.
The itch will drive you to snitch, too.

I took this already fun, Seuss-y stanza by Myrna Foster, and came back with this:

AFTER

Beware the itching snitcheroo
with fingertips that stick like glue.
But please don’t touch him, if you do
The itch to snitch will switch to you!

More fun than careening down a steep water slide.

Yup, NERD-ville.

16 comments:

Myrna Foster said...

Your workshop was my favorite part of WriteOnCon (even better than the ninja agent advice on my novel excerpt). Thanks for the confidence boost. HIGHLIGHTS HIGH FIVE is publishing my fifth poem (with them) this January, but I've mostly received form rejections for my picture books. I haven't even submitted one in years. Now I want to pull out the drafts I've written this year and polish them up, see if I can make something shiny. Thank you.

Kim said...

Love how you reworked that stanza! So much more fun than the original.

Keep up the Scrabble playing. It's obviously serving you well, my friend. :)

Travis Erwin said...

We need to have a Scrabble throwdown.

Hardygirl said...

I proudly join you in picture book nerd-dom!

sf

Unknown said...

Love it!
And I read in some article today (in EW?) that Jack Black is a Scrabble fiend, too. Who knew?

Joanne R. Fritz said...

Ha. If that's being a nerd, then go for it!

Great job with Myrna's stanza, Corey! (and Myrna!) Both are clever, but the reworked stanza really shines.

Rebecca Gomez said...

Corey,

You did the absolutely perfectest bestest thing with that last line!

Pam Calvert said...

Wow...your nerdom is a work of art!

Anonymous said...

I like playing Scrabble. So I'm a nerd, huh? There are far worse things to be. : ) Great work on the stanza!

Susan Anderson said...

Great collaboration here! Myrna's verse went from already good to even better.

=)

Christa Desir said...

I'm totally a nerd. My sister play scrabble every day on vacation. My kids all know how to play. We have downloaded it onto the iPad. Yay!

Jeff King said...

It is ok to be a nerd... scrabble anyone?

Julie Hedlund said...

You guys ROCKED that workshop!

Heathter said...

I prefer Boggle, myself.

Re: Ann Hathaway... I REALLY hate it when gorgeous, have-it-all actresses claim themselves to be nerds. As if.

K said...

I love your before and after, especially since you got a high from it :) I think what makes me nerdy is that I too get pretty over the top excited about words and letters and putting them all together! I love Scrabble and fortunately figured out how to get it on my phone, so when my 2 year old takes a nap in the car I have something to do in case I forget my writing notebook.

Kristin said...

Love it, Myrna! I thought you only wrote novels. :)
Corey, WoCon was sooo good. Glad you had that opportunity.