Nerdiness = pwned.
So for nearly a year now, I've been working on To the Dead, an HP post-war novella I started (and fully plotted) in my senior year of college and then promptly abandoned for two years. The original chapter got an overhaul, and oh my god but the whole thing's getting long (I'm at over 13,000 words right now, with chapters 4-7 left to go). Having gotten a hang of the characterization and mostly fleshed out a lot of the plot's framework, the main challenge right now is writing the magic-intensive sections, because JKR decided to invent a magical world, set the whole series in a magical school, and then make almost no effort to establish how magic actually works. (Oh, what the Harry Potter books might have been if all writers of magical fiction for kids had a little club and Diane Duane had volunteered to be JKR's beta.) I've been gearing up to start chapter four for a little while now, and keep stalling out because it's got a lot of magic use (not to mention characters researching alternate spells and improvising from theory), and I'm not the sort of person who can comfortably put down:
"You know," Draco said, "it's a little disturbing that I agree with you more now than I did when you were sane," and hit him with [INSERT SPELL HERE].
and fill in the blanks later.
So, my solution to this dilemma? Well, given the only general parameter for naming spells that we have (most but not all are bastardized version of Latin words), and given that I'm helping cover the front desk at work (and as I can't do any real work up there, I take that as a time to roam freely around all sections of the internet not rated above PG-13), I spent a good chunk of yesterday reading an online Latin-English dictionary and making a spell reference list. Which is not only a few hundred words long, it's also divided into seven categories (each of which is a made-up type of spell that I know I'll need several of), a batch of general-use words (mostly for modifying the basic categories above), and all of this internally alphabetized.
My girlfriend mocked me. Feel free to do the same.
"You know," Draco said, "it's a little disturbing that I agree with you more now than I did when you were sane," and hit him with [INSERT SPELL HERE].
and fill in the blanks later.
So, my solution to this dilemma? Well, given the only general parameter for naming spells that we have (most but not all are bastardized version of Latin words), and given that I'm helping cover the front desk at work (and as I can't do any real work up there, I take that as a time to roam freely around all sections of the internet not rated above PG-13), I spent a good chunk of yesterday reading an online Latin-English dictionary and making a spell reference list. Which is not only a few hundred words long, it's also divided into seven categories (each of which is a made-up type of spell that I know I'll need several of), a batch of general-use words (mostly for modifying the basic categories above), and all of this internally alphabetized.
My girlfriend mocked me. Feel free to do the same.