Debra Galant Explains the Universe: Novel distractions

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Novel distractions

I may have to go back to the old-fashioned typewriter in order to finish revising my novel-in-progress, Rattled. (Click here to read the first chapter.)

I mean, I was really, really diligently working on my revision of Chapter 23, which has my philandering real-estate developer Jack Barstad striding through the lobby of the Borgata hotel in Atlantic City, and I'd already spent a good hour looking at pictures I'd taken during a trip there in November, and wracking my brain for appropriate adjectives.

I'd gotten this far

It was classy. Boy, it was classy. Polished wooden tables, polished marble floors, polished tinted glass. Just goddamn polished. You could buy a lot of class for a billion dollars. So much class that you'd never know – unless you were in real estate, like Barstad – that the place was built right on top of a dump.
Barstad had always been partial to Trump’s Taj Mahal, with the big white elephants that lined the driveway, the turquoise onion domes and dripping crystal chandeliers. But he had to admit that the Borgata made the Taj look like a cross between a bordello and a Greyhound station. The Borgata – that’s where all the players were staying these days, the real high rollers, and the celebrities, in town from New York and Beverly Hills. He’d already spotted Bruce Willis and his entourage in the lobby. You practically had to make what Bruce Willis made to afford the Borgata, but who cared? Once you’d walked through the sleek chrome-and-glass doors, you'd never stay anywhere else in Atlantic City again.

when I decided to look up the word "arm candy" on the internet for the next paragraph, introducing Barstad's latest bimbo.

And that's where I found The Word Spy.

Arm candy, of course, is

(ARM kan.dee) n. An extremely beautiful person who accompanies a member of the opposite sex to a party or event, but is not romantically involved with that person (cf. eye candy).

but did you know that a booth bunny is

(BOOTH bun.ee) n. A model hired to work in a company's booth during a trade show.

and that a fluffragette is

(fluf.ruh.JET) n. A woman who has only pre-feminist cultural or political heroines (cf. suffragette).
Example Citation:

So I shall live with the Barbies and Little Mermaids, the handbags and hairbands that make up our pink world. Grace will grow out of it, and if she doesn't, does it matter?

She may never be a Germaine Greer, but she can drink sloe gin, subscribe to the Financial Times and join the Fluffragettes.
—Margarette Driscoll, "My girl can't help it, she loves pink," Sunday Times (London), February 28, 1999

Well, you get the idea.

If you're working on a novel, particularly a comic send-up of suburban manners, I can recommend many more interesting definitions to get you off task.

Like alpha mom, trailing spouse and puppy leave.

Hey, it's a dictionary isn't it? I'm working.

February 21, 2004 in Writing | Permalink

Comments

If you're looking for inspiration for descriptions of Atlantic City...don't forget Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I would have underlined the aforementioned title to appease your journalistic sensibilities but there is no way to underline in the "Comments" section.

Posted by: Karen Kaplowitz | February 22, 2004 at 04:55 PM

The "urban dictionary" is fun too. I say this mostly because when I first created my blog, someone submitted "spanglemonkey" to the dictionary, and I have two definitions! Maybe more by now!

Oooh, I can't wait to read the first chapter. It must wait until tomorrow because at the moment I can hardly see for tiredness.

Posted by: Jo | February 22, 2004 at 11:34 PM

I would have underlined the aforementioned title to appease your journalistic sensibilities but there is no way to underline in the "Comments" section.

Posted by: Business Website | January 21, 2006 at 11:17 AM