Never Go Naked to Scrabble: Authorial Words Containing “WIP”
By Jan O'Hara | September 17, 2012 |
Dear Jan: Though you are unpublished, and therefore unqualified to answer anything truly meaningful about writing, you seem less terrifying than other WU contributors. Could you please answer a question for me? What is a “WIP”?
Dear Canonically Confused:
I cannot refuse such a charming request, though I’m obliged to note my fellow Unboxeders aren’t exactly a ravening crowd. You could safely pose this question to any of them. (Except for that Callender person. What a hot-head she turned out to be.)
Please see the definition for WIP below, along with some lesser known but related terms. When you next play full-contact Scrabble and cream your opposition, feel free to credit my thoroughness.
Jan, who hails from Alberta, Canada where the men act manly and the women just snicker
~~~~~~~~~
WIP: stands for work-in-progress and refers to a writer’s current project; usually uttered in ironic tones since, to qualify, a piece need be neither working nor progressing. (Variously spelled W-I-P, wip, WiP.)
unwipped: the raw, perfect essence of a story before it’s begun and corrupted. The alpha. The creative spark. The untainted premise.
wiplashed: neck pain derived from prolonged periods of writing; feeling flayed—psychologically, spiritually, financially, or physically—from the demands of writing fiction.
wipstitches: sharp ache located in the side of the abdomen derived from belly laughter upon reading one’s own words; hallmark symptom of authorly delusion and self-deception.
wipped cream: manuscript destined for review and adulation in the New York Times; a literary- award-winner; probably written by a male.
wippet: species of manuscript known for its skinny body and rapid pace; commercially viable; a genre piece.
pussy-wipped: when one writes under the supervision of a feline companion who maintains an air of heavy censure and disapproval.
horse-wipped: writer whose breakout novel contained something equestrian, and whose branding dictates the inclusion of a horsey chum in all future works, no matter how unjustified.
(Note: Despite clear need, and exhaustive examination of literary nomenclature, this author was unable to find any instance of the term puppy-wipped.)
wipstalling: fine art of procrastination when it comes time to put butt in chair; when one uses their commitment to writing to avoid cleaning the garage, family gatherings, etc. (Related term: wipstaller—see O’Hara, Jan.)
wippersnappers: painfully talented and assured authors who are less than a third of my age.
wipsaws: conventional wisdom about writerly craft or business; to wippersnappers, everything uttered by a smug senior writer—purported to sound like “blah blah blah” but then, I wouldn’t know, would I?
wipcord: string-like object which connects one’s computer to the wall socket. Contains “wires” and is said to permit the movement of “electrons.”
wippings: fragments cut from a manuscript which, when combined with the bones of darlings over the applied heat of creativity, occasionally produce a nourishing literary gruel ; extraneous material used by authors to whet their readership’s appetite for an actual book.
wiptail: an optional, terminal component of a manuscript which is used primarily to wrap up loose ends; otherwise known as an epilogue; to the literati, the hallmark of an amateur and boorish writer who probably wouldn’t know a colophon if it bit them in the asterisk.
bullwip: a WIP which gains in value during the course of its writing; a manuscript greeted with wild enthusiasm by editors or agents because it bears superficial similarities to the powerhouse currently dominating the bestseller lists; a 50 Shades knock-off.
(Note: this author proposes the corresponding term bearwip: a manuscript which will be finished long after its market has cooled; anything containing vampires.)
wippoorwill: emotional malaise when confronted with the blank page; literary meh; when everyone around you is winning NaNoWriMo, the personal failing which leaves you sobbing and rocking in the corner, feeling horribly, horribly alone.
Finally, the phenomenon sought by anyone who has ever sported a key-board shaped dent in their forehead…
wipiphany: insight about a troublesome fictional piece which creates a state of exhilaration and profound gratitude in its creator. (Term first heard through Rebecca Burrell, who’s uncertain if she’s its genius-inventor or genius-appropriator.)
Unboxeders, have I overlooked any WIP-containing words? Please feel free to add to the lexicon.
A USA Today bestselling author, former family physician and academic, Jan O’Hara (she/her) left the world of medicine behind to follow her dreams of becoming a writer. She writes love stories that zoom from wackadoodle to heartfelt in six seconds flat: (Opposite of Frozen; Cold and Hottie; Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures). Her latest Christmas novella, The Cowboy’s Comeback Christmas, is part of a 9-author-strong anthology (A Cowboy This Christmas: A Sweet Romance Anthology). She also contributed to Author in Progress, a Writer’s Digest Book edited by Therese Walsh.
Hi Jan:
Fantastically funny post!
How about wipsnorter: a particularly amusing portion of a manuscript that causes the author or reader to laugh in a swine-like manner.
Well done! Thank you for starting us off in such a cheeky manor. We’re destined to be fast friends.
wipsmart: Jan O’Hara (also see: “funniest woman on the planet”)
Oh, shucks, T. Is there a WIP-term for “blushing”?
“wipped cream: manuscript destined for review and adulation in the New York Times; a literary- award-winner; probably written by a male.”
Oh hell, Jan, you made my day with this one : )
:D I went back and forth about whether to go there, but in the end, I couldn’t resist. Thank you for enjoying.
Great way to start the week! Thank you for this!
You’ve completely ‘outwipped’ me with this one.
Cheers, MarinaSophia. :)
Hilarious post! I loved the two letters at the beginning! How about wipping boy, the one that comes between you and your wip? Or wiplete — the fat, sated wip that refuses to move?
Ooh, I love these. I have two wipping boys in my home. Genius.
Thanks for a good laugh this morning, Jan! Clever.
How about just plain old “wip” — that piece of cord or leather we use to beat ourselves up when the writing’s not going so well? Or to wip ourselves into shape?
Oh, yes, the wet-noodle wip!
Good catch! I was getting fancy and completely forgot about self-flagellation, with which I’m all too familiar. Thank you.
You had me grinning before the list, then laughing, and suddenly the laughter stopped. I almost didn’t dare read the definition for pussy-wipped. Thankfully it involved actual feline companions (I feared it was going to describe a male writer who dared to imagine his Right Readers might be female–would’ve been too close to the bone). Particularly loved the wippersnapper/wipsaw couplet, have suffered many a bout with wippoorwill, and Rebecca should just take the credit she deserves for the brilliance of wipiphany.
In relation to the bullwip/bearwip, there is a town near me that sprang into being in the 1880s as a company town. The company in question, The Featherbone, was known for making the rather odd (or suggestive) combination of corsets and buggy-whips. The key to their success was the use of turkey feathers (for the corset stays and the woven excess for the whips).
In light of my county pride, I would propose: buggywipped – the state of bug-eyed-ness that comes from working day and night, hurrying to get your bullwip done before it becomes a bearwip. And: bodice-wipper – a writer whose male-domination errotic romance style was passe just a year or so ago, but who, with a few tweaks ala 50 Shades, is now writing bullwips.
Thanks for being the least terrifying WU contributor, and for representing our unpubbed subset with such hilarious flair, Jan! Can we soon expect to find out which is more correct, ms or mss (what’s that extra ‘s’ for again?)
You had me at “bodice-wipper.” Well done.
Should I consider a Dear Jan column as a regular feature? Hmmm. Now you’ve got me thinking…
As for pussy-wipped, this is terrible to confess, but I always wonder about poor Porter Anderson and his vigilant help in spreading the word about WU posts. I can’t make things too vexing or wicked for him.
I have nothing to add–these are great. I’ll have to use them against my cousin who always wips my butt at Words With Friends.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Good! As long as you manage to get three little letters, you should be well-prepared. ;)
How about “wipped puppy”: the dog that’s been whining for an hour to get dinner or go outside while you worked out this one page/patagrap/sentence?
That’s a good one for this household. :)
That should be paragraph. mI can’t type on an Ipad.
-unwipped – when you send it off to the editor
-wiptastic – which this article is!!!!! loved it! thanks, Jan! xo
LOL, Thea! I love them both.
Cheers.
“…uttered in ironic tones since, to qualify, a piece need be neither working nor progressing.” Too funny.
Every one of these was perfect. I’m only trying to remember that one idiom, on the tip of my tongue, for when you’re so enthralled in your WIP you forget to feed the kids and they build a fort out of your living room like nesting seaborne rats. Um. Not that I’m familiar with such things.
I’d call that “a normal day in the O’Hara household”, but that’s just me, and not helpful, is it. ;)
I love living-room forts, and the nesting rats analogy.
Love this! I do a lot of wipstalling, which sometimes makes me terribly productive in other areas of my life.
David, me too. It’s a bittersweet behavior, isn’t it?
Great stuff!
Majority Wip (n): Enforcer; disciplinarian. A member of the ruling party of muses in the writer’s head whose job is to help maintain focus and to count votes on all matters of importance to the WIP.
*clap clap clap*
Not only do I love this, but yours is the first politically-related comment in months that I could thoroughly enjoy.
Hilarious post, Jan! Much needed on a cloudy Monday morning in the Midwest.
I think it was a gloomy northern day when I wrote this. May your Midwestern Monday brighten, Marilyn.
hahahahahahahahahaha
Great start to my Monday morning, Jan. And by the by, I’m also a snickering Canadian. :)
Denise Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth
I didn’t know that, Denise. We’ll have to talk geography some time.
Perfect, Jan, as always! Thanks for helping me start my week with a smile.
Glad I succeeded, Jessica. That was the goal. :)
Thank for starting my day off with more than one laugh-out-loud. I especially loved the definition of whipped cream. Gads yad’ think the hundred years and more between George Sands and now would change things up a bit more. And I can’t think of anything witty to add to your wip-list. Guess that makes me a dim-wip.
Ha! Nice comedic ending, Bernadette. You completely suckered me. ;)
So glad I didn’t miss this post! Love the wipped cream, wippets, and wippersnappers. Brilliant!
(Btw I’ve heard of a**-wippins, but I don’t read those kind of books.)
“(Btw I’ve heard of a**-wippins, but I don’t read those kind of books.)”
LOL, Anne. Not to your taste?
Makes me wonder about that term in Victorian classrooms, when headmasters inflicted corporal punishment, then assigned punitive essays.
This was hysterically funny. I adore your humor, Jan.
Incidentally, the little known phrasing for puppy-whipped is actually whipped-puppy, in which the budding author is severely beaten down by his/her equally naive critiquing partners, sometimes with wipcords.
I’m cringing here, D, because of memories I hold in which I was the well-meaning puppy. Good phrase, though!
i’m still chortling over ‘where men act manly and women just snicker’. As a fellow albertan i can totally relate, although i suspect it’s rather universal.
Yes to the universality, though beyond my snickering, I’m extremely fond of certain manly men. ;)
Jan,
Incerdibly funny and clever post. I have nothing to add. I am wip-ed out. Thanks!
Hee. Well done!
Too funny! You’re such a witty girl.
Cheers, Roxy. Thanks so much for coming by.
Jan, you made me laugh as always with your witty take on “writerese.” Fantastic post!
LynDee, who should stop wip-stalling and go actually work now
“Writerese” is a great word too, LynDee. Good luck with those words.
WIPs and chains: something you shouldn’t be writing unless you know what you’re talking about (see ‘Grey, Fifty Shades of’).
WIP-tide: a WIP that’s been relentlessly pulled away from you and is now lost; the coastguard isn’t looking for survivors any more, only floating remains.
ZOMG, Terry, between you and Twist below I’m feeling positive demoralized. You’re too clever, the both of you.
Please don’t show off any more in front of Therese and Kathleen. I like writing this column.
Licking your WIPs in anticipation: a WIP you’re really keen to get cracking on with.
Pistol-WIPped: how you feel after harsh criticism.
Jack the WIPper: your harshest critic.
WIPpee-cushion: noise you make to your critics.
WIP-WIP-hooray: noise you make when you get positive feedback.
WIPeout: when there is no alternative but to restart your WIP afresh.
Epic WIP: when you just *know* it’s going right.
WIPping post: blog entry where you talk about your progress.
WIPster: someone who was into WIPs before they became cool.
Brilliant, Twist. I particularly like Jack the WIPper, LOL.
Yikes, I used the word “whippersnapper” in my WIP this weekend.
I thought the definition of bullwip would be: a WIP which gains in value [IN THE WRITER’S HEAD] during the course of its writing–as in “bullsh*t.”
Time to get back to my “Cool WIP,” although it may only be Cool in my head and not to 9- to 12-year-old readers.
Now see, I thought and thought about WIP-related words and thought I had them all. There you go, pulling one out just like that.
Well done, Mary. Good luck with those recalcitrant readers.
Hilarious! I love wippet. Well… and the rest of them. :) Fantastically clever post!
Cheers, Lara. Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it.
So funny. My favorite is:
“wipstitches: sharp ache located in the side of the abdomen derived from belly laughter upon reading one’s own words; hallmark symptom of authorly delusion and self-deception.”
Yep. I’ve done that.
As have I, which is how I know about the self-delusion bit. :)
OH. MY. GOSH!
Thank you. Absolutely awesome.
Ha, Margo. Thank you for your lovely comment!
“…unpublished and therefore unqualified…?!?” Sounds kind of WIP-less to me. (Dander rising, unsuccessfully filing non-existent fingernails into sharp claw-like stubs…for scrabbling. Suddenly distracted by idea: add manly men to next screenplay…)
*shakes head* *knows this is Phyllis and something very creative will now be afoot*
(bright, shiny, manly men…)
Sorry, where were we? Oh, yes. Snickering in Canada. Carry on.
Ah, you had me at “wipped cream”.
Wipping Willow: A WIP in which the author has bent over backwards and heeded the advice of everyone in their crit group (and the checkout girl at the local market), and changed her/his WIP to the point where it’s been stripped of its original voice and now includes fruitarian characters morphing into blood-sucking gerbils should they stray from their diet of organic, locavore, and sustainable supply of Pink Lady apples.
Jenn! I love this. The road to my writerly mansion is lined with these beauties.
Wip-pockets: those who, upon hearing your Genius Idea, create a story Very Similar But Slightly Different. :)
Hilarious post.
Ouch! I sincerely hope you didn’t come to that WIP-word because of personal experience. I love the term, though!
Zombie ApocaWIPs: when you’re too tired and brain-dead to write anything.
You are scarily good at this.
Twip = a psychedelic-style nightmare experienced by writers mid-book, in which their plot and characters do weird stuff.
LOL, Juliet! And the most worrisome aspect is that one can get there sans chemicals.
Thanks for playing.
I can name two authors who are puppy-wipped: Dean Koontz and Robert Parker. There’s a dog in every one of their novels.
Hilarious blog post :)
wip-blogged: when a writer procrastinates by spending more time reading blogs than writing.
Twit-wipped: spending more time on Twitter than writing.
Face-whipped: Same as Twit-wipped but on Facebook.
There are a vast number of puppy-wipped writers in the romance genre, too, though I adore most of them. I had no idea it permeated the suspense market.
LOVE the social-media-wipped meme. Well done.
Thanks for the laughs, Jan. This calls for a soundtrack. Devo’s “Wip It” followed by Willow Smith’s “Wip by hair.” I’ve been known to do both.
Thanks for cracking that wip this morning. Now I best go work on mine.
Agreed on the soundtrack idea, though I’ll have to look up the Willow Smith reference.
Good luck with the words!
Will-o’-the-WIPs: when you are struck by a terrific idea to help your WIP, but you don’t have anything to write it down. So you try to remember it. But the idea fades from your mind.
You end up getting completely distracted from your WIP, your foolish mind led away by the nefarious Will-o’-the-WIP…
I have a love-hate relationship with Will-o’-WIPs. You’re left with this lingering psychic thread and a certainty it would have been tantalizing, but nothing.
Jan, how about wiptease? The absolutely most perfect destined-to-be-humongous best-seller at 1:15 a.m., which turns into a horrifying piece of stale drivel upon review of rough draft at 1:15 p.m.
Usually fueled by a rather large glass of boxed wine.
Also distantly related to ugly step-wipsters.
Loved your post and every single comment (all 77 of them by the time I saw it.) Thanks so much to all, and keep on smiling. (o:
*fist bump* to another Jan with a wonderful contribution.
You folks are all so talented and playful. I’m honored to be in such company.
I have wanted to be a known as a “Hot Head” my entire life. Thank you, Jan, for finally noticing and making it public. My next goal? Being publicly labeled a Rabble Rouser or a Ne’er Do Well.
xo!
Have faith, Sarah. With time and effort, all things are possible.
I laughed through this post. Awesome job. :-)
Thank you, Vicki! So kind of you to let me know.
How about dewipination – when you start enacting those suggestions for revisions which basically equate to “rewrite this crap”
:)
This article is amazing!! and I love the other suggestions in comments – bodice-wipper is classic :)
I’m familiar with the process but didn’t have a good term for it. Until now, that is. Thanks, Trisha! I love that you played along. And yes, boddice-wipper is a keeper.
Now, Jan, honey, who would say to you that “you are unqualified to answer anything truly meaningful about writing”? You’re yanking our chains.
Or our whips.
:)
Just so everyone knows, Chuck and I do answer such questions on the Writer Unboxed newsletter. We are not really terrifying. We just sing a lot of showtunes around the piano whenever we over-do the toddies a wee, tiny bit.
Actually, one of the most prominent and critically-acclaimed authors with whom I’ve ever worked had to ask me what ‘pantsing’ is.
I could have hugged her.
A lack of knowledge of modern writing jargon and acronyms is often a sign that a writer has been for many years busy writing.
You could ask the ToolMaster. He’d tell you I’ve had some experience yanking chains. ;)
If we ever have a WU retreat, I’m so pressing you and Chuck into music duty. A WU jam session? Sounds like fun.
[…] O’Hara (@jan-ohara) and her commenters make sure you’ll Never Go Naked to Scrabble: Authorial Words Containing “WIP” on Writer Unboxed. For example: unwipped, horse-wipped, pussy-wipped (now what are you thinking???; […]