IWSG, Butterflies Lollygagging in Your Stomach, Fourth of July Quotes and Being Thankful

Posting the First Wednesday of every month, the Insecure Writer's Support Group, is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. YOU can sign up HERE to participate.

Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.

Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts:   JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, and Natalie Aguirre!

 

This month's question is: What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?

I'd be interested to find out what other people use. I've only ever known Word, which used to be delightfully simple but has grown more complicated as time has marched along. Or...I go old school, pencil and paper. But that, of course, then has to be transcribed into...Word. 

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Happy Fourth of July!

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Origins: a recurring post in which I delve into the history of a word or phrase.

Today's phrase is: Butterflies in your stomach

We all know what the phrase means and how it feels, right?

But where did it come from.

Florence as Puck, transforming Bottom.

Sometimes it's hard to pin down these fluttering flights of fancy that I have. What I did discover is that the American author, Florence Converse, was the first to write it into a novel in 1908, but she used it differently. "...gave him a sad feeling, as if he had a butterfly in his stomach.” Source: theidioms.com. However I couldn't find what novel it came from.

In 1943 it was a paratrooper named Bill Gardener who used it the way we do now, to indicate nervous excitement or anxiety, “I landed all right and although I’ll always have butterflies in my stomach every time I go up …” Source: theidioms.com. And, as we all know, it isn't just a pretty, descriptive phrase, it can be an actual physical sensation.

Today's Weird Word is: Lollygag

It seems to have appeared out of nowhere sometime around 1862. 

It was once spelled "lallygag" and had two meanings: to dawdle (love that word), waste time, dilly-dally, etc. and to kiss, neck, smooch and engage in that sort of love-making. 

It probably came from the the word "loll" which goes all the way back to Shakespeare and has to do with the tongue dripping, drooling, or hanging out of the mouth. Licking a lollypop comes to mind and why it may have first evolved to mean kissing.

Quotes of the Month

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4th, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.” – Erma Bombeck

"We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. – Robert J. McCracken

"Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.” – James Bryce

"America is a tune.  It must be sung together.” – Gerald Stanley Lee

"So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful air conditioning.

What are you thankful for? Does this Fourth feel different to you, or is it just me?