Illustrated Tweets: @dwatkinsworld

After a long, long hiatus, they're back! I take selected tweets from my feed out of context and illustrate them.

18 Shorter Synonyms for "Actually"

One word that I really use a lot is "actually." In fact, I probably over-use it. At 8 letters, "actually" is quite a long word relative to the amount of meaning it adds to a tweet or text. Inspired by the exercise I did with the word "interesting," I decided to see if there were indeed any good, shorter synonyms for "actually."

Here's what I found on Thesaurus.com. There are a lot of shades of meaning in this list, so every word isn't appropriate for every context. But keeping these synonyms in mind will surely help free up some crucial characters for other words that can't be shortened.

1. in fact
2. really
3. truly
4. surely
5. easily
6. by far
7. clearly
8. indeed
9. plainly
10. rightly
11. simply
12. quite
13. fully
14. totally
15. utterly
16. well
17. wholly
18. verily

30 Shorter Synonyms for "Interesting"

"That's interesting."

It's such a useful adjective. "Interesting" can be positive, disparaging, noncommittal, questioning. It's an all-purpose reaction to almost anything. A college professor of mine even banned the word in her class because she thought it was so over-used that it had ceased to have meaning.

My problem with the word "interesting" is not its banality, but its length: eleven letters. On Twitter, that's a lot of characters to spend on a single word. So I looked up "interesting" on Thesaurus.com and found 30 good synonyms with 10 letters or less. Not only will these words make my tweets more concise, they'll also vary my vocabulary and make my prose more... compelling.

1. alluring
2. amusing
3. attractive
4. compelling
5. curious
6. delightful
7. engaging
8. exotic
9. impressive
10. intriguing
11. lovely
12. pleasing
13. refreshing
14. striking
15. unusual
16. absorbing
17. affecting
18. arresting
19. enchanting
20. engrossing
21. entrancing
22. fine
23. gripping
24. inviting
25. riveting
26. stirring
27. winning
28. elegant
29. magnetic
30. suspicious

Illustrated Tweets: @quinnorton and @listenyoungman

After a long hiatus, and thanks to some encouragement from Jenna H., they're back! Selected tweets from my feed, lovingly hand-picked and illustrated.

Illustrated Tweets: @scottsimpson

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

Illustrated Tweets: @johncheese

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

Illustrated Tweets: @AngryBlackLady

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

Illustrated Tweets: @AmberCadabra, @SavvySoutherner

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

Illustrated Tweets: @tryjen

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

If you've seen my other illustrated tweets, you'll notice that this one looks different. That's because instead of drawing it in my sketchbook with a colored pencil, I used the Brushes app on my iPhone. Very handy if I have time to kill and no sketchbook with me.

The app is pretty feature-rich and I'm just barely beginning to understand how to use it. But I think that, for a first attempt, this isn't too bad. I just have to keep the drawings very simple; it's not very good for precise detail.

Illustrated Tweets: @ZandarVTS

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context and illustrated.

Illustrated Tweet Collage

I created a new header for my Twitter profile page using a bunch of the images from my the Illustrated Tweets drawings I've done. I hadn't realized until now just how many of those little cartoons I've accumulated!

Unfortunately, the profile space is too small to let you really see the whole thing well, so I've posted it here in all its glory. Click on it to see the full-size image.

Illustrated Tweets: @snookca

A whole weekend to myself coming up. Kinda not sure what to do with myself.
https://twitter.com/snookca/status/271276141728387072

Illustrated Tweets: @amyhoy, @Greeblemonkey

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

I'm experimenting with including a watermark on these drawings to make sharing easier. Since the CC license I use requires attribution, I thought it made since to include the attribution in the image so anyone who wants to re-use it doesn't have to look up where it came from.

Usually I feature tweets from the day of the post, or at most the previous day. But the one below, from last week, never got posted when I drew it so I decided to include it today. I hope Aimee is feeling better now.

Illustrated Tweets: @StoopidProof, @_SirJames

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

Illustrated Tweets: @KathyReichs, @xeni

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

Illustrated Tweets: @fmarciuliano, @toddzwillich

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context and illustrated.

Illustrated Tweets: @NikaStewart, @Karoli

Selected tweets from people I follow, taken out of context.

Illustrated Tweets: @anildash, @dynamoe

Selected tweets from people I follow taken completely out of context.
(I was horribly sick last night, so yesterday's post gets posted, post-dated, today.)

Illustrated Tweets: @marcoarment

Illustrated Tweets: @mortendk

Trying a new format today using Twitter's embedded tweet script.

the best thing about learning new stuff is that you feel a little bit humble at first and then its: AHA! i can totally rock this \m/
— mortendk (@mortendk) September 10, 2012