I had a run-in with Microsoft Word’s spellchecker today while working on a chapter in my latest novel.  My villain referred to my hero as a little pissant, but the spellchecker auto-corrected that to a little puissant.

I’m sure all of you know what a pissant is.  Some of you may even thing I’m one.  But here’s what puissant means according to dictionary.com.

pu·is·sant
–adjective Literary .
powerful; mighty; potent.

So the two words are direct opposites, not to mention that if you called my villain puissant he just might pistolwhip you.

So here’s your homework, boys and girls.  Go open a Microsoft Word document, type in the word pissant, override any auto-correct that takes place, and run the spellchecker.  When it flags the word pissant, add it to your dictionary.

Be a puissant writer, not a pissant.