Let's beware....

So, it's the ides of March --

Just another day to the old Romans. I learned that in the ancient Roman calendar each of the 12 months of the year had an ides. In March, May, July and October, the ides fell on the 15th day. In every other month, the ides fell on the 13th.

There was nothing sinister about that date until Shakespeare aggrandized it forever in his play Julius Caesar.

Which (speaking of Shakespeare) brings me to this comment: the following quotation has been getting a lot of tv air time.

"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. " Macbeth (Act V, Sc. I)

CSI, the original, plays in reruns each night. I caught a bit of an episode the other night where Grissom, the head of the team, used the quote in reference to a dead woman's hand. Okay, he's erudite, knows his snakes, scorpions, and Shakespeare. That very same night I watched CSI NY and the medical examiner used the same quote in reference to a dead woman's hand. It stuck out like a purple, painfully swollen big toe (I'm trying not to use a cliche).

The writers of these shows probably don't watch prior episodes or read old scripts, and likely most viewers wouldn't care. (Or even notice?) This writer, who satisfies her morbid interests by watching bullets bore through brains, knives slice though muscles, and teeth get lodged in guts, DID notice.

So what does this have to do with my own writing? I'm even more conscious of re-using words and phrases and try to avoid repetition, but sometimes they sneak through. I'm not talking about "invisible" words like the, it, said, and so on, but special words that sound great used once, overdone if repeated. Take words like frisson or cynosure. The first time I read these words I had to look them up. They are perfect when placed right. But if used again in the same work it seems like lazy writing. I've read books by top-selling authors and have seen them fall into the repetition trap. Makes me cringe. Were they not edited?

Those words are the swollen big toes. They stand out, make readers stop and shake their heads, and lose what's called the fictive dream. There are lesser words that are often repeated and would sound fine in context but often appear too close together in unrelated sentences. Most readers probably don't, but I notice these.

My word processing program Word Perfect has a neat feature on one of its toolbars that searches both forward and backward for repeated words. If I'm not sure the last time I used the words slime or stinking I can easily check.

This--word repetition-- is another thing I'm looking for in my edit. So far I'm 0 for 0, but I'm only on page 55.

Cat



How can I know what I think, till I see what I say?
-- E.M. Forester

Curse of the comma and more

I'm doing another quick edit because I noticed that I've been playing fast and loose with commas, inserting them (when not needed) after every phrase, clause, before every and (almost). Guess you could say I never met a comma I didn't like. Of course the comma is a necessary tool, it gives the reader a moment to pause, breathe, then continue. But too many, inappropriately placed, say pause, pause, pause, interrupting the hopefully fine flow of prose.


As for the other horrors: I am wasting too much time reading. But reading is never a waste of time. No, because reading is learning, but I think I'm on learning overload. Not from novels or research texts, but from reading of the on-line sort. Call me a blog junkie--I read writers' blogs, literary agents' blogs, political ranters' blogs, people-living-on-the-other-side-of-the-world-learning-English blogs. Then there are writers' websites, writers' forums, all packed with information......whew! I have barely time left to do what I want to do, which is write.
So as of today I'm putting a stop to my internet wanderings and will GET DOWN TO BUSINESS.

So why am I wasting more time on this blog? Well, I feel somehow connected. Maybe someone living on the other side of the world learning English is reading this. What a concept!

For another glimpse at my internet activities, check the website below, take the quiz, and smile.

Discover Your Past Life

Here's my results:

In your former life, you were a leopard
Not much is certain in life; past or present; but we know this much about you: In your last life you were a sultry leopard named Lola. You were a showgirl, with yellow feathers in your hair and a dress cut down to there. You would meringue and do the cha- cha. And one night at the Copacabana (the hottest spot north of Havana), you fell in love with Tony, the handsome bartender. Tony fought Rico (he wore a diamond) for you and won. You proved a lot of people wrong by managing to change your spots and started wearing dresses from Marks and Spencer's that were much more becoming for a married lady. The two of you grew old and happy together, joyfully dancing your lives away at the club to the soulful tunes of Barry Manilow..


Barry Manilow!!
How can you tell this quiz was developed by some geeky 20-something who has no idea what THINGS WERE REALLY LIKE? However, I always thought Manilow was given a bum rap. I liked some of his songs. Never bought any myself, but still listened and sang along.

Cat, at the moment listening to Prince sing 1999

A scene that won't let go

I'm trying to get back to work on FORTUNE 2, but a scene from F3 keeps playing in my mind. Experience has shown me I'll have no peace until I get the scene down. Here's the gist of part two of the scene, the hero and heroine having a conversation in a "he said/she said" format:

"I can't let you just walk out that door. We have a past, dammit!"
"We do. But you're married now."
"As were you at that time."
"My marriage was in name only. And unconsummated. You can't say the same--you have a daughter."
"Yes. The result of an occurrence of which I have no recollection. But I remember in fine detail every inch of your skin, every sigh you made the few times we were together."
"As do I."
"That's why I can't let you walk out."
"Then you must stop me."

That's the bare skeleton -- not much of a scene yet, not engrossing or even interesting. I will add proper pacing, flesh out the scene with setting, body language, choreography....

But first I need to choose from whose point of view this scene will be shown. Will it be more emotionally dramatic from her POV, or his? Who should the reader see from the interior, who from the exterior through the other's eyes?

Decisions, decisions. I figure I have at least a year or more before I reach this scene's position in the book.

But it helps to get it down on virtual paper.

Cat

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

-- John Steinbeck

A Tale of Four Bookstores

I like to buy locally, but ...

My son gave me a $60 gift certificate from a local book store. Great, thought I. There's a book I've always wanted to own, the wonderful 1032 page History of Art by Anthony F. Janson.

First I checked the price at Amazon. They showed a regular price of $95, but their price is $59.95US. So far so very good. (Alas, Amazon Canada does not carry this book.) At B&N the list price is $125, but their special price is $90. Hmmm. Chapters.Indigo.ca has a list price of $152, but sells it for $96.75Can. Double hmmm.

I called my bookstore to see if they had it. Yes, for $155.

The writing wasn't just on the wall, it was on my computer screen! I ordered the book from Amazon. It cost $8.58 to ship. After the exchange I paid $77.46. And it arrived in 4 days! Can't ask for better service than that.

I don't want to overdo the praise for Amazon, but I've ordered many non-book items from them: obscure music CDs, movie and tv show DVDs. They've always had every one that I wanted.

I went to my local book store to use my gift certificate. I picked up a couple of mysteries, looked for a couple of romances. The romance section was pitifully small and contained various titles by the same well-known authors. When I buy paperbacks I like to get new, unknown writers, my goal in my own small way to let the writers and the publishers know there's a market for new authors. Those sitting at the top of the NY Times bestseller lists don't need one more sale, whereas Brand New Author can use a boost.

Now I'm trying to find desk space for my new tome, so I'm packing in my old Pentium 2 and getting rid of it. I have no idea why I kept it hanging around for a year taking up nearly half a desk. Nostalgia, maybe? It's heading for the garbage. No one would want that old slow thing, and I screwed it up trying to install a program update that never worked, yet at startup the computer kept whining about a missing .dll file.

Maybe next time I'll have some actual writing news to report.

Cat