A Ghost of Daisies

While I’m a fan of this little book by Strunk and White, this writer harps on about how this book has damaged the writing of generations of Americans.

So I won’t be spending the month of April toasting 50 years of the overopinionated and underinformed little book that put so many people in this unhappy state of grammatical angst. I’ve spent too much of my scholarly life studying English grammar in a serious way. English syntax is a deep and interesting subject. It is much too important to be reduced to a bunch of trivial don’t-do-this prescriptions by a pair of idiosyncratic bumblers who can’t even tell when they’ve broken their own misbegotten rules.

I have half a shelf of grammar and writing books (I know, I know. I should be reading them!) and The Elements of Style is amongst my reference books. I enjoyed reading it in the car. My favorite grammar book though is Sin and Syntax.

On January 5, 2009, I started Minor Arcadia, which is a collection of short stories dealing with the characters in Link who probably won’t have more than a blurb said about them in the official story. Last night I hit the fifty-one pages mark in fifty-two different tales. These are the types of stories that go to illustrate a turning point in the character’s life that shapes how they behave in the main storyline. There isn’t time in Link to give everyone’s history that you meet, but in this way, I hope to share insight into everyone the gang meets. Shiver and I have not always seen eye to eye with my interpretations of our characters, but I am still glad I gave them a voice. Below is an excerpt:

Hizseldes.
She was not sure why she was stumbling out of a bar at two in the morning. The bartender had already lowered the lights and her drinking partner had followed her out into the deserted street. They leaned on separate things, their voices carrying overly loud. A light came on down the street. She laughed, ducking her head as she ran around the corner, half-falling over herself. Her companion joined her on even more unsteady feet. He slumped into a pile on the ground; his face lit up with some unknown joke.

“I’ve really got to get going,” she said, kneeling down next to him.

His bright expression clouded as he turned his head to look in either direction. He was uncertain of his way home she realized. Whether it was the alcohol thrumming inside her veins or genuine affection, she felt sudden fondness for him.

“Ah, country boy,” she said, “What am I going to do with you?”

A few summers ago, between one semester and the next, I picked up No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days at the library. I remember a general sense of being amused and intrigued, but not enough to be really inspired. When I found out there was a website, I was even surprised.

Now as you know, I attempted to join this year’s NaNoWriMo challenge but dropped out after I decided to apply to graduate school. Tonight I sent off two portions of the text I wrote at that time to Shiver who was pretty amused by it. She said my writing had improved. When I was researching writing tips, I had gotten a few ideas on how to make my writing more accessible and less sucky and incorporated them. The basic idea there was: sentence variation.

I still haven’t picked back up on my book because Read the rest of this entry »

After having recently heard of Moleskin journals, I had a brief stirring of memory about having seen them at my workplace at some point in the past. Then with my latest decision to invest more time to improve my writing, I decided to buy myself a pocket-sized line ruled Moleskin after having taken the GRE. I did some research and ultimately bought one on Amazon for about $8.60 total.

I plan on using mine to work on my story writing. In a suitcase I have a bunch of old journals from as early as the 6th grade, but I only filled up a couple of them. I haven’t read them from fear of how embarassing my focuses in life were back then. However, I believe that this time, I will be proud of my creative endeavours. I hope that this journal will fit in my apron pocket with my sketchbook. If all goes well, my next pocket sketchbook will also be a Moleskin.

A couple years ago I came across this book about writing a novel in 30 days. Little did I know at the time that there are thousands of people who participated in this challenge each November. For the last few years I’ve been too busy with school to participate. However, now I’m out of college and still have not found that non-retail job so I have some extra time on my hands. I’m going to do this.

Then tonight I found MindTweaks, a blog that had this inspiring article on how to prepare for NaNo. I’m batting around a couple ideas, but it’ll be a challenge either way. It’s a good thing I’ve already written 35+ short stories so far this year. Now to hammer out a novella-length piece? That is going to be a challenge.

I am ready!