A Wet, Juicy Explosion

I vaguely recall being taught, for the first time, about the use of apostrophes. I was seven, easily distracted and the worst sort of daydreamer in the sense that I generally left class thinking, “I so got this.” And so, I finished school on this particular day with the idea that apostrophes are used any time an “s” is added to the end of a word.

By the way, this is a story about a girl named Tana Tavi (I’m not sure how I intended for that to be pronounced) and a balloon that carries her away from a birthday party. She smiles throughout the whole adventure, even though her problem of continuously floating away never gets solved. I find that a little odd.

This picture has nothing to do with apostrophes; I just think it’s funny.

Now that I have a grasp on apostrophes used for possession, things are going much smoother. Well, they were going smoothly until I started working on my current project in late February. Even with all the time I have put in doing research, I am still seriously uncertain about the use of apostrophes after names ending in “s.”

And I’m not the only one.

As I wrote my first draft, I assumed, when it came to names ending in “s,” that there shouldn’t be an added “s” after the apostrophe (I’m not sure whether I thought this because I’d been taught this way or because I just pulled it out of my ass). For example, I’ve spent the last two and a half years writing about my youngest daughter and the things she possesses like so:

-          Iris’ popcorn

-          Iris’ sister  (Okay, this was just a shameless way of getting a chance to post a picture of my adorable children.)

I decided that I really ought to purchase more grammar books so that I wasn’t looking up the majority of my grammar questions on the internet (and subsequently becoming distracted by Facebook). My first purchase was Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. It was a nice, quick little read. Personally, I thought the section on active voice was lacking, but who am I to argue with over fifty years of hard work? The sections covering basic rules of grammar were very straight forward as well as helpful. Strunk and White had this to say about the formation of possessive singular nouns: “Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding ‘s. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant.”

Okay, okay. If that’s the rule, why do we see things written without the added “s,” so frequently? Signs, advertisements and even businesses often drop that final letter. We see it because technically, it isn’t wrong. Apparently it’s all a matter of personal choice, style, and consistency. Oh, style, always in the way. What’s the rule? Just tell me the rule!

Mignon Gogarty with Grammar Girl (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com) agrees, although she prefers to drop off that second “s” after the apostrophe. The Associated Press Style also recommends this form, but, as far as I know, The Washington Post prefers the “s.”

Did you just hear a wet, juicy explosion from somewhere in the distance? That was my head exploding. That’s the second time in a matter of days. Reading Lynne Truss’s (or is it Lynne Truss’?!) Eats, Shoots and Leaves reiterated the same sentiment. She does, however, give a few nice examples as to when an author might try and leaving off the tricky added “s.” Names that end in an “iz” sound and names from the ancient world are some cases. And, she says, Jesus’ (see what I did there?) name always does without the “s.”

As for my own work, I’m going to just chose one and stick with it. At the moment my manuscript includes an “s” after the apostrophe for names ending in “s,” but I’m not set on it. I’ll leave that up to any editors who may (hopefully) come across it and set out to tackle my manuscript. If I worry over these tricky possessive apostrophes any longer, I may end up throwing my laptop and all of my grammar books out the window.

P.S.  I promise to stop posting pictures from my childhood writing workshops now!

Tweet

"Every First Draft is Shit."

I’ve finished both the first and second drafts of a nearly seventy-thousand word speculative science-fiction novel (whew, that was a mouthful).

Here’s the thing about editing; if your skin isn’t thick enough, it can be utterly soul crushing.

You’ve finished your first draft, which in itself requires a tremendous amount of time and effort. You’ve managed to get the metaphorical truckloads of chaotic information down onto paper and then you have to submit it for thorough scrutiny.

When I finished my first complete draft, I knew it needed a lot of work. I knew it was random and disorderly, slow moving in parts and terribly confusing in others, but I had no idea how to start editing. I hadn’t taken an English class in two years and it had been nearly six years since I’d taken a class on fiction writing. I was tempted to give up and afraid to ask for help, but I had a very supportive and extremely intelligent friend, Kathryn VanderWoude, who was more than willing to help. 

Kathryn is a literary genius. I’m not exaggerating. She’s humble, so she will, no doubt, refute me when I say this, but she is the most well-versed person I’ve ever spoken with regarding literature. So, when she read my work and said she liked it, I wanted to cry. This was just the confidence boost I needed.

We met up one day to go over her earliest edits and after getting a look at the notes, I felt lightheaded. The first page was drenched in ink. “Re-write” was scribbled in the margins every few paragraphs. I had asked her to be honest, and she was. Not only honest, but brutally so.

I took a deep breath, stared at the pages she’d returned to me and thought, “I can either give up all my work or do the re-writes and, just for shits and giggles, see if they're any good.” So, I got to work. I’m not saying that I got over the feeling that I was a hopeless failure because I didn’t. I’m still battling with it every day, but, in reality, it made less sense to give up than to keep going.

Initially, I began to make edits as I came across Kathryn’s notes, without having a complete grasp on the concepts behind them, but I knew this wasn’t good enough. I studied grammar books and came back so much better than before that I felt ashamed of my first draft. I’m not so ashamed anymore; I know it was all part of the process. Even Ernest Hemmingway said, “The first draft of anything is shit.”

When it came to re-writing sentences, I began by saying aloud what I was intending to portray with that specific line. Then, I’d write it several different ways so that I could not only pick the best sentence from a list, but start understanding which types of phrases worked best with my voice. As I dove further into editing, I didn’t have to list as much and almost innately knew what needed to be changed every time I came across a “re-write” command. So far, it seems to me, I may not be a great writer, but I’m pretty decent at re-writing and I think that counts for something!

Knowing what I know now, I’d never let anything like my first draft see the light of day. It was truly that abysmal. Even now, as I go through another set of edits, I’m finding grammatical errors, unnecessary words and wonky phrasing. But I’m learning and my manuscript is blossoming; this fact in itself is worth all the heartache I experienced going through my first edits and I’m glad that I didn’t give up.

As Thomas Edison said (all my opinions on his thievery from Nikola Tesla aside): “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Tweet

A Photographic Peek

"Bathed in an oblong shadow created by the stone figure above him, Alex appeared dark and ominous, his own features stone-like."

Tweet

Making Introductions

I’m tempted to avoid writing an introductory post altogether, as they can be so dull, but that’d probably not be appropriate.

I’ve written two already, but I was disappointed with the way they'd turned out, which was boring. I wrote a lot about how I’ve always been passionate about writing, (which is inaccurate; writing and I've had a few rough patches) and how, when I wasn’t convinced that I’d grow up to be a ballerina or a princess, I was certain I'd be an author.

As I angrily scratched out my previous drafts, an idea struck me. What if I were to just post some of my earliest books, the ones I’d written at six years old?

Unfortunately, my mad scramble to find the first book I’d ever written came back fruitless. I did, however, clean my closet in the process. So, that’s a plus. The story had been about a six year old who ran out to the store to pick up ketchup for his/her mother and comically dies beneath the foot of a giant baby. Isn’t that sweet?

So, I'm posting highlights from my second book, also written  at age six. It's entitled, The Funny Monster 2 and tells the great tale of a monster who goes to the zoo. Enjoy.

By the way, there was never a Funny Monster 1. I’m not sure why.

It took me a few minutes to translate this, but I am fairly certain it says, “I will see the lion it got whipped aaawoooahwaoo”

As you can see, I’ve always had wonderful handwriting. Of course, I kid; my handwriting has always been sub-par. I’d like to translate this for you, but I can’t. I think the funny monster is being squished by an elephant. I was, apparently, a very sadistic author.

If I could, I'd tell my six year old self to work on the plot of this story. This is the last page. “Yum Frosting! Hohoho Merry cookie Hey, a Santa cookie” I guess I can be proud that I properly used a comma on this page.

I’m adding this photocopied sheet found in my first grade writing folder as a bonus. Mostly because I love the phrase "sloppy copy" so much.

Kids are funny. Do you have any silly pictures you drew or stories you wrote as a kid? If you e-mail me them to me (skeskey@nmu.edu) I promise to post them here!

Tweet