Scatter Brained

P.S. The due date has been changed to Aug. 30th

Strewn across the city that I am privileged to call home are flyers, designed in hand-written, black ink and posted on telephone poles, the occasional store bulletin board, and, in one circumstance, a metal dinosaur sculpture. The flyers are a creation of Scattergun Zine, a local, independent publication “created out of chaos and confusion.” The proprietors are looking for your artwork, poetry, prose, short stories, music, and photography—what a wonderful opportunity to get something out into the world.

I’d passed by these lovely flyers at least a dozen times before giving them any thought. I don’t have any completed short stories at the moment and I was sure I had nothing to contribute. But, eventually, I stood before one—posted on the metal dinosaur outside of the Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum, no less—and committed the email address at the bottom of the page to memory. I thought that I should at least try to submit an excerpt from my most involved project and hope for the best.

The theme of the current issue is “Lost!” and any work that may pertain to this subject is encouraged. It just so happens that the very first chapter of my nearly-finished novel is about the disappearance of a character. I swallowed my fear and sent the piece to scattergunzine@gmail.com.

And immediately regretted it.

I continued to regret it late into the following night. There was no way anyone would publish just that bit of writing, right? It was penned as a sort of flash introduction to my novel—a piece to make readers terrified, confused and longing for more information. But, something wasn’t right with the piece. I knew it, but wasn’t sure about exactly what I felt uncomfortable with.

As I drove home from town to my homestead the following day, I faced somewhat of a revelation.

I needed to take another look at the first chapter and search for possible improvements. It could require entire rewrite, I knew, or merely need a few added sentences to give it a little more flesh. Committing to revisions is an important step in writing even though admitting your work may need rewriting can be a blow to one’s ego.

So far, I’ve been mostly satisfied with the excerpt I’d submitted, but I have added a few descriptive sentences onto the first few paragraphs and am considering a few more. It’s funny how showing someone my writing, and thus a part of my soul, has encouraged me to continue working on a piece that I had previously thought finished. This is why writers are so often encouraged to let others read their work. Not only will your readers most likely have advice or opinions to offer you, the simple act of knowing your work will be read for another’s enjoyment will give you a reason to subject it to further scrutiny.

If I don’t get my piece published in this particular publication, I’ll feel completely okay. The action of submission has already improved my work. And, my lovely readers, if I am not fortunate enough to be chosen, I will post my first chapter for you all to read here.

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Mood Music

"Thomas, fifteen, kicked his feet anxiously beneath the glove box in the passenger’s seat of David’s car. He was uneasy, to say the least, as David was taking him to meet a friend—a friend who could sell them weed. Thomas had never even seen the drug before, let alone smoked it, but having spent most of his life in the pristine care of a protective mother, he was ready to experience something new. Unbeknownst to him, this was the first of many adventures in which, at the hands of Frank, he would experience something truly different."

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No Matter How Pretty Something Sounds

You know what’s frustrating? When you see a quote somewhere that leaves such an ineradicable mark on your mind that it changes the way you think, and then suddenly, you can’t recall who said it. I just spent half my morning looking for a specific quote to write about and now, alas, it has disappeared into the vast internet universe.

I want to say Mitch Albom said it. Maybe it was Stephen King. I don’t know. Shit.
 

Okay, so I’m going to do my best to get over the fact that I’ve lost the quote and try to summarize because it truly made the biggest difference when it came time to edit my first draft. It went something like this: “Don’t become too attached to specific sentences, those are usually the sentences that need cutting out.” I’m sure I just butchered that quote and I feel terrible for doing so; please forgive me.

No matter, it’s still wonderful advice. Sometimes, no matter how pretty something sounds, it simply doesn’t belong in your work. I went through this with a paragraph that I wrote one day merely because I thought it was cute. I guess I also thought it would help clarify some things in my piece. 

“Not all memories are vivid. Some dance impishly about our minds like dust motes set against beams of sunlight; sparkling and seemingly tangible one moment while impossible to grasp the next. Others are more lush and so vivid that one may wonder what parts their mind created on its own. These are the memories that shape our lives, their courses and, arguably most importantly, the relationships within them.”

It is, like I said before, a cute bit of writing, but it really clashed with the voice of the narrator. It took many attempts to find what my “voice” would be for my current project and once I found it, sticking to it was key. Since my book is not first person and throughout the plot-driven story the narrator does little more than describe the characters own experiences, it felt ill-fitting to include this paragraph.

Occasionally my friend the editor, a.k.a. Kathryn VanderWoude, gives me advice to do away with certain sentences I’ve grown to love. It can be difficult to swallow, but I’m not an editor and I’m not always right. It would be nothing short of arrogant for me to ignore her opinions. And usually (usually!) she’s right. 

I’ve learned to never become too attached to certain sentences, especially those that are not necessary to the story. Sometimes the prettiest phrases simply get in the way. If they are good pieces, I can keep them written down somewhere and use them for something else someday, but if they are merely extraneous, they are very likely just getting in the way.

I’ve grown to get a sick joy out of crossing out sentences. It’s like trimming the fat. More often than not, deleting sentences that are pretty but useless turns a good paragraph into a great one. I’m no expert. Try it for yourself!

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On Dialect

On the drive home from a hike the other day, I spoke to my husband, Kyle, while staring out the passenger’s window in a way that may have given him the impression that I was talking to myself.

“I don’t know if I could write in an English Accent.” I think I may have had this thought because I’ve been reading The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon, and whenever I read her novels, my inner narrative exists as a terrible Scottish accent for a few weeks.

Kyle responded halfheartedly, “Oh, yeah?” He was most likely holding back the urge to roll his eyes.

“Which is weird,” I continued, “since I read so many books by English authors.”

I’m fairly sure Kyle zoned out at this point, but the words kept pouring out of me. I started rambling on about the adage “write what you know,” and how “I can definitely describe our regional patois,” and then thought to myself, since I had finally shut up, “I should write a blog post about this!”

My novel takes place locally, in the town of Marquette, Michigan. Below is an excerpt on the regional dialect from said novel, enjoy.

“Wha’ da fuck were you doin’ slammin’ your breaks like dat?” The large man roared in the backwoods patois of the Upper Peninsula. The Ojibwa people who had lived in the lush evergreen forests before the white men had no ‘th’ sound in their vocabulary. Later white settlers, who tended to be of Scandinavian decent, came to the area. These cultures, when combined, had created a distinct dialect. Most locals elongated their vowels and even city dwellers like Thomas could be found doing so when they grew tired. But the brute of a man who stood before Thomas had an accent as thick as the swarms of mosquitoes in late June. It was closer to something a person would expect to hear in Fargo, North Dakota rather than the north Midwest.”

The idea with the previous excerpt was to provide a quick glimpse into the sounds of the Upper Peninsula, even if they’d never before heard it, thus the “Fargo” reference. I also wanted to provide insight that was duly explanatory but short enough that it wouldn’t take away from the flow of the scene. I think I found a balance between those two criteria.

As a bonus, since I referred to Brit Lit, I’m leaving a few links to my favorite British authors and my favorite of their works:

-         Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel - Susanna Clarke (This is a good book but quite a commitment, be prepared.)

-         The Color of Magic – Terry Pratchett (everything he writes is fantastic.)

-          His Dark Materials Triology – Philip Pullman

-          A Sally Lockhart Mystery, Ruby in the Smoke – Philip Pullman (all teenage girls should read this!)

-          Hitch-22 ­– Christopher Hitchens

-          The Rachel Papers – Martin Amis

-          American Gods – Neil Gaiman

Do I really have to write Tolkien and J.K. Rowling?

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A Photographic Peek

 “Erin never liked Euchre. It was a well-loved regional game but there were too many rules for her to keep track of and her housemates took it far too seriously.”

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U R an Asshole.

Despite my own personal interest in grammar, I am of the opinion that a person should refrain from dishing out grammar advice unless their input has been explicitly requested. Sure, I can’t go a few minutes surfing the web without cringing at a misplaced apostrophe, giving myself a face-palm after seeing incorrect then/than usage, but that doesn’t mean I need to go around taking a red pen to each mistake. When it comes time to blame someone for these terrible crimes against the English language, I blame the quality of education here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Facebook is a common place where these grammatical offenses are committed, but it’s certainly not the place to go around correcting others (besides if you did so, you’d be busy all day). I recently read a post on a parenting page I belong to and was saddened to see that at the end of a woman’s heartfelt note asking for parenting advice, she felt the need to add “I know I’ve made grammar mistakes, please don’t give me grammar advice, I need real advice.” Really? It’s come to that, has it? People are worrying about how well an individual asking for help uses language? Judging someone under such circumstances is, to me, outlandishly narcissistic.

Giving unsolicited grammar advice outside of the professional or academic setting (ie: correcting someone’s Facebook status) is a level of assholery that I am sure most people hope to avoid, and I will not even touch that topic any further. Likely the most common place I see individuals feeling the need to express their astute grammar skills to the uneducated public is during debates on Facebook. There’s nothing that makes me more disappointed in someone who is arguing a point that I agree with than when they start judging their opponents spelling and grammar. 

Interrupting a debate to correct someone’s grammar is an egotistical grab at power. There is no need to point out that someone is making mistakes, anyone with half a brain will be able to see it on their own. Bringing it up isn’t only pointing out the obvious, but pointing out that you are a major Douchey McDoucherton. And, most notably, if you are resorting to arguing over something other than the debate topic at hand, you’ve already lost.

The next time you see a grammar mistake that irks you, try giggling about it with a friend who also enjoys grammar instead of taking it out on the offender. If they are close to you and their grammar misconduct is truly getting out of hand, send them a Facebook message in private or buy them a grammar book. No need to humiliate anyone.

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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!

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