My Cat Caught a Lizard, and Other Things

Oh... I can't resist mentioning the grammar in the title...
Can't... resist...

It's just that it's such a good example of using a comma for clarification of meaning, not for telling someone where to pause or take a breath. See, these two sentences mean different things:
"My cat caught a lizard and other things."
"My cat caught a lizard, and other things."
The first sentence means my cat caught other things along with the lizard, which, with my cat, could be almost anything. Actually, I think he caught a spider this morning, too.
The second means that my cat caught only a lizard and there are other things I'm going to talk about.
Commas. They're important.
And not for telling me how to breathe.

I've made no secret, even though I haven't mentioned it in a while, of my antipathy for Windows 8. It's like a book, a horrible-bad book, that your English professor wrote and then made you read as an assignment. But, not just read it, read it over and over again. And it never gets any better, just... you get used to it. But, then, he tells you that he's made it better. You know, major re-writes and edits and all of that, but people start reading it and they tell you it's pretty much just the same. Maybe worse. Definitely not better. You don't bother with the new one.

That's me and Windows 8.1. I haven't known a single person who has said to me, "Oh, yeah, you should definitely switch to 8.1. It's way better." No... Pretty much everyone has told me that it's pretty much the same. A few of said they liked it less. So my computer has been prompting me to "upgrade" to 8.1 for a while, now. Months. Every time it prompted me, I told it "no." Why bother for just more of the same. I am, at least, used to Win8.
I guess it got tired of asking.

The other night, it just up and told me, "Heya, I'm upgrading to Windows 8.1. I can do it right now, or I can do it tomorrow. When do you want that to happen?" What I wanted to tell it was "NO!" but it wouldn't let me. I tried... well, I tried all sorts of things and it wouldn't let me stop the "upgrade" even though my stuff in the "Should I upgrade?" section told me that I could opt out.

Then it told me I needed to backup all of my files, which was fine except that I couldn't. I backed up my document files, but I have all of my photos on the computer, and I didn't have anything to put them all on nor did I have time to do it by the time I realized there was no way to stop the 8.1 installation. Really, I wouldn't have had time to do it without at least a week of notice. I was pretty furious by that point. Sort of a walking rant.

When the computer finally prompted, "I'm going to install Win 8.1, right now," I thought I had beat it by simply turning the computer off... but I was wrong. An hour or so later, the prompt came up again. And I turned the computer off again. But, when I turned it back on, it said, "Screw you! I'm installing this sucker, right now!"

Have I mentioned that I hate computers? Yeah... Kind of like how I hate cars. They should just work. Period. And they should work in the way you want them to work.

Anyway...
I have Win8.1 now. Here's what's changed:

• Everything is slower now. The computer takes longer to boot and pages take longer to load. You know, it's the heightened security or whatever.
• I no longer have to sign out of Windows before I can turn my computer off. Seriously, why was that even a thing? So that's one positive thing, although I still have to go to the start screen to do that.
• All of my files are now backed up to the "cloud." Because, as we have seen with the recent cloud hacking of celebrities "special" pictures, the cloud is more secure than having things just on my computer.

All of that and my cat caught a lizard. In the house. It was a western fence lizard

which I think are pretty cool because they're immune to Lyme disease. He was playing with it under the kitchen table, but I didn't pay any attention to him, because that's where he likes to play with pieces of cardboard he pulls off his scratching box or with the little strips off the Netflix envelopes. But he just kept going and going. Usually, he's only good for entertaining himself in that way for 5-10 minutes, but, once he crossed the 20 minute mark, I began to wonder what he was doing. At some point, I checked. He had a lizard. Amazingly, it was intact. Apparently, all he was doing was batting it around and throwing it in the air. However, it was still dead.
It was sad-making.

There was another thing, too, but I can't remember what it was. That's what comes of being interrupted as many times as I have. Always am. Probably, it wasn't important, and this is long enough anyway.

What Your Blog Says About You: Part Four -- Presentation

This post is coming out of the original idea (almost two years ago) that spawned this series in the first place: presentation. Now, when I say presentation, I do not mean of the actual blog itself; I mean the posts. The look of the blog, the decoration, is a completely separate issue and one that I don't feel qualified to speak about as I barely pay attention to what a blog looks like. Maybe some people do, but that's not me. In the same way, I try, at this point in my life, to pay as little attention to the cover of a book as I can (but that's a post for another day (and something I've talked about before (somewhere))).

For most people, the number one thing that will affect whether someone will give your blog the time of day is post length. And, if you've been around my blog for longer than, oh, a couple of seconds, you'll see that this is something I completely disregard, but, in that, I'm in the minority. Most people want short posts. Short posts with, maybe, a list involved and, even better, pictures. And, if you really want to grab people's attention, it should be a picture of a cat being weird or spazzing out. But the real thing is length. People want to glance at your blog and think, "Oh, I have time to read that." If there is anything to make them think that they will have to come back later, most of them won't bother. So, yes, if you're really trying to bring in followers, I think it's good advice to keep your posts between 400 and 600 words.

Personally, I prefer longer posts with more substance, and I will keep a post open all day in order to finish it if I need to (as I sometimes do with some of Briane's longer posts). As such, I also prefer to write posts with actual substance rather than talking about talking about that substance as most people do. I'm more of the essay test rather than the multiple choice option. As such, I'm okay with the fact that some people skip over my posts as being too long. But it's something to be aware of in the way that you approach the way you post and has everything to do with the personality of your blog.

The next thing is a big one for me, something I hate and mentioned in part three, and that thing is constantly apologizing for not having posted recently. Seriously, just don't do that. So many people have what amounts to a running blog of apologizing for not having posted and promisings to do better. Especially those people with posted schedules. That's the worst. First, I'd say, just don't post a schedule. Do what you do and let that be it (sort of like letting your yes be yes and no be no without making promises you may break). But, really, I think most of the people that post schedules for what and when they're going to blog do it for themselves--to try and impose it on themselves--rather than to inform the reader of what's going on. At any rate, people with posted schedules seem to be the worst about actually following those schedules or posting in any consistent manner, and, then, every time they post, it's an apology for being behind or having not posted in three weeks or three months or whatever. Honestly, I don't care why you haven't posted. Whatever it was that caused you not to post was something that was more important to you than posting on your blog, and, actually, that's okay. You don't actually owe anyone anything. No one is paying you (probably) to be posting, so don't apologize for not doing it. Because, honestly, I don't care about your apology. And, especially, I don't care about reading an apology from you every few weeks. Tell me something interesting. So, unless there is some really interesting reason as to why you didn't post (other than that "life has just been SO busy!"), just get to the interesting and skip the apologizing. Really, people understand that there is a life outside of blogging (except, maybe, Alex, who I think may actually be a computer program that goes around commenting on blogs).

And, then, here's the thing that started this whole idea: If you are going to have a blog, especially a blog about writing or if you're writer with a blog about something else but as a representation of you're writing, LEARN HOW TO WRITE!

Having said that, I will say this:
If you're not a writer and have no aspirations to being a writer, it's not such a big deal. Which is not to say that you can be all slapdash with it, but I know I'm not very critical about the writing of people that just have a blog for fun-ish type reasons. I mean, most people don't read and write at that high a level (last I checked, it was 4th grade, but it's been a while since I've checked), which takes us back to the math thing: If you're not in a math field, I don't expect that you should be able to do advanced algebra or anything like that. Basic arithmetic, yes, but not the more complicated stuff. English is the same way. So, if you're not a writer and not trying to be a writer, I don't expect more than the basics and am not going to be... distressed... when that's all I see.

However, if you are a writer, learn to do it. Learn how to use proper grammar and punctuation. And practice it on your blog. Your blog should be a reflection of your style, and, if your style is not knowing the difference between "than" and "then" or "accept" and "except" or "site" and "cite," words that have distinct definitions and should not be so easily confused, then I'm not going to have much interest in reading any books that you write. And, well, probably, will not have much interest in following your blog for very long.

Just to be clear: I'm not talking about typos here; I'm talking about consistently using the wrong words. And, maybe, it's elitist, but, if it is, I can't help it. Learn your words. Especially "than" and "then." I hate reading through posts that use "than" every time "then" should be used. It makes me want to pull out my red grading pen, but, well, that doesn't work out so well with my monitor, so I have learned restraint.

And, really, if you're writer and most of your posts have to do with writing, I will have no respect for you if you can't manage to do it correctly while telling everyone else how to do it. The writing, that is.
[As an example, during a-to-z, someone had a post about the proper usage of semi-colons and, then, had a handful of incorrect usages in the post. Yes, I pointed it out only to have my comment deleted. The only thing that upset me about that is that blogger had at the end of the post something about letting her know if she'd gotten anything wrong. All I can say about that is "don't ask if you don't mean it."]

Having said all of that, yes, I do know that I probably have an unfair advantage in the whole grammar department, but I also view it as a writer's job to know, well, how to do the whole grammar thing. Especially the things that have hard and fast rules, like the definitions of words. I'm not necessarily going to get all picky on the commas. Not all of them, anyway, because, sometimes, comma usage is subjective and is dependent upon what the author wants the sentence to say. Sometimes.

So there's my rant. But, seriously, if you're writer, even if it is just a blog, you ought to have your best face on it. Sure, some people can't tell the difference, but is it worth the risk? [I have quit following more blogs because of the bad writing on the blog than for any other reason.]

All of that to say: how you present yourself is important. There are probably other things I could mention here, but I think these are the top three. Which wraps up what your blog says about you... at least for the moment.

Going Neverwhere

Once upon a time, I wrote a post about commas and what they're for and what they're not for. It's a good post and one that's absolutely true. The fact that people are constantly starting sentences with a conjunction and, then, throwing a comma after it to show me that they are pausing after they say it drives me crazy. I don't care if you're saying, "So," and taking a breath; that comma doesn't go after it. For instance:
It is not:
"So, do you want a piece of pie or not?"
It is:
"So do you want a piece of pie or not?"
If you want to indicate the pause to the reader, use, "So... Do you want a piece of pie or not?"
The point being that the way we say this culturally, right now, is just that: it's the way we say it right now. Five years from now, we may not throw those pauses in all over the place while we speak, and I don't need you to show me how you're saying it. I just need you to convey the correct meaning.

Anyway... The post about the commas coupled with this more recent post about following the rules when you write serve as the backdrop to this review.

Neverwhere was the last book by Neil Gaiman that I hadn't read. I'm not sure why I hadn't read it; I just missed it somehow and, then, kept not getting around to it. But, finally, I did get around to it. It has displaced, surprisingly, The Graveyard Book as my favorite Gaiman novel. I say surprisingly because, at first, I was a bit confused by it. Not the story. I was confused by Gaiman's sudden inadequacy with the comma. They were all over the place and in places they didn't (and shouldn't) need to be. What the heck? None of Gaiman's other books have comma issues; why would this one?

Have you ever heard Neil Gaiman read one of his stories? Well, I have, and he has a particular cadence when he reads, when he's doing any public speaking (heck, for all I know, he always talks like that), and I realized by the time I had finished the prologue that the extra commas were there because Gaiman was, in fact, telling me how to breathe. Where to pause. When to go on. In effect, he was creating a particular atmosphere, a rhythm, that was just as if I was sitting here letting him read it to me. And it was awesome.

But, see, that's what you can do when you know what you're doing with the rules. It's knowing the rules and taking them and bending them to your purpose. Sure, probably more than half of the commas (actually, I'd bet more like 2/3 of the commas) don't belong. They're in places where they shouldn't be. But, then, you'd read too quickly and lose the atmosphere, the creepy, of the story. Gaiman wrote it to give you the effect of being underground, in tunnels, lost, confused. Of not knowing what's going on, whether your sane, or, even, if you are who you think you are.

I loved it.

And, now, I've flipped. I've gone from having his most recent novel as my favorite to having his first novel as my favorite. I don't think, either, that it's just because it's the one I've most recently read. I don't remember ever reading anything where the author paid so much attention to the atmosphere he was creating through his use of punctuation. Not that he necessarily did it on purpose, of that I have no idea, but he did do it.

And we haven't even started talking about the story yet. Which is great. Disconcerting. Full of interesting characters. The marquis. Croup. Vandemar. Things are rarely what they seem. Even when they are. "I've saved  his life four times today already." [Or something like that. I couldn't actually find the quote in what I felt was a reasonable amount of time.]

Best of all, though, it doesn't end the way you expect these kinds of stories to end. The way they usually end. And I would talk about that, but I don't want to talk about the ending, so I'm not going to. All I can say is that you should go read it. I'm fairly sure I'll have to read it again one of these days, and I really don't do that rereading thing, so that's saying quite a bit.

"...if this is all there is, then I don't want to be sane."

[If, by chance, you do want to listen to Neil read, you can go to here. I've only listen to the first two so far, but they're worth it. (The January one reminds me of something Briane Pagel would write.)]

Rules of Grammarization

[Let me point out that this post actually has nothing to do with "grammarization." I actually made up a word to go in that spot that was supposed to be a play off of another word, but, when I looked it up (just to be sure), it meant something... well, it meant something that has nothing to do with any of this. "Grammarization" was the best substitute I could think of, and, at least, it has to do with grammar.]

Some of you newer people may not know about the rep I've developed with grammar, especially commas. I'm like the comma police or something, or so people seem to think. But, you know, one thing is true: I do think rules are important, especially when it comes to grammar. How we speak and what we type say so much about us. And it may not be what we're trying to say. But people make decisions about the kind of person they think we are based upon our ability to communicate. It may not be fair, but that's how it is. [In fact, I just saw a survey, recently, showing that grammar is the #2 thing that people use to evaluate a potential partner (after teeth). At least, on paper it is.]  So I think it's especially important for writers to know the rules. [If you don't, learn them, or, at least, get someone that does (know them) to help you make your manuscript look like you do.]

But all of this gets kind of sticky. Why should we, any of us, follow the rules? Aren't they there to be broken? To be ignored? Aren't they all subjective anyway?
Not really, no.

I'm gonna bring Picasso back up (not for the last time). The reason he was able to "break the rules" of painting is that he had mastered them. He was possibly the greatest classical painter of his day, but painting the way everyone else painted didn't interest him, so he explored new territory. He broke the rules. It was only possible because he knew them so well.

What it comes down to is how on purpose your disregard for the rules is. So, on the one hand, when we write, it may be okay to break some rules here and there, but, when we're breaking those rules on accident because we don't know the rule or don't know how to apply the rule, it makes us look amateurish at best. Haphazard. Inconsistent. On the other hand, when it's purposeful, it suddenly becomes artistic and meaningful.

One of the things I see most often is long, run on, sentence fragments. Yeah, that sounds oxymoronic, but it is what it is. I see it both in the manuscripts of the middle schoolers I teach, which is to be expected, and from adults, which shouldn't be happening. But it's easy to get lost in a long thought and forget to include a sentence. Let's try to put together an example:
"When I got up for school, brushing my teeth and eating breakfast, though I dropped toothpaste on my shirt and didn't notice and missed the bus when I went to change."
See, that looks like a run on sentence except that there isn't a sentence anywhere in there, so what you have is a string of fragments. I expect to deal with this kind of stuff with my creative writing class, but it's more than a little distressing to see it all over the blogs of (supposed) writers.

And don't even start me on commas.

Look, I know a lot of the rules are arbitrary and some of them are even kind of stupid. For instance, I was just reading last week about how the rule about splitting infinitives came into being, and it was, really, more like an misinterpretation than anything else. Some guy (no, I don't remember his name) was translating some Latin, and he realized that in Latin they don't split infinitives, so, he thought, we shouldn't either. The thing is, though, in Latin, the verb is always one word due to the way they conjugate, so you can't actually split an infinitive. Prior to that, splitting an infinitive, "to boldly go," was perfectly normal in English and in all of the Germanic languages. But, suddenly, this one guy decides it's wrong, and we've had this rule, now, for a few hundred years that no one can follow. Is it, "boldly, to go" or "to go boldly"? The problem is that "boldly" only modifies "go" not "to go," so only "to boldly go" sounds right.

And, yeah, I hear you all screaming about why, then, should we follow grammar rules?

I'm not saying that you should. Necessarily. If you know the rules and know how to use the rules, do whatever you want to with them. If you're just busy writing "like you talk" or saying "well, that's just the character's voice" just so that you don't need to bother to know the rules, well, then, the likelihood is that your writing is busy being juvenile, inconsistent, and, well, unreadable. Except by other people who can't tell the difference. At least, not on a conscious level. Meaning, they can't look at your writing and tell you what's wrong with it, but they may be able to set it against someone else's writing and say the other one is better.

To put it another way, hordes of people might like Twilight, because they can't evaluate the grammar (or the story), but people that know the rules tear it apart. The fact that Stephen King ripped Twilight a new one while praising Harry Potter ought to tell you something.

Anyway... All of that to say you need to learn your rules and, probably, you ought to be following them. Actually, it's kind of like driving. If I'm gonna get in a car with someone that's gonna speed, I want it to be a Nascar driver or a cop or someone that's had training and knows how to do it safely. I don't want it to be my college roommate who's doing it just to see how fast he can get the car to go (going over 100 mph isn't as fun as it sounds). All I have to say is that a lot of you (meaning no one in particular) need to slow down, maybe take some driving classes, and follow the rules of the road.

Now the disclaimer:
This post is sort of a prelude to a book review I have coming up. I don't want to spend the book review talking about rules and such, so this will be here to refer back to instead.

Silverthorn

Previously, I have talked about the issue of how tastes change over time. How you grow and mature and, hopefully, so does your taste in books. Seriously, if you are an adult that has been through any type of higher education or life changes, you should not still be reading the same old stuff you read in high school. At least not just that same old stuff. I've mentioned how Piers Anthony used to be one of my favorite authors (in this post) and how I can't read anything by him anymore. It can be a sad feeling when you grow out of a beloved author.

Back in high school, I picked up these two books by this author Raymond Feist, Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master. [Note: These were originally published as one book, Magician, but the publisher decided it was too long and later split it into two books.] I liked them. I remember really liking them, in fact. I picked up several other Feist books, including Faerie Tale (which I loved), but never got around to reading any of them (except Faerie Tale). However, when Magician was re-released as an author's preferred edition, I picked those up and re-read it. I still liked it. That, though, was a long time ago (but not in a galaxy far, far away).

Recently, I passed the two Magician books on to my younger son, and he really liked them. He wanted the next book in the series, Silverthorn.
Now, let me just insert two things here:
1. Magician is a complete story. There is no ambiguity in the ending about it needing any kind of sequel.
2. A few years ago, my daughter bought for me Krondor: The Betrayal, a book (first in a series) that Feist wrote based off of a video game based off of Magician and the rest of the Riftwar Saga. It was terrible. However, remembering how much I had enjoyed the other books I'd read by Feist, I chalked it up to being based off of a video game.
Silverthorn is a book I owned but had never read. Like I said, Magician ends on a note of finality, so, even though there were more books in the Riftwar Saga, I had never felt compelled to continue reading, so I just hadn't. But my son's desire to continue the story spurred me to dig out my copy of Silverthorn (especially since the alternative was to buy him something we already owned), and, then, I decided I would (finally) go ahead and read it.

That was a mistake.

Silverthorn is a horrible book. Okay, horrible may be too strong of a word, but it was quite a challenge to get through it. It struck me as nothing more than a forced sequel to something that didn't need one. Basically, we want to see these characters again, so figure out a story for them. Whether that came from the publisher or the author not knowing what to write next, I have no idea. Whatever the cause, it was completely formulaic but without any of the charm of, say, The Belgariad, to make it worth reading. A quest for an item while being chased by an all powerful enemy that the heroes manage to continually defeat without anyone ever getting killed.

That bit about being chased was the worst part of it. The bad guys always knew where the good guys were, always overtaking them and hounding them endlessly. Plus, there were zombies. Oh, yeah, the book has zombies, but it was written way before the whole zombie thing became big. The only way they can be killed is by fire, so, even when they hack them to bits, the pieces keep coming. The book has magic, but it's that kind of magic that conveniently only works when the author wants it to. The whole thing was rather infuriating.

Feist also suffered from "then-syndrome" while writing this one. "He did this, then he did this, then he did that, then he did this again, and then he did this and that." Then then then. Oh my gosh. He also suffered from "again-syndrome," because, after the characters did something, they almost always did it again. "Again he picked his nose." "Again he turned around." "Again he drove me crazy!" But the worst...

The worst was "suddenly-syndrome." A while back, when PT Dilloway reviewed The House on the Corner, he dinged me for using the word "suddenly" too much. I did a word count after he said that and came up with about two dozen uses in 120,000 words. I didn't feel too badly about that. Well, PT should certainly not read Silverthorn. At one point, during a two page battle scene, Feist uses the word "suddenly" more than a dozen times. In two pages! I think I never want to use that word again after reading Feist's book.

I kept expecting, "then, suddenly, he again...," or something of the sort. It didn't happen, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

The worst part of having read this book, though, is that it's kind of ruined the other books for me. I'm left with this lingering question as to whether the other books are better than this one or if they were this bad, too, but I was just young enough not to be bothered by any of it. And I want to know! I want to go back and read Magician again just so I can see if they were better, but I know that I won't, so it's just going to bug me for who knows how long. Maybe, I'll re-read Faerie Tale and see how that one is; I've kind of wanted to re-read it for a while anyway.

Oh, and the editing is horrible, especially considering these were edited by a major publisher. The book was full of comma errors, for one thing, but errors that don't make any sense. For instance, there would be a sentence like "I went to the store, to buy some milk." Why is that comma there? There's never a reason for a comma in a sentence like that, yet the book was full of that type of error, like the editor just tossed them on  the page and let them stay where they landed. And, then, there were the misspellings. Like the adventurers kept going up the trial. Not the trail, the trial. They did this more than once. They did it more than twice. Personally, I kind of want to see a story, now, about someone going up and down the trial or racing down the trial on his horse. That was not the only misspelling just the only one that happened again and suddenly again.

So I don't really know what to say about Feist, now. There was a time I would have suggested, at least, Faerie Tale to people that like that kind of thing, but Silverthorn leaves me more than reluctant to suggest anything by Feist to anyone.

Oh, For the Love of Plot! (a NaNo update from my wife)

[After one week of NaNo, my wife wrote up an update about how she's doing. She's doing fine in all actuality, although she doesn't always feel that way. She says things, now, as she's sitting and staring at her monitor, that make me really laugh. Things I think but never say because there was no reason to ever say them before. Of course, many of those things have to do with how much of a distraction the kids are, but, sometimes, it's because I've asked a simple question like, "Would you like anything while I'm in the kitchen?" Fire bursts forth from her eyes and smoke billows from her ears and she says something like, "Can't you see I'm trying to write?" I'm considering installing lightning rods before she starts calling down lightning strikes when people speak. So, yeah, for me, it's been interesting to see her actively displaying these things that I generally keep clamped inside. But, really, she's doing fine.]

Wow, I’m so frustrated with my plot. Right now, I don’t have a clue where my story is going, and I'm not sure whether my plot is completely bad or only mostly bad. Well, that’s not entirely true; I sort of know where it should end, and I sort of know where it starts, and I know some action needs to happen in the middle. I’ve also written a couple of pretty kickass scenes. I’m in love with some of my characters (OK, most of them). People have died (I haven’t technically written that part yet but it’s in the plot plan). Hey, it’s a space opera, someone’s got to die.

The thing that is frustrating me is that while I know how I want the characters to develop, and I know what the bad guys are up to, I don’t know how to get all the characters in place and involved in the plot. This explanation of the problem doesn’t even make any sense; how is my plot going to make sense?!

Something that I think I’m good at is the idea of character development. That is not to say that I’m good at writing characters who develop, just that I can describe a dramatic arc in which a character develops, e.g., “Hamlet starts out not a bad fellow, drives himself and everyone else crazy, then dies and takes everyone with him. The End.” (Synopsis not recommended for deployment in a for-credit English class. I haven’t actually read Hamlet in like 25 or more years. Use at your own risk. Warning: Hot coffee may be hot.)

Andrew has been really helpful and accommodating. He reads my stuff when I ask him to, and, otherwise, he doesn’t bug me. He points out that my use of commas is bad (thanks, babe!). Since he’s not wrong, that’s fine. He appreciates the funny bits (what few bits there are in, you know, space opera where people die and stuff), and points out to me where there are potential plot discrepancies or problems. That last part is a very good thing, but usually I have already thought about them and have explanations that I’m working in. In our normal life together we actually tend to talk a lot about plot problems in the media we watch/read together, so I think I’m pretty practiced in this area.

For all the problems I’m having, my word count is pretty decent. I should be hitting 15k today and by the time you read this I may be over 16k, so I'm keeping up on what I need to do. I was able to do more than 8k over last weekend, but writing on work days is really problematic. I blame the kids. They are old enough to not to need to bother us all the time, but they seem to really think they need to. Argh. It’s like they don’t want me to write the definitive space opera of our century, or something!

Right now, I’m working on a plot outline to try to get things straightened out a little so that I can move forward again. It’s hard trying to write when I don’t know what the heck I’m supposed to be writing, know what I mean? I do hope I can keep some of the stuff I’ve already written, for example the scene where the badass soldier heroine kills a bunch of monsters and has a couple of really sweet lines. If I can’t keep that scene, I will probably cry. Currently, the plot outline looks like it could be an episode of Glee, only with less fabulous fashion and no singing or dancing at all. So basically take out everything that makes Glee fun and only keep the depressing high school drama parts. That’s my plot. Clearly it does not have enough space explosions or assassination subplots.

I’m also not great at dialogue. In person I’m a good conversationalist and pretty much always have a snappy rejoinder or snarky aside ready, but that sort of thing depends on having a conversational partner. My dialogue efforts haven’t quite yet descended to the level of:

“I’m bored. What do you want to do?” she asked.

“I dunno. What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I asked you first,” she said.

“So what, I asked you second,” he said.

“Shut up. I’m bored. What do you want to do?” she asked.

But I make no promises.

It does seem easier to write out dialogue without putting in speech tags and setting stuff at first. It comes out faster and more like an actual conversation that way. So that’s a thing I’ve found helpful.

All problems aside, I’m going to keep going at it. That’s how you do this, right? You just write. According to Chris Baty in No Plot? No Problem, the 2nd week of NaNo is the worst for feeling like a failure, and if you keep at it then you are sure to find a way to work through your problems and make the word count. If all else fails, I can bring in a computer to explain the plot for the reader. That reminds me, my plot needs some ninja pizza delivery guys on motorcycles.

[All of which reminds me, a couple of nights ago, she was sitting there at her computer and suddenly declared, "This is hard!" I might have chuckled, but all I could really say is, "I know."]
[Oh, if you don't understand that last bit about the computer and the ninja pizza man, see this post.]

On the, comma (or Don't Tell Me When To Breathe)

Oh, the comma, that bane of punctuation. But, first, a story:

A woman, a blond, if you must know, needed to have her hair done. She called around to find out if there was anywhere that would do her hair while she was wearing headphones. Finally, after calling a dozen or so places, she found one, and she went in. However, the hair stylist was surprised to find the woman wearing  actual headphones rather than earbuds, which is what she had expected. Who still wore actual headphones?

She said to the woman, "I can't do your hair while you're wearing those."

"You said on the phone that you could."

"Yes, but I thought you meant earbuds."

"What's an earbud?"

The hair stylist just blinked at the blond woman with the headphones on. They stared at each other for several awkward moments until the stylist said, "Look, can't you just take those off long enough for me to do your hair?"

The blond woman became instantly irate, "No! I can never take them off! Never!"

They stared at each other some more.

Finally, the blond said, "Can't you just work around them?"

Shrugging, the stylist said, "I can try."

The blond took her seat in the chair, and the hair stylist went to work. But it was more difficult than she thought it would be, and the piece of metal going across the woman's head was in the way, and the large pads on the woman's ears were in the way, and the stylist kept wondering what could be so important that the woman needed to leave the headphones on for. When she'd had about as much "working around them" as she could take, and the blond woman looked rather like she'd dozed off, the stylist thought, "Surely, I can move them just for a moment to get this last bit and put them back on before the woman even knows I've moved them." So she pulled the headphones back from the woman's ears.

Immediately, the woman began gasping and clawing at her throat and she fell to the floor and resembled nothing more than a fish that had been spilled from a fish bowl.

In a panic, the stylist called 9-1-1, and the ambulance came, but it was too late, and the blond woman was dead. The ambulance took the woman away after asking many questions about what had happened. The police came and asked more questions about what had happened, then they went away, too. After everyone was gone and just the poor hair stylist was left alone, she saw the headphones lying on the floor up under the chair where they had been forgotten by everyone. She picked them up, finding that they were still attached to the old fashioned walkman with an actual cassette tape in it.

Overcome by curiosity, she put the headphones on and pressed the "play" button. This is what she heard:

"Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in..."

At this point, you might be wondering what that has to do with commas, and you'd probably be correct to wonder that, but it does relate, so just give me a moment. (Mostly, though, I just think it's funny.)

Commas! Why are commas so difficult? Really, why are they? There's one fundamental reason that they've become such a difficult piece of punctuation to figure out. People are confused by what they do and what they're for. Those are two completely separate things, but, because they do this one thing, people have come to think that's also what they're for when it's not at all what they're for. What they do is merely a byproduct of what they're for.

Have I confused everyone yet?

Before I go on, let's talk about what a comma does, because this is what causes all the problems, especially the problem that I hate so much, the comma after the conjunction. See, what a comma does is to tell people where to pause in their reading. Or, as everyone likes to call it, where to take a breath (as if people mostly read out loud, when, in truth, people hardly ever read out loud). What happens, then, is that writers start throwing in commas where they would pause if they were saying their sentences out loud. This leads to commas in places where they don't belong as in the sentence, "But, he went home." That sentence shouldn't have any comma, but, for some reason, people want there to be a pause there, so they throw that comma in to indicate the pause.

So here's the thing: don't tell me when to breathe! No, really, don't do it. For one thing, the vast, VAST majority of my reading happens in my head, so I don't need any help with breathing when I'm doing that. For another thing, I, um, know how to breathe. Really, I don't need your help, and, if I did, I'd probably have a larger problem than what a comma could fix.

Also, don't try to tell me how to read. If your writing is good enough, you don't need to tell me how to read your sentences, the sentences will lead me in the reading. So don't try to tell me how I should go about reading the sentences you write. If I can't figure it out, there's either something wrong with my reading ability (and there's not) or you need to work on your writing some more. Or you're just being totally anal about the whole thing and want people to only read the same way you do, and that's just not okay.

And that takes us to what a comma is for. A comma is meant to convey meaning. As it is with adverbs, the comma is to provide clarity, or, in the words of wikipedia: "...the comma is used where ambiguity might otherwise arise..." See, this has nothing to do with telling the reader where s/he should take a breath. That kind of advice is just for music and swimming as far as I know (because, well, it's not good when you take a breath when your face is in the water).

Now, I'm not going to go through all the specific uses of the comma, because, frankly, there are just too many, and most of you are probably loosely acquainted with them, anyway. And some of them are optional and use the word "may" (as in "you may use a comma with a long prepositional phrase"), and that can lead to all sorts of confusion, because how do you know when you should or not? What I will say is this: if your comma doesn't add to the meaning of the sentence, you probably don't need it. By that I mean, if there could be confusion without the comma, you should have one. Unless you need a semicolon instead, but that's another issue, and I'm not going into that, right now (just know that almost all of you (and I don't mean you you, I mean people you, because people hardly even know what that little guy is called anymore) out there need to learn how to use the semicolon. He is your friend and should not be so overlooked).

However, I will mention one comma usage rule that everyone should go learn, because this is the most common error I see. Yes, even more than that stinking comma after a conjunction, and I think this is the one that causes that particular confusion anyway. Adverbial phrases should always be set apart by commas. Um, did I say always? Because I mean always. If you've written your sentence, which contains an adverbial phrase, correctly, you can pull that phrase (or dependent clause) right out of the sentence and still have a sentence remaining. It shouldn't mean the same thing without the phrase (because, if it does, you don't need that phrase to begin with), but you should have an intact sentence (you know, with a subject and a predicate (a verb)) remaining. This is the important thing, so pay attention:
Adverbial phrases, without the commas to set them apart from the rest of your sentence, can easily become entangled in your sentences and cause confusion. That's why adverbial phrases need a comma on both sides.
[One other note: there are some adverbs that always require commas, but it's really because they act as adverbial phrases all by themselves. You should learn these words. There really aren't that many of them.]

Here are some examples of correct ways of punctuating adverbial phrases:

• <adverbial phrase>,<independent clause>, <conjunction> <independent clause>. OR <adverbial phrase>, <independent clause> <conjunction> <dependent clause>.
• <independent clause>, <adverbial phrase>, <conjunction> <dependent or independent clause>.
• <independent clause>, <conjunction>, <adverbial phrase>, <independent clause>. OR <independent clause> <conjunction>, <adverbial phrase>, <dependent clause>.
• <independent clause>, <conjunction> <independent clause>, <adverbial phrase> OR <independent clause> <conjunction> <dependent clause>, <adverbial phrase>.

As you can see, I could go on with those for... well, quite a while. But that should give you an idea of the basics. Of course, you have to know the difference between an independent and a dependent clause, which I'll have to talk about at some point, but, really, that's a basic thing, and, if you don't know, you should go back and chastise every English teacher you ever had for not drilling that into your head. Or flog yourself for not paying enough attention in class.

It all looks and seems so much more complicated than it actually is; that's all I can really say about it. But, if you look at the above sentence structures, you may be able to see what causes these common mistakes:
<independent clause>, <conjunction> <adverbial phrase>, <some clause or other> -- The conjunction is NOT part of the adverbial phrase, so there NEEDS to be a comma between the conjunction and the phrase so that the phrase can be "lifted out."
<independent clause> <conjunction>, <some clause or other> -- This one is just wrong. That comma ALWAYS comes after the independent clause and you shouldn't have one after the conjunction unless there is an adverbial phrase (or a long prepositional phrase). [If you have a word like "however," there should be a semicolon involved, but we're not getting into that, right now.]

But let's make it even easier, because easier is better, right? Do this:
Write without any commas. After you've finished your section or whatever or waited a few days, gotten some distance from what you've written, or, even better, get someone else, go back and read through it and look for places where the writing is confusing. If it's confusing, there's a good chance you need a comma. Or commas. Look for places where the comma dispels ambiguity, not places where you want your reader to breathe.

As one final note, I will say this:
The Internet and texting are in the process of changing comma rules once again. We use them less, mostly, because we write shorter, less complex sentences. Personally, I use more commas than I specifically need to when I write, because I tend to put them in everywhere they're "supposed" to go. You know, by following all of the comma rules. However, I would say that the only real rule you need to know is "Commas are for meaning not for breathing." If you get that down, you should be okay. If the comma doesn't add to the clarity of the sentence, take it out. If not having one causes confusion, put one in. And watch your adverbial phrases, because they run into your clauses and cause confusion. You might know what you mean, but there's a good chance your reader will get confused.
In the end, too many commas are better than not enough as far as meaning goes, so, if you're not sure, put that comma in there. As long as you're not telling me to breathe!

On Grammar and Punctuation: Most People Do It Wrong

As I've mentioned, now that school is back in session, I'm teaching my creative writing class again. It's going to be different this year, though, as I will be teaching two days instead of one, and one of those days will be devoted to the technical aspect of writing. Story structure. Plot. And, yes, grammar and punctuation. I expect that I will start having more posts, um, start having posts devoted to these topics as we (my class and I) go through the year. Actually, I already have a post started all about that wily rascal, the comma, and class hasn't even started, yet. [Okay, actually it has, but I wrote this before it had.] Oh, and there was that post about adverbs which has actually been sitting around for a long while. See, these posts aren't being inspired by  the class; they're being inspired by the lack of correct grammar and punctuation I'm seeing all the time in people's projects and the tendency of said people to just brush it off.

Now, look back up at my title of this post. No, really, read it again. Do you see it? I'm guessing most of you don't see it. Actually, I'm guessing that none of you see it, but, hey, I could be wrong. If you see the problem, raise your hand. Anyone? It's wrong. Specifically, "wrong" is wrong. The word in that spot should be an adverb, because it's (supposed) to be modifying how people do it. The appropriate wording would be, "Most people do it incorrectly."

Why do I bring this stuff up? Aren't grammar and punctuation subjective? Can't you just kind of do it however you want to? No, not really, despite what a lot of people, including some (bad) editors, would have you believe. There are rules for grammar and punctuation for a reason, and, frankly, I'm getting tired of seeing comments like this from authors:
"I write first person because that way I don't have to know any of the grammar rules."
I'm sorry; that's just lazy and irresponsible, and, honestly, if you can't take the time to learn the rules of your job, then you shouldn't be allowed to write.
The problem, though, is that editors, also, don't want to learn the rules of their jobs, and publishers don't care as long as they're going to make money, and more and more of them are cutting back on the editorial staff to increase profits and "allow the audience to get involved in the editing." (Yes, that's a real quote from a real publisher (but I'm  not gonna say which one).)
While we're at it, why don't we let drivers get involved in the process of building cars. Without training.

So, yeah, I'm being kind of ranty, but the attitudes around this stuff are (frequently) just wrong! (And, see, that time the "wrong" is correct, because it's an adjective telling what kind of attitudes. Wrong ones!)

Here are two things that I've experienced recently that I want to point to:

1. In providing feedback about a manuscript recently, I made a punctuation error. Yeah, I did, because no one, and I mean no one, is ever 100%. Part of it was just that I don't go back and proof blog posts and emails and things like that quite as thoroughly as I do a work I mean to publish. I just don't have the time to proofread these things quite as fanatically as I will something I want someone to buy. Part of it was just that I was having a brain fart and was thinking about the word incorrectly, so I punctuated "although" in the manner that you should punctuate "however." All in all, it was a relatively minor mistake, and it wasn't a repetitive mistake; it was a singular slip. However, I made this error while providing grammar correction to someone. And there were a lot of corrections in the other manuscript, and they were all repetitive mistakes. See, that means the person in question didn't know what s/he was doing and needed someone else to say, "Hey, you're doing this incorrectly," or, in the vernacular, "You're doing this wrong." A third party responded by pointing out my mistake and saying that I had no business offering grammar corrections, because, LOOK!, I'd made one, too. Basically, if I couldn't be 100%, I had no business giving advice.

That is a ludicrous statement. In fact, if you take that out to its full implication, no one would ever be able to teach anything. Because why? Because no one is ever 100%. Not all the time. If I'm operating at, say, a 90% capacity and you're operating at, say, a 30% capacity, it's just ridiculous to make the statement that I shouldn't be allowed to make the assist on you getting better. This attitude of having to be at 100% just supports the idea that anyone can do whatever they want any way they want to because there's no one qualified to make them better. HOW STUPID! I just want to say: take the help you can get and the help that's offered and learn as much as you can. If you can see that someone else is more qualified than you, don't be a dunce and dismiss him/her because s/he's not 100% qualified.

2. Someone recently posted her first chapter and asked for feedback on it. Now, this was supposed to be in "final" condition. As in, she was getting ready to send it off and was asking for final thoughts. This also means that she was "finished" with her editing process, whatever that was. I'm assuming, based on comments, that it included feedback from critique partners. I figured I might as well give it a glance. I was barely able to do that.

The very first sentence had a punctuation error in it. And, I have to say, it was one of those that is really beginning to bug me, because I see it everywhere. Still, I thought, maybe it was just a slip, so I kept reading. The piece was full of errors. The dialogue was rarely punctuated correctly, and every instance of the type of sentence like the first sentence was punctuated in the same incorrect manner. Clearly, the piece needed editing, and I only made it about 1/3 of the way through before giving up. I left a comment noting the error in the first sentence and stating that I was unable to finish the piece because of all the errors.

The author asked for examples. Well, I felt I'd already given an example, so I related to her that I was busy editing another piece for someone, but I would try to give her 1st chapter a pass when I was done with the other project. Her response was, "Oh, no, I have critique partners for that; I just wanted an example of the punctuation errors you were talking about."

Clearly, her critique partners had failed at their job.

And that's the point, really: "Most people do it wrong." Critique partners when used as editors are entirely overrated, because, honestly, they don't know any more than you do. If you think you're going to get what passes as editing from your critique partners, you're going to be incredibly disappointed in almost every instance. They can't catch those comma errors, because they don't know they are errors. Do you know, without looking it up, the difference between a coordinating conjunction and a subordinating one? I guarantee you, your CPs don't have any more clue than you. And that's an easy thing.

While it's true that grammar and punctuation and, heck, language change over time, that does not mean that it's subjective. That just means it changes. Speech changes, and writing changes along with it to reflect those changes, but that doesn't mean that it's subjective, although there are often cases where rules can be argued (But that's just like science. Remember, science still doesn't know what glass is). Rules exist in grammar for a reason and while, yes, fiction is allowed to play with those rules more than non-fiction, it's not a reason not to know them or to break them because you don't know them.

I get that writing how we talk is all in vogue, right now. The first person experience has become this holy  thing and everyone is getting on board, but what comes out of it is a lot of garbage because people don't actually know how to write. First person has become the short cut to actually doing the work, and, yes, that bothers me. Writing, even first person writing, is not like speech. It shouldn't be. Writing is a separate discipline, and it should be treated as such.

I'm going to end this with a quote by C. S. Lewis. Specifically, he's speaking here about using italics in writing, but the idea can be expanded to all of writing, especially 1st person writing:

I am now inclined to think that this was a mistake - an undesirable hybrid between the art of speaking and the art of writing. A talker ought to use variations of voice for emphasis because his medium naturally lends itself to that method: but a writer ought not to use italics for the same purpose. He has his own, different, means of bringing out the key words and ought to use them.

What this really says to me is that a writer should learn to write. A writer should not be someone that just copies down what people say. Speaking and writing are different and should be different. Make words your tools and learn how to use them.