Writing's The Easier Part--of Writing

You can have the best ideas pop into your head. You may have beautiful penmanship (in which case I haven't met you, but you may be out there).
Words may fall onto your page almost publishing ready. But if your off-the-top-of-your-head writing needs no editing, I don't know you. My educated guess is that your work needs an edit--or two--or three--or . . .     The best of writers instinctively recognize what can be left out to make their work even better. Easier for the reader to grasp--first time over, with pleasure.

So I'll make this blog uncharacteristically short for me. You don't need to know that even my detiorating handwriting is sometimes better than what lands onscreen. Poor eyesight, late-life computer learning--sort of--all the twists and turns and unwaranted screw-ups--give me fits.

My favorite part of writing is getting the thoughts on paper. And in long-hand on any paper--Post-its, tablets, journals. Tapping out one letter at a time on a keyboard is not me. But unpublished, we would not have met otherwise. THANKS for reading. Love to hear from you on COMMENTS.

Readers, only

Fall is a favorite season for me mainly because it isn't summer any more. While summer's heat fades away, fall is perfect for spring plantings. And fall's my favorite season. Already I am looking forward to new beauties selected from catalogues, for when they arrive I get to plant all the bulbs and rhizomes exactly where my mind's eye has pictured them in bloom: Iris, daylilies, lily trees, cyclamen, parrot tulips--some new to me.

My "readers" sit quietly under solar lights--various sizes alone, in pairs, or threes among the flowers. "No 'dirty' books allowed," I say just before they get their annual scrubbing and a maybe a change of location in the patio garden. Some of these statuary readers are angels or cherubs, but most are children--like in real life--holding book. Perfect for a children's book writer.

No question, my favorite flower of the year is the BIG, lavender fall crocus that surprises me annually right after I've given up looking for it. No green stems and leaves to hint of its pending arrival, just slender pure white stems with enormous blossoms popping up to last for weeks. To my surprise the resident squirrel compounded the beauty by relocating a bulb.                            

 

Kindred Spirits

But only in theory.  Lucy Maud Montgomery may have had a better handle on how to get her words in print.  I alas, too often hit a wrong key when I am on my last sentence and out the window goes my brain work. That's what happened last time I wrote a blog post.  It set me back to no writing at all -- the the possibility that I posted this very title and not content.  I wanted to say that I had the night before lucked into a TV showing of Anne of Green Gables, my all-time favorite. Worth losing sleep.  I'm sure I'm not alone in finding inspiration whenever it is my good fortune to walk on famous writer's ground.  Twice I have visited Ms Montgomery's Silver Bush "one of the happiest spots in the world" on Prince Edward Island.  Even took a carriage ride over the property and enjoyed fresh-baked molasses cookies and tea in the museum run by Campbell relatives.  The video scene where Anne and her best friend/neighbor stood on those unusually red cliffs prompted me to seek out my photos.  Could have been the exact location.

"I've found out at last what makes the roads red.  It's a great comfort," says Anne.  Lucy Maud had a gift for dialogue unique to her characters and I never tire of rereading her stories I've acquired for my library.  My Anne of Green Gables Journal is so beautiful with illustrations and quotes that I have never to this day written a word onon the lines.  Examples of kindred spirit thinking:"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?"

And "Don't you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this?"

Critiquer's Confession

You caught me. That is, if you read my last two blogs. You can tell I read only the photo caption, not the article. Obviously I didn't really study the photo, either.

Somehow, in the far reaches of my ancient mind the last name, Tyler, rang a bell as some female sport's standout--same alma mater. But maybe those initials (C.J.) crept in unbidden from the book I was reading at the time. I've since counted ten C.J.s in the print of a mere one and one third pages! And protagonist C.J. was a female.

My guess is the newspaper people have made up for their original gaffe by giving HIM another shot (that's shOt) with a BIG full color face-front photo captioned "HEAD OF THE CLASS." Without even reading the article I can see it's a guy. And my conscience is clear. End of this story.

Inappropriate Language

Well, that's one way to put it. and I'll always wonder who brought it to the newspaper staff's attention. My guess would be that the young golfer or her mother got on the phone and let the paper people know that she wouldn't be clipping that photo for her album anytime soon. A much smaller version of the same photo appeared today with this caption: "Shikellamy's C.J.Taylor
hits a drive off the tee at the Susquehanna Valley Country Club on Thursday. An editing mistake in Friday's edition placed inappropriate language in the photo caption."

Let this be a lesson to your fingers, folks. The letters i and o sit companionably side-by-side on your keyboard, but they are not interchangable. In this case, one key made an embarrassing difference.

Don't print "oops!"

Sometimes it is the writer's fault when a wrong word appears in print. But then again, where was the proof-reader or copy-editor whose job it is to catch the error? And does it really matter when it's just a small word? Will readers tend to skip over and not notice? Or will it stop them dead in their tracks with wonder? Or double them over in fits of laughter? You decide.

It all depends on point of view. In today's regional newspaper (which shall  luckily remain nameless) a large black and white photo appears featuring a golfer in action. The one-line caption under her photo did make me snicker and for that I apologize.Must have stunned the athlete who has every right to say "this really stinks." Should have made the paper people cringe and point fingers at the perpetrator whose ineptness sent this to press:

" ------------- hits a tee SH*T during . . . . ." 

Diverse Reads in Modern Format

     I have a fairly recent (hard to keep abreast of so prolific an author) Nicholas Sparks and an old Jeanette Oaks (final in one of her many series) on my i-pad 2. I loved the "book feel" of turning pages so much I've read Sparks twice. But meantime, my daughter, Marti, has filled this online "bookshelf" with shelves and shelves of old children's books. Some sounded so quaint in language style we laughed our heads off reading aloud to each other. An anonymous version of  The Three Bears was amusing and one we'd never read. The illustrations, alone, dated it to at least back to my childhood or earlier. In public domain, these are freebies.

    I'm thinking I need to check out the shopping cart for It Doesn't Grow on Trees. Only recently I have learned from AuthorHouse, the publisher, that they now have my Junior Chapter book available in eBook format. I love that story. Haven't even checked on the price, but I know I'll love the chapter beginnings and endings so carefully crafted--by me. And then there's that wonderful page turning feel. If anyone reading this gets to it first, please report in.