Enjoying a post Thanksgiving mellow. The crazy shopping on Red/Green Friday is not for me.

With the last few warm days of the year catching up on the ends of the Fall projects. Writing continues but with less focus and more for fun and for myself. Is that another way of saying that I have realized that being a published author may be beyond my limit? Perhaps it is.

Thanksgiving

As a kid I didn't like turkey, stuffing, cranberry anything, pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie, squash, or sweet potatoes. Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. For me it meant getting together with the cousins. The weather was warm enough to play outside -- sometimes with snow, often not.

Finished the moving

Finally emptied the storage garage, swept it out, and handed in the keys.

Monday most of my old computers go to the recycle. No longer any room for them and there doesn't seem to any good home for them. Some of them were clunkers that just got the job done. They lacked style, innovation, or mystique. Others like the Bondwell B310 portable from 1990  thrilled with  their design, capacity, blazing speed, portability, and tons of software.

My hoard goes back to my first typewriter, a graduation present from high school. I branched out into computers with the 1979 Apple II plus.

Cold

Not so cold but this year it really feels cold to me. We're somewhere around thirty degrees. Almost done with moving out of the storage garage. I can see all four walls now and have moved everything I'm keeping. Still have to move a couple of cubic yards of trash to the dump, take four or five old computers to the recycle, and donate a large piece of old furniture that had been quite good in its time (1920's or 30's?). Before that I need to take apart the last platform. I'm hoping that today it will be get warm enough for me. But whether it warms or not, after the laundry, I'm taking apart the platform.

Rockhome Garden

170 miles from Chicago, 30 miles from Champaign, IL, Rockhome Gardens is five miles west of Arcola. It is a unique garden with much unusual rockwork that caters to tourists and gives some insight into the 1800's life and the Amish. Throughout the garden are posted many 'amusing Amish Dutch' sayings. A pamphlet, "Rockhome Sayings", records many of them. Here are a few:

Suggested names for garden clubs: "Hoe and Hope", "Weeders Digest", "Plan and Ponder", and "Yard Birds".

There's no fool like an old fool. You just can't beat experience.

Criticism is the one thing most of us think is more blessed to give than to receive.

A smile always adds to your "face value". 

Rule 10

Found in storage a 1965 Elements of Style in which "Use the active voice." is number 10 not 14 as in my 2000 Fourth Edition.

What changed?

Elementary Rules of Usage forms Part I. Part II, Elementary Principles of Composition,  continues the numbering from Part I. Part I had four less rules in 1965. Life just keep getting more complicated.

Mark Twain

Still sorting, tossing, and giving away stuff from the storage garage. I'm about 35% cleared out;  the work left is daunting. Found an old poster with Mark Twain's profile sketch and a paddle wheeler. I hung it by my desk.

Mark Twain:  "I have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened."

Rule # 14

Rule # 14 in The Elements of Style by Strunk and White: "Use the active voice."

What does it take?

I can't resist library book sales or any group's used book sale. Recently I bought FREELANCE WRITING FOR MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS --BREAKING IN WITHOUT SELLING OUT -- BY MARCIA YUDKIN. This is a 1988 copyright.

Checking on Amazon.com you will find Marcia Yudkin has pages of books, many of them recent releases.

The book I bought has lots of good insights and advice for all writers, not just freelance ones.
In the chapter called  'Succeeding as a Writer', she says:
     "I have a short and a long answer to the question what it takes to break
      into print and keep on getting published. Briefly, it takes humility,
      confidence and persistence.  Humility, so that you can accept
      criticism and improve your writing to a professional level and beyond;
      confidence, so you don't crumple at rejection letters as proof of
      stupidity or ineptitude; and persistence, so you keep on sending out
      queries and submissions that eventually result in publications."

Junk

My writing has slipped a little as I try to close out a storage garage. The old and broken holds for me as much fascination as some people hold for the old in perfect condition. An old coin that shows its wear from the thousands of hands that it has passed through is much more interesting to me than the pristine mint proof sets. The stories that a coin could tell.

Each box of old games, broken cups, and the mementos of travel, becomes a treasure chest of memories and fantasies.

Writing Well

Louis L'Amour

 Yondering:

 

 "Yet to write well one must never cease from

  learning, absorbing, observing, and sensing."

Louis L'Amour

Perhaps my favorite author is Louis L'Amour.  In search of broadening my exposure to different types of writing I walked through the large print section of the library. Only the most popular writers make it to large print. If a writer had lots of books, I sampled one. L'Amour had a shelf full.

Those authors I liked I tried some more of their books and tried some of the books in their genre. L'Amour isn't just Westerns but he has written a lot of them. So I also tried Max Brand, Zane Grey, and several others.

L'Amour sounds to me like a name that should be writing romantic westerns and Zane Grey sounds to me like a western action writer. But the opposite seems to be true.

Something kept drawing me back to his books. His books seemed more than just westerns. They seem to handle the issues of young soldiers coming to grips with fear, weapons, and killing. Would they be able to do it? Would they like it too much? What would the gentle folks at home think? Could they possibly understand? Would they notice the change? Would they sense the hardness?

Yondering has a section called 'Author's Tea' that writers will find interesting.

Style

"Style ...is the ability to say in writing, with clarity and economy and grace, precisely what you want to say."
              ---- Lucile Vaughan Payne,  The Lively Art of Writing

Freewrites

For the last couple of weeks sitting down to write has been a chore. Even words for the freewrites didn't come easily. But each day or almost every day I wrote 500 words. Most of them not worth writing and not worth reading. Except there seems to be something in that process that liberates the brain or conditions it. Today six hundred and fifty words came out smooth and easy. Time to start another writing project.

The Elements of Style

About ten years ago, I entered a writing contest sponsored by SouthWest Writers. One of the options was to enter and get a critique. Critiques help me to better see my own work as others see it.

The reviewer added a piece of advice that he had found particularly useful: every year re-read Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

I have tried to do that. This year I am focusing on five of the Elementary Principles of Composition. For examples, see the book. 

#14 Use the active voice.

 

#15 Put statements in positive form.

 

#16 Use definite, specific, concrete language.

 

#17 Omit useless words.

 

#20  Keep related words together.

 

 



William Zinsser

Thirty-eight years ago William Zinsser wrote On Writing Well. He wrote: "It's a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength." and "..the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components..."

Rain

I like rainy days. The cool breezes and overcast skies make sleeping-in easy. Less hurry, time for a book and another cup of coffee, and the soft gentleness of the light make rainy days great for reflection. After all, Mother Nature is watering the flowers and doing the yard work today.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU: "The world is but a canvas to our imagination."

GOETHE, FAUST: "A man can stand anything, except a succession of ordinary days."

Agent

What a great experience! At Pima Writer's Workshop in Tucson in May, an agent read the first chapter of my novel that I had sent in. She read it and commented on it, suggesting some re-write. Very helpful for not only did it give outside eyes on my work, but also gave me an insight into the thinking of agents. I was surprised that she zoomed right in on areas that other writers and editors had told me were weak.

Next she surprised me by giving me her card; I could send her the rewrite. Which I did. I had tried to rewrite that part before and never came up with anything that I liked. This time I stayed at it until it was something I liked and completed.

She wasn't thrilled with the rewrite but said, "It grew on her."  And she requested the whole novel.

I couldn't believe it! Wow! And then I waited.

But waiting was great. I made the most of it. "An agent is looking at my novel." A wonderful time.

Then came the email saying thanks and good luck. It was full of reasons why it fell short of her expectations -- all of them good, helpful comments that I can use to make a better story.

Did I feel bad? Not in the least. It was a wonderful, helpful experience that I smile upon every time I think of it. Can you believe an agent read my novel!

What next? I'll re-read the novel with her comments in front of me and do any sprucing or rewriting that I can do quickly. Then I'll seek out another agent.

Time

Mark Twain:  "Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been."