Comma monkey

When I got my last manuscript back from the proofreader the first thing I noticed was how many commas she had eliminated. Since then I have gone back and re-read my work, eliminating every comma I didn’t think was absolutely necessary and there have been a lot. A LOT. I also noticed that I make indiscriminate use of semicolons. I love semicolons; I think they are baffling and mysterious and I use them like design elements, which means that I almost never use them correctly. But they are so pretty! Even though Lynne Truss, author of the punctuation primer Eats, Shoots & Leaves, seems to think there is no incorrect use of a semi-colon; I am not so certain.

Here’s something else Truss says: “To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as “Thank God its Friday” (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence.” Ouchie. I know someone like that. Honest I do. She’d red-mark my emails given half the chance. I cringe to think what her face looks like when she reads my blog posts. I am no grammarian. That’s what proofreaders are for. And comma monkeys* like me are very happy to have them.

 

* The term “comma monkey” was coined by me, Tracey Baptiste, and should always be credited to me, Tracey Baptiste, in any and all written works or I will come and find you and stick semi-colons all over everything you own.

New hotness and old faithfuls

Yesterda Lola just about had it. It was sad watching her demise but I had a lot of work to do so  I made short work of finding her replacement. So today, I inroduce Lola Too. She’s basically the same as original Lola, but with a fun pattern all over her shell. She’s faaaaancy. I love her already. And the keyboard has that only-on-a-new-computer tight pushback when I strike the keys. Love.

I feel bad for Minnie but she just didn’t work out. Sorry girl, it wasn’t personal. Just business.

I wonder if other writers become as attached to their tools as I do.

Besides Lola Too, I have a burgundy Parker fountain pen that I love. I’ve had it since college. Its medium nib and dark blue ink cartridges got me through many a journal entry. It’s making me nuts that I haven’t been able to find it for a while. In its place I’ve been using the fancier black Cross fountain pen that Darryl bought as a present when my first book was published. It was for doing signings, but it turned out that the ink spread on the page and the nib caught on the fibers of the page so I had to switch to ballpoint. My fountain pens are now exclusively for thank you notes and writing letters to friends, NOT for writing up my drafts or notes or grocery lists. They make my writing too thick and slow my pace too much to be useful for such mundane, hurried, and scrunching-words-between-the-margins tasks. They are for being leisurely. If I still kept a journal I’d use them for that.

The flip side is that my leisurely writing is so infrequent, I often forget to whip out my fancy pens! And even worse, because Lola and Lola Too are tablets, if I have documents to sign or forms to fill out that come via email or over the Internet, I do it right on the computer with the stylus. No pen involved!

Still, fountain pens are faithful tools. They taught me to write script as a student at St. Gabriel’s Girl’s R.C. School in San Fernando, Trinidad. And Lola Too will be just as faithful… I hope.

A personal note

It has been a tough couple of weeks for me. Re-working my latest manuscript has been stressful and emotionally taxing and has left me feeling fragile. Add to that a couple of personal setbacks, and I was at a pretty heightened emotional state about three weeks ago. Then my mother called to say that she needed to have surgery to replace two vertebrae in her neck, and that she needed to have it soon because her doctors believed that her nerve was suffering serious damage and could cause a stroke. Then I was rear-ended while on my way to pick up the kids from camp. And that same afternoon, Michael Jackson died.

Michael Jackson’s death might not mean much to many, but for me it was awful. And as much as I’ve tried to deny how that has affected me since the moment I heard about it, it was hard to ignore today. My mother is recuperating from her surgery at my home and she watched the memorial and I caught some of it while unsuccessfully trying to work and it was heartbreaking.

My mother’s surgery went well, my car is fixed, I finished this round of edits on my novel and I’m printing out the ms as we speak for another read-through, my personal issues still remain unresolved but I have a better handle on them, and all that remains for closure is this death of someone I never knew, but who I grew up with.

My condolences to any who are mourning.

Curried goat and novel writing

Both my mother and my grandmother often cooked with a pressure cooker. It’s great for wild meat, or tougher stuff like beef or goat. But I didn’t start using the pressure cooker until after I had the kids and it’s because once at my grandmother’s house, I watched her open it up the pressure cooker before it had fully cooled down, and the lid shot up nine feet in the air, with steam and food pushing it up like a geyser. It hit the ceiling above her stove and clattered back down on the concrete floor frighteningly loud. I was little. Maybe not even double digits yet. And I remember the way my whole body tightened. When I un-squeezed my eyes and looked around, there was food everywhere, most astonishingly, on the roof. The stains remained there for weeks.

The pressure cooker is good for food, if you’re careful. I have learned to use it and it cuts my cooking time in half and gives me great results. But today I feel like I’m in a pressure cooker myself with the two novels I’m working on. I can feel the heat and tension building steadily and quickly inside of me but unfortunately the work isn’t progressing any faster. So the tension builds, and I’m trying not to pop out too early and hit the ceiling. But there is no guarantee that when the pressure reaches its peak, that the work I have done will be as beautiful as my grandmother’s curried goat.

“Book in a Month” review

It’s July (sheesh, already?) and my book in a month experiment is over. Granted, I was rewriting and not working from scratch, but Victoria Schmidt’s Book in a Month workbook is supposed to be good for that too. Now that I’ve gotten to the end of it, my reviews are mixed.

It’s a good book if you already have a story idea that you’re kicking around, and maybe you’ve started writing scenes, or jotted down some ideas, or have a pretty clear idea of the characters. The book is set up to help you build the structure of the novel and get everything down on paper in a month so that you can go back and edit it later. If you already have a working manuscript, the book can help to make sure that the structure is in place and nudge you toward thinking more deeply about your characters. The book is also helpful if you are an undisciplined writer and haven’t gotten into the daily butt-in-chair habit.

I hope no one picks up this book thinking they will have a finished product at the end of 30 days. It might have a beginning, middle and an end, but it won’t be nearly good enough to be a saleable manuscript. And even on revisions, the nudges toward thinking more deeply about characters, motivation, turning points, etc. are not strong enough prompts to get you to really deepen your work. For that you will need a different kind of book, or better, a writing class.

Yes, there are bestselling novelists who write entire books in one month, and they’re saleable and go on to make millions, but more often than not these are people who have an established following, who write formula fiction, and who have enough money to concentrate their entire day on writing and so have more hours in a month to devote to a work of fiction. And don’t underestimate the value of years of practice. I doubt even they started out writing a book in a month.

If you are a beginner, have no waiting fans, no money to write full-time and have never been published, do not think this can happen to you. Real writing requires far more than you can squeeze out of the pages of this book.

But far more important than the book, is the online support group on Yahoo. If you happen to get a good, encouraging group like I did this month, you’re in good hands. People who can cheer you on, who suffer pitfalls and slow periods just like you, will help to keep you steadily on the road to completing your manuscript, so I highly recommend joining up and chatting with your fellow writers.

The process was interesting and enjoyable, but I doubt I’d do it again. After writing eight books, I don’t have any issues meeting my word count by a deadline. My issues are with digging deep and finding a better story, so I will need to move on. But if you’re a beginner, this is a good place to start.

Requiem for Lola

Yesterday as I was posting Chapter 4 of Zombie Cat, Lola turned off. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong. I checked to see if the power was still on and it was, but after a couple of tries, she turned back on again. I’m sorry to say it’s the end for the old girl. She has been having a lot of problems, right from the beginning in fact. I think Lola was just not meant to be long for this world.

You were a good computer, Lola! You will be missed.

Meet Minnie!

Last night my husband returned from Chicago with a shiny new, tiny laptop for me. He knew that Lola was on her way out, so he decided to pick up one of the HP Minis. It’s super cute, super small, and super cheap. The drawbacks: it’s not a tablet and I’ve gotten used to those; It doesn’t have nearly the memory that Lola did; the keyboard will take some getting used to.

I took a picture of Minnie sitting on top of Lola to illustrate the difference, but I haven’t found my way around Minnie’s programs yet, so I’ll have that up soon.

*Sigh* I do miss Lola… but Minnie fits in my purse… change is hard.

The Vampire’s Zombie Cat: Chapter 4

Vernon brought Miss Miranda Wallfish over for dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Miss Wallfish had many suggestions. “How about Mr. Harry Greypet? Or Davison Silverfur? Oh no! I’ve got it! Cornelius Stripenbottom!”

 

 

 

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Text and image copyright 2009, Tracey Baptiste

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Supernatural creatures need not apply

People, I am in trouble.

A couple of years ago, I started writing a novel about a deeply personal family experience. I added a ghost to the novel although there was none in my personal life, unelss you’re talking about the kind  of ghost that lives in your memory. The novel has made the rounds of three publishers in the last 18 months, and I have steadily revised it based on their feedback (and the rejections that followed). I’m now nearing the end of the umpteenth revision, and Nathan Bransford posts this.

I know that there are exceptions to every rule. Just because my story has a ghost in it does not necessarily mean that it’s a dud, but after rejections from three major houses, including the woman who published my first novel, I am seriously quaking in my boots. And here’s the next thing. The other novel I’ve been writing? It has a full cast of supernatural creatures.

I’m doomed. At the moment, I actually want to cry. It may be the added fact that someone rear-ended me today in stopped traffic, or that my mother is having neck surgery next week to stave off a stroke. But even without those things, a feeling of dread has been creeping over me for the last few weeks, rendering me completely incapable of feeling enthusiastic for my own work. And now Bransford’s doom-riddled, though entertaining, post casts the final pall.

Could it be as bad as I think? Will I have to return to the dreaded day job? Sweet Jeevis. I’m going to drop dead and haunt myself.

Is it summer?

It’s officially summer, but the sky is still alternately grey and blue and the breeze is quite chilly. There have been so many rainy days this year. It’s good for my grass and plants, but it would also be nice to get outside with the kids.

I suppose since the weather is still a bit on the chilly side, it’s not too weird that I’m knitting hats and scarves and mittens. I haven’t finished my LGBT shelter project, and I was hoping to have that done by the end of this month, since our fearless leader has declared June LGBT pride month. I thought I would try to be timely. But alas, it is not to be.

My goal is to use up all or most of my stash yarn with this project for two reasons. 1) I have WAAAAY too much stash yarn. I know many would argue that my stash is miniscule, but I find anything that’s just hanging around with no real purpose to be extraneous. and 2) It will allow me to buy some new yarn with which to make new projects. I’m already thinking about Christmas, and no, that has nothing to do with the fact that Knitty’s summer issue has Christmas projects in it.

So here’s my stash.

“Minders of Make-Believe” review

In Leonard Marcus’ Minders of Make-Believe, the author of biographies on Ursula Nordstrom and Margaret K. McElderry, turns his depth of information about children’s books, to the entire history of children’s book publishing, from it’s earliest inception, until J.K. Rowling. The book was researched over the course of 14 years, and the information in it is exhaustive. I read it because I heard that if you are at all interested in children’s books and publishing, it’s required reading. And so it is.

Marcus outlines the nearly all-female cast of children’s books as if they themselves were characters. One curious note: the cover illustration shows a man weilding a sword before a dragon. Since most of the “minders” were women, I’m not sure why a woman wouldn’t be holding the sword, but maybe that particular “minder” is Marcus himself.

My gripe with the book is that Marcus has never met a short sentence he liked, or a simple word that he thought worthy of using. I’m all for highbrow writing. I know what antidisestablishmentism means. But I warn you: you will be re-reading many a sentence to ensure you have understood it’s meaning correctly. Because by the time you get to the end of the sentence, you will have forgotten what the beginning was, or your eyes may have glassed over trying to decipher large and uncommon verbiage. The only good news is that by the time you get to the end of the first chapter, you will likely be so used to his lengthy prose, that the remainder of the book will be easier.

Nevertheless, Marcus’ work is jam-packed with information and because I’m sure I’ve missed some of it, I will probably read it again, though not any time soon. I think my eyes and my brain need to take a little break with something relatively simple. Tolstoy in the original Russian, perhaps.