A lifetime of words

When I was a teenager I used to take a handwritten or hand-typed copy of pieces of literature that struck a chord with me. I did it as a child, too, but didn't keep those pieces. The teenage years are in a ring-binder and I found it at the back of a cupboard the other day. I had copied Kathleen Raine, Ted Hughes, Kalil Gibran, Seamus Heaney, e e cummings, Charles beatty and lots of others. Even a smidgen of Wordsworth, but probably not the one everyone knows -

For why? Because the good old rule
Sufficeth them; the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
and they should keep who can.

There are odd snippets like this one by someone called Tamburas:
Stand still, O Time.
I shall never know why,
You white wall, I love you
Like a woman I never saw before.
The blue of the sky reflects the Nile.

I love you, Men-nefru,
For in the magic of your streets
And in the orange-coloured moon
Of your night
Dwells the breath of the gods.

From poetry I ventured into prose and there are chunks from T H White, Rosemary Sutcliff, and an author I have noted down as M Savage. From there I deviated into all sorts of odd things - the breeding line of Nijinsky and Mill Reef, for example and scrapbooks on the JFK assassination, and Nureyev's defection to the west. Some of this collection stemmed from the fact that I worked in ICI where several daily papers and magazines were received and processed into the library - if I saw anything interesting I could snip it (once the item had ben processed) and read or copy it at my leisure. Reading through the pieces I kept still gives me pleasure today, but I'm mot sure that I still have those scrapbooks, but it is possible. Maybe I'll turn into a hoarder in later life!

Unnecessary words

I know most of Rachelle Gardner’s  tips for shortening a manuscript off by heart but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to refresh the memory and keep the advice on record here.

As she says, if you cut 12 words per page in a 350-page manuscript, you have shortened it by 4,200 (unnecessary) words. Another method I heard recently was to cut 2 lines per page. In a 300 page novel that’s probably around 6,000 words.

Rachelle offers a checklist to consider:

•  Adverbs, especially those with “ly” endings. Ask yourself if they’re necessary.
• Adjectives. Often people use two or three when one (or none) is better.
• Gerunds. Words that end in “ing.”
• Passive voice: Over-use of words like “was,” “were” and “that” indicate your writing may be too passive. Reconstruct in active voice.
• Redundancy in words or ideas. Don’t say something twice that the reader only needs once.
• Passages that are overly descriptive.
• Passages that describe characters’ thoughts and feelings in too much detail (i.e. long sections of narrative or interior monologue).
• Passages that tell the reader what they already know.
• Passages that use a lot of words to “tell” the reader something that should be “shown”
• Unnecessary backstory.

(http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/cut-thousands-of-words/)

She also offers a list of words that may not be truly effective:

about, actually, almost, like, appears, approximately, basically, close to, even, eventually, exactly, finally, just, just then, kind of, nearly, practically, really, seems, simply, somehow, somewhat, sort of, suddenly, that, truly, utterly, were.

The Search and Replace function makes this easier than it sounds, and the manuscript will be the better for it.

She also has an interesting rant about the Brave New World of Publishing on her blog 22^nd September. Read it with a wry grin! (http://www.rachellegardner.com/)

Enough of moans about travel and weather. Let’s get back to real life. I wondered, the other day, when people started referring to Edinburgh as Auld Reekie, but haven’t done anything about finding out. I suspect it may be as long ago as the fourteenth century.
The phrase just desserts has always struck me as peculiar, so I did get around to looking that up, and here’s what I found: the expression has nothing to do with the sweet course at dinner. It comes from the French for ‘deserve’, so take note everyone. Just deserts is the correct form.
Having forgotten all my school grammar lessons, I have often been frustrated by not being able to remember what a gerund is, so I looked that up, too. It’s a verb made to function as a noun, as in ‘cooking is my favourite hobby.’ It isn’t, but that’s by the way.
American friends use swipe in their writing where I would use wipe. To me, swipe conveys a rash, large, hurried action. No well bred young lady would ever swipe anything, but would dab, brush, stroke, pat, or flick a fallen leaf from her skirt. It also has the more vulgar meaning of striking a blow in a fight or struggle, and worse still, taking something that is not yours by right; in other words, stealing.
Aren’t words fun?

Feral and gritted

I thought the use of the words “feral” and “gritted,” so prevalent in current romance fiction, a modern phenomenon, but yesterday I was startled to discover them in Jilly Cooper’s novel “Riders,” which was first published in 1985. I’m re-reading the book because I have a nasty bout of ‘flu and I’ve read everything new and unread in the house. In between coughing and sneezing and groaning I wanted something light and entertaining, something I could pick up and put down. It certainly entertains.

‘Coming towards her, breathing in the hot, feral sweat of her body…’

‘“Keep your foul mouth closed,” he gritted.’

I wonder if these two examples are where it all started twenty-five years ago? The words were used effectively, given the context. In the first case, feral describes a woman who refuses to use deodorants or shave her underarm hair and doesn’t wash overmuch either, so the use is accurate.

In the second case Jake holds a dinner knife to Rupert’s throat and threatens him. Not quite so accurate, but certainly there is conflict.

In many cases today the words and their use have changed whe they're used in romance fiction. Feral now suggests some kind of a sexual lure, as if a man who seems like a wild animal is the man any woman would yearn for as her soul mate. To me it conjures up men who are dirty, dishevelled, hairy and smelly. Definitely not my kind of soul mate!

So many times recently I have seen “he gritted” as a dialogue tag, and I cringe. I suspect it is often used to up the conflict stakes when there isn’t any real conflict in sight. Besides, if you grit your teeth it is very nearly impossible to speak. Try it. You can’t say more than two or three simple words, and you looked pretty silly as you were doing it, didn’t you?

Not as silly as me with a paperhankie to my red nose, perhaps....

Numskull anyone?

I often write quite fast (and at others I write very, very sl-o-w-l-y!) but sometimes I surprise myself with the words I use. In a story set in 1803 I used the word numbskull and when I read it back thought h'mmm, how accurate is that? Would they use that word then?

I checked it today and find that numskull was actually used in 1717 to indicate a silly, foolish person. So I am happy - a slight variation in the spelling, but it is OK. It can stay.

I received my first Royalty statement and cheque today. No great shakes as far as amounts go, but a real milestone in my personal writing history. I may just frame it and hang it on my wall!

Makes me want to keep going, carry on, do better. It would maybe help if I did a little promotion now that Quaestor2000 has its distribution problems ironed out. I must go and read Ginger's blog as her guests are talking about promotion. I can learn a lot from our American friends who take to it so naturally.

The flower is a buddleia, in case you wondered.