November 26, 2013 · 10:46 am

Editing Quick Hit: Like vs. Such as vs. Including

This is one of those times that spoken English has messed up written English, because casually, we do not care. But in writing, sometimes this one actually matters. (You’ll hope your lawyer understands this grammar rule.)

“Like” means “similar to but not including.”

“Such as” means “similar to AND including.”

“Including” means… including, or, as the dictionary likes to say “containing as part of the whole being considered” (that’s Google’s dictionary, btw). And works as a more flexible catch-all when you’re confused about whether you should be using “like” or “such as”

Let’s just assume the pomegranate is behind the pear back there, ok? Ok.

So putting this to work, an example: If you are picking out a fruit to eat and know you like apples but aren’t in the mood for one right now, you might say “Give me something like an apple” and I might hand you a pomegranate. (Because a pomegranate is similar to, but not, an apple)

If you are picking out a fruit later but now are more flexible on what you’d like, you might say, “I’d like a fruit such as an apple, orange or banana” and I might hand you any of the three or I might hand you a pear. (Because you want something similar to the things you listed, as well as the specific fruit you mentioned.)

If I’m offering you fruit from my selection and just want to list them off, I’d go with “I have a variety of fruits for you to enjoy, including an apple, banana, pear, orange and pomegranate.” If you wanted a grapefruit, I’d have to send you down to the grocery store to buy one yourself.

Got it?

Hungry now? Man, I want a strawberry after all that fruit.

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November 21, 2013 · 10:38 am

Quitting Cable Meant Losing Serendipity

There is just one thing — one thing — I miss about having cable television. It strikes me on long quiet afternoons or days when I’m home sick, and I haven’t yet figured out how to fill the gaping void it has left in my life.

See, for the most part, I don’t need cable at all. I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore (more time for writing! Back to NaNoWriMo, heathens!), and when I do get the urge to crash in front of the boob tube, I’ve got Netflix. (That’s how I’ve been bingeing on Buffy. I can’t believe I missed that show when I was a teenager!)

And 99% of the time, that’s perfect. But sometimes… sometimes you just want the wonder of discovery. That random clicking around through hundreds of pointless channels, most of which you never asked for and can’t decipher anyway, until you find something glorious. Or at least something adequate.

There is nothing like clicking randomly until you land on How The Grinch Stole Christmas (the original, of course!) when it’s just started. You have to watch that! Plus Law & Order is always on, so that’s a safe bet when your head feels like it’s exploding from the flu. Or if you’re just needing background noise, there was sports, Food Network, or, my favorite, HGTV.

Plus it was a great fall-back excuse if you got caught watching something you otherwise wouldn’t admit watching ever — what? Oh that? I just stopped on a random channel and it was on.

Yeah, that doesn’t work when you have to choose your show. (Plus it keeps track of what you’ve recently watched, so it’s extra-hard to hide your shame shows and guilty pleasures — I have no excuse for watching 40 episodes of Say Yes to the Dress.)

Netflix, Apple, Hulu and the rest don’t have anything like that. You have to be intentional about what you watch — which, of course, is actually why I dropped cable for those. But still, sometimes I miss it.

Oh well. More time for writing.

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November 19, 2013 · 10:40 am

Princesses Aren’t the Problem

(If I could have gotten the embed to work, this would have been the image I would have used for this post. Click to see it in full awesomeness and pretend.)

A private all-girls’ school was kicking up a hoopla lately with what is being termed a “girl power campaign.” It features minimalist posters depicting references to fairy tale characters, with lines like “You’re not a princess” and “Don’t wait for a prince to save you.”

Considering it’s an ad campaign designed to draw attention (and donor money) to the school, I’d say they did a good job.

But these posters are also being lauded in general for their “down with princess” terminology. And I have a problem with that.

Judging from some pundits, being a huge fan of Disney movies and fairy tales in general should have made me into a simpering, sparkly, pink-wearing fanatic who doesn’t know how to change a tire or earn an income and spends her whole day writing “Mrs. Prince Eric Charming” over and over on my TrapperKeeper.

And yet… I am not that. I’m a feminist, socially conscious, job-and-a-half having, multicolor-wearing woman — and I’ve never even owned a TrapperKeeper, nor have I figured out whether to take my fiance’s last name or not. (And yes, I do happen to like sparkles. Tasteful sparkles, anyway. Moderation!)

*GASP* How can this be?

Because, frankly, the characterization as “princess = weak and disempowered” is a complete misattribution of these characters.

A quick sample:

  • Snow White: importance of kindness; friendship; value of hard work; internal beauty to match external beauty (she’s the most “princessy” of all the princesses, but the movie came out in 1937…so history is at play here)
  • Belle: intelligence/book smarts; value of reading; kindness; family loyalty; facing your fears; standing up for what you believe in; opposing bullies
  • Jasmine: not a prize to be won; clever; ability to look beyond monetary value; fights back against a giant magical snake; protects her father
  • Ariel: goes against outdated “separate but equal” policies (segregation between merfolk and humans); plays up her talents; exploration/discovery; doesn’t value her looks (unlike her sisters); not afraid to show her enthusiasm; refuses to give up; saves a man from drowning
  • Mulan: values her family over her own life and her culture’s strong dictates against her decisions; refuses to give up in the face of a challenge; smart and adaptive; creative; unlike the men, values her romantic partner for more than what he can do for her (also: not a princess, actually)
  • Tiana: businesswoman/entrepreneur; overcoming racism; friendship despite differences; courage; belief in following her dreams

It IS a problem that a girl in a Disney movie can’t make it through without finding a forever beau (Merida escaped the trend, though, so there is hope!). It IS a problem that toys are separated into “girl toys” and “boy toys,” when, in practical situations, kids will happily play with both. It IS a problem that for a company to sell to girls, they think they have to make things pink (especially when pink was the “boy” color until the 1950s!). It IS a problem that dress-up choices for girls can fall almost exclusively on the “princess” spectrum.

But just because a girl admires a princess does not mean that she is a wussified, pathetic, glittering freak.

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November 16, 2013 · 9:42 am

Review: The Queen of The Damned

The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles, #3)The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am not really a horror reader — I once got scared in a haunted house during the day, when it was empty and deactivated — but I wanted to get into the All Hallows Read spirit.
Because I’m not really experienced with the genre, I can’t tell if this shouldn’t be a horror book or if the things that were supposed to be scary didn’t age well in the CSI TV era, but never was a shiver to be found.
(I also didn’t realize until I had bought it from the bookstore that it was the third book in a series. Luckily, Rice put in enough ‘reminders’ of things from previous books that I don’t think I missed anything, but that also may have impaired my reading.)
Instead, The Queen of the Damned was an intellectual musing on vampires, immortality, the failings of humanity and our reliance on religion. Most of the things that may have been supposed to be chilling were really just philosophical questions — Are there supernatural beings? Is there a God? Would the world be better off without men in it? Could and should an immortal creature deceive humans into believing she was god? — that the characters end up literally sitting around a table to muse about in the big climax.
It all adds up to a bunch of questions that would have been interesting to talk to Anne Rice about, but weren’t exactly heart-pounding to read.
That’s not to say Rice isn’t an incredible writer. She has definitely earned her place as a top novelist. Her characters are distinctive, human but also otherworldly as they take on the vampire change, possessing logic but still ultimately flawed. Her descriptions of place are vivid on more than a detail scale, imbuing everything with emotion. Her storytelling is effortless, pulling the reader gently along.
Because it was written in 1988, it was fun to imagine how this book would be different if it were written today. So much would be the same, but the things that were different — the internet, cell phones — could have dramatically changed the course of the story. Then again, it is tragic to see those things that are the same — war in Afghanistan, deprivation in Haiti, starvation in India. In fact, that ended up being the most profound part of the book for me, that it has been 25 years and these problems remain.
Ultimately, this was a book that would be a pleasure to dissect and to learn from, but the menace was gone. It’s not my usual fare, and I wouldn’t recommend it as a scary read either.

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November 14, 2013 · 10:40 am

Editing Quick Hit: Month and Year

For some reason, people sometimes have a proclivity to write dates like this: “February of 1990.”

This flummoxes me, because the correct way is actually easier: February 1990. And you’d never say “February of 1990” aloud, would you?

I mean, no one says, “Oh yes, I got that cat sweater during the Christmas of 2011.” Unless you’re working on your Abe Lincoln impression, maybe, trying to sound old-timey?

Perhaps it’s an effort to aggrandize your writing. Well, stop it! Stop it, I say! Leave “of” out of your dates. They’re happier that way.

November 2013. Done.

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November 12, 2013 · 10:28 am

I Fail at NaNoWriMo Meet-Ups

“Woman Writing” by Pablo Picasso. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Some people swear by the contact high they get from attending meet-ups during NaNoWriMo. Some of the stories about it on the NaNo site are really inspirational, about how connecting with other writers tackling the same incredible feat you are is so great and amazing.

I spend most of my writing time either at my desk or on my couch — even a coffee shop is too distracting to let me really get into flow with my writing sometimes, particularly when I’m struggling with a section and ohhai shiny objects!
But I kept reading about how great it was and I do want to make more writing-inclined friends and that sounds awesome! So I went to one last year.
It was fun. The organizer had candy and treats — I still have my DFWWrimo Rhino in a Place of Honor. She further had a grab-bag of writing prompts every few minutes to get us moving. And there was a big group there.
But I got almost no writing done in the two hours I was there. Actually, I felt incredibly self-conscious of my writing, because… well, I was serious about it.
{insert srs busns image}
 And while I won a prize for writing 500 words the fastest (yay typing a whole helluva lot!), I actually felt bad about winning because I felt singled out — oh, well, you write for a living, so yeah.” 😦
I realize this is probably a problem I have more than a reflection on any of the nice people I met, but I wrote for two hours and then had a deficit, so I had to catch up over the next few days, and that upset me. I didn’t find it invigorating; I’m powered by the deadline pressure and the ideas finally coursing through my hands and into my keyboard. Plus I was stressed the whole time because I was afraid someone was going to spill their drink on my Very Expensive Laptop.
So I sort of fail at NaNoWriMo meet-ups. And that makes me sad. But I’ll be writing this years’ novel from my couch, in my PJs. Sorry, guys.
What’s your writing-marathon strategy?

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November 7, 2013 · 10:00 am

Editing Quick Hit: Latter vs. Ladder

This is an easy slip-of-the-fingers to make, because when said aloud, “latter” and “ladder” frequently sound pretty similar.
But “ladder” is for the thing with rungs you climb to get to a high place. “Latter” is the much less common word you use in the phrase “the former and the latter” (meaning the one prior and the one second).
I tried but failed to come up with a helpful mnemonic for this: anyone have suggestions?

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November 5, 2013 · 10:02 am

Review: Zombies, Run! 5K Training

I typically exclusively review books, but…I’m gonna make an exception for Zombies, Run! Yeah, it’s an app, but it’s an app that tells a story — it just also happens to teach you how to get in shape and motivates you to run.

It turns out, someone yelling “zombies, run!” in your ear is powerful motivation to get running.

Zombies, Run! is an app for iPhone/iPod and Android devices. I, being a complete non-runner and couch-potato enthusiast, just finished with the beginner level, Zombies, Run! 5K Training. When I bought it, it was $2.99 — the best $2.99 I’ve ever spent.

Basically, it’s a interactive story, in that the voices in your head(phones) will tell you to do things and you’re expected to actually do them. In participating, you unlock more of the story. It’s great motivation if you a) like zombies, b) like British accents, c) have no idea how to run and d) are bored by normal workouts.

In other words, what’s not to love?

Zombies, Run! 5K Training begins when your helicopter crash-lands outside one of the few remaining human settlements. You’ve got to shuffle to the base before the zombs get you. From there, the doctor looks you over and breaks the news: everyone on the base has to earn their keep somehow. Luckily (or, unfortunately, depending on perspective) a slot among the runners has just opened up. Over the next 8 weeks, you will train 3x a week with the doctor until you’re in prime getting-supplies-and-fleeing-from-zombies condition.

Fun, yeah? It’s great. Zombies, Run! 5K Training has action, adventure, romance, tragedy, mystery and tons of humor. It’s so good, I started having dreams that the base needed me on the days I wasn’t running. I hate having to skip a day because I want to know what’s going to happen next.

If you think you have even an inkling that you might like learning how to run while hearing a zombie story, download it. Right now. You won’t regret it.

—–

Now, because I was a total newbie to all things running, I screwed up a couple of times. I’ve made notes that might help someone else. Learn from my mistakes, people!

  • Don’t try to run when the temperature is over 105 degrees.
    I didn’t finish the program in 2 months, as scheduled, because Texas summers are so hot you feel like dying every time you inhale. I had to take a break for a few weeks to let things cool down, totally throwing off my momentum.
  • Buy some cheap athletic clothes.
    When I first started, I had the attitude “I’m just going to sweat in it, who cares what it looks like?” Well, it turns out that stuff made for running is actually more comfortable to run in. Who knew, right? Besides, if you only have one shirt, you are not going to want to put it on by the third workout after it’s been twice christened by sweat. Buy yourself some shirts.
  • Don’t run on uneven paths.Another mistake that delayed my workout–in trying to hide from the painfully scorching sun, I once switched my jogging path to the unpaved, but far shadier, one nearby. Turns out your ankles aren’t supposed to move horizontally when you step down. I was limping for weeks. Don’t do it, kids.
  • Download some heavy-bass music.
    In between story sections, you’ll be able to listen to music. You want to pick something that has a beat you can fall into step with. Look up some running music suggestions — the internet is full of them–and pick the ones that make you happy; you’ll be hearing them a lot. My personal favorites (it’s possible I had a theme in mind):

    • “Bad Moon Rising” -Creedence Clearwater Revival
    • “Toxic” – Britney Spears
    • “Another One Bites the Dust” – Queen
    • “I Ran (So Far Away)” – Flock of Seagulls
  • Buy yourself a case so you don’t have to hold anything.
    The one time I had to hold my phone while I ran was the most stressful sucktastic thing ever. Don’t do it. Besides, you’ll get your sweat all over it. It’s not worth it.
  • Do it!
    It’ll be great, seriously. I feel so much stronger than I did before I started, and I have more energy, too. I can’t recommend this app enough.

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November 2, 2013 · 11:00 am

Smooth Sailing Ahead

Thanks to all those who participated in my NaNoWriMo poll!

I got a range of votes, including the excellent write-in for “goblins” (really great idea!), but one thing really surprised me: The option “Don’t write a sequel to the book you haven’t sold yet.” got 0% of the votes.

I have a confession: That was really the question I was struggling to answer. My first book, Undead Rising, is still out with an agent. It’s been six months; I’m sending her an email next week to let her know I’m going to start sending it to other people. Everyone who has read that book has LOVED it, but the non-responses I’ve gotten from agents were deeply dispiriting, and I felt like maybe it wasn’t a good enough idea.

But everybody thought it was a good idea to keep writing gamebooks/interactive novels/monster stories. I’m floored, and uplifted (is that a contradiction? I don’t care.).

I’m grateful so many folks weighed in.

The winner: Pirates!
Which is super, because that’s a really ripe genre I can rob, and let’s be honest, I need a lot of material from which to plunder.

(Plunder. See what I did there? Brace for a whole passel of puns in this book, my friends!)

Yo-ho-ho, away we go!

Pirates!

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October 31, 2013 · 10:21 am

It’s That Time Again: NaNoWriMo!

Tomorrow begins writers’ best/worst month: National Novel Writing Month!

For those who haven’t ever heard of this wonderful thing, NaNoWriMo is 30 days of intense writing, with the goal of writing a complete 50,000 word novel. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t even have to be good — it just has to be done.
This is the writers’ version of a marathon, and I’m completely addicted. I’ve written the bulk of both of my novels during NaNoWriMo and find it incredibly invigorating to plow into my writing with a hard deadline. (I’m addicted to the deadline rush. It’s the most motivating thing to me).
It’s free to join, and you don’t have to do anything, but if you want, you can donate, buy a cool t-shirt, attend meet-ups, and, of course, write a novel!
I’ll be posting my word counts and information as we go. If you have ever thought “I could totally write a book if I only had the time,” NaNoWriMo is a fantastic method to MAKE time. If you are diligent about writing every day, it only means about 1,670 words per day. Just DO IT. It’s a kick!

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