Aug 16

Marital Advice for Grammarians

I never want to be thought of as an annoying individual who likes to point out other people’s mistakes. With that in mind, when my husband recently said “…for you and I,” I stopped myself from saying, “You mean, ‘for you and me.’”

KellyDeadwood-2015-8Aug-TightCrop

In that brief moment between hearing the mistake and wanting to straighten it out, I decided that I wasn’t about to trade marital bliss for a lofty disposition.

Does anyone—even a supportive husband—ever really appreciate unsolicited grammar advice? It may be meant as constructive, but when it’s directed at you, the unexpected input seems like full-blown criticism. As if you failed a test that you didn’t know you were being graded on. You feel disrespected by the Grammar Police, insulted and stifled from saying whatever was on your mind.

A member in one of my online writing groups recently posed a question to the rest of the group. I immediately noticed that his question contained a common error: using “there” instead of “their.” Pretty much everyone is prone to making similar mistakes. We forget to apply certain rules or are guilty of little typos. In those instances, we simply lower our guard and something slips, unchecked and uncensored, through our fingertips. I wasn’t about to publicly point out the blogger’s mistake since it wasn’t important to the ensuing conversation.

Another writer, however, was excessively harsh. This stickler rudely asserted his opinion that “someone ought to be using a dictionary to improve THEIR spelling.” Ouch! Point made, although it wasn’t really a spelling error but more of an error in word choice. Notably, no one—myself included—seemed bothered enough by that faux pas to make an issue out of it.

Similarly, there was no good reason that the there/their matter couldn’t have been addressed in a friendlier, less offensive, and perhaps even private way. By politely ignoring the situation altogether, the rest of the group sent a subtle message to the one outspoken member that perfection isn’t always necessary, especially in informal settings.

I was glad I had sided with the discerning writers who let both the original mistake and the poor response go unaddressed. But it’s hard for me to subdue my persnickety nature. I admittedly harbor some intolerance towards common grammatical mistakes. There are standards, and writers are expected to lead by example. We’re judged not only by our ability to tell a story, but also by our mastery of punctuation, spelling, word usage, and sentence structure.

We have decisions to make over the tiniest details. For example, do we use a numeral or spell out the number itself when referring to a centennial home as being one hundred years old? (Usually it is spelled out, but there are exceptions.) Should e-mail be hyphenated? (Yes.) Can we abbreviate okay as Ok? (No. Capitalize the entire abbreviation, as in OK.) Is the title to a blog italicized or placed within quotation marks? (The name of the Web site is italicized and an article posted on the site is placed in quotation marks.) Do we trust our phone’s spell check when it inserts an apostrophe into our family’s last name…when we’re not showing possession? (No! The Bixbys don’t like that.)

A writer’s ability to convey clear and concise thoughts is dependent upon all these things, in addition to understanding the basic parts of speech. It is our job to expertly unite a myriad of facets—nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections—so that our work reflects both definitive grammar and intuitive usage.

There is a lot to remember, so let’s find support in reputable guidebooks, like The Chicago Manual of Style. Then understand that despite our best efforts, occasionally, you and I are going to mess up. We should strive for—but not expect—personal perfection, be kind when offering advice to others, and relax with the people we love.

Aug 15

Hydroplane

One summer high-school break, I wanted to do something else than build more model airplanes and practice trombone. I often read Popular Mechanics magazines on rainy days and found myself staring at an article “Build your own Racing Hydroplane.” The plans looked amazingly like those of model airplanes, only larger. It was an eight-foot, single-seat, racing boat that rode a few inches over the water at 30 mph using only a 7-1/2 or 10 hp outboard. Other than size, there wouldn’t be much difference between building it and the model airplanes I was familiar with. I had helped my father build a kit rowboat in a neighbor’s basement the year before, so I knew the work involved. All I had to do was scale-up the magazine plans, find some space, spend part of my $100 lifetime savings, and saw a few pieces of wood into shape.

A local bread baker gave me a roll of wrapping paper for the plans, and I cut out paper templates like my mother used to make dresses. Bicycling to a lumberyard to look for marine wood, I quickly discovered it cost far more than planned. But there was nothing wrong with less-expensive white pine, a strong and easy wood to work with. With hand saws, planes, and files, I soon had $30 worth of shaped wooden hydroplane pieces lying in a corner of the basement. A major family discussion ensued. Where would I assemble it, because I would never get it out of our basement once I started it there. My father agreed to let me use our single-car garage, but it meant having to park his beloved station wagon in the driveway for the summer. I’d never begun a project of this magnitude before and he probably wondered how far I would get before giving up.

The following Saturday, I began fastening the pieces together over a set of borrowed saw-horses. Only a few weeks later, the frame of what looked like a real hydroplane began appearing. My exhilaration was short-lived after discovering brass screws to fasten a plywood skin cost far more than my budget, but my father came to the rescue, suggesting I use then-new, less-expensive fasteners called screw-nails. I was back in business. After tracing more paper patterns onto thin plywood, I hand-sawed each skin piece and nailed each section into place on the hydroplane’s frame.

By the end of July, Dad was checking progress every day. When would he be able to park his car in the garage again? After filling the boat’s seams, filing, and hand-sanding, I painted it with primer and topcoat paint that cost another $15. I added a girlfriend’s name on its sides, hoping to get a kiss and maybe she would pay for the paint. Neither came to pass, and now I had a real problem. I had a beautiful machine sitting in the garage, nearing a budget limit, but without an engine, steering wheel, hand-throttle, or stabilizing rudder. I think my father was surprised his sixteen-year-old had actually built a purposeful racing hull, but delivering more newspapers wouldn’t help.

My parents decided to advance a little money against future birthday and Christmas presents, and Dad found an old $75 Mercury 7-1/2 hp outboard motor for me that he could also use for fishing. Of course, I had to rebuild it to show I was capable of more than just wood-working. Then one night he unwrapped a racing steering wheel he’d found on the east side. An engine throttle soon followed. It was called a “dead man’s throttle” because if a driver is thrown out of a hydroplane at high speed, a spring-loaded lever kills the engine and the boat won’t run out of control. My mother began worrying about my safety, and “dead man’s” throttle didn’t assuage any fears, so I agreed to wear an old football helmet, life preserver, and safety harness.

After Labor Day, everything was ready to go. Dad found a public launch site in Waterford and we loaded the boat, motor, gasoline, helmet, life-preserver, and a toy paddle. It was a calm, cool mid-morning when we finally slid it into the water, and I was soon chugging along the shoreline of a long-forgotten lake until the tiny hull lifted and began skimming over the water as designed. The engine rose to a howl and the lake surface rushed by. Holding the throttle wide open, I edged back into the cockpit and was soon flying across the water, glorious sunlight glittering across a small chop. Distant green shore rushed by and I was alone with the howl of wind and engine.

Waving excitedly at my father and passing speedboats, I followed the shoreline before turning the steering wheel. The boat pointed in a different direction but continued straight across the water. Uh, oh. In my hurry to try the boat, I had forgotten to install the bottom stabilizing fin. I barely missed hitting a diving platform before throttling back and carefully returning to our launch point at half-throttle, without telling Dad about the near miss. I somehow doubt the football helmet and life-preserver would have helped.

After a few more summers dashing across local lakes, I began tiring of the boat, ready to move on, a friendship that was cooling. Building the hydroplane had been a time of father-son bonding difficult to repeat. I was away from home a few years later when Dad wrote to ask the fateful question, should he sell it to a couple of boys in the neighborhood? It would be a loss for both of us. He later said they mounted a 25 hp Mercury engine on it, and probably scared themselves silly if they didn’t kill themselves first. Did they ever wonder who “Carole Lee” was that was painted on its sides?

Aug 10

Hot Blacktop – Ch. 2 – Coffee Break to Girls’ Night Out

lightsThe music was too loud and Sienna’s head was pounding. It was too soon to be wearing a dress so tight she actually had cleavage and spiked heels so tall she felt like she would fall on her face. But Megan said she looked killer when she helped pick it out. And if she happened to come across Layton while out, well, dammit, she wanted to look and feel like a goddess.

“Ugh!” Sienna lifted her hand and tried to block the flashing lights searching for Megan. Her friend would be pissed. But if she didn’t get out of this club this instant, she was going to have a total melt down, witnesses aplenty. When Megan appeared dancing between two very tall, very hot men, Sienna sighed and made her way over to the man sandwich.

Megan’s smoky done-up eyes lit with glee. Her brows dancing in a, look-at-these-hot-guys kind of way. She couldn’t help but smile, until she yelled to the guy behind her, “Dance with Sienna,” she said, “her ex-boyfriend is a total dick.” Megan snuggled her butt to his pelvis so close when she spoke, she could claim they knew each other more than just this one encounter. Why did that notion piss her off? Sienna frowned as a surge of jealousy straightened her spine. Never mind, she shook her head at the thought, and regretted it. Her groan washed out by the music. Grabbing her head to settle the spinning, her bed and dark room her only thoughts. She needed to get home.

The one Megan spoke to finally looked at Sienna. She barely could raise her head to see his stare. Appraising and heated his scan started at her toes, winding his way up and over every inch of her overheated skin making her tingle in all the right places, her pain momentarily forgotten. He tilted his head and his fiery gaze changed to a questioning glance that was surprisingly more open and approachable. She saw actual concern.

Sienna took him in, cataloging his attractiveness. Too perfect. She tried to clear her mind negating her interest she felt stirring. Thoughts of getting involved with another man, with perfect hair and perfect bone structure and well…perfect everything should be the last thing on her mind.

“I’m going home,” she yelled to Megan. Her friend stopped gyrating, turned and gave Sienna her full attention.

“You can’t leave yet!” Outrage rung in her tone, but Sienna knew Megan would let her do what she needed to, if she wasn’t feeling well.

“My head’s pounding,” which proved truer then she would have liked, when the song changed and the bass got even deeper, harder, and possibly even louder.

Sienna swayed as flashes of light in her vision made standing more precarious and the pounding in her head not even related a little bit to the music. The light turned to a vibrating rainbow of zigzags, the strobe lights on the dance floor nowhere near the plethora of color needling her eyes like fractured glass. She felt hands wrap around her shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

Sienna blinked and the man that went with the voice bent at his knees to look into her eyes. Her vision cleared in what she knew was only a short reprieve. Grabbing onto the man so she wouldn’t fall, she realized she was moving, bodies pushing and swaying into her, with each jostle her nausea grew.

“Megan?” She questioned, her voice floating away into the sea of bodies.

“I’m right here baby-cakes,” her best friend said, “Stuart’s got you.” She heard a masculine laugh behind her that was deeper than the man’s that was helping her. The other man must have been the one grinding on Megan earlier, she thought. Then she realized Megan had told her her rescuer’s name.

“You don’t look like a Stuart,” she mumbled, the pain in her head making speech her words slur.

He leaned in and touched his lips to her ear from behind. She would have shivered from delight, him being so close, but her head hurt too damn much. “Call me Saint.”

The next thing Sienna knew she was leaning against a very large, very tweaked out F-150 Ford Pickup.

“Sienna, Saint is going to drive you home.”

“What?” Her mind was reeling with all the things wrong about that statement. Her mind screamed the words, “I can’t go home with a complete stranger,” but the words came out on a whisper. The next thing she knew Saint buckled her into the seat. “Megan? Megan!” Both her hands held her head still as she struggled not to vomit.

“Right here, honey.”

Sienna turned her head and looked down. Megan stood at the open door.

“Stuart,” she said and then laughed as a growl came from the driver’s side. “I mean Saint, is driving you home and his friend and I are going to follow behind to make sure you’re all tucked in and comfy in bed. Her brows danced up and down again. She tended to do that when she was drunk. Okay, so her friend was useless right now as it related to driving. Great! She whined in her head. Then moaned again closing her eyes leaning back against the headrest, taking deep inhalations through her nose and out.

“I’ll be right behind you,” she said.

“Mmm.” That’s all she could utter. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

“You all set?” the low voice next to her said.

“Mmm hmm.”

Her door slammed and she flinched. Saint started his truck and they took off. Sienna wanted to look behind her and see if Megan was following in the car, truck, whatever, behind them, but she was afraid if she moved even a millimeter, that vomit that threatened earlier would decide to make an appearance.

When the truck stopped, she didn’t move, trying to concentrate on anything but the pain. When her door opened and arms went under her knees and behind her back, and Saint lifted her into his very strong arms, she let herself fall against an extremely hard and sculpted chest. Yeah, she thought. That would do it. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

“Baby, keys.”

“Huh?” she muttered.

“Baby, I can’t open your door if I don’t have keys.”

“Oh, right.” Opening her eyes slowly, as if superglued shut, she looked around for her key. “Where’s my purse,” she finally asked.

She felt a feather light touch across her cheek. That felt nice. “It’s in your hand sweetheart.”

“It is?”

She started to float down until her feet hit her porch. Not steady on her stilettos she didn’t let go of Saint. Lifting her hand, she stared at her purse hanging from her wrist as if she’d never seen it before. Saint laughed softly, took it from her and opened it, reached in and grabbed the key.

He unlocked the door and helped her inside. He went to turn on the lights and she said, “No! Leave them off.” Sienna swayed on her feet, her voice too loud in her head. Her belly sunk and flipped with acid, her knees started to shake and sweat started to bead on her face. She needed her bed. She took a step forward and, sure enough, started to go down. And then she wasn’t. Arms lifted her up and she was floating again.

“Saint?”

“I’m still here.”

“Okay.” She could feel the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile as he held her close, but she didn’t dare look. Any movement would bring on more nausea. She needed darkness, quiet, and if possible she needed to be completely still until she could sleep.

Sienna heard loud bangs and giggling. Megan had followed them home as she said she would. When she hit soft comforter she thanked God for the respite.  It wasn’t much, but she would take it.

“Do you need anything sweetheart?”

“Pill. Larger orange bottle. Bathroom cabinet,” she said, just audible.

She heard him moving around and didn’t care if he ran across her tampons or condoms. All she wanted was a migraine pill. Sienna felt the bed depress and a calloused hand wrap around her neck, lifting her head up. She cracked an eye open and saw what she needed. It wasn’t at all the man holding the pill.

“Open up, baby.” She pressed her lips tight. This man was a stranger. What was she doing? On a shaky inhale she opened up, he set the pill on her tongue, which was so intimate she didn’t know how to feel at the moment. Saint tipped the glass to her lips. She took a sip and swallowed. With the utmost care, he let her head come down onto her pillow and gently swept away the hair falling in her face.

“You going to be alright now?” He asked.

“Mm hmm.” His fingers caressed her cheek again. Why did that feel so nice? God! She didn’t need another man sneaking in behind her already shattered shields. Layton had done enough damage to them already. Her trust of any man should be non-existent. But somehow, this man taking the utmost care with her made her feel safe.

Giggling interrupted the contemplation of all her bad choices.

“Oh, sorry,” Megan whispered, snorted, as she fell into the room.

Saint got up and looked down at her.

“You coming, man?” she heard Hot Guy Number Two say.

“Yeah,” Saint replied. He started to walk toward the door, Megan and Saint’s friend exiting before him.

Saint had just walked under the doorframe about to leave when Sienna blurted one word she wanted take back—the concept so asinine–the instant it floated past her lips.

“Stay.”

Aug 08

What to Expect When Your Writing Class is Online

Tempted by the forty free online writing classes available at my public library, I enrolled as an experiment. The full catalog of 350 courses competed with MOOCs (massive open online courses) and delivered a shorter continuing education opportunity in writing and other business topics. I joined with a hundred online learners from across the country and Canada for a brief six weeks of creative writing lessons. The interaction and other classmates were as interesting as the course content.

The exercises began innocently enough asking each student’s reason for taking the class. I’ll share several of my submissions. For instance, here’s my introduction:

The dog made me do it. He worries about neglecting important things like watching sunsets, skipping rocks at the lake and hiking nearby trails.

sitting writer2It was irreverent compared to the other classmates’ expressions of genuine excitement and unbridled nervousness. They used their first name, their full name or a nickname like Jelly Bean, Milwaukee Maiden, GalSal or Mother Bird. The anonymous classroom became a haven for over sharing. I discovered, most of the class was currently in crisis – death of a loved one, newly retired, birth of an infant, empty nests, schizophrenia, cancer, abuse, graduates from high school or college, English lit major wanna be’s, traumatized veterans, divorcees, joblessness, dead end jobs, stressful “on the verge of quitting” jobs, sexuality concerns, and caregivers to parents and spouses. The class offered an outlet to cope, a catharsis for the traumas of the past, present and future.

To that note, I was not so far removed from crisis myself. One of the assignments required writing about a candle. Pent up emotions spilled into this exercise. Yes, tears fell on the keyboard over an imaginary candle with a fictitious past.

The tin box sits next to an empty and worn book of matches from a Mexican restaurant near my mother’s old house and a cigarette lighter I confiscated when my teenager flirted with smoking. Graphic whirls of block printed roses decorate the lid. The image resembles both my college hand-carved block printing and my Connecticut rose garden including the wicked, hateful thorns of the floribundas deceptively named Cinderella. Yet, the tin hints of a different Cinderella – purses, crowns, wavy flourishes and little flower dots of pink – and a costume, plastic face mask on top of a printed rayon tunic visible through the cellophane window of a shallow cardboard box. I lift the candle’s lid, smell the sickly perfume of roses and remember my mother. I spark the lighter. The candle wick, a charred nub at the bottom of a melted ring in the wax, fails to light. I return the heart-shaped tin and matches to the drawer with other keepsakes and throw the lighter in the trash under the sink.

Two months after writing about that candle, I reread my passage and still feel the complex emotional mother child relationship, filled with roses, thorns and cigarette lighters. Fortunately, the next assignment was safe from my own memories and focused on a prompt, an ex-spouse arriving on a bus in a snowstorm. Each student chose a point of view and present or past tense. My classmates, more savvy to the woes and causes of divorce, wrote of anger, betrayal, infidelities, abuse and addiction. Instead, I wrote of a homesick young man uncertain of his future.

John jolted awake at the bus driver’s announcement of Grand Haven. The snow globe effect of pelting white flakes obscured the view of his hometown bus depot. He grabbed his backpack and rushed to the door to find whichever family member drew the short straw and had to pick him up in this miserable weather. His mom probably paced at home at the front door waiting for him, having planned a family get-together to hear his tales of living in New York, the small bit part in an off Broadway theater and his new friends in the city. Bounding down the steps, John slipped on the last wet step, tumbled out the door and landed spread eagle on top of a woman waiting with her bag. Expecting her to be angry or hurt, John jumped up only to discover Martha hysterically laughing and joking about his daring dive and poor timing to wait until their divorce was final for a grand effort.

The most joyful assignment embraced free writing – unfiltered and unedited. The instructor explained about Galumphing and Bricolage. Galumphing was to select an item from three different categories – a person, a place, and an object. I chose Bricolage which was to write whatever comes to mind about trivial objects, such as a candy wrapper.

The iridescent candy wrapper rested in my palm, a tidy two inch square of yellowish cellophane. In my kitchen, I sucked on the hard candy, mystified at the pleasant, yet unrecognizable, exotic flavor. And when I glanced again at the wrapper, it was twice the size. I scratched at my head, pondering where had I found this odd candy. Oh yes, it was in the console of my car after I had let my lost, and recently found, relative Larry take the car for the week to Burning Man. I wanted to ask him about the candy, but Larry, was still sleeping in my guest bedroom, a walk-in closet if you want to be precise, and by the sound of his snoring, probably out of contact for the next four to six days. Now, the candy wrapper was weighing heavy on my hands and increasing to the size of a poster board. I reached for the ruler in my kitchen drawer and found I was too short. The wrapper had not grow; I had shrunk. Naked, I slipped out of my very large clothes and tore a bit of the wrapper to use for petite clothing. I vaguely remembered seeing other candies in different colored wrappers. If the yellow wrapped candy made me small, what did the others do? Which color should I eat next?

For each of the assignments The instructor urged the class to follow the golden rule of feedback – give comments to receive comments. My fragile crisis-fraught classmates needed support, encouragement and praise for their brave undertakings. And every evening, I returned to the class website to see the comments left for me, such as the ones below on my Bricolage candy wrapper exercise.

Jenn on 5/28/2015 10:09:51 AM

What a great twist! I love it! Makes me think of Alice in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So creative!

GalSal on 5/28/2015 12:46:57 PM

Wow–I was so fooled until you said you had shrunk.  Great imagination!

Chuck on 5/29/2015 8:17:01 AM

Great creativity, it kept me spellbound.  Are we having fun yet?

Joy on 5/29/2015 5:27:38 PM

I struggled with bricolage but you made it seem easy to be creative with something so simple

Dave on 5/30/2015 10:10:56 AM

A great start and you could take it in two interesting ways.  The obvious, fantasy way, is to go on a hunt for the other candy.  The other way, the candy having come from Burning Man, is that the character is tripping and she might have some explaining to do to people that wonder why she is running around naked with a piece of candy wrapper for clothing.

Lea on 5/30/2015 6:42:35 PM

It also makes me think of Alice in Wonderland! I like the normalcy at the beginning while it slowly starts to become magical. Great 🙂

Mama Crow on 6/1/2015 5:53:07 AM

What an adventurous piece! Great job keeping the imagination vividly strong!

Milwaukee Maiden/Linda on 6/3/2015 4:52:21 PM

Very good storyline with a twist. I enjoyed reading it. You will make a great writer.

The course made me appreciate the ability of technology to engage humanity across the country. The encouraging comments were fun and an unexpected treasure. Before the class ended and all the words deleted, I copied the comments to a file and saved them for a time when I might need generous and supportive comments. For now, another class begins.

 

Aug 06

Ways to Practice Your Craft

This year my family celebrated their 62nd annual reunion. The events take place in different states and this year the gathering took place in Michigan. Each year, as part of the fun, a souvenir book with a schedule of activities and family milestones was distributed to each participant. As chairperson of the hosting committee, I combined my love of writing and joy in researching genealogy in a special section of the souvenir book.

I solicited help from my sister who interviewed several cousins about past reunions. Her son took photos of Detroit and my husband edited my finished work. I’m still receiving positive comments about the book.

I now return to my fiction writing with the idea in the back of my head of writing a longer memoir. But first I have to decide if there would be interest in the story outside of my extended family.

How would a writer decide what would be of interest to readers of memoirs? Does the story have to be about surviving catastrophic events? Does the memoir have to take place during turbulent times? Or can the memoir relate the everyday events in the lives of several generations and how they stay connected?

What type of memoir holds your interest?