The Kindling

Idea by Incredible Stuff I Made. Execution by Evil Mad Scientist. On sale on eBay:

Kindling: The 6″ Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

Say hello to the Kindling, the incredible palm-sized wireless reading device.

Slim: Just 1/4th of an inch, thinner than most quesadillas.

Lightweight: At 4 ounces, lighter than a typical Zippo.

Wireless: Start reading anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots.

Incredible Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 2 shades of gray for clear text.

Uses no batteries or electricity; observe it for days without recharging.

No need to shut it off during air travel.

Storage: Holds 900 bytes of information (about 120 words).

Made of plywood, a material often featured in Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

Complete lack of functional buttons.

Also makes a handy cutting board.

MJ Joins the Kindle Revolution

Mots Justes took an unexpected hiatus this week when a family matter required a last-minute trip home. But the unplanned travel gave me a chance to try out my Kindle for the first time.

My parents had given me the electronic reading device for my graduation—how appropriate for a freshly diplomaed Master of Professional Writing! To be honest, though, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. I hadn’t asked for it, and before receiving it, I hadn’t thought about wanting one.

I did familiarize myself with the slick technology that first weekend by reading through the User’s Guide, and given it was the second Kindle purchased on my father’s credit card, it came loaded with the titles he and Mom had already purchased, The Soloist and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle among them. (While Mom calls her Kindle “the gift that keeps on giving,” my father explained, carefully and repeatedly, how to change the settings on mine so that future purchases would be made on my credit card on not his.)

But I couldn’t figure out how to incorporate my new ereader into my reading regimen. You see, in an effort to read widely and deeply, I have a complex schedule that includes fiction and nonfiction, contemporary and classic, short and long literature. (I won’t go into detail here to spare me the embarrassment of revealing just how nerdily obsessive compulsive I am—just know that categories and subcategories are involved.) And I have purchased copies of the next several books I plan to read.

Furthermore, I like to see what I’ve read:

And what I will be reading:

It gives me a sense of accomplishment and anticipation to see these titles piled in my bookcase, organized in the order that I read or will read them.

However, I’m currently reading the third volume in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, an eight hundred-page tome that severely compromises my ability to travel as light as possible in this age of checked-bag fees. So I decided to see if I could download a copy onto my Kindle.

Sure enough, I was able to find the text for ninety-nine cents. Kindle tricked me, though—I selected the digital version next to a picture that matched the cover of my volume. Unfortunately, I’m reading a revision of a translation, and the version I got was only the original translation. But you know what? Close enough. Now, if only you could get digital downloads of every hard- or paperback book you purchased at a reasonable price, you could enjoy both the aesthetics of print and the convenience of digital.

Meanwhile, at Attica Locke’s reading last week, I purchased two signed copies of Black Water Rising, one for me and one for Father’s Day. (In addition to giving me a reason to break out my Kindle, my trip home also offered the rare opportunity to celebrate an early Father’s Day with Dad live and in-person, so I’m not spoiling the surprise here.) Although there have been some reports of authors being asked to sign Kindles, ereaders have so far not satisfactorily brought this tradition into the digital age.

Aside from fiddling around with the User’s Guide, I haven’t had a chance to utilize all the Kindle’s features, but so far I’m a big fan of the built-in dictionary:

Reading Recap: Attica Locke, “Black Water Rising”

Almost as thrilling as getting your own book published (I can imagine) is seeing the publication of a friend’s. Last night I got to experience what every writers group participant hopes to one day—seeing the same words that had been developed and honed in a workshop finally appear between hard covers.

Years ago I participated in a writers group with Attica Locke. She was working on a thriller set in 1981 about a struggling Houston lawyer whose rescue of a drowning woman ensnares him in a murder investigation that reaches the highest echelons of the city’s corporate society. I’ve often recalled that manuscript over the years, admiring its melding of literary and genre elements. Today, I hold Black Water Rising in my hands.

Locke wasn’t always a fiction writer. She’s worked in both film and television for more than a decade, writing scripts for most of the major studios. None of those projects, though, ever got made, and, she said last night at a reading at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California, going into her 30s, she felt “bored with my work to the point of depression.”

Film is a “cumbersome art form,” she said, consisting of “meetings about practicing art, not actually practicing art.” Writing a book “seemed so accessible. It just seemed possible in the way that movies don’t.”

Perhaps she was always destined to write prose: one executive told her, “There are too many words in here.”

Locke “thought I could find something in a book that I couldn’t anywhere else.”

She found inspiration for her first novel close to home: her protagonist, Jay Porter, is based on her own father. “I have to be careful,” she said. “My father is running for mayor. But, yes, facts of [Jay’s] life line up with facts in my father’s life.”

Jay’s psyche, though, “is much closer to my own. I’m a child of the Reagan ’80s. Jay’s racial paranoia is mine—I’m the first in my family to live in a racially integrated society. My parents didn’t equip their children to deal with what they fought for. I’m a product of that tension.”

Locke is working on her second book, but it’s not a follow-up to Black Water Rising. “I like stories that drop in at the biggest moments of a character’s life,” she said. “Something big would have to happen” to Jay for her to return to his story.

For Locke, writing her first book was life-changing. “It felt like do or die,” she said. “I was so burnt out and so unhappy. Other than being a parent, it was the single most transformative experience of my life.”

For an interview with Locke, click here.

Wednesday Writing Exercise: Film and Approaches to Writing, Part I—“Persona”

One of the courses offered by my master’s program—indeed, one of the reasons I applied to the program in the first place—was “Film and Approaches to Writing the Novel,” taught by John Rechy (City of Night, About my Life and the Kept Woman). In it, we watched seven movies and then were assigned exercises based on the techniques used in the films. The instructions were very precise, calling for no more than a half a page, double-spaced. Over the course of the class we produced maybe seven pages of writing, but they were focused and honed.

The first film we watched in class was Persona, Ingmar Bergman’s experimental masterpiece about a nurse who is charged with caring for an otherwise healthy actress who simply won’t speak. As the nurse chatters away to her mute patient, she finds that her personality is being submerged into the actress’s. Persona is a still film, with minimalist compositions and extreme closeups, particularly of faces.

Watch Persona, then try one or two of these exercises (in class, we were assigned to choose two):

• In one paragraph, describe a face. In a separate paragraph, write the spoken words to which the person to whom that face belongs has been reacting. Match the expressions to the words heard.
• Describe a face in full light. Gradually “darken” that face into a silhouette (without using the word silhouette). Use words that evoke light, words that evoke darkness. Consider gradually subduing adjectives, verbs, etc., to create a fading effect. Consider sentence length to enhance a sense of diminishing light.
• Write a description of a natural backdrop. By carefully selecting language, suggest the mood (angry, sad, happy, etc.) of a person viewing it. Do not introduce the viewer within the description, but, separately, at the end identify him or her and the mood. (Project mood into description.)
• Describe a scene of silence, a person in silence, or a silent place. Do not use the word silence. Use words that evoke it.
• Without using the words black or white, describe a scene involving people and/or a place that conveys the effect of being “seen” in black and white; for example, stark outline suggests darkness, whereas snow suggests white light; ice might convey either, in different contexts.

Tuesday Afternoon Punctuation: Commas, Part 3—Co-dependents

Last week in this column, we discussed how to use commas when two independent clauses are joined by a conjunction. Well, dependent clauses sometimes need commas, too.

Dependent clauses, remember, look a lot like sentences in that they contain a subject, a verb, and often a direct object, but they can’t stand alone as complete sentences. When a dependent clause comes before the main clause in a sentence, it should be followed by a comma. The previous sentence itself is an example of what I’m talking about, but here’s another for good measure:

If it rains again today, Los Angeles will have seen a week of wet weather.

When a dependent clause comes after the main clause in a sentence, do not use a comma if it is restrictive—i.e., the main clause won’t make sense without it. This sentence, too, serves as an example—see how I’m doing that? (Let’s see if I can keep it up!)

Take an umbrella because it looks like it is going to rain again today.

Do use a comma, however, when a nonrestrictive dependent clause follows the main clause in a sentence—that is, if it contains supplementary or parenthetical information that is not essential to understanding the sentence. (Couldn’t do it with that one—I’d love to hear your suggestions!)

It could rain every day for the rest of the month, if you ask me.

Whether to use a comma when a dependent clause follows the main clause is sometimes a matter of judgment. When in doubt, use a comma to signal a pause.

Now for a scenario so bothersome to me that I wrote an entire post about it early in the early days of this blog. When a dependent clause is preceded by a coordinating conjunction so that two conjunctions end up next to each other—i.e., and if, but if, etc.—do not separate them with a comma if the dependent clause is restrictive:

The clouds are supposed to clear by the weekend, and if the weather report is right, we will go to the zoo on Saturday.

For a much more detailed exploration of this topic, check out my previous post.

Do you have a question about the comma? Let me know, and I’ll include it in a future installment of Mots Justes’ ongoing series.

The Mots Justes Series on Commas

Part I—To Serialize or Not to Serialize

Part II—Independent Thinking

Resources

Chicago Manual of Style, The. 15th ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Hacker, Diana, The Bedford Handbook for Writers, 3rd ed. Boston: St. Martin’s Press: 1991.

Grant Writing and Project Development

As mentioned at the top of Wednesday’s post, for the past ten weeks, I’ve been taking a class in grant writing. I signed up for the course for two reasons: 1) because I thought it would be a useful skill for raising money for personal projects that are better funded by sources other than my bank account and 2) because as I troll the Internet for freelancing writing and editing opportunities, I often see wanted ads for grant writers, and I thought grant writing would be useful to have in my repertoire.

It turns out that I’ll likely not be adding grant writing to my skill set, at least not for now. For the first few weeks of the class, I was completely overwhelmed. Our teacher warned us that this would be the case but that eventually the concepts would come together and make sense. I remained overwhelmed, however, daunted by the size of the task in creating a proposal even for a project as modest as mine. This was not a job I’d be willing to undertake for any project other than my own.

Part of the challenge is that too many factors contributing to the success of a grant proposal are out of the grant writer’s hands—the effectiveness of an organization’s board, for example—and too many of the “grant writer wanted” listings I saw wanted to pay after the grant money was awarded. Only one in ten grant proposals get funded; I’m not keen on taking a one in ten chance that I’d get paid for a lot of hard work.

The class did, however, introduce me to the world of nonprofits and inspire me to “think big.” And the process of writing a grant proposal forced me to think strategically about my project.

The Logic Model

Grant proposals are built using a nonlinear logic model that connects the dots between the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your project.

• Needs Assessment: Why is there a need for the project? Who does it serve—i.e., what are the demographics of the target population served by the project? What problem does the project address? How long has this problem existed? Has the problem been addressed before? How does the problem impact the target population and other surrounding populations? Why does the problem exist? All of the claims made in this section should be supported by evidence and statistics from credible sources.
• Goals: A goal is a general statement that reflects a change. It’s so broad, though, that it will likely never be fully achieved: To increase world peace. Or, to lose weight.
• Objectives: Objectives, on the other hand, are the specific results or outcomes the project will accomplish. They are achievable and measurable and take place in a specified amount of time: To work out at a gym three days a week for one month.
• Methodologies: The methodology is the step-by-step approach or plan for achieving the objectives. It includes a summary of activities and a timeline of major tasks: To research gyms. To select and join a gym. To buy tennis shoes. Etc.
• Evaluation: How will you measure whether the project was successful? How will you know whether the objectives have been met? What information is needed to demonstrate success, and how will it be collected? Who will gather this information, analyze it, and report the results?
• Budget: How much money is needed for the project? What are the expenses? Where will the money come from?

All of this is summarized in the project summary that opens the proposal but is written last. This is your “elevator speech”—how you’ll describe your project if you happen to find yourself on an elevator ride with someone interested in what your group is doing.

Also included in a finished grant proposal are mission and vision statements that help focus the organization and project and information on why your group is qualified to pull it off, whether it be the credentials of the people involved or the successful completion of past projects.

I’m a long way from actually applying for a grant for my project, but using this logic model to write a hypothetical proposal for it really helped me develop my idea.

Meanwhile, my project moves forward. Stay tuned!

Usage Thursday: Affect Vs. Effect

I just started working with a new client for whom I am copyediting several hours a day, and every time I run into affect or effect, I stop and ask, Is it used correctly? Is it a verb or a noun? Should it be affect with an a or effect with an e? Every time. Fortunately, the client appears to understand this rule. Yet still I pause and consider. I bet I’m not the only one.

Affect Is a Verb; Effect Is a Noun

Affect is usually used as a verb that means “to produce an effect upon”—there it is again!—or “to influence”:

Yesterday’s unusual weather affected Jim and Derrick’s plans to go to the beach.

Effect is usually used as a noun that has a lot of different meanings, but it gets confused with affect when it’s used to mean “a result”:

The effect of the thunder and rain was that they went to a museum instead.

Grammar Girl offers this “quick and dirty tip” for remembering the difference between affect and effect: “Because effect is usually a noun, that means you can usually put an article in front of it and the sentence will still make sense”:

At the Getty, Jim admired the effects of brushstroke, color, and composition in van Gogh’s Irises.

However, you can’t insert a, an, or the before affect because it wouldn’t make sense to use an article with a verb:

The artwork, however, did not [the] affect Derrick.

Grammar Girl’s trick, then, is to try putting the before affect and effect when you run into either of them in a sentence. If the sentence still makes sense, effect is a noun and should start with an e. If it doesn’t, affect is a verb and should start with an a. You can remember which is which “by remembering that the ends with e and effect starts with e, so the two e’s butt up against each other.

Except When Affect Is a Noun and Effect Is a Verb

This trick will work most of the time but not always, because sometimes effect is a verb. In these cases, it means “to cause to come into being” or “to accomplish”:

Jim hoped to effect a change in Derrick’s attitude by showing him the museum’s photography collection.

Meanwhile, very rarely, affect is used as a noun in psychology to describe an emotion:

Derrick exhibited a positive affect in the photo gallery.

AP advises that this use of affect “is best avoided. … there is no need for it in everyday language.”

Usually, though, affect and effect will refer to the verb and noun forms of basically the same causal concept—“to influence” versus “an influence”—and the rules and tips discussed in the first part of this post will apply.

Resources

“affect.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 4 June 2009 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affect

“effect.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 4 June 2009 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/effect

Chicago Manual of Style, The. 15th ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Fogarty, Mignon, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2008.

Goldstein, Norm, ed. The Associated Press Stylebook. 42nd ed. New York: Basic Books, a Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2007.

Wednesday Writing Exercise: Random Prompt Generators

For the past ten weeks, I’ve been taking a class in grant writing, a very grownup form of writing in which thousands, if not millions, of dollars are at stake. Yet one of my teacher’s “keys” to success is to revert to a childlike state, that period of discovery when we dropped spoons from highchairs not to be bratty but to figure out how gravity worked.

Sometimes we creative writers, too, need to be reminded to be playful. These three random prompt generators were developed to get kids’ creative juices flowing, but they can be fun for adults to use as well as warmup writing exercises or the start of a new story.

The first generator produces an adjective, a noun, and a verb or phrase. When I clicked the buttons for these three parts of speech, here’s the prompt I got:

the “squeaky” “cell phone” that went “to the beach”

The second generator chooses three objects at random. Here’s the combination that I got:

“a bathroom rug, a taxi, and a pair of earphones”

Finally, the third generator provides six elements for a plot:

The Protagonist: “an old inventor”

The Antagonist: “a magical object”

The Setting: “a graveyard”

Goal: “to find a lost relative”

An Important Event: “a masquerade ball”

An Important Object: “a polished stone”

Now it’s your turn: try out these random prompt generators and let me know in the comments section below what prompts were randomly generated for you.