Deadlines Are Our Friends

Hello again! Yes, Mots Justes is back online, having survived the thesis throes. And yes, as a commenter on the post below notes, unfortunately it is well past November 4. Here’s what happened:

As noted in my last post, I decided that during the last month before my thesis was due, I could ill afford any distractions. I had to cut out anything unnecessary-i.e., anything that didn’t pay the rent. Unfortunately, that meant the blog had to go on hiatus.

MJ wasn’t the only sacrifice, however: I stopped freelancing, too (which arguably does help pay the rent, but not much). I stopped cooking, which resulted in a late-night run to Ralph’s by my desperate significant other, who never goes grocery stopping, and a fridge full of frozen pizzas, pot pies, and Lloyd’s Barbeque Pork. I stopped cleaning my house. That has yet to be remedied.

What I did do is write, as many as 1,000 words a day, which is epic for me. It was frantic. It was stressful. It was really kind of great.

At no other point in my career had my creative writing taken center stage. At no other time was it the most important thing that simply had to get done. There were no other articles to write, no other assignments to turn in, no blogs to post that took precedence over my novel. It was wonderful.

And then, with just two-and-a-half weeks to go, I got a month extension. I didn’t even ask for it; it just arrived, uninvited, in my inbox. My thesis was now due on December 3.

I expressed joy and relief at the time, of course—deadlines are the bane of any writer’s existence, and extensions are always welcome. Inside, however, all I could think was “Oh, no …”

You see, for the past year or so I had been building toward this November 3 deadline. I had put MJ on hiatus for it. I had pushed back the ship date of Southern California Review, of which I am editor-in-chief, so I wouldn’t have to turn it and my thesis in at around the same time. And truthfully, I liked the idea of handing in this major project on my birthday. Now, my blog would be offline for two months, I still had to turn in SCR and my thesis at the same time (literally on the same day), and the new due date was, well, insignificant.

Then I did what I feared I would do, what I knew I would: I stopped writing. Less than two months before my thesis was due, I didn’t write. For two whole weeks.

Yes, I could have stuck to the original deadline. I could have finished the draft by November 3 and given myself a whole extra month to revise and edit. But I don’t work that way. I don’t do anything until I absolutely have to.

Eventually, I found myself in the same position as the day the deadline was extended—running out of time and writing like mad. And again, it was great.

Today, now that my thesis is turned in, SCR is at the printer, and my gig at the Writing Center has come to an end (alas, you have to be a graduate enrolled in classes to stay on the payroll), my life looks completely differently from just five days ago, and my goal is to hang on to some of that momentum, to not stop writing again now that there’s no deadline.

I’ll explore ways to do that in tomorrow’s post. In the meantime, how have deadlines been your friend?

Caught in the ’Net

How to

• “… Write a Christmas Letter” with a dose of humor
• “… Become a Successful Copywriter With ‘Bad’ Writing”
• “… Write Sex Scenes” by Steve Almond, an interview with whom appears in the Fall 2008 edition of—here comes the shameless plug—Southern California Review.

Advice: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It was the best of advice; it was the worst of advice.

Authors are often asked what advice they would give aspiring writers, but at Monday night’s Red Hen literary salon at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, moderator Janet Fitch turned the tables by asking her panelists, “What was the worst piece of writing advice you ever got?”

Mots Justes will start compiling answers to both these questions, starting with the replies offered Monday night.

Best

“The best thing anyone told me was that you’re going to get humiliated and you’re going to get humiliated again and you’re going to get humiliated more and when you think they can’t humiliate you any more, they do. But keep writing, produce something good, and they’re all going to come running. Because the world needs good writing and good books.” —Charles Bock, Beautiful Children (Red Hen at the Geffen: Coast to Coast, September 29, 2008)

Worst

“[I’ve participated in a lot of writing groups, and after awhile I discovered there was] more talking about writing [than writing]. I got tired of experts. We are a country of bullies and experts. You see it on [writers’] faces that they’ve been working. There’s a little fist in their heart.” —Ron Carlson, Five Skies (Red Hen at the Geffen: Coast to Coast, September 29, 2008)

“To pay a lot of attention to the dramatic arc. Do your characters get redemption in the end, or do they reject it? It’s annoying. But I think you have to understand it. You have to know the rules in order to break them. That focus on the dramatic arc is distracting.” —Greg Sanders, Motel Girl (Red Hen at the Geffen: Coast to Coast, September 29, 2008)

Caught in the ’Net

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has set the blogosphere abuzz, not only among the politically but also the grammatically minded. Slate diagrammed her sentences. Conjugate Visits analyzed her and Joe Biden’s grammar in last night’s debate. And Daily Kos posted Wordles from the debate transcript.

Glowing Bags of Poison

“Hey, look, Ma! I’m a writer!”

This is how Ron Carlson, author of four novels (most recently Five Skies) and four collections of short stories, characterized the writing in his first book, Betrayed by F. Scott Fitzgerald, last night at a literary salon moderated by Janet Fitch (Paint It Black, White Oleander). The event, hosted by local press Red Hen at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles’s Westwood neighborhood, brought together Carlson, the director of the fiction MFA program at Irvine; first-time novelist Charles Bock (Beautiful Children); and short story writer Greg Sanders to read and discuss literature in front of an audience of mostly writing students.

Now, Carlson said, “I don’t want the sentence to call attention to itself, but it needs to carry its own weight.” The same goes for the narrative. “I want the story to have a heartbeat more than call attention to itself. … Over the course of writing short stories, everything moved down in the body—out of the head and down,” he said, putting a hand over his heart.

Writing four complete drafts of his first novel over the course of ten years, Bock, a graduate of Bennington’s MFA program, suggested this is a lesson he’s already learned.

“Early on I was an angry writer,” he admitted. “I did very much feel I was taking on the culture.” A culture that, in Beautiful Children, includes strippers, pornographers and a gang of street kids. “But when I looked at the people the book was about, these people at the side of the road, that wasn’t getting through. You have to care about every single person. They’re your babies. Even if you have to send them out into the night to eat poison glowing cows”—a reference to a hilarious parable Carlson read earlier in the evening—”you have to care about them every step of the way.”

It was this realization that helped Bock to stick with the project for a decade. “Part of it was to see what frightened me,” he said. “And to move forward, to tell it. That sees you through when draft three doesn’t work—whether you put it in a drawer and say, ‘That’s it. I’m a shoe salesman,’ or you see if you can figure it out.

“Some things can’t be fixed, but I didn’t have much else going on. I don’t have a rich life.”

Paraphrasing Nike, “Just fucking do it,” was his final piece of advice.

Caught in the ’Net

I could have used these writing targets oh, say, five years ago.

Monday Morning Grammar: Subject-Verb Agreement III—Indefinite and Relative Pronouns

So far in Mots Justes’ continuing series on subject-verb agreement, we’ve covered the basics and compound subjects. Let’s move on now to the tricky matter of indefinite and relative pronouns.

Nothing’s Definite

Indefinite pronouns substitute for nonspecific nouns. They include any, anybody, anyone, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, neither, none, no one, someone, and something. Usually indefinite pronouns are treated as singular:

Is anyone going to Jim’s new art exhibit this weekend?
Everybody agrees that Derrick should skip the concert to go to Jim’s show.

As usual, there are exceptions. None and neither take singular verbs when they are used alone:

None is willing to miss Jim and Derrick’s annual Halloween party.
Neither has ever not celebrated the holiday.

However, when a prepositional phrase following none or neither suggests a plural meaning, use a plural verb:

None of their friends wear costumes as elaborate as Jim and Derrick do.
Neither of the hosts spare any expense when it comes to dressing up for Halloween.

Also, a handful of indefinite pronouns—all, any, and some—takes a singular or plural verb depending on the number of its antecedent:

All of the kegs have already been tapped.
However, some of the beer is still left in pitchers.

It’s All Relative

Relative pronouns set up subordinate clauses that modify a noun or pronoun. They include who, whom, whose, which, and that. Relative pronouns take the verb number that agrees with their antecedents:

Jim, who is a photographer, incorporates pictures of his friends into his artwork.
Derrick composes lyrics that tell stories from his life.

Adding to the complexity of relative pronoun-verb agreement are the phrases one of the … and only one of the …. Generally, one of the … takes a plural verb, while only one of the … takes a singular:

One of the things that always attract partygoers to Jim and Derrick’s Halloween bash is the elaborate themed buffet.

Here, the antecedent of that is things, not one.

Elisha is the only one of their friends that does not come in costume.

But here the antecedent of that is one.

Next week on Monday Morning Grammar, we wrap up our series on subject-verb agreement with a post on funky sentence construction.

Resources

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

Strunk Jr., William, and White, E.B. The Elements of Style. 4th ed. New York: Longman, 2000.

Caught in the ’Net

Playwright Mark Ravenhill writes about how writers shouldn’t write about writing.

Here are “12 Greek Works You Should Know.”

Genius Rewarded

One of my favorite events of the year happened this week. Yes, a certain relationship milestone occurred, but aside from that … the MacArthur Fellows “genius grants” were announced. Although the issue of this press release is not marked on my calendar, there’s always a moment of “oh, yeah!” delight when I unexpectedly hear about it, usually on NPR.

About a year ago, while I was taking a poetry class, I was so taken with the concept that I tried to write a poem about it, the first in what was meant to be a series of odes to all of 2007’s recipients:

In September
MacArthur names 24 fellows—
a playwright, a blues musician, an installation artist,
a public health physician, a medieval historian, a neuroroboticist—
to receive
five hundred thousand dollars
paid out over five years
for
advancing their expertise,
engaging in a bold new work,
or changing fields altogether, altering the direction of their careers.
Less an award for accomplishments of the past
than an investment in future potential.
We meet them
and, inspired, marvel.

This year a thirty-one-year-old novelist made the ranks, as well as an astronomer, neuroscientist, inventor, urban farmer, geriatrician, optical physicist, saxophonist, critical care physician, structural engineer, stage lighting designer and anthropologist, among others.

What fascinates me about the MacArthur fellows is how they demonstrate the variety of and capacity for human intellect, creativity, and altruism. Each is a story for fiction or nonfiction.

Caught in the ’Net

Poet Adam O’Riordan finds inspiration in the Urban Dictionary.

Monday Morning Grammar: Subject-Verb Agreement II–Compound Subjects

Over the past couple of weeks on Monday Morning Grammar, we’ve been discussing subject-verb agreement. Last week we went over the basics and how not to get distracted by words getting in the middle of the subject and the verb.

This week we’ll discuss compound subjects, which, when composed of two or more nouns (or pronouns) connected by and usually take a plural verb:

Jim and Derrick go to the movies every weekend.
Comedy, drama, and action are among their favorite genres.

The Exceptions That Prove the Rule

As always, however, there are exceptions. When multiple parts of a subject make up a single unit, they take a singular verb. Often compound subjects of this type are cliches.

Complimentary bread and butter often is often served at restaurants.
Give and take is the foundation of collaboration.

Also, when a compound subject is actually referring to the same person or thing, use a singular verb:

Jim’s friend and partner checks in with him by phone every day.

Compounding the Issue: Or, Nor

When compound subjects are joined by or, nor, either … or, or neither … nor, however, the situation gets a bit trickier. In these cases, the verb should agree with the subject closest to it:

Jim or Derrick buys the tickets.
Jim nor their friends trust Derrick to pick what movie they’re going to see.
Either dollar bills or a credit card is accepted by the ticket machine.

Not on the Compound

Sometimes singular subjects are connected to other nouns with words and phrases such as with, as well as, in addition to, except, together with, no less than, etc. These are not conjunctions, however, so the subjects in these cases remain singular:

Jim, as well as Derrick, likes documentaries, too.
A movie, together with dinner before and drinks after, is their favorite way to spend a Saturday night.

Next week on Monday Morning Grammar: pronoun-verb agreement.

Resources

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

Strunk Jr., William, and White, E.B. The Elements of Style. 4th ed. New York: Longman, 2000.

Caught in the ’Net

Sister U.K. papers the Guardian and Observer launch a seven-part series on how to write.

Txt spk may not be as bad as it’s been made out to be.

Tuesday Afternoon Punctuation: The Exclamation Point

Having discussed over the past two weeks the basics in punctuation—the period and the question mark—we arrive at perhaps the most overused punctuation mark in electronic writing: the exclamation point.

Use an exclamation point to emphasize a point or express an emotion:

Jim told you not to say anything to Derrick!
I can’t believe the surprise is ruined!

In order to remain effective, however, the exclamation point should be used sparingly.

An exclamation point can also be used to issue a command:

Don’t bring Derrick home yet!
Hide!

Finally, an exclamation point can be used in what are called exclamatory sentences, often comprised of one-word interjections:

Ow!
Awesome!

The Interrobang

Another vagary of electronic writing, especially in emails and texts, is the combination of sometimes multiple question marks and exclamation points to express surprised questions:

Is Jim throwing a surprise party for Derrick?!?

In formal writing, however, choose the one punctuation mark that best fits the tone of the sentence. Are you fundamentally asking a question, or expressing emotion?

Are you coming to Derrick’s surprise birthday party tonight?
How did Derrick find out about his surprise party!

However, I learned from Grammar Girl that there is a single punctuation mark that covers all the bases. The interrobang looks like an exclamation point superimposed on a question mark:The interrobang also shouldn’t be used in formal writing, and it’s not readily available or easily applied in most fonts for electronic writing, so it looks like its relegation to obscurity won’t be ending any time soon.

Do you have a question about punctuation? Let me know, and we’ll discuss it in a future edition of Tuesday Afternoon Punctuation.

Resources

Chicago Manual of Style, The. 15^th 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.

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

Strunk Jr., William, and White, E.B. The Elements of Style. 4^th ed. New York: Longman, 2000.

Caught in the ’Net

British educator Ken Smith’s controversial suggestion that we accept variant spellings wasn’t the first such proposal. Teddy Roosevelt and the Simplified Spelling Board, which included Mark Twin, Melvil Dewey, and Henry Holt, outlined similar plans a century ago.

Book Review: Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Launched two years ago in the summer of 2006, Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing currently ranks thirty-second among iTunes’ top podcasts. Capitalizing on this success, creator Mignon Fogarty has authored a book that explains grammar, punctuation, and usage to the language layperson with gentle humor and accessibility.

The subject-verb agreement error on the back cover (“Written with the same wit, warmth, and accessibility that draws people to the podcasts …”) demonstrates how easy it is for anyone to make an error and is just the type of mistake that Fogarty would correct not with cattiness but, well, “wit, warmth, and accessibility.”

Using cute illustrations of sidekicks Squiggly and Aardvark, Fogarty explains concepts clearly with limited jargon, clarifying the rationale behind rules before providing the “quick and dirty” memory tricks for which her podcast is known. Some of the material covers familiar terrain—the difference between “its” and “it’s,” for example—and the book will serve as a handy desk reference for reminders on such sticky subjects. Grammar Girl is also worth reading cover-to-cover, however, for the topics you might not ever think to look up—like that it’s actually grammatically correct to say, “I’m good.”

On tougher questions, Fogarty mines multiple sources before coming to a conclusion. She generally sticks to standard usage but recognizes that language evolves. She goes too far, however, when she encourages her readers to use they and their as singular pronouns:

When a child misbehaves, they should be punished by their parents.

Using he or she and his or her may be awkward, but using they/their will only cause your reader to question whether you know the rule, even if you’re applying it incorrectly on purpose. (Indeed, Fogarty doesn’t recommend it in formal writing.) The best thing to do—and what the author advises for this and other clumsy constructions—is to rewrite the sentence, in this case simply by making the antecedent plural:

When children misbehave, they should be punished by their parents.

Grammar Girl exceeds her mission with a chapter that offers tips on interviewing, coming up with story ideas, and dealing with writer’s block. The cursory treatment she gives these topics here would have been better left uncovered. However, the e-entrepreneur’s chapter on online writing is extremely useful. She’s even composed a Twitter style guide.

Grammar Girl is ideal for workplaces, students, and tutors who might find it useful to articulate concepts they themselves simply have a feeling for or understand innately. Professional writers and editors will want to invest in a guide that’s more thorough, authoritative, and, likely, stodgy.

Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. By Mignon Fogarty. 240 pages. Holt Paperbacks, 2008. $14.

Caught in the ’Net

Suffering from writer’s block? You’re not alone: even Britain’s Poet Laureate has struggled with the blank page. Ten English authors offer solutions for getting through it.

Confessions of a Television Junkie

I love this time of year. Love it and hate it.

Love it because I’m a television junkie, and autumn ’tis the season in which the networks roll out new content after a summer of reruns and basic cable (some of which is very good, by the way—check out The Closer, Saving Grace, and Burn Notice).

Hate it because I really don’t have time to watch TV the way it is, but the return of familiar faves and the arrival of new suitors are just too tempting to resist.

There may be hope for me yet, though. Is it just me, or this season off to a lackluster start? Evolving little post-Medellin, the Entourage boys were up to all the same antics in an episode that smacked of mid-season marking-time rather than a season premiere.

Alan Ball’s follow-up to Six Feet Under, True Blood, drew little fresh blood on ground already well trod by Buffy and Angel. (And Anne Rice—you’re seriously stretching credibility when one your characters expresses surprise to discover vampires in Louisiana.) First episodes are always awkward, though, what with all the setting up that needs to be done. I’ll give it another shot. It takes a lot for me to give up on anything that airs on HBO (John From Cincinnati, anyone?).

And Fringe, which should be super cool, is skating on thin ice. What looked like a twenty-first-century answer to The X-Files failed to help me go along with the supernatural leaps it made.

What I love about the medium is that television done well rivals great literature with compelling characters that evolve over the arc of a season or a whole series; complicated, multi-layered storylines; punchy dialogue; and consequential themes. Great television does all of this better than most movies.

And unlike books or film, which are produced largely in an audience vacuum and released to the world in pretty much complete, unalterable packages, TV shows can respond to their viewers, scrapping what’s not working and making adjustments when they veer off-track. (See, for example, Heroes.)

I’m sorry, but I just don’t trust—or, frankly, believe—anyone who claims they don’t watch television. There’s just too much good stuff out there. Really.

In the coming weeks, I can’t wait to reunite with

House
Reaper (If you’re not watching this devilish CW comedy, you should be.)
Heroes
The Office
30 Rock
CSI
Pushing Daisies
Family Guy
Life
The New Adventures of Old Christine
How I Met Your Mother
Two and a Half Men

I’ve heard Californication and Dexter are great, but I don’t get Showtime. Not making the cut after their midseason bows last year, however, are Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Knight Rider.

Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to meeting

My Own Worst Enemy
Kath & Kim
Life on Mars
Eleventh Hour
The Mentalist

Unfortunately, I’m not giving either Crusoe or Kings a chance.

How about you—what are you looking forward to on the boob tube this fall?

Caught in the ’Net

Play “Word Games to Improve Your Writing.”

Wednesday Writing Exercise: Interview Your Character

In this second installment of Mots Justes’ Wednesday Writing Exercise, we’re going to share another character-development technique. Like last week’s post, this idea came from course instructor Emma Sweeney during a three-week summer graduate writing class at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge.

Interview your characters. Ask them ten questions. Capture their voices.

And don’t be afraid to get confrontational. Ask them why they are lying, if they are, and probe the things they are uncomfortable talking about or not being honest about.

When I first tried this exercise, I was working with a very familiar character, so I was pretty sure I knew how he would respond to my line of questioning. I picked a very specific topic I wanted to discuss with him—yet he led me down a completely different path! Apparently he wasn’t done dealing yet with issues I had left behind.

Try interviewing one of your characters, and let me know how it goes!

Caught in the ’Net

Don’t feel like writing? Try one of these seven strategies.

The McCain campaign apparently finally found and removed this embarrassing punctuation faux pas.

Tired of encountering bad grammar in the supermarket checkout line? Sticklers in the U.K. can now shop unaffronted at Tesco.