Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 17

New Word: Asyndeton

Here’s a word with limited use, a word that imo doesn’t sound like what it means, a word that looks a bit like it should be the title of an SF novel: Asyndeton.

What does this word mean? It means, at least it can mean, refraining from putting in conjunctions where you normally would. Two of the sentences prior to this one demonstrate this technique.

Did you notice? I know some of you are writers, some are editors, and some of you query my commas when you’re proofreading, so maybe you did! Would you, ordinarily, if you were just reading a novel? I would notice because this sort of stylistic choice is something I think I always notice, even when I’m immersed in the story. I would notice, and I would either think, amateurish or nice, depending on whether I thought the technique worked artistically in the sentence.

This word is from – did you guess this? – Virginia Tufte’s Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, which I picked up last night because I was tired and thought, fine, I’ll write a blog post instead of going on with a serious project. Here is what Tufte says:

One name for refraining from conjunctions is asyndeton. Often whole clauses are juxtaposed in this somewhat noncommittal way. Fully independent, they are not attached to one another, they touch but are not connected. Below we see their judicious use by professional writers.

The streets were empty, the slates shone purple. – Sean O’Faolain, I Remember! I Remember!

The fog had all gone, the wind had risen. – CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength.

She is thirteen, she will be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. It takes time. – Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower.

Tufte suggests that this technique may work best with short sentences and clauses; that it may not work as well with longer clauses; and that it may be especially useful if the author wants a sense of rushing speed or urgency:

She must rush, she must hurry, before it was too late. Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent.

But Tufte also notes that using this technique can produce a relaxed feel:

Everyone was beautiful and gentle, everyone was poor, no one was smart. On summer evening they danced in the half-light, and when they were tired of dancing they lay down in the forest, on the beach, on mattresses, on the bare floor. – Steven Spender, “September Journal.”

I sometimes find myself using this technique – I will try to remember to say asyndeton – when I write a sentence that is a series, but leave out the terminal and. Sometimes at other times as well. Various characters are more likely to have this occur when they’re thinking. Tano is one of those characters, which may be why this entry in Tufte’s book caught my eye. For example, from Tano —

The winter had passed strangely, we had come from the past summer almost to spring in hardly more than a heartbeat because the days had been so strange in the land of the shades.

and

I should have expected that, obviously that was the only way he could evade my arrow, but I had not, and almost missed entirely.

Leaving out conjunctions is, for me, essentially always a deliberate choice, because eagle-eyed proofreaders do query commas, semicolons, comma splices, and lack of a terminal “and” in a list, so I usually do note those queries, then choose to leave out the terminal conjunction.

Also, that fourteen, fifteen, sixteen thing is part of Ugaro syntax; it’s common when an Ugaro person is estimating numbers or time. It’s exactly the same. “Four hands of time, six, eight.” Or “The distance is five bowshots, six, seven.” In this case, it’s so obviously deliberate that I don’t think anybody has every queried it.

In Tufte’s book, this section occurs in a chapter on conjunctions and coordinators, and I will just note that Tufte says casually in passing, “Professional writers often use a conjunction as a sentence opener, a position where it helps with cohesion,” and I certainly do wish grade school teacher – and high school teachers, and no doubt college teachers as well – would take note of this. You’d think anybody who read books, and here I mean great books that are brilliantly written, would notice that “professional writers often use a conjunction as a sentence opener,” because it’s not like this is rare. It’s really inexplicable that so many English teachers emphatically tell their students that it’s not okay to start a sentence with “and,” and, while we’re on the subject, why is that the rules that stick with students through thick and thin, come hell or high water, are nonsensical rules that don’t actually exist? Why not rules such as “IT’S means IT IS or IT HAS and is NEVER possessive,” because that would be a lot more use.

Also, it’s mildly amusing to me, and also mildly irritating, that English teachers who are SURE it’s not okay to start a sentence with “and” are nevertheless perfectly fine with sentences that start with “moreover,” and you’d think ENGLISH teachers would understand the sentence is structurally EXACTLY THE SAME whether the conjunction is short or long, but here we are.

Anyway, here is the example sentence I like best, though the context seems obscure:

He made the Emperor laugh and the horse couldn’t better him, so he stayed. And I stayed. And we became friends. – Jeanette Winterson, The Passion.

I have no clue, but I do like the structure. This also demonstrates how short sentences can have punch, especially if they’re preceded by longer, more complicated sentences.

Tufte also illustrates sentences where and is used repeatedly within a series, which is another technique that I have seen pointed to as wrong or bad. It’s not wrong or bad; it’s effective or ineffective, and which depends on rhythm and tone, not some arbitrary fake rule about what you’re allowed to do with conjunctions.

In the distance the houses were the houses in a Victorian print, small and precisely drawn and quiet; only one child, a long way off. — Graham Green, The End of the Affair.

Here’s a longer example, quite beautiful:

Or the market on a Saturday morning, where the colours of the fruits and vegetables and the colours of the clothes people are wearing and the colour of the day itself, and the colour of the nearby sea, and the colour of the sky, which is just overhead and seems so close you might reach up and touch it, and the way people there speak English (they break it up) and the way they might be angry with each other and the sound they make when they laugh, all of this is so beautiful, all of this is not real like any other real thing that there is. – Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place.

I’m going to end with a passage from a book I know (I am CERTAIN) I was required to read at some point, but do not remember at all. Now I’m peeved, because if I’d paid attention to the syntax in this book, I bet I would have liked it better at the time and would also remember it better now:

But he calmed himself, and took out the heavy maize cakes and the tea, and put them upon a stone. And he gave thanks, and broke the cakes, and ate them, and drank of the tea. Then he gave himself over to deep and earnest prayer, and, after each petition, he raised his eyes and looked to the east. And the east lightened and lightened, till he knew that the time was not far off. And when he expected it, he rose to his feet and took off his hat and laid it down on the earth and clasped his hands before him. And while he stood there the sun rose in the east. –Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country.

I also bet that if this or some syntactically similar passage were hung on the wall of all English classrooms, a lot fewer teachers would tell their students that you can’t start a sentence with “and.” That would be great.

***

While writing the above post, I also thought about the conviction with which nonexistent rules are frequently cited and commonly believed, such as “you can’t start a sentence with and” or “you shouldn’t use and repeatedly in a series,” and I found myself thinking:

People who cite rules like this, either rules that really do exist or rules that don’t, are acting like “fault judges.”

“Fault judging” is a phenomenon in dog shows – probably in other venues, too – where a judge doesn’t know anything much about functional structure or about type. They’ve memorized the standard, though, especially the faults. Therefore, this judge will step into the ring, look at the single greatest example of the breed that has ever existed in the world, say, “Light eyes, not for me,” and put that dog at the end of the line instead of putting him up for winners. All the judge has is a checklist of faults (“light eyes”). He has no sense of quality or ability to recognize greatness. All he sees are faults. He doesn’t see the dog at all. Fault judges therefore consistently put mediocre dogs without obvious faults up for winners, while totally failing to see and reward greatness.

As a side note, I’m thinking of light eyes in particular because the greatest Smooth Fox Terrier who ever lived is widely considered to be Ttarb The Brat, a dog who sired 130 champions and stamped his character indelibly on the entire breed. What an excellent, skilled, knowledgeable judge said about The Brat, as he beckoned him to the front of the line, was (this is a famous quote I saw in Anne Rogers Clark’s book): “Worst eyes I’ve ever seen on a great dog.” Only a fault judge would fail to hand The Brat winners and best of winners. A fault judge couldn’t see the greatness, only the light color of the eyes.

This, it seems to me, is what is going on when someone says, “The writing here is terrible – look how this author overuses and in this list!” (Which I have seen people say.) They are looking at something like that passage from A Small Place by Kincade or Cry, the Beloved Country by Paton, but they’re not seeing that passage at all. They’re seeing a nonexistent “rule” being “broken” and they’re saying, “Look, such bad writing!”

Just as some judges see quality and greatness when they look at a dog and some don’t, some reader see (or hear) rhythm and style when they read a paragraph – and some readers don’t. If an author cares at all about style as well as story, then I bet they’re aware of rhythm and syntax, even if they never (as I never, until now) encountered the word asyndeton.

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Poetry Thursday: AE Housman

I bet you’re familiar with this one:

These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth’s foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

I rather like mercenaries, which I think may have come from reading the Vorkosigan books at an impressionable age. The Warrior’s Apprentice was first published in 1986, which means I was in high school, and I do think a lot of your deep preferences for books are set at about that age. I mean style, themes, and tropes. Regardless, I like mercenaries, thieves, and assassins — with, preferably, a heart that is, if not gold, at least somewhat gilded. And prison breaks. There is so much here that makes me want to think about possible future books, but anyway, I bet you’ve seen this poem before. It’s short, memorable, has good rhythm and simple rhyme, and the last line does carry quite a punch.

Housman is also well known for A Shropshire Lad, and I see that there are actually poems with that title numbered 1 through 52 here, which, wow, I hadn’t realized. Google tells me there are 63 altogether. Oh, here’s a post about this set of poems.

Here’s one of them:

“Now hollow fires burn out to black
And lights are guttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack,
And leave your friends and go.

Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread,
Look not left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There’s nothing but the night.”

These are public domain, so I expect there are free collections all over the place … yes, here, for example … but here’s a nice-looking edition.

Here’s one more:

IV – REVEILLEWake: the silver dusk returning Up the beach of darkness brims,And the ship of sunrise burning Strands upon the eastern rims. Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters, Trampled to the floor it spanned,And the tent of night in tatters Straws the sky-pavilioned land. Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying: Hear the drums of morning play;Hark, the empty highways crying `Who'll beyond the hills away?' Towns and countries woo together, Forelands beacon, belfries call;Never lad that trod on leather Lived to feast his heart with all. Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber Sunlit pallets never thrive;Morns abed and daylight slumber Were not meant for man alive. Clay lies still, but blood's a rover; Breath's a ware that will not keep.Up, lad: when the journey's over There'll be time enough to sleep.Please Feel Free to Share:

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Now Out (Sort Of): This Hour, Our Vigil

Just dropped This Hour at my Patreon.

This, as it says over there, is surely very close to the final version. It’s always possible I’ll do a little bit of last-minute tweaking, but if that happens, it really should be minimal.

The cover is underway, but will not be available until April. I’ll load the final version, including any tweaks and corrected typos, at that point. I’ll set the preorder to drop at Amazon in November or maybe even December. I’ll leave the book at my Patreon for at least a month, but not all the way to the release date.

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Now Out —

The Year’s Midnight audiobook

Of Absence, Darkness audiobook

As Shadow, A Light audiobook

And I’m looking forward to listening to the Shines Now chapters as they are completed.

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“Weak” Verbs Aren’t

From Patricia Wrede’s blog: “Weak” verbs aren’t

AND THANK YOU, PATRICIA WREDE, because first, I’m right there with you, and second, I’m happy you’re not being all wambly and maybe-sorta-kinda about this opinion.

I thought the nonsense about “weak verbs” in fiction died some time during the pandemic. Apparently, I was wrong; somebody helpfully forwarded a list of “weak verbs you should never use in your writing” recently.

So this falls into the general category of Bad Writing Advice, and particularly into the ever-popular category of Bad PROSCRIPTIVE Writing Advice. Don’t use adverbs. Don’t use adjectives. Don’t use passive voice. Don’t use fake subjects like “there” at the beginning of sentences. You know what, just take a moderate to enormous chunk of the English language and THROW IT AWAY because I’m sure it wasn’t doing anything important and who needs adverbs anyway? OR WEAK VERBS. Down with be and is and was!

Here’s Patricia Wrede:

The first problem with talking about “weak verbs” is that it’s actually a grammatical term, not one of writing craft. Grammatically, a weak verb is one that ends in -ed, -t, or -d in the past tense.” (In English, anyway.)

In other words, “weak verbs” are regular verbs. One of the most interesting things about this definition is that the verb that is most commonly cited as being the ultimate “weak” verb—to be—does not fit it. Grammatically, “was” fits the definition of a strong verb.

And I did not expect her to say that, and actually I am delighted to discover that “was” is by definition a STRONG verb. Take that, bad writing advice!

Yet “to be” is almost always at the top of the “forbidden” list. Some places list every verb form explicitly—not just “to be,” but is, was, were, am, are, be, been, being… Honestly, people, “to be” covers it. The do-not-use list also regularly includes “to have,” “to do,” and often “to go,” “to become,” “to give,” “to look,” “to feel,” “to make,” and “to get.”

In other words, these lists of “weak verbs” include a lot of the most common verbs in English. (I suspect that’s part of the issue, but more on that later.) These verbs are variously termed “repetitive, passive, wordy, boring, generic, and too general.” No one ever seems to point out how useful they are.

In their eagerness to banish the copulative, these folks nearly always either forget that “to be” is a necessary part of the progressive tenses, or else they include all progressive tenses under their idiotic prohibition. “When she walked in, he was shrieking at his cell phone” is not the same as “When she walked in, he shrieked at his cell phone.” And just try removing all forms of “to be” from Hamlet’s soliloquy…

Goodness, look at this, I’m basically just copying in the entire post. The whole thing is great, especially the bit about “their idiotic prohibition,” and I did say that I was happy Wrede was not being tentative or cautious in her condemnation of this notion.

Fine, I’ll stop there, and I do suggest you click through and read the rest of the post, which includes defense of the passive voice and other useful features (NOT BUGS) of the English language.

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Tracking Word Count

Here’s a post at Jane Friedman’s blog: Want to Write Faster? How Tracking Your Word Count Can Boost Your Productivity

I personally find this to be true. Or, that’s not exactly correct. I don’t have any clear idea whether tracking word count boosts my productivity. I find it motivating to watch the words pile up. Until I reach a tipping point where a specific book becomes ridiculously over-long, and then, in a way, it’s demotivating. It helps to have proactively acknowledged that a book is likely to go long; that constitutes permission to not fret about it, I guess, until the thing goes VASTLY over the intended length, and then I start fretting about it anyway.

Anyway, what does this post say about this, other than declaring that tracking word count can be motivating? (I’m assuming it says that.)

A) It encourages habit formation.

This is the “motivation” thing right here. The author of this post is drawing a direct line between motivation and building a habit of working on your novel every day.

B) It teaches you about yourself.

Hmm, what could this mean? Ah: If you jot down things like the time of day you were working, your location, and any other relevant information, you can look for patterns in your productivity levels. Well, I sort of feel that’s pretty darned obvious without jotting down notes. You’re right there in your very own head, doing the actual writing your very own self. How can you possibly fail to know that you concentrate better at 5:00 AM than 3:00 PM, or that the tots are in bed at 9:00 PM, not 9:00 AM? This is something that surely everyone has already got figured out?

Well, apparently the author of this post figured that sort of thing out because she took notes about it. That seems strange, but who knows, maybe it’s common for people not to notice when they are most productive and I simply haven’t ever noticed.

C) It makes the idea of writing a book feel more manageable.

If you thought about writing a book not as having to write 75,000 words, but having to write 500 words a day for 150 days? That’s only five months! That feels a lot more achievable, doesn’t it?

I agree that this can be helpful. I have personally pointed out to a few people that ONE page a day = a complete novel by the end of the year, and that this doesn’t have to be one page every single day, just an average of one page per day, that three pages three times a week would overshoot this average, that seven pages on Sunday would do it, whatever fit into their schedule. I mean busy people with kids and jobs and lives. At least a couple people hadn’t thought about it that way and did say it sounded more doable if they thought “one page a day” instead of “a book.”

D) It takes the stress out of deadlines.

Nothing can take the stress out of deadlines. BUT FINE, it’s true that if you can SEE you are on track to make a deadline, that’s surely less stressful than if you have no idea. On the other hand, I bet if you can SEE you are obviously going to miss a deadline, that is not helpful in the stress management department.

Back when I was writing to real deadlines, for traditional publishing, I used to say, “All right, so let’s assume this book will go to 140,000 words and then I’ll need to trim it back and revise. The deadline is in 90 days, so that’s 1600 words per day, more or less, so I’ll aim for 2000 words per day minimum and that should give me a buffer of 20 days or so in which to do basic revision.” And this worked fine. For one book I wasn’t enjoying, I would literally hit the 2000 words for a day and quit right then, even in the middle of the sentence, but by golly I turned that book in on time.

Many people who track this way will also set mini goals for themselves with a reward attached, like treating themselves to a new book or a dinner out for every 25,000 words they write, which adds another layer of motivation. What a good excuse for a treat. I should do that. Why not smaller achievements? One piece of chocolate per 500 words, say.

Also, I should promise myself a serious reward for every 10,000 words I cut when I’m trying to trim a book back to something more sensible, and have I mentioned that the Tano book I’m working on now just went over 180,000 words? Which I expected and so I’m not tearing out my hair about it, but I’m going to need to cut it back.. WHICH IS FINE. My guess a long time ago was that this book was going to go over 200,000 words in draft, and it will, and that is FINE.

E) It can improve your book’s pacing.

Really? How?

If your chapters tend to be around 3,000 words but you notice that chapter 7 is only 1,200 and chapter 18 is 9,000, this might tell you that the former could feel rushed and needs more development, while the latter slogs on and could benefit from some editing.

I guess? I don’t think that works for me. If I notice that chapters are extra short or long, I usually move the chapter breaks. But sometimes I really want the chapter breaks where I have them, and that’s fine too. There’s no great rule that chapters all have to be the same length, and for me, I don’t think chapter length has anything to do with pacing.

Except that as a general rule, shorter chapters mean a book will feel faster paced to the reader, which my Random House editor, Michelle Frey, pointed out to me many years ago when she asked me to rechaptinate some book or other so that the chapters would be about 10 pages long instead of about 20 pages long. I’ve paid attention to that ever since.

Right now, when I’m thinking about cutting this Tano book, I’m not thinking of trimming within chapters because they are long. I am thinking that when I trim within chapters, they will become shorter, so if a chapter goes to 35 pages right now, that’s probably not the final length and therefore I do not need to think about exactly where I want chapter breaks at this time. Finalizing chapter breaks is something I do at the end, especially if there’s a single pov protagonist all the way through the entire story.

All right, think the post linked above is fine as far as it goes. Here is another post on this topic: On Writing Stress and Silver Linings: Why Daily Word Counting Isn’t a Good Strategy for Everyone.

My writing style is not amenable to these sorts of daily word count challenges. Don’t get me wrong. I love to cheer on my friends as they report their counts. I’m happy that this works for them. However, it doesn’t always work for me. I tend to write and revise simultaneously (something the NaNoWriMo experts specifically advise against). But as I mentioned above, I am really a pantser at heart and so I often discover new twists in my story that I didn’t know about when I wrote my “outline.” I often go back and layer in shiny new things as I draft. I often go back and do what some of my friends describe as “tinkering” with various elements of the story. As a result, I am a very pokey writer.

And another: Why Word Count Goals Can Be Destructive

When I started writing my medieval epic Behold the Dawn, I decided word count goals might be a helpful aid. My goal was to write 800 words every day—or approximately one page. It was a count that fit well within my already established productivity level, so I knew I could handle it without a problem. No doubt it would be satisfying to jot my word-count total in my writing journal every day—and watch the total count compound over time.

But that isn’t what happened. Instead of watching my fingers flying over the keyboard, hammering word after hundreds of words into my manuscript, I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time watching my word count instead. Am I there yet? Have I reached 800 words? Am I even halfway there? Between the ticking clock and the blinking cursor, my word count ended up severely squashed. Eight hundred words a day was no longer an easy accomplishment; it was an enemy to be conquered.

I can very easily see how that might happen, and the reason this is VERY easy to imagine is … remember I said a minute ago that I once wrote a book to a fairly tight deadline and literally quit in the middle of a sentence when I reached the necessary wordcount for the day? Yep, that was a lot like this. Grimly watching the wordcount go up was not fun. It got the job done, I think it was probably helpful and possibly essential, but I sure didn’t enjoy it.

The author of this post adds: I prefer to force myself to sit down at the computer for a set amount of time every day (two hours in my case) and let the scenes and characters dictate the word count. Some days my word count barely scratches 400, but, with the necessity of reaching a set goal no longer threatening me, I’ve found that the words tend to flow and most days I clock in far beyond my original goal of 800 words.

Which is all very well, but “force” here does make the whole thing sound just as unpleasant to me.

Even though I know when I am most productive — from 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM, and then possibly another hour in the evening, but not too late, like about 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM — I hate to think of HAVING to sit down and get work done from some hour to some other hour. For me, that sounds unpleasant, even though when I’ll be home all day and the weather is too awful to walk the dogs and nothing else is going on, and I’m enjoying myself but I’m not obsessed, then I usually do in fact work according to this schedule. But I wouldn’t regiment it, and if I wanted to walk the dogs at dawn (which is my summer schedule) and then make crepes for breakfast and not touch my laptop until 8:00 AM, that would be fine and I wouldn’t feel guilty about that.

Too late to do that today, though. You know what, maybe I’ll make spinach and cheese crepes for supper.

Meanwhile! I also JUST tripped over yet another blog post about this topic, this time at Writer Unboxed: When Word Count is the Enemy

Focusing on word count exclusively as a measure of progress while you’re drafting can definitely have its downsides. Here are three:

A) It can encourage the wrong kind of progress. 

[T]aking a wrong turn part way through the draft and then feeling like you can’t turn back is pretty dire. Progress in the wrong direction isn’t progress at all.

It sure is. I should have thought of that, because I do think that’s a risk.

B) It can discourage other–just as useful–kinds of progress. 

If you’re fixated on increasing your word count, there’s a very good chance that you’re not doing the other things necessary to improve your book.

Another good point.

C) It can backfire, bringing progress to a halt. 

And this is back at the “it just doesn’t work for me” problem. And the bottom line is: everybody is different, and you have to find a method that works for you, plus notice and accept when other methods don’t work for you. And possibly accommodate the situation when something that worked for one project doesn’t work for a different project, because I think that can happen too.

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Update: Was that Spring Break? I think I missed it

Okay, so last week just melted away without a trace.

FINE, I admit I did get things done. I just still haven’t gotten to various minor projects — they should be minor — that have been waiting for two and a half months now. I’m going to blame all the ice and snow in January, because being snowed in for however long that was — probably about ten days put together — did not help.

The thing which is annoying me most: the new covers for the Black Dog paperback story collections. I was doing those covers myself, I have rough drafts sitting here, but I have not finalized the drafts because I have just not had the time to do it. Other things that are more time sensitive keep coming up. It’s completely annoying. I guess I said that already, but it is.

Let me see, what DID I do last week? All right —

A) I took the boys for a preliminary appointment at a new-to-me animal hospital, where shortly — I need to call for an appointment — they will go to have echocardiograms done. I’m not very concerned about the results of these echoes. They both have murmurs. I expect Ish probably looks fine, with minimal if any changes to the architecture of the heart. That’s a guess, but I think that’s likely. I hope Conner looks like that too, but I would not be surprised if the cardiologist suggests putting him on pimobendan, which I will do, of course, if that’s the advice.

I went to the new-to-me clinic for reasons which are kind of funny, so I’ll explain that briefly. Just skip down to (B) if you’re not interested, obviously. My reproductive vet used to be at a big practice that was bought by a corporation. The corporation instituted new rules that were insane, such as “emergency c-sections must be scheduled at least three days ahead of time,” which caused quite a lot of consternation among breeders who depended on this clinic, as you can imagine, and this, by the way, is ONE reason that I suggest looking for a veterinary clinic that is not owned by a corporation, because corporations often impose insane rules on their veterinarians. I’ve heard of others almost as awful, such as, “Never refer; all work is to be done in house,” for example.

Anyway, this particular vet ignored the new rules and continued to operate exactly as he thought best, the corporation found out, there was a big blow up, and he walked out, taking alllllllll his clients with him, like a line of little ducklings following behind their mother. This is all heresy, but some of it came through a veterinarian grapevine as well as what I heard via the breeder grapevine, and I think it’s basically accurate. Then this much smaller hospital, privately owned, said, “Hey, come work for us, and bring us all your reproductive clients, and teach at least one of our doctors everything you know about repro medicine — how about it?” And thus this veterinarian is now at this other practice. He’s a great guy, so this put this small hospital on my radar.

Meanwhile, I became seriously disenchanted with Veterinary Specialty Services, where all the specialists such as cardiologists are found, in 2020, and I am still very unhappy with VSS at this point. They absolutely radiate contempt for their clients, and on top of that, their staff mishandled a bitch and her newborn puppies for a friend of mine — the mother died and all the puppies nearly died, and nearly all of that was due to staff carelessness and neglect. They didn’t put the newborn puppies in a warm box, but a cold box in an air conditioned room, and left them for hours, and it’s a miracle they didn’t all die. AND through the veterinarian grapevine, I have also heard about more than one wrong diagnosis, which in one case almost resulted in the pet dying. And as a result of all this, I loathe them and worse, I don’t trust them, and so I was planning to drive to a different clinic three hours away in order to do echocardiograms. Then I found out that this other small practice works with a cardiologist of their own, and I said, YAY! And that’s why I’m doing all this through this new clinic.

And this boils down to a pair of linked public service messages:

— All the shelters, groomers, dog trainers, and reputable breeders in your county will know who the best veterinarians are AND who the worst veterinarians are, and they will tell you who they recommend if you ask them. More than that, we will tell you who the best surgeons are, who the best diagnosticians are, who is best for small dogs but not giant dogs, who is best for cats, and so on. So if you aren’t sure about a veterinarian, call those people and triangulate on the names everyone recommends. That’s my advice.

— AND, if you happen to OWN a veterinary clinic, I recommend that you avoid policies that demonstrate contempt for your clients, and prevent your staff from radiating unconcern and contempt for your clients, because your clients can tell you and your staff feel that way and they will detest you and try hard to find somewhere else to go.

Now, moving on, what else?

B) I did move ahead with Tano’s next book, but it’s been slow so far this month. We’re halfway through the month, which seems ridiculous, and I’ve only written maybe a little over 20,000 words or so, which is making me roll my eyes. This last bit should be faster and I would be surprised if I’m not basically through the draft by the end of the month. I will have a certain amount of revision to do. I’m thinking of handing the roles of two characters to two different characters and removing the first two, which is a shame, but I think I’m going to do that. (AARGH!)

I’m a little surprised to STILL be estimating that it’s pretty likely to turn out to be about 210,000 words in draft. I estimated that right at the beginning, so by now I’d sort of expect to have blown right past that estimate and be sitting way above that length and still not near the end. But, in fact, so far, that’s still my guess about how long the draft will go. Meaning about another 30,000 words, or about a hundred pages. I really am getting close to the end.

C) I’ve ordered a cover for the new DL book, working title no longer “Midwinter,” but “This Hour.” I’m most likely going to go with This Hour, Our Vigil, but I won’t decide absolutely for sure for a bit, probably.

I’m trying to decide whether to drop this complete version of This Hour at my Patreon. It should change very little from here on out. But I don’t have a cover for it, and I MIGHT tweak it a little, so I’m not sure, maybe I should wait. If you have an opinion, please drop it in the comments.

D) I started a new project for Mother’s Day. I thought my mother, who doesn’t have internet at all, might like to see some of the blog posts I’ve been putting up for the last decade, so I decided to drop a lot of nearly unedited posts into a Word document, turn it into a paperback book via KDP, and print an author copy for my mother. This will be pretty quick as long as I don’t get distracted into editing it, and I’m pretty sure she’ll like it.

E) I had two of the girls spayed last Friday — Morgan and Haydee. Morgan is about six, pyo is an increasing risk for older bitches, I just heard from a friend of mine about a six-year-old of hers who just had pyo, and whatever, no reason to wait longer. Haydee is two and there was no chance I would want to show or breed her. She is delightful and charming and very cute, but not confident enough to show, plus with a significant underbite.

I did not spay Joy, because I’m not likely to show or breed her, but still. Also, I do think it’s best to let a puppy FULLY mature before spaying or neutering. Joy is a year old, but nevertheless. Maybe this summer, maybe next year, no rush.

And I have another public service message here: I strongly recommend that, when you have a dog of yours spayed or put under for any other routine surgery, go ahead and ask your vet to give the dog both a Carprofen injection AND a Cerenia injection before they wake up from the anesthetic. My reproductive vet (same guy as above), routinely gives both injections after all surgeries except surgical inseminations, because it cuts down tremendously on pet (and owner) distress the evening after the surgery. I asked my regular vet to do Cerenia as well as Carprofen for my girls, and they had the easiest, smoothest recovery I’ve ever seen — and normally my girls don’t have a lot of trouble after a spay or a section. But this time, less. They had a nice, normal supper and were nearly back to normal the next morning. Poor Haydee REALLY does not understand why I’m not letting her wrestle and run madly around with Joy. They usually play madly for at least an hour a day, often multiple times a day.

Haydee also just wants more attention from me than she can get when she’s in an x-pen with Morgan. Last night I let Morgan and Haydee out of the x-pen and told them that they could come sit next to me on the couch as long as they used the steps rather than trying to jump on the couch. (I have to be a bit alert to stop them from jumping, but as long as I hold up my hand and point to the steps, they’ll come up that way.

Stitches can come out as early as this Friday, so I’ll de-restrict them at that point, even if I leave the stitches a few extra days.

Haydee and Joy, best friends

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Are Writers Uniquely Vulnerable to Scams?

I doubt it. Why would writers be special? However, here is a post by Victoria Strauss at Writer Unboxed: Are Writers Uniquely Vulnerable to Scams?

First, maybe Victoria Strauss has that impression because she sure sees a lot of scams aimed at writers and no doubt hears absolutely endless stories from or about writers who got scammed. Second, who knows, maybe aspiring authors are more vulnerable than average for some reason? It seems unlikely, but maybe?

Oh — my first impression was right. Here’s how Victoria starts this post:

This is a question that sometimes comes up when I do interviews. Writer Beware has been in operation for more than 25 years, yet it’s still so busy. There seem to be so many scams that target authors. Are writers somehow more vulnerable to fraud than other creatives?

In my opinion, no.

Writing scams aren’t unique. There are similar frauds in every creative industry. Headshot scams for models. Talent agency scams for actors. Representation scams for illustrators. Pay-to-play venues for musicians and artists. They may not be as numerous as writing scams, but they are widespread, and they use the same tricks and techniques to lure and ensnare victims.

This makes sense to me. I just could not see why hopeful authors would be more vulnerable than hopeful Fill In The Blank. Victoria then answers the question: Why are there so many scammers that prey on aspiring authors? And of course this is for the same reason lions stroll around in the Serengeti: because predators go where the prey is found. There are A LOT of hopeful would-be authors, far (FAR) more than hopeful concert pianists, because a hopeful concert pianist needs a piano, while hopeful would-be authors don’t need anything except a computer, and they’ve got that.

Victoria Strauss answer this question the same way, minus the reference to the Serengeti:

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY WRITING SCAMS, THEN?

Because … there are so many writers.

Other creative pursuits have boundaries and requirements that create bars to entry. Musicians need training, not to mention instruments. Actors and singers may have limited venues in which to practice their craft … Painters and sculptors need often-costly materials … But writing: writing is just words. Everyone has those. If you can speak, you can write, and all you need to follow your impulse is an idea and a computer, or pen and paper if you prefer.

Exactly. That’s why.

Victoria then identifies four lures used by scammers: the lure of the shortcut, the lure of easy money, the lure of flattery, and the lure of hidden knowledge. More on each at the linked post, but obviously this is true. Those are the four lures we see again and again, in all sorts of scams, from Goodnovel exclusive contracts, to “publishers” like Spines who basically brag about the con they’re planning to run, to the more ordinary scammers who promise to distribute your charming memoir to 40,000 bookstores worldwide for the low, low price of $500 — it goes on and on.

Her suggestion: Be aware that scams exist.

Seems like a no-brainer. Evidently Victoria sees a lot of victims who really did not know that the ocean is filled with sharks.’

I do get scammer emails periodically, mostly in the fairly harmless end of the spectrum (Would you like to pay $5 for us to advertise your book on Facebook?) This is ineffective, but if an author says sure, then so what? Paying $5 is pretty trivial. I see a lot of questions on Quora that indicate $500-$5000 are not uncommon losses, and that’s not at all trivial.

Here’s a post about a persistent, persuasive book promotion scammer.

 I wrote this post specifically to warn others to, well, Writer Beware! It doesn’t matter if they have what looks to be a robust social media presence. (My teen-age daughter tells me you can buy thousands of followers for ten bucks). It doesn’t matter if they seemingly have glowing recommendations from best-selling authors. It doesn’t matter if they promise you fame, fortune, and, most importantly, book sales. It doesn’t even matter if they spend so much time cajoling you that you start to think they must be legit – how else could they afford to waste so much time on sales?

They are not legit. They are liars and they are scammers.

I might have been approached much the same way; I’m not sure because I’m suspicious and always simply delete any email from any source purporting to be a promotion service.

Legitimate promo services: Start here. And here.

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Spring!

Let’s have some springtime poems, in the hope that we are all enjoying beautiful spring weather right here on the vernal equinox. (Unless we’re in Australia. What season is it in Australia? Autumn, right? Yes, Google reassures me that I’ve got that right: March in Australia is autumn. Well, if you’re in Australia, I hope you’re enjoying lovely autumn weather. Meanwhile, in North America, it is spring.

Here’s a poem selected for spring by Elaine T’s Teen — this is a longer poem, by Alfred Noyes, who is well known because he wrote The Highwayman. The link is to Loreena McKinnet’s sung version, which I like a lot, despite wanting to just slap the Highwayman for throwing away Bess’ sacrifice.

Regardless of how you feel about the Highwayman, here is a longish poem about spring in England, with a less tragic ending.

The World’s May Queen

When Spring comes back to England
And crowns her brows with May,
Round the merry moonlit world
She goes the greenwood way:
She throws a rose to Italy,
A fleur-de-lys to France;
But round her regal morris-ring
The seas of England dance.

When Spring comes back to England
And dons her robe of green,
There’s many a nation garlanded
But England is the Queen;
She’s Queen, she’s Queen of all the world
Beneath the laughing sky,
For the nations go a-Maying
When they hear the New Year cry –

I

Whither away is the Spring to-day?
To England, to England!
In France they heard the South wind say,
“She’s off on a quest for a Queen o’ the May,
So she’s over the hills far away,
To England!”

And why did she fly with her golden feet
To England, to England?
In Italy, too, they heard the sweet
Roses whisper and flutter and beat–
“She’s an old and a true, true love to greet
In England!”

A moon ago there came a cry
From England, from England,
Faintly, fondly it faltered nigh
The throne of the Spring in the Southern sky,
And it whispered “Come,” and the world went by,
And with one long loving blissful sigh
The Spring was away to England!

II

When Spring comes back to England
And crowns her brows with May,
Round the merry moonlit world
She goes the greenwood way:
She throws a rose to Italy,
A fleur-de-lys to France;
But round her regal morris-ring
The seas of England dance.

When Spring comes back to England
And dons her robe of green,
There’s many a nation garlanded
But England is the Queen;
She’s Queen, she’s Queen of all the world
Beneath the laughing sky,
For the nations go a-Maying
When they hear the New Year cry–

“Come over the water to England,
My old love, my new love,
Come over the water to England,
In showers of flowery rain;
Come over the water to England,
April, my true love;
And tell the heart of England
The Spring is here again!”

III

So it’s here, she is here with her eyes of blue
In England, In England!
She has brought us the rainbows with her, too,
And a glory of shimmering glimmering dew
And a heaven of quivering scent and hue
And a lily for me and a rose for you
In England.

There’s many a wanderer far away
From England, from England,
Will toss upon his couch and say–
Though Spain is proud and France is gay,
And there’s many a foot on the primrose way,
The world has never a Queen o’ the May
But England.

IV

When Drake went out to seek for gold
Across the uncharted sea,
And saw the Western skies unfold
Their veils of mystery;
To lure him through the fevered hours
As nigh to death he lay,
There floated o’er the foreign flowers
A breath of English May:

And back to Devon shores again
His dreaming spirit flew
Over the splendid Spanish Main
To haunts his childhood knew,
Whispering “God forgive the blind
Desire that bade me roam,
I’ve sailed around the world to find
The sweetest way to home.”

V

And it’s whither away is the Spring to-day?
To England, to England!
In France you’ll hear the South wind say,
“She off on a quest for a Queen o’ the May,
So she’s over the hills and far away,
To England!”

She’s flown with the swallows across the sea
To England, to England!
For there’s many a land of the brave and free
But never a home o’ the hawthorn-tree,
And never a Queen o’ the May for me
But England!

And round the fairy revels whirl
In England, in England!
And the buds outbreak and the leaves unfurl,
And where the crisp white cloudlets curl
The Dawn comes up like a primrose girl
With a crowd of flowers in a basket of pearl
For England!

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Titling “Midwinter” with John Donne

As you probably know, the Death’s Lady books all have titles pulled from a couple of John Donne’s poems. I do want to do the same for “Midwinter,” so what should I use?

I had all but forgotten that, back in 2022, I had the same conundrum — picking a title for Shines Now. At the time, I said that this list of titles in this order could work to, in a way, echo the overall arc of the series. All these are titles from Donne’s poetry:

The Year’s MidnightOf Absence, DarknessAs Shadow, A LightShines Now, and HeretoforeThis Hour My Vigil‘Tis Late to AskMy Sun Renew

And I still think these lines work as titles and the order of these lines also works. Though “Midwinter” is extra, so who knows, I might need an additional title if and when I finally get around to writing another set of major books in this series. Or maybe not, who knows, obviously I should just stop trying to predict how many books might appear in a series.

Regardless, “This Hour My Vigil” is not the exact line from the poem. The exact line is “This hour HER vigil,” which is not one hundred percent wrong for “Midwinter,” but not ideal either. But with another pronoun modification, it could be. This time, I’m thinkin of

This Hour Our Vigil

But I’m aware that “hour” and “our” are very similar-sounding words, so what do you think about that? I’m an auditory reader, so it’s impossible for me not to be aware of the similar sounds. On the other hand, I’m so strongly an auditory reader that the words don’t sound THAT similar to my ear, and besides that, visually, they aren’t overly similar because the H and the O are such different letters.

On the book cover, it could be This Hour / Our / Vigil, which would help break the two similar-sounding words away from each other visually. Is that enough to make this work? What do you think?

Meanwhile, other possible lines.

Elaine T drew another Donne poem, Love’s Growth, to my attention as thematically appropriate, which it is. Here are some lines that might work:

By the Spring is GrownThough Each SpringWinter Shall Abate

Here are a few more from Love’s Alchemy

That Hidden MysteryA Rich and Long DelightA Winter-Seeming Summer’s Night

***

I don’t think that last set works as well, but “winter-seeming summer’s night” is striking. Meanwhile, although I really do intend to use phrases from Donne’s poetry to title all the books in this series, but from an earlier post about poetry and book titles, I just want to point to the following potential book titles for unrelated novels:

From “The Vanity of Human Wishes” by Samuel Johnson

Time Hovers O’erSuch Age There IsAs the Day Returns

From “The Eternal Gates” by William Blake

The Eternal GatesA Land of SorrowsThro’ Valleys Dark

From “The Seasons” by Swinburne

For Winter’s RainsThe Light that LosesAnd Time Remembered

I’ve always liked Swinburne, I must say.

I swear, I should write a totally different contemporary-ish fantasy trilogy just so I can use those phrases from “The Seasons” as their titles. Poetry makes such great titles for the right kinds of books. Midnight Never Come might be my favorite-ever poetry book title, though in fact the novel didn’t quite work for me and I wound up giving it away (I don’t remember why) (except Fairie is a bit of a hard sell for me in general.)

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