C.M. Gray's Blog, page 8

Be like a schwa – it’s never stressed

Be like a schwhat?

If that was your first reaction to this blog title, you’re not alone. Most English speakers don’t know what a schwa is, even though it’s the most commonly used sound in the English language. Ask someone who’s learning English as a second language, however, and they’ll probably know straight away what it is.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that the little quirks of the English language make it one of the hardest to learn, and it was in fact a student from China who mentioned schwa to me. I host Chinese students who are visiting America to improve their English, and they were talking about schwa. Not knowing what it was, I of course Googled it, and, using the most simplified explanation, it’s basically the ‘uh’ sound that we place on any vowel when it’s not stressed.

Take, for example, the words tomorrow, level, doctor, and theater. Each of them contain a schwa, or uh, in place of the normal vowel sound. Tomorrow, level, doctor, theater. They’re each unstressed vowels, and you can probably think of many more because, like I said, it’s the most common sound in the English language. And, in case you’re wondering, its symbol in the dictionary is like an upside down ‘e’, or /ə/

Of course, to make things even harder for an English learner, any word can be spoken with or without a schwa. Most commonly, the word ‘the’ is typically spoken with schwa – thuh -, but when stressed for emphasis ‘It’s the most important thing’, or when spoken before a vowel, ‘Where are the eggs?’ the vowel sound becomes a long e, not a schwa.

Another example is ‘man’, where the a keeps its full sound. But when you say postman, the first syllable is stressed, so the ‘a’ in ‘man’ becomes schwa – postm/ə/n

And then there’s the tendency to just drop the schwa sound altogether. For example, chocolate is often spoken as choclat, and different becomes diffrent when spoken.

Ultimately, schwa is a lazy sound, it takes no effort other than using your vocal cords. There’s no tongue positioning, or lip shaping to making the sound, it just happens. So, next time you’re working to a deadline, or you’re hit with writer’s block, make like a schwa and become unstressed.

How do you write?

I’m not talking about your style, genre, or even the methods you use to get your ideas from thought to story. I’m talking about the tools you use.

Like most writers, I typically type directly onto my laptop, whether it’s a blog, a letter to print out and sign, or the next chapter in the Reborn Trilogy – everything is typed into a document, or a spreadsheet, or an email.

Except, scattered around my workspace, with apparently no logic, rhyme nor reason, are literally hundreds of scraps of paper, with real words written in real ink. These are my notes, and while it may appear slapdash to the uneducated eye, it does have a system, because, for whatever reason, I can’t make notes on a computer.

I think it goes back to my school days, long before computers were mainstream, when kids wrote with a pencil until they were old enough to use a fountain pen. It was such a major milestone in life, being deemed mature enough to sit with a pot of ink in the little hole on your desk, refilling your pen when it ran dry. Even today, playing with a fountain pen brings back great feelings of nostalgia.

So when I have a thought, an idea, a quote, anything I want to remember, I grab a pen and a piece of paper and jot it down. It’s probably quicker to type it into my laptop, but I still jot it down on a piece of paper.

Over my 40(ish) years of life, I’ve seen the ‘norm’ in writing progress from pencil, to fountain pen, to biro (or ballpoint). From typewriters, to word processors (which were really just typewriters that you plugged into a socket), to PCs, laptops and notebooks, and even cellphones.

And still, for the very basics of my writing, I revert back to a good old pen and paper with a haphazard filing system that only I understand.

There’s just something solid about the feel of the pen in your fingers, the sound of the nib as it scrapes across the paper, even the smell of the ink.

Encourage the Arts in Children, and they’ll thank you as adults

Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

While Picasso was probably talking about the art of drawing or painting, his words should be taken to encompass all the arts, including music, dance, and, of course, the written word, to name but a few.

Children are born with an affinity to the arts. They instinctively move to music, converse in sing-song tones, and will draw on anything (is there a parent who hasn’t been presented with a child’s crayoned masterpiece on the wall, or some important papers?)

For as long as I can remember I’ve encouraged my children’s creativity and artistic tendencies, even though each of my five children has leaned towards very different genres of art. My eldest is, like me, drawn to the written word. My second son is an incredibly talented musician, while my youngest son is skilled with graphic design. My youngest daughter has won prizes for film production and photography, and my oldest daughter is what most people consider an ‘artist’ to be; she draws beautifully. Out of all of them, I am the most in awe of her ability, because my drawing skills barely stretch to matchstick men, while her 13-year-old hands produce images like this drawing of an eye.

So, five children, brought up by the same parent in the same way, and each of them has found the art they’re most drawn to (no pun intended!)

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which of the arts a child feels more of an affinity towards, encourage it, nurture it, and let it grow. Research has proven over and over that children who are encouraged to express themselves through the arts grow into more confident, more creative, and more focused adults. Not only that, the arts help children develop the perseverance, dedication, and accountability required to ensure a strong personal and work ethic when that child enters adulthood.

And for that, they will thank you.

Like fingernails on a blackboard!

As much as I am a writer, and cringe at common grammar mistakes and spelling errors, I can (after mentally correcting them with a flourish and an imaginary red pen) shrug most of them off with a simple there, their, they’re.

However, there is one really common grammatical mistake that is, to my mind, as gratingly painful to my senses as fingernails down a blackboard (yes, I’m showing my age, and yes, that saying will probably die out with my generation, as most kids these days have never experienced the torture produced when nails meet a blackboard!)

But back to the subject at hand. I can barely tolerate it when I hear ‘should of’, ‘would of’, ‘could of’, but I can at least attribute the error to mishearing the contraction (should’ve) or even a simple mispronunciation of the word ‘have’.

When I see it written down, however, there’s no making excuses for it. It’s just downright bad English.

Fingernails…blackboard..!

Everyone has a book in them…yes, that old cliché!

I think I first heard this when I was a young teenager, which is far too many years ago to remember who actually said it, maybe my mother, maybe a teacher. The point is, like most clichés, it’s a phrase that we all come across at some point in our lives, and as a cliché is, by its very definition, an overused saying, how true is it?

There are two different ways of looking at it. There’s the Jodi Picoult view, ‘everyone has a book in them, but it doesn’t do any good until you pry it out of them’, and then there’s the Christopher Hitchens view, ‘everyone has a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay’.

On the one hand, Picoult suggests many people are unaware of the potential novel hidden in their subconscious, while on the other hand, Hitchens thinks most people’s stories are of no interest to the masses.

Personally, I think both viewpoints are a load of old cobblers (aka nonsense!) I find writing cathartic. I also think it’s essential in the education of our youth, an effective form of communication in the professional and private lives of our adulthood, and a proven way to stay sharp as we slow into old age.

So go ahead, write your story. It doesn’t need to become a best-seller, it doesn’t even need to be published. It can be packed with laughter, or tears, love or loneliness, animals or children, or it can be boring as hell. It doesn’t matter! Write your story because we’re only here for a short time, and someone will be glad you did.

 

Clouds smell like..?

I was cleaning out the cupboards today, and came across a pile of books my children have had ‘published’ at school over the years. One of my favorites was written by my eldest daughter in First Grade, based on a conversation we’d had one day.

One lazy Sunday she’d climbed into bed and snuggled up to me. She lay there for a minute, and I could almost hear her thinking before she looked at me, and said, “Mummy, you smell like clouds.”

Now, I’ve heard kids say their mother smelled like cookies, or flowers, or cocoa, but clouds? That was a new one on me, so I calmly asked her what clouds smelled like. She smiled up at me, her eyes big and sincere, and replied, “Clouds smell like angels, of course!”

I think my daughter has a novel or two in her future.

New Book Cover

After a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (that may be somewhat exaggerated) I’m excited to share with you all the new book cover for my debut novel Reborn, the first in the Reborn Trilogy.

What do you think?