Pat Bertram's Blog, page 294

'The Top 5 Mistakes I Find as an Editor' by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel

Please welcome today's guest. Smoky Trudeau Zeidel is the author of two novels, On the Choptank Shores and The Cabin. She is also author of Observations of an Earth Mage, a photo/essay collection; and two books about writing. You can find Smoky and her three blogs at www.SmokyZeidel.wordpress.com. Smoky writes:

As an editor and as an avid reader, I see a lot of mistakes make their way into print. Many, if not all, of them could be avoided by having a professional edit your manuscript before submitting it to your publisher, or putting it up on Smashwords or Kindle if you ePublish on your own.

You might think you don't need an editor, because your next door neighbor/best friend/Aunt Thelma offered to do it for free, or because you've read and re-read your manuscript a hundred times and just know it's perfect.

You'd be wrong. First, your neighbor/best friend/Aunt Thelma may spell great, but do they know all the rules of punctuation and style? I doubt it. The Chicago Manual of Style, the go-to book for American publishers for punctuation and style issues, is more than 900 pages long and two inches thick. I doubt your beta readers have that thing memorized. I refer to it frequently, and I am a professional editor.

Second, as the book's creator, finding your own mistakes is hard. That's because you see what you thought your wrote, rather than what you actually wrote. Even though I'm an editor, I don't edit my own stuff. I have my best friend do it—but hold on, before you protest, let me say that my best friend is a professional editor, so she is exempt from the best friend rule.

That said, I know a lot of writers won't hire an editor. And this really isn't a pitch to get your business (although, of course, I am always open to that). So since you probably won't hire me or any of my editor cohorts, I'm going to share with you a list of the five biggest mistakes I see in manuscripts, so you can watch for them, and fix them, yourself.

Mistake #1: Writers don't place a comma between independent clauses separated with a conjunction. Independent clauses are clauses that can stand on their own as sentences, e.g., "He took the 405 freeway to work, and he exited at the Getty Museum." Because both "He took the 405 freeway to work" and "he exited at the Getty Museum" are independent clauses—meaning they can stand alone as sentences, you must, must, place a comma before the conjunction, "and." This is probably the biggest, most common mistake I find in manuscripts and books. Don't make it. It's a very easy punctuation rule to remember.

Mistake #2: Writers place commas between independent clauses and dependent clauses. This is probably the second most common mistake I see. A dependent clause is one that cannot stand on its own as a sentence. Let's take the above example, and change it just a little: "He took the 405 freeway to work and exited at the Getty Museum." I took the second "he" out. That makes the clause after "and" a dependent clause, because "exited at the Getty Museum" cannot stand alone as a sentence. It is dependent upon the first clause to be understood; thus, no comma should precede the "and."

Of course, there are other places you need—and don't need—commas, but this isn't meant to be a comprehensive study of the comma. If in doubt, look up comma placement in The Chicago Manual of Style or other style manual.

Mistake #3: Writers don't know their homonyms. In just the last few weeks alone, I've seen characters who were unphased, waiving to people, and peaking out windows. The writer's spellchecker should have alerted her to the fact that "unphased" isn't even a word. She meant "unfazed." To waive means to relinquish, to set aside. The word this author wanted was "waving." And a peak is the highest point of something; one peeks, not peaks, out a window.

Please, unless you are 100 percent sure you are using the right homonym, look it up. The wrong choice could have your characters doing some pretty strange things!

Mistake #4: Writers rely on their spellcheckers. This is a big no-no. If ewe think you're spellchecker will fined awl yore miss steaks, your wrong. That sentence went through my spellchecker just fine, and there are no less than eight errors in it ("ewe" should be "you"; "you're" should be "your"; "fined" should be "find"; "awl" should be "all"; "yore" should be "your"; "miss" and "steaks" should be "mistakes": and finally, "your" should be "you're"). Homonym spelling errors are the most common type of spelling error I find. Do not rely on your spellchecker. It will let you down every time.

Mistake #5: Writers who make errors in syntax. For example, look at this sentence: "I saw a deer driving to work today." Uh, no—you didn't, unless there are some very talented deer in your neighborhood! The correct sentence structure is, "I saw a deer while driving to work today," or, "While driving to work today, I saw a deer." Please, don't put the deer in the driver's seat!

Here's another example: "If your toddler won't drink milk, warm it in the microwave for a few moments." Warm what in the microwave? You've got a choice of antecedents here. Heaven help the toddler if you make the wrong choice! The correct structure would read, "If your toddler won't drink milk, warm the milk in the microwave for a few moments."

Of course, if you and I were having a conversation, we'd probably understand each other if we made these syntax errors. But you can't count on that when people are reading your words. Make sure you have them in the correct order so your meaning cannot be misconstrued.

I cannot list every error I run across while editing manuscripts. To do so would fill a book. But if you watch for these top five mistakes in your writing, your manuscript will be a lot more polished, and you can be more confident about submitting it to your publisher.

Good luck, and happy righting . . . er, happy writing!

***

Click here to read an excerpt from: On the Choptank Shores

Click here for an interview with: Smoky Trudeau Zeidel

Click here for an interview with: Grace Harmon Singer, Hero of On the Choptank Shores by Smoky Trudeau Zeidel

 

Tagged: comma placement, commas between clauses, conjuctions, editing, homonyms, On the Choptank Shores, Smoky Trudeau Zeidel, syntax, syntax errors

S.O.S. — Dance Therapy

A few days ago, I started doing what I call "dance therapy." I thought it was my own idea, but today I discovered there really is such a thing. It's been around since the 1940s and was created as a way for the mind and body to work together. Supposedly, by dancing, people can identify and express their innermost emotions, bring those feelings to the surface and create a sense of renewal, unity, and completeness.

But that's not what my "dance therapy" is about. I know what my feelings are. (And so do you if you've been checking in with this blog occasionally.) I'm still grieving the death of my mate of thirty-four years. We were soul mates: partners in life, in business, in ideology, in exercise — in fact, years ago, before he started losing health, we used to do aerobics together, which for us meant free-style dancing around the living room. I continued by myself for a while, but as he got sicker, I had to stop that form of exercise because most song lyrics made me cry. Even happy songs – especially happy songs – brought tears to my eyes, and I couldn't deal with that. Not being a natural optimist, (maybe as a Wednesday's child, I really am full of woe) I needed to fight to stay positive, to focus on what I had rather than what I was losing. In my current situation, though, the loss is so great, it's not a matter of seeing the glass as half empty rather than half full (if you'll pardon my use of that odious phrase). It's a matter of trying to glue a shattered glass back together and hope it holds together as I fill it drop by drop.

I'm not in nearly as much pain as I was seventeen and a half months ago when he died, but I'm still feeling sad and empty despite the friends I've made and the trips I've taken. (My most recent excursions included a Route 66 Rendezvous, a couple of major county fairs, and a trip to Seattle — so see, I really am going on with my life.) The world still feels different with him gone. I still feel different, knowing he's not somewhere in the crowd. I will probably always miss him, always yearn to talk with him, always long for the sight of his smile and the sound of his voice, but I don't want to — can't — be enchained by my own sorrow forever.

Most songs still bring tears to my eyes, but it no longer matters since many things make me tearful now. Besides, without a song or a dance, what are we? And so, I've begun my version of dance therapy. Today I danced to ABBA. (Why is that more embarrassing to admit than that I still cry at times?) I'm not looking for a sense of happiness or even optimism. Nor am I looking for exercise. (For that, I walk, lift, stretch, air bicycle.) My hope is that by moving in rhythm to a few peppy songs most days, I can train myself to feel lighter in spirit. Maybe even learn to have fun — whatever that is.

It's the best I can do.

Tagged: ABBA, aerobics, dance therapy, fun, grief, lightness of spirit, loss, optimism, soul mates, Wednesday's child

What Your Doctor is Doing While You're Sitting in the Waiting Room

Actors and actresses with accents that are part of their persona, such as those from England, Germany, or the American South, often have to work with voice coaches to keep from slipping into mainstream American English (whatever that might be). Even the accents of people who learned English as a second language eventually become homogenized if they live among the general population long enough. Apparently, it is very difficult to keep one's accent with two exceptions: if the person lives in an enclave with others who have the same accent or . . .  the person is a doctor who has been in this country for more than two decades.

My 94-year-old father was recently hospitalized for cardiac problems and a touch of pneumonia. Before he was released, his doctor (who was not born in this country, did not go to medical school here, but has practiced here for more than twenty years) called me to explain the new medications he was prescribing. I had to make the guy repeat his instructions ad nauseum and spell the names of the drugs so I could get them right. I did fine until he started talking about hisspern. He kept saying that my dad already took hisspern, but that now he was supposed to cut that down to a quarter of a tablet. Hmm. Hisspern? That drug was not one my dad was taking. Then I remembered that he did take aspirin. So I asked, "Do you mean aspirin?" The doctor got testy, and said, "Hisspern! Hisspern!"

The nurse took the phone from him then, told me she'd give me a printout of the new drug regimen, and hung up. Later, when I checked the list, it was right there: aspririn — 81 mg.

This doctor often has his patients wait for several hours (even his almost-centenarians) before he sees them. Well, now I know why he makes them wait so long — he's out taking voice lessons to make sure he remains un-understandable. (I won't even mention his handwriting. Yikes.)

Tagged: accents, aspirin, doctors, prescribing medications, voice lessons, waiting room, why doctors make you wait

Seeking Stories that Live Within Us by Malcolm R. Campbell

I am delighted to welcome my guest, Malcolm R. Campbell and his newest novel "Sarabande." Malcolm is so very generous to other authors, it's great to be able to return the favor. Besides, he's a fine writer who pens powerful tales, and he has better insights into storytelling than anyone I know. Malcolm says:

A living myth is told and retold as the centuries pass. Poets, painters, musicians are nourished by its imagery, and in each retelling something is added from the collective attitudes, conscious and unconscious, of the time and from the individual vision of the artist." – Helen M. Luke in "The Laughter at the Heart of things."

As I read Helen M. Luke's analysis of the myth of the ring as viewed by Richard Wagner in The Ring of the Nibelungen (known as the four-part "Ring Series") and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, I was struck by the fact this story is now part of our world view. Whether we learned of the myth through the original source materials, Wagner's musical dramas, Tolkien's books, or the feature film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, the story lives inside us as though it actually happened. Tolkien expressed contempt for Wagner's version of the old Norse myth drawn from the 13th century Icelandic Volsung Saga. Yet most critics believe Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelungen (consisting of "Das Rheingold," "Die Walküre" Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung"), composed between 1848 and 1874, and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, written between 1937 and 1949, are different interpretations of the same myth, and that Tolkien was also influenced by Wagner. Myths often have as many interpretations as history as though they refer to actual events.

Listen to the discussions about J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, and you will hear people talking about Harry, Snape, Dumbledore and Voldemort in the same way they speak of celebrities, world leaders and newsmakers who come into their lives television, concerts and the Internet. All of these people, fictional or actual, are larger than life. While novel readers and film audiences know there is a difference between Tolkien's characters and Rowling's characters on one hand and well-known people within our culture, all of them are part of our shared story.

Earlier generations were impacted by Star Trek and Star Wars events and characters just as strongly. We know the difference between fictional characters aren't read and that real people aren't fictional, but it doesn't matter. They're all the same. While even the most fanatical fans don't expect to see Captain Kirk, Spock, Frodo or Hagrid searching for salad greens in the produce department at Kroger or addressing Congress about the state of the galaxy, the worlds of those characters is part of our lives as though it's a living and breathing reality.

Most authors don't write with the expectation that their stories will impact readers with such force that the characters will suddenly take on independent lives of their own. At best, authors hope their stories and characters will seem real while their books are being read. For a reader, there's nothing better than plunging into a good story, becoming enchanted by it, and following it with the fervor they follow family dramas and the biggest news stories of the day.

Yet some stories catch our fancy and stay with us long after we put the book down or leave the theater. Those are the stories we seek because they take us on flights of fancy, display new worlds before our mind's eye, and take us on physical and emotional journeys that expand our lives and enrich our imaginations. Ask any reader what his or her favorite books are, and s/he will tell you about good guys and bad guys and things that go bump in the night and awesome landscapes that are just as much a part of his or her life as co-workers, neighbors and family.

As readers, finding such novels is part of a never-ending quest for a real page turner of a story we will never forget because it lives inside us and evolves every time we read it, talk about it and think about it. As readers, we love our living fiction.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of three contemporary fantasies, Sarabande (2011), Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey (2010) and The Sun Singer (2004).

Click here to read an interview with: Malcolm R. Campbell

Click here to read an excerpt of: Sarabande

Tagged: Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, J. R. R. Tolkien, living fiction, living myth, Malcolm R. Campbell, Richard Wagner, ring myth, Sarabande, Star Trek, Star Wars, storytelling, The Lord of the Rings, The Ring of the Nibelungen

What to Say When You Remember a Word You Couldn't Remember

One of the many things you lose when a dear friend or a spouse dies is your stock of private jokes. All the words and phrases the two of you used, the amusing shortcuts to speech, are gone because there is no one left who knows the personal meanings. I've decided it's my mission to pass along one of these private jokes to keep it alive because it is so perfect and it fulfills a needed niche. This word is "ostrich."

In the movie Sodbusters, written and directed by Eugene Levy and starring Kris Kristofferson, there is a scene where the character Shorty is trying to tell the other sodbusters that they're acting like ostriches, but he can't remember the word. What ensues is a hilarious comic routine of his trying to describe the bird to people who don't believe there is such a creature. Later in the movie, the sodbusters go to the saloon to confront the bad guys trying to force them off their land. They burst through the door, and Shorty yells, "Ostrich!"

A few days after we watched Sodbusters, my friend — my mate — and I were talking, and he couldn't remember a particular word. Later that day, he came into the living room and exclaimed, "Ostrich." Then he said the word he'd just remembered. Cracked me up. And so, until his death, "ostrich" replaced the phrase, "I remembered the word I couldn't remember when we were talking before." See how convenient "ostrich" is? One word in place of twelve. What a deal!

I worried that making this private joke known would bring me unhappiness, but the opposite turned out to be true. At a lunch with a few friends, I told this ostrich story. During the same meal, we mentioned the football player who gave up his career and enlisted in the army, but no one could remember his name. Later that evening, I got a text: "Ostrich! Pat Tillman". Made me smile.

So, when you remember a word you couldn't remember, remember to say – ostrich!

Tagged: Eugene Levy, Kris Kristofferson, ostrich, private jokes, remembering a word, sodbusters

Joylene Nowell Butler Likes DAUGHTER AM I!

If you haven't yet met Joylene Nowell Butler online, you should. She is a delightful person, wonderful author (Dead Witness, and Broken But Not Dead), and marvelous blogger. Her blog is a great site to browse. She posts gorgeous photos of Cluculz Lake in Canada. She offers valuable information such as how to beat writer's block. She often has guests on her blog, other authors you either know or want to know, such as A.F. Stewart, who talked about the 5 best ways to promote your books on a budget during her latest visit.

And she writes insightful book reviews. She says, among other lovely remarks, that my novel "Daughter Am I is a character-driven page-turner. Every person has a distinct and endearing voice. Their very persona jump off the page. Even the character of cold-blooded killer Iron Sam comes alive in a way most writers can only dream of creating. The dialogue is sharp and concise and very believable. The descriptions are familiar, yet crisp and original. The prose are smooth and straightforward, and not once did Miss Bertram use terms or language that pulled me out of the story. I was her captive audience for three days. I could have read it faster, but frankly, I didn't want to say goodbye to these wonderful characters. " (Read the entire post here: Review of Daughter Am I. Be sure to read the comments! I got such a kick out of seeing people talk about my book.)

How can you not like someone who loves your book? You can find Joylene at her blog, A MOMENT AT A TIME ON CLUCULZ LAKE. Tell her Pat sent you.

Tagged: Cluculz Lake, Daughter Am I review, Joylene Nowell Butler, One Moment at a time on Cluculz Lake

Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty? Who Cares?!

It's time to bury the glass half-full/half-empty metaphor. Here is the truth of it: If you are filling a glass, when you get to the halfway mark, the glass is half full. If you are emptying a glass, either by drinking it or pouring it out, when you get to the halfway mark, the glass is half empty. The amount of liquid in a drinking glass is an example of action not perception. And you know the truth of this. If I tell you a waitperson brought a bottle of wine and two glasses to the table and that a woman held out a hand when her glass was half full, you immediately presume the server had been filling the glass. If I tell you a waitperson brought two glasses of wine to the table and that a woman waited until her glass was half empty to begin to place her order, you immediately presume she'd been drinking the wine. In neither case does the partial glass of liquid leave you with a perception of optimism or pessimism. It's merely a result of the action.

Even if it were a matter of perception, why is a "glass half-full kind of guy" considered to be a more upbeat, positive person than a "glass half-empty kind of guy"? Take for example a glass of very rare wine, so rare these are the last few ounces of its kind. While you are savoring every sip, delighting that half of a glass still remains, you can at the same time be experiencing the bittersweet knowledge that this glass of precious liquid is half empty. Which makes every remaining taste even more precious. In this case, the amount of liquid in the glass has nothing to do with positive or negative feelings and everything to do with appreciation.

If a glass with liquid in it is sitting on a table unattended, is it half full or half empty? I don't care, and you shouldn't either. You don't know what it is, how long it has been there, who it belongs to, so it has no bearing on your state of mind. If this orphan glass is your responsibility to deal with or if you are a neat-freak who cannot bear to have unknown liquids lurking about, the glass is half empty because you will pour it out. Unless of course, you are so desperate for a drink you down the liquid despite its dubious origin. In which case, the glass is empty . . .  and so is your stomach after you throw up.

So please, let's bury this particular metaphor in the graveyard of moribund cliches and be done with it.

Tagged: cliche, glass half full metaphor, glass half-empty, glass half-full

500 Days of Grief

It's been 500 days since the death of my life mate, my soul mate. It's sounds pathetic, doesn't it, to still be counting the days as if I've been crying endlessly for more than a year? But grief isn't always about mourning. A great part of grief is trying to make sense of the senseless, trying to comprehend something the human mind is not geared to understand. Trying to find a way to continue despite the noncomprehension.

The agony and angst of the first months have passed, and I do still cry at times, but the tears come and go quite quickly. (The sadness, however, always remains.) I'm going through a waiting stage right now, letting everything I have experienced settle into my being. Other stages of grief are waiting for me, such as finding a new focus or finding the bedrock on which to rebuild my life. Even if those don't seem like stages of grief, even if they aren't accompanied by tears and tantrums, they are still part of the grieving process, still part of learning how to be whole again.

Most of us have grieved the death of a loved one, some of us have grieved many losses, but the loss of someone with whom you have spent every day for decades is especially hard to deal with. Every minute of every day after such a death, that person is absent from your life, and somewhere inside, you continue to search for him or her. I think of him way too much, trying to hold on to him, though I know I can't do anything to keep him with me. He's already gone. I yearn to talk with him once more, hear his voice, see his smile, and and part of me cannot understand why he isn't here, cannot make sense of his absence. Cannot understand forever.

People assure me I will see him again in an afterlife, but that is scant comfort. This is the life I have now. This is all I know. And this is the life I have to deal with. If it were just about my missing him, I could deal with that, but I feel sad that his life was cut short. That his dreams never came true and now they never will. Perhaps he is happily ensconced in a new life of radiance, but his death dimmed the light in this world. And this is what I cannot understand. He is gone. And I am still here.

I am filling my days, trying to make each one matter. I've been taking trips and making excursions, most recently to a fair (where I did not eat deep-fried Twinkies, deep-fried butter, or chocolate covered bacon, though such delicacies were offered). When my mate and I were together, whatever we did was part of our life, and each day, each event flowed into the seamless whole. Now that I am alone, events such as the fair seem like punctuation marks in my ongoing life rather than part of the text. Perhaps one day, when I've lived long enough, done enough, my life will feel like a seamless whole again.

Until then, I'll continue to count the days of grief.

Tagged: dealing with loss, grief, loss, loss of a soulmate, mourning, surviving grief

Celebrating Friendship Day the Blog Jog Way

Today is Friendship Day, and what better way to celebrate than with a fun jog around the blogosphere. It's good for the heart, and you don't even have to deal with the heat or risk getting blisters.

Please introduce yourself — I always have room in my life for new friends. Even if you're shy, I hope you will still take the time to leave a few words. Everyone who leaves a comment will be entered in a drawing to win a free download of one of my novels, winner's choice. (You can see the blurbs for my books on the right sidebar or you can click on About Pat Bertram.)

Feel free to rest here for awhile before you trot on to the next blog in the jog. If you don't know where to start exploring Bertram's Blog, you can check out the index of all my posts: Archives.

After you've explored my site, jog on over to The Philly Collector at http://phillycollector.blogspot.com to see what they have to offer. (There you should find a link to the next blog on the jog.) If you get lost or end up at a blog with a broken link to the next stop, you can go back to the main Blog Jog Day Blog at http://blogjogday.blogspot.com and find a new link to jog from.

Thank you for stopping by my site! I hope you have a fun jog and make lots of new friends.

***

Click here to download the first 20% of Light Bringer free at: Smashwords

Click here to read the first chapter of: Light Bringer

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Light Bringer,  More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire,  and Daughter Am I.

Tagged: Blog Jog, ebook giveaway, friendship day

Tomorrow is Blog Jog Day!

Blog Jog is a trot around the blogosphere, each blog linked to the next so that you can explore new blogs with a simple click on the link to the next blog. Many participants will be offering giveaways and contests, and so will I. Anyone who leaves a comment on my Blog Jog post tomorrow, August 7, 2011 will be entered into a contest to win a free download of one of my novels, including my latest, Light Bringer.

Light Bringer tells the story of  Becka Johnson, who had been abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Chalcedony, Colorado when she was a baby. Now, thirty-seven years later, she has returned to Chalcedony to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? Why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen? Who is Philip, and why does her body sing in harmony with his? And what do either of them have to do with a shadow corporation that once operated a secret underground installation in the area?

Malcolm Campbell, author of  Garden of Heaven,  Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire,  The Sun Singer, and  Worst of Jock Stewart had this to say about the novel: Light Bringer is TYPICAL BERTRAM: plots within plots, multiple characters with multiple agendas, fast moving, more than enough mystery and intrigue for everyone, satisfying conclusion.

Author Aaron Lazar has this to say: I'm already a fan of Pat Bertram's books. I've read them all and loved them deeply. But LIGHT BRINGER was something completely new and surprising… surprising in its freshness, originality, its genre bending brilliance. Part thriller, part fantasy, part sci fi, part mystery…its plots were large and complex, encompassing themes that plague us every day; offering social and world commentary blended with weather trend observations (where ARE all those tornadoes and tsunamis coming from??) I do believe Bertram has defined a new genre, and it is a pure delight. Fresh. Original. Riveting. The characters are real and engaging. I particularly enjoyed the bit of romance between Luke and Jane – yes, another subplot. I couldn't put it down and extend my highest compliments to Ms. Bertram for her supremely smooth writing – there are no hiccups in this book. Very highly recommended.

So stop by tomorrow, leave a comment on my Blog Jog Day blog, and you might win an ecopy of one of my books, including Light Bringer.

***

Click here to download the first 20% of Light Bringer free at: Smashwords

Click here to read the first chapter of: Light Bringer

Tagged: Aaron Lazar, Blog Jog, Garden of Heaven, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, Light Bringer, Malcolm Campbell, Second Wind Publishing, The Sun Singer, Worst of Jock Stewart