Marian Allen's Blog, page 395

Grammarly – Why and When

I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because I ain’t near as smart as I think I am.

Oh, before I forget, this is the first of the month, so pop over and read this month’s Hot Flash.

Now.

I got an email from a very nice fellow at Grammarly, offering me a gift certificate to Amazon if I posted about writing with a link to Grammarly. In case you don’t know what it is, Grammarly is an online proofreading service. You upload your text, run it through their editor, and their bot tells you what mistakes you’ve made and, it says here, helps you correct them.

It’s pretty slick, and I can see why I might actually shell out some cash money to use it. I’m highly disappointed in their try-out, though, and here’s why.

I wrote this story:

Fear Itself

by Marian Allen

It isn’t but one thing in the world I’m afraid of, and that’s a English teacher. They useta be this one that th’owed a eraser at me ever time I said something the wrong way, and I seemed to always be saying something the wrong way.

And wouldn’t you know, I was doing fine ripping off convenience stores and this one guy turns out to be a English teacher laid off or something?

I says, “This here’s a stickup.”

“This is a stickup,” he says.

“Who’re you, Little Sir Echo? I want all them bills outa the cash reshter.”

“You want all those bills out of the cash register.”

So I hit him upside the head with my gun. And now I’m doing extra time for assault and battery.

Damn, I hate me a English teacher!

~ * ~

Deliberately weak in grammar and usage, just to see what Grammarly would do with it, yes?

I ran it through their editor and got this:

So it told me, generally, what class of errors I had, but I couldn’t access the specific errors. Still, it’s good to know I really did probably write the story myself, and wasn’t channelling some yahoo.

Well, thinks I, maybe I need to register for the free trial before I can try it.

So I registered for the site, but guess what? You can’t sign up for a free trial without signing on for a paid subscription. You pay, you get a 7-day free trial, to see if you like it. At $29.95 a month, no thank you at the moment, but quite possibly later.

However, having registered, I was able to refine my scan thusly:

I could choose a default style (Creative, in this case), which scans differently. My score went from 41 to 52 out of 100, because Grammarly excluded some “mistakes”, rightly seeing them as creative license. Of course, I can only assume it excluded the correct ones, since I still only had the generalized report.

Finally, I cut and pasted this post, excluding the story, to see how that came out.

75? Now, that’s just hurtful.

I subsequently got an email from the Grammarly site, saying that I could cancel any time during the 7-day free trial, but I had to input a payment method before the trial could begin.

Uh, no.

Still, would Little Miss Tightwad EVER want to pay $30 for a month’s use?

Maybe.

After I’ve written a book, after I’ve run it past my beta readers, after I’ve done the rewrites, when I’ve looked at it so often I can’t see mistakes anymore, I need a dispassionate set of ocular input receptors to catch what the meat sacks have missed.

If I didn’t have beta readers, a husband who’s a retired English teacher, or a mother who is death on errors, or if I wrote many novels a year, it would be worth it.

If I were writing technical, business, or academic papers, especially several a month, it would totally be worth running them through a scan to catch and correct formal errors.

The price per month goes down if you pay by the quarter, and way down if you pay by the year.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character who believes he or she has done something perfectly is criticised by a stranger.

MA

 

#SampleSunday – Karol Hears the News

I’m all twitterpated about the Hydra Summer Bash coming up on July 16-17, when The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of Sage, will be one of thirty books free on Kindle.

Here’s an excerpt from it, for your tasting pleasure.

Karol was the kinninger (ruler) of Layounna, until her consort sent armed men (Swords) to murder her and her heart-husband, Cameron. Cameron gave his life holding them at bay so she could escape. She has taken refuge with an old wisewoman.

The Fall of Onagros – Excerpt

Karol Hears the News

by Marian Allen

Moder said, “There’s news from the capital today.”

“What is that to me?”

“It seems you were right, Cinnie beren Moder. The Kinninger is dead. And her sister’s put away.”

“Sorcha….”

“Is that her name? Karol never thought of that, did she, the day the men were hunting for her? Took to her heels, and forgot that her sister stood behind her.”

Karol was stung by the justice of this reproof, and the impertinence. “She had other considerations – no doubt. How dare you judge her?”

Moder Zglaria shrugged.

After a moment’s silence, Karol said, “What other news of… of her sister?”

“They say she isn’t dead, just locked away somewhere. They say she renounced the throne.”

Karol’s voice was bleak. “Landry Oliva has her, then.”

“No, they say she put herself into a Waystation. What do you think?”

“It could be so. Power frightened her.”

“Maybe she knew her limits. Maybe she knew her strengths. Still….” Moder shrugged again, “she could hardly have done worse than Karol, could she, now?”

Karol met the old woman’s eyes, then looked away. “Not in the end. Karol did her best. She would have done better, in time. She loosened her grasp, for just a little while. She left her charge in someone else’s care, and turned her back. And it was gone.”

“Well…better people have done worse, I suppose. Her sister’s safe, at any rate, and they say Karol left no heirs. The House of Onagros is dissolved. Landry Oliva’s declared himself our Kinninger under the lion flag of the House of Sarpa. We’re all invited to rejoice.”

Karol felt her face swelling with outraged blood. Why such fury? she asked herself. She knew, when the Swords drew on her, that Landry would wear her crown; at least, had plotted for it. But it hadn’t been real. Nothing had been real but Cameron.

What a fool she had been! She felt less anger and contempt for Landry than for herself. She had betrayed her House, and the country, and Cameron; she had placed her love above her honor and she had murdered both.

~ * ~

If you just can’t wait, you can read the prologue and first chapter of The Fall of Onagros here.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character learns that someone they (singular they) hate has something the character didn’t care about before.

MA

 

#Caturday Cat Cures Computer

I couldn’t decide whether to fix Mom’s laptop or not. At first, I thought I might, then I thought, “Why spoil her?” Then I thought how nice it was when she sat on the couch with the laptop and I curled up next to her all snuggly, and I thought I’d fix it. Then, when I did my first blog post from the desktop, I liked it, and thought I wouldn’t fix it.

She got tired of my stalling, and took it to the shop. The computer guy said, “You got yourself a fancy paperweight. Maybe you could sell it on eBay as is for $100.”

I could tell Mom liked that idea, but I knew she’d never do it. So I said, “Mom, if the computer loads the BIOS and starts to load Windows, the hard drive works, duh!” She had made the mistake of buying the computer new from a shop, so it didn’t come with Windows installation disks, so she couldn’t run the repair. Sure, she should have made a rescue disk, but she didn’t. Not too smart, Mom!!

Anyway, she had her Ubuntu Linux installation disk, so I told her to go into the BIOS and change the boot order and boot from the Linux disk, and the computer works fine. At least she can get the few files off there that she hadn’t backed up yet.

But I’m hoping she’ll still work here in the office, because I like having two chairs.

The one without the pillow is the one I’m sitting in now. The one with the pillow is the one I sit in when Mom is at the keyboard. It’s close enough for me to get lots of pats, and it’s really really soft and cushy. Plus, I can get hairs all over her printer paper. Ha ha!

I can also see out the window while I’m next to Mom, which I can’t do on the couch. It’s pretty exciting, and very useful. I can see when somebody pulls up in front of the house so I can hide before they come in (I don’t like company). I can watch squirrels and birds on this tree just outside the window. I can guard against the Schmeltz dogs romping all over the place, now that Joe is gone.

So, all in all, I’m glad I fixed Mom’s laptop. I know she appreciates it, because she opened a can of tuna for herself yesterday, and she didn’t scrape every last fragment out of the can before she gave me the juice. Mmmmm! My favorite!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR CATS: How does your human show appreciation for the things you do?

KG

Start Some Weirdness, Stop Some Weirdness

I stumbled on the greatest site this week! It’s called Odd Xtreme Paranormal Oddities. How cool is that? Way cool, that’s how. Go there to find out about Adam’s first wife, Madam Blavatsky, and more. You’re welcome.

I got worried about my site being secure — you know MomGoth loves her Sweet Little Baby Angels, and doesn’t want them to get infected with malware when they visit her, so I installed Wordfence. It’s a WordPress program that scans your site’s files and alerts you to any potential nastiness so you can nip it in the bud and block fake commenters and stuff. I’m pleased to say I had very few problems and cleaned them up. No infections on my site, but a vile commenter and a poor sucker who had been hacked.

Speaking of vile commenters, here’s a list of known spammers. Imma check these against my commenters and delete whoever shows up from this list. ha! Take THAT!

And here’s a good post about three common mistakes bloggers make that enable malicious commenting. Imma make sure those are in place here, too.

Combining those two subjects, I’m currently reading a wonderful book called GOOD COP, DEAD COP, about which more when I’ve finished.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Look at that Odd site, pick two subjects, and combine them.

MA

 

Summer Bash of #freeebooks

Mark your calendars! Put away your wallets! Hydra Publications is having a Summer Bash!

Thirty — count ‘em — thirty (30) ebooks will be free on July 16-17, 2013, and one of ‘em will be the first book of my fantasy trilogy: THE FALL OF ONAGROS, Book 1 of SAGE.

Here’s what I believe is a complete list:

The books included in the summer bash are:

Amy the Astronaut and the flight for freedom by Steven Donahue

Andraste by Marissa Mills

Anon by Peter Giglio

Blood of the Highland Moon by Morinda Montgomery

Bounty Hunter by Amy McCorkle

Bridgeworld by Travis McBee

Chronicles of Destiny by Etta Jean

Dearly Departed by Rachael Rawlings

Deception Peak by Dianne Gardner

Empyreal Fate by Rachel Hunter

Eternal Patrol by Michael Wallace

Gnosis by Tom Wallace

Into the Spiral by Erin Danzer

Love Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me by Babs Mountjoy

Lure of the Vampire by Bertena Varney

Morning Star by Desiree Finkbeiner

Primal by Raven Bower

Raising Riley by Brick Marlin

Reality Check by Eric Garrison

Tale Spinner by David Donaghe

The Exile’s Violin by Bobby Hunter

The Fall of Onagros by Marian Allen

The Hand of God by Tony Acree

The Heart Denied by Linda Anne Wulf

The Know-it-all Girl by Joanna Forman

The Universal Mirror by Gwen Perkins

The Wall outside by James Peercy

Ukishima by Nigel Sellars

Virginia Creeper by Blaine Pardoe

Okay, be anal, then. Yes, there are 29. I asked about that, and was told, “Maybe there’s a surprise?”

And remember, even though these are Kindle books, you don’t have to have a Kindle or electronic reader to read them. Free Kindle applications are available for any electronic reading device and for just plain computers. Or you can read Kindle books online. So now you know.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A carefully recorded bunch of something comes up one short. People? Cookies? Minutes of tape?

MA

#6WSC Inspiration

My beautiful sister in The Netherlands, Marion Driessen, the DuTchess, has the six-word story challenge today.

Her challenge word is INSPIRATION. Go to Figments of a DuTchess, read her post, write your story, and post the link in her comments section.

Here’s my response.

The Hound of Hell

Good dog, bad behavior, funny stories.

A little self-serving, referring to my own story and blog posts, but it’s appropriate. Joe inspired quite a few blog posts and my mother’s favorite short story with his good-natured, rage-inducing, loving but clueless personality.

We still kinda miss him.

Crazy ol’ dog.

Marion says she’ll have the prompt again on July 3.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Go to Marion’s site.

MA

Dump Cake

My British friend Andrea Gilbey asked me what a dump cake was the other day, so here’s an explanation and a picture.

There are different versions of dump cake, but the kind I mean when I use the term is the kind my Aunts Ruth and Rose (the twins) taught me: Into a pan, dump some fruit. Dump a box of cake mix over it. Melt a stick of butter (or margarine) and dump that over the top. Bake it for an hour at 350F.

This one that I made the other day is different, in that I used this recipe for the fruit base:

1 29-ounce can pumpkin
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk (I used almond milk)
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt

So I mixed that up, dumped on the cake mix, sprinkled on some pecans, dumped on the margarine, and baked.

The top ends up like a cross between cake and cookies, and it’s real good!

I’m posting another good recipe today at Fatal Foodies: A Different Southwestern Casserole.

I wrote a 500-word story yesterday and posted it at the Corydon Quills & Quibbles website. I invite you to hop over and read it.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Remember somebody teaching you how to make or do something.

MA

Kat French is Twisted

Katina French is a wonderful writer and a funny funny lady (only when she means to be, of course). I love her great big bunches! She relatively recently discovered the bliss of writing Steampunk reimaginings of fairy tales. I asked her to write about that, and here’s what she said:

Twisting Fairy Tales for a New Audience

by Katina French

When I was a kid, the words “Once upon a time…” were an invitation. Sit. Listen. Ride along on an adventure.

I was big into adventures as a kid. After watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, I went digging for artefacts in my back yard (didn’t find any.) After watching Star Wars, I got cross-eyed staring at objects and trying to move them with the Force (not much better luck there.)

Adventure tales, and fairy tales, are both stories about a journey. A character starts out either a prince or a pauper. The funny thing is, both princesses and paupers have very limited worlds. The prince never gets to leave the castle. The farm boy has never seen anything beyond his small village.

So fairy tales are about expanding your world.

There’s also usually a villain or a monster. The wicked witch with cannibalistic tendencies. The hungry and devious wolf. Unpredictable, easily-offended fairies with vindictive enchantments and a mean sense of humor.

So fairy tales are a warning–that outside world can be dangerous.

There’s almost always a treasure or reward. Sometimes the reward is “you get to live.” Sometimes the reward is “you get a wildly attractive and wealthy spouse.” Sometimes the reward is a cave full of gold and treasure.

So fairy tales are about following your dreams.

There are so many things that get conveyed in classic fairy tales. What strikes me most is that these things are timeless. Children will always have to grow up and leave the nest. The world will always be a dangerous and intimidating place. We’re always enriched by taking risks and expanding our world, even if there are often costs as well.

I think people retell fairy tales because of that timelessness. Because the themes and journeys are the same, even when the landscape and characters look wildly different. We have a dozen different versions of Snow White floating around the mediaverse right now, and you know what? That’s okay. I think there can be as many Snow Whites as there are snow flakes, each one unique in some way, but each one made of the same basic stuff.

I didn’t rewrite “The Snow Queen” because I thought Hans Christian Anderson didn’t do a good job. I rewrote it because his version spoke to me. It felt like a story that would still hold together even if the characters were a different age, in a different place, with different problems.

The best fairy tales are made of good, solid story materials. That means they’re durable, like really good yarn. The truth in those stories is something you can take apart, and remake it into something a little different. It can be different, but still beautiful, still truthful.

How the new piece holds up sort of depends on your craftsmanship.

~ * ~

You can buy ONCE UPON A CLOCKWORK TALE here:

Amazon (paperback)

Amazon (Kindle)

Barnes & Noble Nook

Smashwords (eBooks for Kobo, Apple iBook, Sony Reader, etc.)

You can read more about Kat at her website, Katina French.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Retell a fairy tale or folk tale or family story in another place and/or time.

MA

#Sample Sunday – Connie v. Darryl

My latest from Hydra Publications, SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING, takes place mostly on another planet, but the heart of it is relationships: friendship, one-up-manship, ownership….

In this excerpt, one up-by-my-own-bootstraps celebrity is talking to another about the current social season with the exclusive group they both want to lead. Connie speaks first.

I just realized this bit has almost no dialog tags. Hrmm….

SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING – excerpt

Connie v. Darryl

by Marian Allen

“This is going to be a very long Season.”

“Long for some,” said Darryl.

That was nightmare talk. I thought it was long past time somebody woke up.

“Tell me: What are you going to do when the Season is over? When we’re off Marner, and you’re nobody’s Master; when you’re back to being just plain Mem Moran?”

“Worried about me, sweetheart?”

“Just wondering what you could possibly do for an encore.”

Darryl laughed. “Now that may be difficult. But I’m sure, together, we could think of something.”

“What about a suicide pact? You first.”

“Ah, Connie, Connie.”

“If you tell me I’m worthy of you, I’ll slay you. I have had it with your smarmy compliments. Do you think I don’t see through you? Do you think I’m going to fall for your crummy, cheap, soft-soapery? I have an over-active power drive, myself; do you think I don’t recognize it in somebody else?”

“But that’s why we–”

“Baloney. You don’t want to share power, with me or anybody else. You want to put me in your trophy case. One more freak in Darryl Moran’s freak collection.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. You misjudge me, Connie.”

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“Do something human.”

~ * ~

Just so you know: This is not one of those, “She thinks she hates him but she comes to love him in the end” things. She hates him. So will you.

The first chapter of SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING is on this clicky place.

At the moment, SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING is only available for Kindle, but a print version is on the way.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character offers another some kind of partnership.

MA

#Caturday Relatively Funny

Grandma took a bunch of pictures of Ozzie and Sweetie Pie and Mom scanned them for her. I found them, and I’m going to show you some of them. Since these are Mom’s Mom’s furbabies, that makes them my Uncle Ozzie and Aunt Sweetie Pie.

Mom calls Sweetie Pie Mma Ramotswe, though, because they’re both “traditionally built”. Mom says Sweetie Pie comes when she says, “Come here, Mma!” I don’t know whether to believe her or not: my mom is a big liar kidder.

If this doesn’t show you Mma’s true size, here’s one of her trying to get into a cylinder just big enough for a small cat. Ozzie likes to curl up on top of it, where he just barely fits, but she can’t. She can’t fit IN it, either, but she won’t admit that.

And here’s one of her trying to share Ozzie’s cardboard bed in the dining room. Anywhere Ozzie sleeps, she wants to take it over. In fact, Mom says Grandma made Ozzie this cardboard-and-towel bed because Mma took over the cat bed in the living room.

But here’s one place Mma doesn’t try to take over. When Grandma was in the Rehab Hospital, Mom gave her a stuffed puppy. Ozzie loves it! The puppy lives on top of this living room chair, and Ozzie loves to lie on top of him and squish him flat!

Here’s another place he loves to be. But he says he can’t get in trouble for this, because he isn’t on the table! ha ha! I don’t like it when he comes down onto my porch, but I like the way he thinks! ha ha!

And here’s my favorite picture. It makes me laugh every time I look at it. What a long, silly cat!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR CATS: One cat tries to take something away from another cat. What is it? Is it successful or not?

MA