S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 101

I and Me, which is correct?

Pretty much everyone knows when you are talking about yourself and you are the subject of the sentence, you say "I" as in "I went to town."

"Me went to town" is something a 3-year-old would say.

Although lots of people who should know better say "Me and Joe went to town" when, of course, it should be "Joe and I . . ."  ("Me and Joe" always sounds like "Mean Joe" so I respond with "How mean is Joe?")

And, "Joe and me" is also wrong because you use "I" when you are the subject and "me" when you are the object. And the other person always comes first (I know, not fair).

But what about the end of sentences? When do you use "I" and when do you use "me"? This confuses a lot of people.

Well, it depends. If you are the object of the sentence, use "me": "Joe gave the ball to me."

However, if you are comparing yourself to something, use I: "Joe is taller than I."

Some people get this mixed up, thinking "I" is correct in all circumstances and say "Joe gave the ball to I" which makes me want to pull out what's left of my hair.

To figure out if you should use "I," add "am" (i.e., a verb).  "Joe is taller than I am" is correct. And you can just drop the "am." I hope you wouldn't say "Joe is taller than me am."

But you wouldn't say "Joe gave the ball to I am." So you use "me" in that case.

The easy rule is, if you can add "am" (or "was") and the sentence still makes sense, use "I". If you can't add "am," use "me."

And, on a related note, you don't say "Joe is taller than him" because "Joe is taller than him is" is wrong. You say "Joe is taller than he."

Write Fight Champion

As part of our local NaNoWriMo local region's TGIO (Thank God it's Over) party, we had a "write fight." And I won (see trophy at left).

How this worked was the referee gave two writers three random writing prompts. They then had four minutes to write something (not long enough for a story). The referee read the stories without saying who wrote them, and then the group voted on the best.

We started with eight participants in the single-elimination tournament. Which meant I had to compete three times. And this was done with pen and paper so I had the added challenge of trying to write neatly (see writing sample below).

Here are the three vignettes I wrote (unedited except for spelling):

First Round: prompts: cartoon character, lottery, orchestra

"Why do we have to be here?" Goofy gushed.
"You won the lottery. You're rich now. This is what rich people do."
"But I don't like orchestra music."
"You're rich now. It doesn't matter what you like."
"I had more fun when I was a poor goober farmer."
"Shut up, the music is about to start."
"Who are you anyway," Goofy asked.
"I'm the lottery enforcer. I make sure you do your part to earn your $10 million."
"Garsh!" Goofy exclaimed.
"Hey, you turned in the ticket. Didn't you read the contract?"
"I don't want to be rich."
"Too late, pal."

Second Round: prompts: a toupee, a sleuth, an evil roommate.Me trying to write neatly

Detective Larkin studied the toupee. It was resting on the carpet, looking forlorn and unwanted. But it was the blood that most interested Larkin.
"I didn't do it, man," the roommate whined. "Not that he didn't deserve it, wearing that stupid toupee and sticking his fingers in his hears watching anime."
"So you deny killing your roommate?" Larkin asked.
"Yes!" the pudgy man cried. "I don't even own a stiletto."
"I never said he was stabbed with a stiletto." Larkin smirked.
The roommate shrieked and ran for the door.
Larkin pulled his gun and yelled, "Stop!"

Winning Round: prompts: a lemon, an alien, a Venus fly trap.

The ship landed among the rows and rows of trees. Out came what any human would call a Venus fly trap but it was instead from Mars and ate mosquitoes.
From the trees hung bulbous, yellow fruit The alien took one, went back into his glittering ship, and with a muted yelp it shot into the azure sky.
The alien walked to his commanders quarters and present the fruit.
"Fool!" the commander bellowed. "That's a lemon. My doctor's orders were explicit: put the lime in the coconut and call him in the morning."
"Forgive me, sir," the alien trembled.

I have to say this was fun and challenging and I came out on top of some very good writers. It's very difficult to write something coherent in four minutes. I hope we do this again next year.

The Speculative Fiction Cantina with Sara Deutsch and Sarantos

Today on the Speculative Fiction Cantina we are proud to welcome Sara Deutsch and Sarantos.

Sara Deutsch

Sara DeutschSara Deutsch, M.S., is an author, multi-media artist, Creative Arts Therapist, and teacher who focuses on creativity as a healing force and the art of collaboration.  Her journey led her  into many worlds. She trekked alone in the  Himalayas, and lived in virgin jungles of Hawaiian Islands, eating only fruit and wild vegetables. Sara draws from doctoral study in Psychobiology and East/West Psychology, years in a contemplative  order, 28 years of private practice, college teaching, and multimedia explorations.

Sara's books include:

VIOLET MOON--Fairy Tales with Art to Heal the Heart

EXTENDED FAMILY--Original Fairy Tales with Art and Heart 

CREATIVE COLLABORATION: Magic Ways to Create Cartoons and Stories Together

Sara's Links:

Website
Amazon
Facebook
LinkedIn

Sarantos

Sarantos is finally releasing his long-awaited and eagerly anticipated 1st solo artist music album on November 18th 2014. Sarantos' music has received rave reviews so far and he relishes this chance to pursue his life long dream.
Sarantos unique sound has been best described by industry insiders as "an emotionally powerful vocal style masterfully united with music that is a fusion of classic 80s rock blended with modern soft rock and pop music!"
Sarantos currently has over 1.4M Social Media followers and is rated #6 on Reverbnation in the pop genre worldwide.  Sarantos performed at the Toronto Music Festival on May 6th with his new band to a sold out live audience.
Sarantos was also recently nominated for 2 awards for the upcoming International Music & Entertainments Awards on October 4th 2014. The categories are Rock Song of the Year and Pop Album of the Year.
With recorded hits and new tunes waiting to be released every single month until the day he dies, Sarantos music screams success and stimulates an overdue conversation in the changing music industry. Sarantos loyal music fans continue to show their support by proudly showing off Sarantos merchandise and staying tuned into Sarantos daily down-to-earth and very real social media revelations. His songs are being broadcast every day on various radios stations around the world. Sarantos continues to do interviews around the world every single week and fans can listen in to some of them on his YouTube page. Let’s not forget his funny, sarcastic, witty and genuine music videos that leave his fans not knowing what to expect next.
There will be plenty of continued buzz throughout the year.  A new song will be released on the 1st Tuesday of every month, a new music video on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, a new Funny video of the month on the 3rd Tuesday of every month and a new Whiteboard video on the 4th Tuesday of every month! And now, Sarantos has just revealed that he is also going to start releasing a new Chapter form his fiction/fantasy book each month with the book also coming out at the end of the year.
Sarantos has been writing lyrics since 4th grade and is passionate about the words he puts to the music. Music was always in his blood. Music was always a passion and much more than a hobby. Sarantos has written over 2,000 songs!
Having undergone several personal challenges with Sarantos' father passing away two years ago after a long hard-fought battle with lung cancer, dealing with personal health issues like asthma and allergies which affected his singing style, going thru life's ups & downs, the timing is finally right. Sarantos main motivation, however, is to raise money for charity. 
33% of any music related sales are going straight to charity!
Sarantos has always been inclined to help people in need and is proud to launch this CD as a way to donate a portion of proceeds to charity, hopefully inspiring other artists to do the same. The 11 charities chosen for each song include American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, Make-a-Wish Foundation, American Heart Association, St Jude's, Hellenic Academy, ASERF, American Red Cross, Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago Medical School, Thanioton Society & the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
The website, Melogia (which in Greek means "with words") was established by Sarantos, an aspiring singer and song writer.
Sarantos Mission or Goal:
My goal when you listen to one of my songs is very simple. I want you to feel the need to:
-Sing-Dance or move to the groove -Play the song over and over again
Sarantos' book: Not Where I Want to Be (available on his website)
Sarantos' Links:
Website Blog Facebook Google + YouTube Instagram Twitter
From today's show: The Orion Launch

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Movie Review: The Giver

Probably due to the popularity of The Hunger Games, there have been a spate of books and consequent movies portraying a dystopian future  where a plucky teenaged hero saves the day. The Giver is no exception, and like The Hunger Games and Divergent, it gives us a society ruled by despotic leaders. But in The Giver , the despotism is more subtle.

In "The Community" there is no crime, war, suffering, at least on the surface. But that comes at a price. The government chooses your profession, your mate, and your children. Even your clothes. "Love" is a banned word. Freedom of expression is forbidden. And anyone who is inconvenient to the Community is "released": a euphemism for killing them. This includes babies who do not meet certain standards and anyone who reaches age 65. And life is bland for everyone. In fact, much of the movie is shot in grey scale to emphasize this.

Finally, only one person in the Community is allowed to know history before the Community, called the Keeper. And now it's time to train a new Keeper, and that's Jonas, the aforementioned plucky teenaged hero who, upon learning what he is missing (color, music, dancing, joy, snow) in the Community, tries to spread it his friends. This is forbidden.

The Giver is a little slow and a bit unrealistic at time. But it has powerful moments such as the "release" of a baby. It shows the subtle tyranny of trying making everyone safe from reality, something that is happening now in many places. The philosophy that the all-knowing state will take care of you and protect you, they only price is your freedom is too prevalent in society today. The Giver shows us the logical conclusion of that existence: black and white, bland, where nothing or no one is different.

I enjoyed this movie and recommend it as a study on the tyranny of the nanny state, a happy-faced kind of tyranny versus the hobnailed boot kind of the Hunger Games.

Why I Love/Hate NaNoWriMo

November is over.

That means NaNoWriMo is over and if you haven't written your 50,000 words (at least) you haven't won.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is an annual self-flagellation that some writers put themselves through, including me the past two years. And this year I won. I managed to write 63,388 words on a novel called (now) Treasure of the Pirate Planet. I did it in 25 days for an average daily word count of 2,536. My biggest day was the second to the last when I did 3,666 words.

I do NaNoWriMo for two reasons. One is the same reason soldiers will stay in a foxhole as artillery shells are landing around them. I don't want to let down my buddies. My local writers' group is very much into NaNoWriMo and they want to have a good word-count at the end for the region. So I participate in order to help raise that word-count.

The other reason is that it focuses the mind so that, yes, you do often put out a manuscript (first draft) in less than 30 days, or at least make good progress toward it (50,000 words is a very short book). It fits with my mantas "Just Keep Writing" and "Your first draft will suck, get over it and write the damn thing."

But the problem I have with NaNoWriMo is that a lot of begining writers don't realize that what you are writing in November is a first daft.  It needs to be edited, proofread, edited some more, revised, beta read, revised, edited, and then maybe then it's ready to be published or submitted.

For example, I didn't think my NaNoWriMo novel from last year, Treasure of the Black Hole, was ready to be submitted to a publisher until June of this year. And I probably won't submit this years novel (a sequel to last year's) until May or June (depending on how fast people get betas back to me).

But I think too many beginning writers think, "Oh, I've written a book, let's put on on Kindle in time for Christmas." And that really annoys me because it gives indie authors a bad name when people publish bad first drafts.

I do like that this year, NaNoWriMo has a "badge" you can earn by promising to revise your novel. I'm hoping that will give more participants the clue that they do have to revise their novels. Sure, you can whip out that first draft in a month. But now you have months of work to do to finish it.

Huskies Win Apple Cup

Last night the annual cross-state rivalry game between the University of Washington Huskies and the Washington State University Cougars was held at 7:30 P.M. in a very cold Pullman, Washington. Where I lived, wind chills were in the single digits last night and it was probably the same on the field at Martin Stadium on the WSU campus. But the cold didn't dampen the enthusiasm and rivalry both teams exhibited. The cold, however, did affect play, as dropped balls plagued both teams, but mostly the Cougars.
The Huskies got off to an early lead on their second play from scrimmage with a long run touchdown in the first quarter. Then for a while it looked as if it was going to be a defensive game. The Cougars multiple times tried to convert 4th downs only to give up the ball to the Huskies. But the Huskies couldn't reach the end zone easily either, They did managed a TD pass making the score at halftime  14-0.
Again, on their second play from scrimmage of the second quarter, the Huskies made a touchdown. Later they added a field goal making score 24-0 at the end of the third quarter and it was starting to look as if the Cougs would be shut out in front of their own crowd.
But the Cougars managed to make two touchdowns. On the second one, with not much time left in the game, they went for the 2-point conversion and missed it. The final score was 31-13. By then most of the crowd had left.
This gives the Huskies a 8-5 record on the season and Coach Chris Petersen the first 8-win season for a first-year coach in Husky history (although, he had 13 games to do it in). The Huskies will be going to a bowl and speculation is either the Cactus Bowl or the Armed Forces Bowl (both on January 2nd).
The bad news is, the Huskies were only 4-5 in conference. Admittedly, the Pac-12 is a tough conference with many teams ranked or formerly ranked.
I'm hoping next year Petersen will have made his imprint on the team and it will be a more cohesive and unified group. It'll be tough to compete in the Pac-12 (with Oregon consistently being a top-ranked team) but if anyone can do it, I think it is Petersen.

I Love/Hate Movie Trailers

The Star Wars VII The Force Awakens teaser trailer came out yesterday. You can watch it here.  I won't.

I have this love/hate relationship with movie trailers (also called "previews"). I enjoy watching them as they are often better than the movies they are promoting. They are fun and I enjoy analyzing how they try to sell you on a movie (sometimes I think I should have been in advertising).

But, if it's for a movie I want to see, I don't want to watch the trailer. Why? One word: spoilers. Trailers often show way too much giving away plot twists (or hints at plot twists). I hate sitting in a theater watching a movie and thinking "Oh, he's going to betray the hero because the trailer hinted at it" and then being right.

I have the same problem with previews on television and sometimes book blurbs. They give too much away (I always try not to give too much away in my book blurbs).

Once I went to see a movie with my son and a trailer came on for another movie I wanted to see. I put my coat over my head and hummed loudly so I couldn't hear anything. I'll mute the TV and put my hand up so I can't see the screen when an ad for a movie I want to see comes on (lately, the third Hobbit movie and Interstellar). If I'm watching a television show regularly, I never watch the "next episode" previews for the same reason.

I wonder if it's because I'm a writer I see things other people don't and can figure out plot points and twists with less information. Or maybe everyone else has this problem.

But if I don't want to see the movie, or don't care that much about spoilers, I really enjoy trailers.

The Speculative Fiction Cantina with Mary Louise Davie and TR Goodman

Today on the Speculative Fiction Cantina we are proud to welcome Mary Louise Davie and TR Goodman

Mary Louise Davie
Mary Louise Davie is an author of hard Science Fiction; a form of Science Fiction that offers validity in the details – scientific or technical.

Having a background that includes working as a Chemist, then working in IT, but most of all a love of Theoretical physics she is able to draw on that background to create reality within her fiction.

The author grew up in rural Scotch Plains in Union County, New Jersey;  a quaint town that provided earthly charm and adventures that fueled her imagination. This was combined with a father that first introduced Mary Louise to the night sky and the beauty of the stars and a mother that was an English teacher at the Scotch Plains – Fanwood High School and provided both a love for reading and an understanding of literature.

After years of writing just because she had to, a friend convinced her to send her stuff out. She has been publishing books since that time.

Mary Louise currently resides in West Milford, New Jersey with her big German Sheppard puppy, Kazi (short for Casmir after The Dutch Physicist and a character in her new book.)

Mary's Books:

Sanacion: The Black Hole Mission (paperback and Kindle)

Sanacion II: We Are the Aliens (paperback and Kindle)

Mary's Links:

Website
Blog
Facebook
Twitter

TR Goodman

TR Goodman was born after a volcanic eruption with a love of scifi and fantasy. Armed with a pen and sonic screwdriver, he now writes his own stories.

TR's Books:

My Name Is Michael Bishop 

Abigail Abernathy: All-Night Analytical Engine Analyst 

Broken Habit 

TR's Links:

Website (and blog)
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
Goodreads


From today's program

Line of every car and floor the throttle.
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Hand Dryers are Unhealthy

I've always hated those hand dryers in some public restrooms. I can dry my hands with a towel in about 5 seconds. Those hand dryers, especially the older models that used to be ubiquitous, you had to "dry" your hands for what felt like five minutes to get them dry enough to finish drying your hands on your pants. I hated them.

The newer ones are better. The high speed ones only take about four minutes to get your hands dry enough to use your pants. And the Dyson AirBlade models actually work, but still take longer than using a paper towel.

I have been known to in fast food restaurants to walk out of the bathroom with wet hands, go to the napkin dispenser, and use a bunch of napkins to dry my hands.

Suffice it to say, I loath hand dryers.

And now I have another reason: they are unsanitary.

According to a Leeds University study, the hand dryer splatters bacteria around. The air around hand dryers has 27 times the bacteria than the air around towel dispensers. (And, towel dispensers don't blow that nasty air on your hands):

The study shows that both jet and warm air hand dryers spread bacteria into the air and onto users and those nearby. 

And now we have yet another reason to hate hand dryers. They are filthy.

The Mystery of the Semicolon.

Once upon a time there was a poor, misunderstood punctuation mark: the semicolon. Not quite a colon, not quite a comma, the deprived little mark lived a life of obscurity and incorrect usage.

But it doesn't have to be that way; even you can learn to use the semicolon correctly. Because for about 99% of the time you'll use it, it's very easy.

A semicolon separates two complete sentences that are closely related. The key word there is "complete." If you can't put a period in place of the semicolon, you are using it incorrectly. For example:

CORRECT:
"It look like it's going to snow; I think I'll put my snow tires on."

INCORRECT:
"It looks like it's going to snow; snow tire time."

(As you can see, "snow tire time" is not a complete sentence. In that case I would put either a colon (:) or an emdash.)

We could write the first sentence as two sentences: "It look like it's going to snow. I think I'll put my snow tires on." So that means using a semicolon is correct, assuming the sentences are related. For example:

CORRECT:
"There's a great movie on TV tonight; it looks like a good night to stay home."

INCORRECT:
"There's a great movie on TV tonight; my house is blue."

In the second case, the sentences are not closely related so a semicolon would not be appropriate. Now there are no hard-and-fast rules on what is closely related so use your best judgement. Usually, if the second sentence completes the thought, that's the time to use the semicolon.

Also note, after the semicolon you do not capitalize the first word as you would if they were two separate sentences (unless you would capitalize it anyway as proper noun or pronoun).

There is one other use for the semicolon and it has to do with long lists in one sentence. But as a fiction writer you are unlikely to run across that need.

And with just a little care, you too can help the little semicolon out of obscurity and use it correctly.