Judith Post's Blog, page 132

Overflowing

Two of my friends are serious gardeners.   Each year, they kneel before their flower beds and impose their will on them.  They dig up clumps of daylilies and break them apart, so that they don’t overcrowd.  They weed and thin plants that have spread where they’re not supposed to.  And their flowerbeds look organized and thriving.  There are spaces between Japanese irises and bee balm, between columbine and hostas.  Everything is orderly.

I’m in short supply of this kind of discipline.  My flowerbed is a testimony to survival of the fittest.  Myrtle eats daisies.  Phlox reseed themselves at will.   If a plant lives and reaches for the sun, I’m happy with it, can’t bear to yank it up and tell it that it shouldn’t be there.

The same thing’s happened to my writing lately.  If an idea comes and clamors for attention, it gets it.  I tap my computer keys and bring it to life.  But I’m a fan of series.  If I fall in love with a character–like Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson, Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock, or Sharon Ashwood’s The Dark Forgotten–I buy every book until I run out.

When I first started writing paranormal, I had no idea what would work for me.  So I dabbled in a little bit of everything.  I combined mysteries with ghosts and serial killers with vampires.  But just like my flower bed, novels and novellas began jostling into one another, all stand alones with main characters struggling to poke their heads above the crowd to survive.  It’s time to bring more order, time to thin my ideas out, to start writing sequels and let my characters grow.  And hopefully, then, they’ve thrive.

(With a few novellas tossed in here and there.  A girl can’t be too structured.)

 

Rambling Men

My grandfathers died when I was too young to really remember them.  Instead, I have general impressions and a few vivid moments that stick in my mind.  Mostly, I know what people say about them, the stories that survived their lives.  As far as I can tell, both made for subpar husbands, not so wonderful parents, but awesome grandpas.

My dad’s father was a caboose man on trains.  He swung the lanterns and road the rails.  I was told he “had” to marry my grandmother.  I can believe that, since theirs didn’t seem like an especially good union.  If they had anything in common, I never saw it.  Rumor was that Grandma was a waitress at a restaurant my grandfather frequented often.  The rest was too scandalous for my young ears, but they stuck it out and raised three children.  My father swore he wouldn’t have a marriage like theirs, that his years wouldn’t be spent in endless arguing.  But by the time I hit the stage, they were too old and too tired to fight daily.  I remember Grandma as reclining on a couch, eating bananas and reading True Detective magazines.  Her favorite words were, “I did my duty.”  My grandfather, on the other hand, still had a zest for life.  He took us out to eat whenever he won at poker.  He won a big pot once and paid for Dad to drive to the east coast so we could play on the shore.  And he loved to tell stories.  Stories about a drunk who passed out on the railroad tracks and the train cut off his head, and everyone had to take their lanterns and search the fields, looking for it.  Stories about chugging through storms and staying in little towns.  I loved sitting on his lap, listening to him weave his tales.

My mom’s father was a truck driver.  Pure Danish–a dark Dane, he always added.  His parents settled in Wisconsin and farmed.   How he met my grandma, I don’t know, but Grandma glowed when she talked about “Pete” coming for her with his horse and buggy and taking her to barn dances.  Grandpa was a lot of fun.  He took us for ice cream cones and bought my sister and me shiny tricycles.  But he was not to be depended on.  During the Depression, he worked for one trucking firm after another to keep a job, but he didn’t send any of his money back to Grandma.  Instead, he stayed with Grandma’s sister and her husband on their farm, eating meals, while Grandma struggled alone in Chicago, trying to keep a roof over their four childrens’ heads.  She lost the house, was forced to move to a tiny, two room shack, and sent the kids for buckets of lard and flour to fill their bellies.  After the Depression, Grandpa returned, and Grandma took him back.  “Why?” I asked once, and Grandma said, “It was different then.  Not many jobs for women.  I had four children to raise.”  And she still loved him.

What is there about scoundrels?  They make for great stories, because Grandpa Pete told us about driving his truck through the mountains when the roads were narrow and twisty, when he had to put his leg out the driver’s door to scrape his rubber-soled shoe on the road so the ice didn’t send him over the steep dropoffs.   He told us about shanties perched on the side of ravines with pigs living under the front porches and chickens running across the front yards.  And he told us that rain was fairies dancing on the roof, and that thunder was Thor knocking down all ten pins in the sky’s bowling alley.

My grandpas had their flaws, but the way I remember them is through their stories.  Maybe that’s why I love myths so much to this day.  And maybe that’s why Tyr and Thor made their way into my novel, EMPTY ALTARS.  Maybe that’s why I loved reading books to my kids and sharing the tales between the pages.  A legacy from my childhood that I can pass along.

What about power?

I'm not a huge fan of power.  Don't get me wrong.  I know it's necessary if you want to have any measure of freedom or control over your life.  And I like freedom as much as the next person, maybe more.  Which means I don't want someone to have power over me.  But more than that?  Not so much.  I have no desire to have power over them.  I taught grade school for six years.  I know how hard it is to make small children bend to your will–not that they ever do.  Parents know.  Kids are who they are.  You just cross your fingers and do the best you can to raise them.  So for me, power means work.  It means making the right choices, and I have enough trouble doing that for myself.  For others?  Forget about it.  I'd rather teach than rule.

And why am I going on about this?  Because I used the Norse god, Tyr, as the romantic interest in my novel, EMPTY ALTARS.  Tyr intrigued me.  He wasn't enamored of power either.

Tyr isn't as well known as Thor and Odin, but he preceeded them.  According to some versions of Norse myths, Tyr is an old god, powerful and wise.  Not the norm.  In most myths, the old gods are turbulent, barbaric.  They're raw power, who swallow sons and daughters to cling to what they have.  Not Tyr.  He walked away from his role as supreme ruler and gave his power to Odin–without a fight, without a struggle.  Why?  The sky-god didn't care if he was the top guy or not.  He retained his position as god of war and justice, but he was happy to let Odin deal with the politics of keeping his fellow gods under control.

As god of war, Tyr was more concerned about honor and strategy than bloodshed.  Maybe because he ruled justice, too.  Tyr's the god who placed his right hand inside of Fenrir, the wolf's mouth, so that his fellow gods could tether him.  The wolf thought he had a sweet deal.  The gods were using a ribbon to bind him.  Fenrir expected to break free and prove his strength.  Tyr knew differently.  Tyr knew the thin ribbon was created by dwarf magic.  Made from "the footstep of a cat, the roots of a mountain, a woman's beard, the breath of fishes, the sinews of a bear, and a bird's spittle," (encyclopedia Mythica), the ribbon would not break, and Tyr knew Fenrir would gnaw off his hand for revenge.   But he still met Fenrir's challenge when no other god was brave enough.

Not one other god would challenge Tyr, even though he stepped down.  Not even Thor, who was known for his mercurial temperament.  So… if Tyr was as strong as any god in Norse myths, and wiser than most, what happened?  According to legend, mortals had grown tired of him.  They began to worship Odin and leave offerings on his altars, ignoring Tyr.  If gods are fickle, mortals are too.  Eventually, mortals would favor Thor with his mighty hammer over Odin.  And after time, new gods would take Odin and Thor's places.   So, what do gods do when forced into early retirement?  In EMPTY ALTARS, I decided to have them still dedicate themselves to mortals, even though mortals no longer dedicate themselves to old gods.  But it made me think.  How important is power?  And who craves it the most?

Power is often associated with ego, but the saying, "Power corrupts," didn't apply to Tyr.  He didn't have much of an ego, but he did have a huge sense of duty.   He thought about others more than he thought about himself.  Not always the case.  I guess power is like anything else.  What do they say?  "A gun doesn't kill.  The person who pulls the trigger does."  That could apply to power too.

Is Being a Goddess a Good Gig?

I watch Nigella Lawson on the cooking channel.  Have lots of her cookbooks, and would love to make being a Domestic Goddess look as easy as she does.  She whips up wondrous meals for half a dozen friends or so, who drop by without warning, and makes it all look effortless and fun.  Me, just getting supper on the table every night for six people (more if the boys have friends over) makes my hair frizzy, my temper short, and my shirt splattered.  I swear, I can't cook a meal without a grease stain.  But the point is, even trying for mortal goddess status is more work than I might be up to.

One of my other loves is Greek mythology with a little Norse thrown in.  My favorite goddess is Artemis (Diana to Romans), the goddess of the hunt, mistress of the moon, and Hecate at the crossroads.  She can be demure when she's left to her own devices, but fearsome if crossed.  I kind of like that combination–a nature girl you should never tick off with some magic up her sleeve.  That's why she's my protagonist in EMPTY ALTARS.  But to the Greeks and Romans, there was a god or goddess you could call on for any occasion.  And each god had his groupies.  Made me wonder what kind of person would pick which one?  And why would that particular god appeal to him?  Even more, if you could be a god or goddess, would you want to be?  Or would it end up not as glamorous and carefree as it seems.  What strings come attached to the gig?

So….if you had your choice, would you or wouldn't you?  And who would you pick?  Zeus/Jupiter–the head honcho who dallies around, gets in trouble with his wife, and can throw lightning bolts?   Aphrodite/Venus–goddess of love and beauty?  Or Hermes/Mercury–the clever, naughty god?  Maybe brainy Athena/Minerva?  There's a dozen to choose from, and if none of them trip your trigger, there are Celt and Norse gods too.  Who's your favorite?

 

Is Death a good guy?

I've thought kindly of Death since I read the novel, On A Pale Horse, by Piers Anthony.  I mean, who'd want that job?  Not the guy who got stuck with it, against his will, in the Incarnation story.  But when he was called to the scene of a car accident, and a woman was crushed behind a steering wheel in horrible pain, and when he reached inside of her and gently removed her soul to release it, he realized that Death sometimes is a blessing.  I realized that when my father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the plasma cells.  Dad's cells made so much protein that his blood got so thick, his heart could hardly pump it through his veins.  At the beginning, he'd go to the hospital, and they'd take blood out of one of his arms, put it through a machine that used centrifugal force to separate the heavy protein from the clean blood, and then they'd put his clean blood back into his other arm.  At the beginning, it would be a long time before he'd have to redo the procedure.  But the longer the disease went, the shorter time between treatments.  Until his skeleton and skull looked like moths had eaten at his bones, leaving pockmarked holes scattered through them.  The thing is, by the end, it was a mercy when he died.  He hadn't turned sixty yet, but quality of life can matter more than quantity.

Years later, I watched my grandmother–in her nineties–fight a losing battle with diabetes.  She nicked a toe and got gangrene.  That spread to her foot.  That spread to her leg.  The leg had to be amputated.  They didn't get it all, and they had to amputate above the knee.  She didn't survive the second operation, but she let us all know that if the nurses didn't wheel her back to her room, she was fine with that.  She'd lived a hard life, surviving the depression, but a good one.  She wasn't up for another battle.  Death, for her, was a blessing.

Now, I watch my mom struggle with Alzheimer's.  She's in the final stages.  She can't remember things and gets frightened.  Every once in a while, on a rare visit when she's lucid, she tells me that she's ready "to go."  I wish she could.  I wish when your will got too weary, you could leave here.  Or do I?  Would we all hit a tough patch and take the easy way out?  I'm glad it's not my decision.  But I know this, Death isn't the scary, horrible thing for me that it used to be.

In my novella, Destiny With Death, Death assists people from this world to the next one.  When you're suffering, he's a release.  And he's welcome.  But if it's not your time, he won't take you.  And if you make him angry, well….that's just not smart.

How tempting is Earth? Mortal pleasures?

I've always liked stories with battles of good versus evil.  I'm a sucker for Harry Potter.  That has to tell you something.  But what if the battle is good versus an old friend who turned not-so-good–who did bad things?  And the good guy wants to go home–to Heaven, but his friend feels right at home here on Earth.  That's how my novel Fallen Angels niggled its way into my head.

When I was growing up, my mom switched churches every few years.  We were Lutherans for a while, did a brief stint as Jehovah Witnesses until they told Mom she had to give up her pierced earrings and cigarettes, and then went liberal when she joined a Presbyterian church.  I didn't go to see it, but I listened to her tell about getting dunked when she became a Seventh Day Adventist.  I could see the good in each and every one of Mom's choices, what appealed to her–she had a real fondness for ministers who preached about the proximity of the Last Days–but my dad was an atheist, and Mom's devotion was somewhat fickle, even though her faith was constant, so I didn't get too attached to one church over another.  But one of them had an idea that really appealed to me.  It was their idea of Heaven.

This church taught that there were seven layers to Heaven.  Only a very few people made it to the very top.  That was reserved for those souls who chose to tune in completely to their spiritual side.  They were happy and fulfilled just contemplating Goodness and what was holy and had no need for earthly pleasures.  Me, I'm not that girl.  When I think of heaven, I think of gourmet meals with no calories and wine that won't make me slap-happy stupid.  I think of perfect weather (mid-70′s, of course), and maybe a lush garden overflowing with flowers and veggies, a vineyard, and endless orchards.  My friend calls me a nature girl, and I might be, but I'd like a great nightclub too, with dancing and laughing.  And I want something to do.  I get fidgety sitting around, twiddling my thumbs.

Mom swore that there was a level for people like me–people who love this Earth–if it were perfected.  She wasn't quite sure if I'd end up on ladder rung five or six, but I didn't care.  I was just glad there was a spot for me, a place where I could frolic in the meadow where the lion lies down with the lamb.

I've thought about those seven layers every now and then.  I know who'd go on the bottom level–people with few redeeming qualities who've hurt their fellow man, people with a lot to learn about spiritual growth before they climb to level two.  I know who's at the top, and I'm not jealous of their exalted position.  And the middle–well, it's just like plotting my  novels–it's muddled until I have to deal with it.  But the thing is, thinking about Heaven has made me realize what I think Nirvana is.  Mine is closer to the perfect Earth than angels playing harps.   And I don't seem to be the only one who likes my home planet.

I just read the story of Lillith, Adam's first wife before she swapped him out for the archangel Samael.  She left the Garden of Eden to be with him and later became the first succubus, one of the original queens of the demons.  I'm not sure where Lillith eventually called home, but I'm thinking it's not Heaven.  And she seems to be able to visit Earth whenever she needs to suck out a life force or two, so I'm guessing she likes it enough here.  This view of demons is one of the things I really enjoy in Sharon Ashwood's the Dark Forgotten series.  There are good demons, sort of good demons, and really nasty ones.  They're portrayed sort of the way angels are.  There are good angels, fallen angels, and ones who've turned really, really bad.

In the Bible, in Genesis, angels leave Heaven to come to Earth when they see the first women.  Nothing good comes of that.  Monsters are born, and it took a flood to dispose of them, but Lucifer was dissatisfied with Heaven too.  Of course, Lucifer is nothing but trouble.  I won't even go there, but there are plenty of stories of fallen angels.  Some are shown as tragic, heroic figures.  Others, instigators of no good.  But all of them struggle with their own inner demons.  Some succumb.  Some don't.  And that's what gave birth to Fallen Angels.  Enoch likes Heaven.  Caleb likes Earth.  And they each feel loyal to the other, in their own ways.  That makes them feel torn.  Part of the human condition.   And maybe the heavenly one too.

 

 

Life Goals

Dreams change over time.

When I was in middle school, I got hooked on Natty Bumpo novels.  I wanted to be a pioneer.  I fell in love with Lewis Wetzel in  the Zane Grey books that told about him.  It wasn't until I dug deeper that I wondered if maybe Wetzel didn't have a few personality flaws that weren't mentioned in Grey's stories and that there might be a downside to being the first person to discover new territories.

In high school, I discovered Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, and The Feminine Mystique.  I was determined to be a clever, independent woman who would make my way in the world.  My goal?  I wanted to teach elementary education for nine months each year, and I'd be so inspiring, so motivational, that every child in my classes would yearn to achieve.  Unrealistic?  You bet, but worthy nonetheless.  I'd save money while I worked, devoting myself to others, and each summer, I'd take a trip to some new, exotic locale, giving back to myself.  I was serious enough about these goals that I warned every man I dated that I would not budge from my plan to teach and travel until I reached the ripe age of thirty.  And then, and only then, if I met a man who intrigued me, I might re-evaluate my thinking.

It sounded good on paper.  I stubbornly stuck to the idea, even after I met John when I was a sophomore in college.  But John's a very persistent person, and I married him after I taught one year.  My summer trip was our honeymoon all through New England, but I have no regrets.  Forty years later, I still think I made the right choice.

The odd thing is, I never once thought about becoming a writer.  I bumbled into it by accident, just like I stumbled upon marriage and kids.  It wasn't part of my plans.  It had to niggle and nag to catch my attention.  At first, it was a distraction from diapers.  I love children, but when my husband signed me up for a class in continuing education called Writing For Fun and Profit, I was so happy to get out of the house to have some time for myself, I could hardly believe it.  And I loved the class.  I loved writing.  Little did I know that it would become a lifelong passion.

I listen to some of my writer friends.  They always knew they wanted to write.  I thought of it as an outlet from more important matters–an escape, until I realized I was addicted.  Looking back, it's been interesting.  I was the girl who always had a goal, who was disciplined and driven.  And I met those goals, but then got distracted by tangents, things that led me to other things.  The distractions have proven fulfilling.  They've become goals in themselves.  The journey has been rewarding, and there's still more to come.  I can't wait to see where Life leads me next, even if it's not part of my agenda.

Off Schedule

It's possible that I'm a creature of habit.  I love holidays, friends, and festivities, but then I'm ready to get back into my daily routine, a comforting rhythm.  This year, I lost my rhythm so much, I'm only now starting to feel my way back into it.  It's the middle of January, and I'm just now taking down my Christmas tree and decorations.  Did we have fun?  Yes, from Halloween to Martin Luther King Day.   We took a trip.  We had house guests.  But I had work to do.  I tried to write more than usual, hiding in my office at odd times.  I'm making an effort to learn to facebook and twitter–foreign forms to me.  My daughter changed jobs…   Schedules went out the window.  And now, I'm trying to regroup.

I don't think I'd make a good adventurer.  I like padding out to the kitchen in the morning, getting my cup of coffee, and plopping my fanny in front of my computer.  I like writing at least one scene a day, ten pages if I can manage it.  I like cleaning the house and doing laundry on Saturday.  In the winter, when the snow falls, I try to cocoon.  I'm a hibernator.  I look out my windows and thank the heavens I'm inside.  I feel all warm and fuzzy making big pots of soup.  It's not until late February that I tend to get restless.  I crave sun, a vacation, a trip if I can afford one.

I have friends who leave Indiana and flee to parts unknown every year.  They celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and family, then say their goodbyes.  I suppose that becomes part of their routine.  Life is change, and that's good, but for right now, I'm not quite ready to make that jump.  It's January, and I want to burrow in.  Nest.  I want to write until my brain runs out of juices.  Which it does.  Usually close to four-thirty or five.  After that, I can't think of simple words in sentences.  It's time to quit.

But the work hard/take time-off mode isn't really my thing.  I like consistency.  I'm a plodder at heart.   I have friends whom I think of as throughbreds.  They write in great gushes of inspiration and energy and turn out manuscripts bursting with passion.  I'm more like an Amish draft horse, the tortoise instead of the hare.  Just like everything else in my life, I like the steady-as-you-go approach.  Not that life gives you that luxury.  It bumps you and jostles you and MAKES you grow.  There's no way around it, but as soon as I can, I return to routine.  Maybe it's part of being a Libra.  I like balance.  Every day.  Until I get bored.  But short doses of change are more than enough to make me yearn for the tried and true once again.

 

Messy Muses

I consider birds muses.  Not the best muses a writer could hope for, but in my case, all I've got.

I love birds.  I fill feeders with safflower seeds, black oilers, and mixed seeds to attract nuthatches, chickadees, tufted titmice, and cardinals.  I hang suet for the downy and hairy woodpeckers and toss peanuts out my kitchen door for the squirrels, blue jays, and red belly woodpeckers.  If I don't, the blue jays sit in the crabapple tree and screech until I feed them.  I like that about jays.  They know what they want and pretty much demand it.

I throw out bread crumbs for the sparrows, grackles, and starlings.  They can be a nuisance, reproducing faster than rabbits, but I still worry when the hawks come.  And three different kinds of hawks visit our house.  My doves aren't particularly fast.  The other birds take off, but the doves look around to see if they should be worried.  By then, it's usually too late.  All that's left is a flurry of feathers.

I get excited when I see a Carolina wren or a flock of cedar waxwings.  I sigh when I see goldfinches, but I'm not a true birdwatcher.  I don't have a list like my friend, Neil, who travels to different state parks all over the country to find a bird he hasn't seen before.  I just enjoy watching whatever comes to my feeders.  In the winter, once it's dark, flying squirrels come to the shelf we nailed on our tree.  Our regular visitors are fox squirrels and raccoons, but lately, we've had black squirrels, too.

When I'm burrowed in my office, hunched over my keyboard, and my brain freezes, I wander into the kitchen for my umpteenth cup of coffee and look out the windows to see what birds are at the feeders.  I stall, watching them for a while, before inspiration strikes (or doesn't), and I have to hit the keys again.   My steady companions, though, who are noisy and messy, the birds who share my writing room, are my grandson's two parakeets, Ares and Abigail.

I had a parakeet when I was growing up.  I named him Hermes after the Greek god because he was clever and naughty.  I've been told that if you own one bird, it bonds with you.  If you own two, they bond with each other.  Nate's parakeets get rowdy when they're out of food, but other than demanding that I feed and water them, they want nothing to do with me.  They do like being spritzed with warm water, like a shower, and make happy noises, but once they have what they want, they'd rather I left them alone.  Just like the birds outside.  All I get to do is feed and watch them.

Occasionally, the parakeets annoy me.  I've threatened to ban them from my office, but the truth is, I'd miss them.  Some people play music while they write.  It puts them in the right mood for the scene they're working on.  I listen to bird chirps.  I get feathers thrown around my room when the birds have a tussle.  But I like their noise, their company.  When my cat, Pywackett, was alive, he'd drape himself across my writing desk and stare at me with yellow eyes while I worked.  If I ignored him too long, he'd jump onto my keyboard and fill my computer screen with strange signs and symbols.  When he died, my daughter got dogs.  They're not the same.  They might be loving and loyal, but they don't have the patience to make great muses.  They bring toys for me to throw.  They bark at the mailman.  The birds hang on the side of their cage and chirp to me.  They don't run off when a car door slams.

I think a cat is better, but the birds–by default–have taken Pywackett's place.  They distract me enough to let my mind wander when I'm inbetween thoughts, searching for the right word or words, the right transition or hook.  But they're constant enough to be a steady presence.  A muse is a fickle thing.  It inspires, and then you're on your own.  It's your job to make the thought come to life.  The birds work well enough at that.  They bob their heads and I glance over, then it's back to prose and plot.  Symbiosis at a very primitive level.

Tools of the Trade

I can still remember walking through the door of my eighth grade classroom for English, and Mrs. Meese would be sitting behind the piano, pounding out a song.  She taught music and choir, too.  And she was passionate about both.  Come to think of it, she was passionate about everything.  She had a deep voice and a loud laugh.  And I loved her.  Thank the heavens for the Mrs. Meeses of this world!  Great teachers inspire great things.  The planets smiled on me when they sent her into my life.  Often, she'd start diagramming sentences and break into song.  She was unpredictable and awesome—and if you didn't know grammar when you left her English class, you didn't want to.

For one nine week period, our grades hinged on memorizing 300 lines of poetry and reciting it.  My mother had an old, spiral notebook filled with handwritten poems–her favorites that she'd copied from books.  I chose most of my readings from those.

I can still envision "The House on the Hill," and I remember the punch line from Whittier's Maud Muller: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"  My favorite memory is making Mrs. Meese laugh by reciting the poem "Elsie Was a Glow Worm."  But I learned more from that nine weeks than 300 lines of poetry.  I learned the rhythm and cadence of words, the importance of word choice—how one, specific word is worth a dozen, vague ones, and how a few, powerful words an entire story can make.  I'll never be brilliant at poetry, but I learned to appreciate it.

The other thing Mrs. Meese taught me was grammar.  Once a week, she wrote long, involved sentences on the chalkboard and it was our job to diagram them.  Bless teachers who still diagram sentences.  You're forced to know how each and every word works with others to form a thought.  I've long since forgotten the labels that I learned—articles, gerunds, and prepositions have blurred into matters of habit, but those labels made me

aware of where to put commas (which are becoming passe', but I still adore and use abundantly) and when to use capitals or dashes or exclamation points.  All essentials to building words into stories.

I once had a friend who told me, "Commas confuse me.  I just write a page and then sprinkle them in."  That appalled me.  How can you be a writer if you don't understand most of your tools?  It would be like making a cake with no measuring cups or spoons.  You just guess.  I'm not saying that writers don't make mistakes.  Every morning before I start writing a new scene, I polish the pages I wrote the day before.  And I always catch something I messed up.  A word misspelled.  A dangling participle.  A pronoun gone astray.  You can never be too careful.  A scene from one of the PBS Lewis and Hathaway mysteries comes to mind.  I'm a huge fan of the twosome, and I can't remember which show it was in, but Lewis is driving and they pass a handwritten sign.  Hathaway grimaces, and Lewis says, "I know.  It bothers you."  Hathaway replies, "I like apostrophes."  Because whoever wrote the sign failed to use one.  I feel like that.  I like correct grammar.

When I completely finish whatever manuscript I'm working on, I go over it again.  Then I give it to a long time friend, Ann W, who copy edits with zeal.  And she always finds more that I did wrong.  I have a weakness when it comes to hyphens and compound words.  I put words together that shouldn't be and separate words that are one.  I'm doing better on past perfect verbs.  All that I'm saying is that even when I make a real effort to complete a clean, mistake proof manuscript, it's impossible.  If you don't make an effort, guess what?  And for me, a page filled with small, grammatical errors is sloppy writing.  It's a sign you don't care.  Or that you never had a Mrs. Meese in your life.  You need one.