Mark Fuller Dillon's Blog, page 48
November 12, 2014
Watch Your Step
This afternoon I had a Web chat about writing, with someone who believed that grammatical mistakes were nothing more than "semantics." He felt that readers would understand what he had to say, whether he wrote grammatically or not.
I made the point that no writer can assume this, ever. We have no way to control how any reader might interpret what we say, but we can control how we say it. Grammar is control, and to ignore it is to toss away one of the best tools a writer has.
For a weak analogy, I mentioned someone who might work for days and days on a beautiful hardwood floor, only to leave a deep hole in the middle of the room. "People can walk around it," he would say, but is that a safe assumption? And what happens in the dark?
But beyond the risk of confusing readers is the risk of insulting them.
I always assume that anyone who takes the time to read my stories will know more about English than I do, and will have more important books lurking in the background waiting to be read. If I allowed myself to slip, if I allowed myself to write without my full attention, any clumsy phrase or ugly clause would be as obvious as a hornet's nest on a sidewalk, and I would lose the reader's trust.
In that sense, grammar becomes more than just a tool for writing; it becomes a promise to the reader. It says, "I respect your knowledge and your taste. I appreciate your time. Let me use that time with competence and care."
I made the point that no writer can assume this, ever. We have no way to control how any reader might interpret what we say, but we can control how we say it. Grammar is control, and to ignore it is to toss away one of the best tools a writer has.
For a weak analogy, I mentioned someone who might work for days and days on a beautiful hardwood floor, only to leave a deep hole in the middle of the room. "People can walk around it," he would say, but is that a safe assumption? And what happens in the dark?
But beyond the risk of confusing readers is the risk of insulting them.
I always assume that anyone who takes the time to read my stories will know more about English than I do, and will have more important books lurking in the background waiting to be read. If I allowed myself to slip, if I allowed myself to write without my full attention, any clumsy phrase or ugly clause would be as obvious as a hornet's nest on a sidewalk, and I would lose the reader's trust.
In that sense, grammar becomes more than just a tool for writing; it becomes a promise to the reader. It says, "I respect your knowledge and your taste. I appreciate your time. Let me use that time with competence and care."
Pain on the Playing Fields
When I read a published story that fails in technique or vision or clarity, I feel as if I, too, had failed. I feel ashamed.
My last girlfriend would have scowled at this admission and replied, in her stern, cold voice, "Boundary issues!"
Well, perhaps. But I recall a moment from decades ago, on a playing field back in school, when someone was hit by a soccer ball right in the groin. He clutched at himself, staggered, nearly fell over... and all around him, the other boys gaped in sudden sympathetic agony. At moments like this, boundaries vanish.
Writing can fall apart easily, and mine often has; I kept two woodstoves burning for years with my failed attempts to learn. For that reason, my boundaries are thin, and they, too, have been known to vanish.
My last girlfriend would have scowled at this admission and replied, in her stern, cold voice, "Boundary issues!"
Well, perhaps. But I recall a moment from decades ago, on a playing field back in school, when someone was hit by a soccer ball right in the groin. He clutched at himself, staggered, nearly fell over... and all around him, the other boys gaped in sudden sympathetic agony. At moments like this, boundaries vanish.
Writing can fall apart easily, and mine often has; I kept two woodstoves burning for years with my failed attempts to learn. For that reason, my boundaries are thin, and they, too, have been known to vanish.
November 5, 2014
One Thousand
Since publication, readers have downloaded
In A Season Of Dead Weather
day by day, and this morning, the number of downloads reached 1000. Who made this possible?
You did.
You took a chance on an untested writer; you mentioned the book online, discussed it, reviewed it. Your generosity and your word of mouth have allowed this book to live, and you have all of my gratitude.
Thank you!
(So... shall we aim for 2000?)
You did.
You took a chance on an untested writer; you mentioned the book online, discussed it, reviewed it. Your generosity and your word of mouth have allowed this book to live, and you have all of my gratitude.
Thank you!
(So... shall we aim for 2000?)
October 30, 2014
Laconic Beauty
The last leaf blown from the beech,
The single star seen in the sky,
The one verb just of reach,
That lonely discursiveness: "I".
October 24, 2014
Don't Forget to Mention Garmentrude
From:
These Are the Winter Tires of Our Truck's Undoing
A Story in the Modern Style
by Ran Screaming.
These Are the Winter Tires of Our Truck's Undoing
A Story in the Modern Style
by Ran Screaming.
Chapter 1.
Rickolas was sitting at his kitchen table, sipping cold coffee and staring at the rising sun -- the same rising sun that shone into the kitchen window of his ex-wife, Rhondola, whose divorce lawyer, Spearmint, could see the rising sun from his penthouse on 833 West Anthrax Avenue, but even a penthouse could offer no compensation for the loss of his cloned son, Jiffer, to the Sons of the Rising Sun Rising cult of Warsaw, where the rising sun was not yet visible at this hour to Franchise, the Crown Prince of Porkrind, who was now sitting in his boudoir and sipping coffee that was much warmer than the coffee being sipped by Rickolas as he sat at his kitchen table, watching the rising sun rising.
Damn, thought Reego. What am I going to do about Peever's guacamole problem?
October 19, 2014
Bracing Himself For The Worst
From:
Nightgems of the Dragon's Jewels
An Epic in the Modern Style
by Ran Screaming.
COMING SOON!
Volume Four of the Dragon Sigils of Unicorn Dreams Trilogy Series Five, by Ran Screaming:
The Frozening is Coming
Now a TV series and an iPod app!
Nightgems of the Dragon's Jewels
An Epic in the Modern Style
by Ran Screaming.
He'd often thought back to that moment.
Gripping his poignard, brandishing his sword, tugging his forelock, cleaving his gaze unto her own, he'd entered the nunnery, bracing himself for the worst.
"Halt!" he'd whispered, savagely.
She'd blushed.
"Sir, why do you unhinge the dignity of this night by intruding upon our personage?"
He'd stared back at her, unmanned, unable to reply, silent, at a loss for words.
"And furtherto, what is more," she'd husked, sulkily, "Wherefore the sword, the poignard, the tugging of the forelock, the quiet savagery?"
He'd spat. "It is Doom, your Ladyship. It is Doom and the utter Violation of All that Space and Time have been to us."
She'd wondered at his words, pondering, questioningly staring, beseechingly querying within her mind thoughts that'd been hard to express in otherwise vocal terminology accessible to one of such low status as he.
"Pray forgive my brief and momentary silence," she'd apologized contritely, "but far afield had been my thoughts. You did, I trust, mention a certain Doom?"
He'd rolled his eyes at that, scratching at his armpits, clutching at his harness and heaving up his sagging breeches in a tardy display of hardy manly modesty.
"My Ladyship," he'd gasped, "It is thus. Word has come of the Trilogy. Three Books shall not suffice. The Gods and Great Ones of Earth and Air and Sea and Crystal and Dragon's Ichor have fore-ordained, that just as the Scene before us attends to its Terminus, then indeed shall the Blood be pouring."
The spear'd pierced her neck. She'd crumpled. The blood'd run red upon the tesserae.
He'd barfed.
COMING SOON!
Volume Four of the Dragon Sigils of Unicorn Dreams Trilogy Series Five, by Ran Screaming:
The Frozening is Coming
Now a TV series and an iPod app!
October 18, 2014
Yak-Oil Soap
From:
Cricket Eyes And Bee Stings And Ears That See The Wonder
A Novel of Modern Life
by Ran Screaming.
Cricket Eyes And Bee Stings And Ears That See The Wonder
A Novel of Modern Life
by Ran Screaming.
Chapter MMMMDCCLXXVII
"John?"
He looked at her, and remembered summer nights, pizza, calamine lotion, vitamin pills, electric razors, thermostats, and jaundice.
"Yes?"
She looked at him, and remembered bobbing for apples, hopping over cracks in the sidewalk, skiing down snow-frosted mountains of snow, hoping for sunny days, waiting for buses, scouring the dishpans.
"I --"
Then he remembered that night back in 1992.
Yes, that night. On that night, he had looked at her, and he had remembered pop tarts, microwave ovens, rubber cement, socks, cake ingredients, yak-oil soap.
She had looked at him, and said, "What?"
And then she had remembered herding wildebeest, sacrificing a goat to the gods of abstinence, bursting balloons in the park as children looked on with tear-filled eyes, pumping gas into bottles and then stuffing up the bottles with rags and then lighting the rags and then running like hell.
Then she had remembered that she had remembered that afternoon in 1986.
"This --"
October 8, 2014
Welcome to the Death of Nuance
A: It sucked!
B: It rocked!
A: It sucked!
B: It rocked!
C: Although I find the characters two-dimensional, I respect the writer's implication that traditional forms of character development might not work in a story that places more emphasis on metaphysical imagery than on standard narrative arcs. For what it's worth, I still found their circumstances compelling in a visceral way.
A & B: You suck!!!!!!
B: It rocked!
A: It sucked!
B: It rocked!
C: Although I find the characters two-dimensional, I respect the writer's implication that traditional forms of character development might not work in a story that places more emphasis on metaphysical imagery than on standard narrative arcs. For what it's worth, I still found their circumstances compelling in a visceral way.
A & B: You suck!!!!!!
With Each Unspoken Storm
The silver light of Autumn can assure,
To anyone who doubts, that summer's rise
And fall is now complete. A season dies.
The asters in their purple and azure,
The maples in their stained-glass garmenture,
Bring vivid punctuation to the lies
That warmth can always linger in the skies,
That any love you offer will endure.
And you are now my wasteland. With your frost,
With each unspoken storm, you sear the fruit
Of all that we had sown and hoped to share.
The harvest of our love has failed, and lost
Is all that we had hoped to be, in mute
Resentments of your equinoctial stare.
-- September 25, 2014.
To anyone who doubts, that summer's rise
And fall is now complete. A season dies.
The asters in their purple and azure,
The maples in their stained-glass garmenture,
Bring vivid punctuation to the lies
That warmth can always linger in the skies,
That any love you offer will endure.
And you are now my wasteland. With your frost,
With each unspoken storm, you sear the fruit
Of all that we had sown and hoped to share.
The harvest of our love has failed, and lost
Is all that we had hoped to be, in mute
Resentments of your equinoctial stare.
-- September 25, 2014.
September 30, 2014
Unacceptable
A long, complex dream in which I am part of a new minority that must leave Canada before a deadline.
I work in the vast lobby of a hotel, and every day, people I know disappear. Others perform symbolic protests that look like team sports training exercises, before they, too, disappear.
Acceptable Canadians are not allowed to speak with me, except to give orders. To my grief, I see former girlfriends in the lobby who will not acknowledge my presence.
As the people around me vanish, my sadness overwhelms me, and every day, I tear out clumps of hair from my scalp, clumps of beard from my face. This goes on throughout the dream: every transition takes place to the sound of tearing, to pain, to a glimpse of hair clutched in my left hand.
-- Wednesday, October 1, 2014.
I work in the vast lobby of a hotel, and every day, people I know disappear. Others perform symbolic protests that look like team sports training exercises, before they, too, disappear.
Acceptable Canadians are not allowed to speak with me, except to give orders. To my grief, I see former girlfriends in the lobby who will not acknowledge my presence.
As the people around me vanish, my sadness overwhelms me, and every day, I tear out clumps of hair from my scalp, clumps of beard from my face. This goes on throughout the dream: every transition takes place to the sound of tearing, to pain, to a glimpse of hair clutched in my left hand.
-- Wednesday, October 1, 2014.
