Writing Tip #2: "ing" & "ly" words

Today's post is a combination of the Fresh Writing of Monday and The Writing Tip of each Wednesday.

I tell writers that in the early stages, they need to take a very close look at their word choices. Watch out for "ly" words and "ing" words.

Every time I give this very specific instruction, I get this quizzical look like, "why??"

Most are too polite to ask because this seems like a grammar lesson of some sort and they missed the lesson in school.

No, it's not true. You did not miss this lesson in school. This is my own personal "TIP." I press it out there as a way for you, as writers, to think more about your word choices and I often find that when a new writer tosses an "ly" work or an "ing" word on the page it means they are being a bit lazy in word choices and a closer look reveals the writer is degenerating into "telling verses showing." These are not fatal mistakes but they are bad habits that adds a lot of time to your learning curve. Like you cut fat out of your diet when you want to get lean, cut these "ly" and "ing" words of your sentences and go for more active language.

Let me show you an example from my own writing. I pulled this scene from a memoir I wrote, five drafts back. This whole scene and character ended up on the cutting room floor. And look, I'm "ly" - ing and "ing" ing all over the place. See what I did here and come back next week to see my revision and my choices.

~

It's early morning and I blink my eyes open to the gray cool light that is Portland in June. Heavy clouded skies hold our sun hostage until July, sometimes August. I like the cool seasons but others complain about the gray days. Portland is home to a lot of depressed people who fantasize about California, Hawaii, Mexico

Quince is inches from my face. He watches me as if this has been the case for hours. When he notices I am awake, he rolls his head on the pillow and looks up at the ceiling. It's a purposeful move that begs for me to do our morning ritual called "the face."

As I watch him, I flashback to last night, midnight and my arrival at the Portland International Airport. Quince was waiting just past the security area and had one rose in his long thin fingers. He was so happy to see me, almost relieved, as if I were his oxygen and his food. As we hugged, he was like a vine, cloying and suffocating.

All my thoughts, during my retreat and even before, circled around how I couldn't take Quince and his over the top romance anymore but when I came home, alone, to the empty airport—I was happy to see him and happier to be wanted by someone.

We dropped my bags at my apartment, went to his place—firelight, music and his hungry hands that took my body to places beyond imagination.

In the dark of last night, it was perfect again and I told myself I was in love with Quince. We made whispered promises of our unending love and even a few plans about a future together as we drifted into a love-drugged sleep.

And now, here he is, waiting for me to do "the face." It was a ritual I created at the beginning of our romance, when we'd spend all day in bed. I'd say, "I love this face," and trace from his chin to his nose to his forehead.

As he waits, the light cutting away all fantasies, I cannot bring myself to do "the face." I actually despise "the face." I even hate that Quince expects "the face" treatment every morning. I hate how it's enough for him, that perfect beginning to each day, only made more perfect by how, every night, he has another ritual I call "the neck," where he presses his face into my neck, kisses my hairline and says, "I'm right here, all night, in your dreams—just a kiss away."

Quince continues to wait. Patience is his thing but he can wait until the moon turns to cheese. I won't do the face. Instead, I lean on my elbow and look around the apartment as if seeing everything for the first time. There are empty wine glasses by the dead fire. The one rose is on the carpet, wilted. The bed is surrounded, on all sides, by electric guitars, acoustic guitars, viola's, a piano, an electric key board, goat hooves that you can shake to get a specific sound, flutes, recorders and other instruments with names I don't know.

What am I doing here?
What have I done?
I've made a huge mistake.

"Shit," I say, "look at the time." I roll out of bed and hit the floor.

"Are you okay?" Quince calls.

The jolt hurts all my bones, even my jaw but I say, "yes, I'm fine. I'm perfect, I have to get the kids, I forgot." I pat around for my underwear, my pants and my tank top. I'm scattered all over the place.

Quince is out of bed as fast as I am. "I thought Steve had them until this afternoon?" he whines.

"He does," I say, "I mean, no, he doesn't, I actually promised to take my son on a date, I forgot." I'm tug on my panties and yank the bullshit story out of thin air. My heart beats so hard, I might faint.

In the bright light of this morning, Quince looks about a hundred years old. His body is a rickety bag of bones and the years of no-exercise have not been kind to his sagging belly and behind.

I used to tell myself his physique and looks didn't matter. My ex husband had been drop dead gorgeous and look how well that worked out. No, I told myself, I loved Quince for his gentle kindness, his talent for making beautiful music from as little as a stick of wood and a nail, and for the praise and poetry that dripped like honey from his lips. I rationalized how Quince was a grown up, he was artistic, he was a genius but no matter how hard I try to get back to those old thoughts, I cannot find one good reason to stay here with this overgrown adolescent who is happy whiling away his days playing music and having me trace the outline of his nose.

I get into my shorts and yank my top over my head. Quince holds my bra on the end of one of his long fingers and his wilted penis is deflated in a nest of gray hair.

"So, I'll see you later?" he asks.

"I'll call you."

I snap the bit of lace from his hand and thrust it into my purse. At the door, I shove my feet into my sandal.

Before he can get himself into his clothes and follow me to the car, I give him a quick kiss, clatter down two flights of stairs and dive into my car.

~

Anne, help me out here. Give me your two cents on "the grammar lesson."