Illiteracy, Red Stairs, And A New Hashtag

Hello, chaps and chapesses! I wanted to pop in for a few reasons. First and foremost is to let you know that yes, I have been writing and yes, it is going well and the reason I've been so incognito on the blog is that our home wifi is null and void and has been for the past two months and by the time I get to Starbucks or another wifi'd place, work for my food + fashion blog has stacked up so much, all my time is spent playing catch-up for that. So this is going to be a fun post because I have twenty minutes to cover a multitude of sins and I'm going to go at it at a running pace.

Teaching:

Tuesday, September 8th, was International Literacy Day! It baffles me to think there are, by some accounts, 757 million adults in the world who cannot read. When I stop to consider how different my life...heck...how different I would be had I never learned to read, it it almost too much to handle. As the primary teacher of two little girls, one of whom is on that precarious brinking of reading-but-not-quite, I feel like I'm up close and personal with the subject of literacy and "can we read," or "can we not read." The following infographic (brought to my attention by Grammarly) gives you a little more insight into the problem if illiteracy and where the highest problem-areas are.

Please don't take for the granted the fact that you can read and write and all the worlds that have opened up to you because of it. And if you ever get the chance to teach a child to read...do it. It brings the subject into such a different point of view!

Reading:

I'm working through Cocktail Hour by P.G. Wodehouse as well as slowly tromping through the rest of Schindler's List (it's so heart-rending I find I can only take very small doses), and reading through (over breakfast each morning) Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking. I heard this past weekend that Rooglewood Press is officially and permanently offering one of its author's stories as a free download, and Hayden Wand's The Wulver's Rose (from their Five Enchanted Roses collection) as chosen as the featured title! So definitely go download that and see if it tempts you into buying the whole collection.

September has also been a great month for another friend of mine, author Rachelle Rea, whose second novel, The Sound of Silver, Whitefire Press releases on October 15th! She's been busy all month sending out e-ARC copies to fellow authors and I just know it will be as huge a success as the first title.

Writing:

My untitled Sleeping Beauty story. I'm still not sure whether I will enter Rooglewood's Spindles contest with this story, but I am writing it to that end. If the story wants to stretch itself and get bigger than the allotted word-count, I'm not going to cramp it and make it fit. I have a good feeling about this story and if it wants to become a full novel (though I'm not saying it will) I want to give it its freedom. Also, Cottleston Pie, which is being conducted on paper, has been locked in my trunk for two weeks. But it is so much almost finished I keep forgetting I need to actually do the deed.

Just now, as they mounted the red stairs again, the Queen weighed the cost of asking the one question to which she already guessed the answer: “When our sweet Mariechen died, did you swear to never again love anyone, even her mother?" But, as always, she hesitated. Already so strained, what might honesty add to the turmoil? No, far better to accept the coolness in place of warmer emotions and, philosopher-like, remark that the weather was pleasant enough to require only a light wrap. She placed her arm in his, reminded him of their evening engagements and, at the door to his study, parted from him with a sensation like frostbite pulsing in her throat

Changing:

The hashtag for #wordplaywednesday! I know I've trained all of you to hashtag your weekly posts with that, but apparently we share it with something entirely different. So from now on, #wednesdaywordshare is the name of the game, okay? If you think of it, please share the news around so that we can all get grouped up again! :)

I will be back as soon as I can with a full snippets post, but I wanted to pop in while in the presence of wifi and say that I hadn't died, rotted, or abandoned ship. The Inkpen Authoress is still alive. Somewhat more stressed, busy, and wifi-deprived than of yore, but as full of words as she ever has been. Cheers, darlings!

"Callie Craves Glitz and Grammar..."

I feel like a need a t-shirt that reads:

"I use Grammarly's plagiarism checker because orange jumpsuits aren't quite my style."

Really, though. I am starting to feel like I've been gifted with a personal puppy-dog of an editor who trails me around and makes helpful suggestions to my work. More on this further in the post. Aren't you curious? ;)

An essential point in the process for any writer, whether you are going independent or traditional with your publishing, is the process of Revision & Self-Editing. Many times you can get ultra-dedicated beta readers to help you with the editing process, and many suggest that you actually hire a professional editor. I have not done that yet (I don't have it in my budget to hire for things I can do myself by taking care.) but I think it would be amazing to be able to! Here, I shall take out my little soapbox and stand on it and flap my fingers like a flight attendant, asking you to check on the right for my friend Rachelle Rea, and on the left for my friend Amber Stokes who are both available to meet all your editing needs! Aren't I such a good chum? Anyway, I have benefited first-hand from Rachelle's expertise and know Amber to be a thorough, precise person so  I can vouch for their goodness as editors. But when it comes to do-it-yourself editing/revision, I thought I'd tell you some of my favorite books/tools to use:

First up is James Scott Bell's Revision & Self-Editing. (Appropriately named, yes?) I realize I have mentioned this book at least once (if not 999 times), but anything this marked-up and spine-cracked is obviously worth mentioning again. I am anxious to read Mr. Bell's Plot & Structure someday, but this book is perfect for the writer who wants to have their hands on a book that covers the bases of Dialog, Setting, Pacing, Characterization, Tension, Points of View, and all the other major categories in telling a good story. This book assumes you have a working knowledge of writing and the writing-system so it really is best for revision/self-editing (nawwwww.) but as such I can't think of a better book to recommend. I like being able to flip open to a familiar section in a familiar book and be able to read again exactly the same section I read three months ago; to me, owning a book like this is way more helpful than just Googling my issues.

When I was visiting my older brother in Purcellville this year, I had the chance to hang out at the Patrick Henry College coffee-shop several mornings. Directly across the great hall from the coffee-shop is a little bookstore. I rambled in once or twice, feeling quite horrible that I didn't really have money for all the things I was looking at and wishing I wasn't the only patron in the store, but finally I purchased Eats, Shoots, & Leaves by Lynn Truss, having heard much about it. While I didn't find it to be quite as much The Elements of Style as I expected, it was probably better for being deeper. The book is humorous, dedicated, and has the distinct honor of introducing me to the eloquent semi-colon: a mark to which I now owe much debt. If you want a better handle on the various punctuation marks and their proper and improper uses, this book is a great one!

Quite recently (i.e. last week) Grammarly was brought to my attention and no sooner had a begun a free trial, than I realized that this is a pretty awesome program. See, it's like having a personal secretary. It's like having an English teacher sitting there suggesting changes to your manuscript with complete instructions on what went wrong and how to fix it. According to Wikipedia:

Grammarly is a writing-enhancement platform developed by Grammarly, Inc., and launched in 2009. Grammarly's proofreading and plagiarism-detection capabilities check for a writer's adherence to more than 250 grammar rules

See? It's pretty awesome and exceptionally clever and fast. I am not quite certain if the free version allows you this privilege (I am using my free trial of the real-deal), but you can plug in a whole chapter of your novel and it will search it for mistakes, categorize your mistakes, walk you through them, and suggest changes. In addition to all this, you can also adjust the settings so it will edit your text as a general, business, academic, technical, creative, or casual project. (And the specifics of your critique will adjust to suit!) You should definitely check out Grammarly; the rates are quite reasonable and a year's subscription to the program will probably cost you no more than a one-time editor...which means you can use it on more than one novel, if you're fast! :D Of course, Grammarly suggests you hire a real proof-reader, as an electronic set of eyes will often miss things a human would see. Quite sensible. The site gives you a free week trial so go sign up and try it out. So far it is pretty awesome. They have free tools too (i.e. you can plug in a sentence and it will tell you if it is grammatically correct or not.) so it's worth checking out. 

Well, I have oodles to do. Only 18 days till Fly Away Home is available for purchase! <3 I shall leave you all to play with Grammarly and try to get a grade of 100 out of 100 on your first try. (It's a little addicting.) Toodles and happy writing to you all!

Reading Stuffs

Since we all agree that reading is about the top most important thing you can do to improve your writing (besides actually writing...you'd be surprised how many people just complain about not being good writers and never write anything.), and since I (at least) am always on the look-out for good books, I thought I'd give you a quick look into what I've been reading in days of yore:

1066 and All That

W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman

The best way to describe this book is as the books describes itself:

"Histories have previously been written with the object of exalting their authors. The object of this History is to console the reader. No other history does this. History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself."

Here is an example from Chapter VII entitled: "Lady Windermere. Age of Lake Dwellers":

Alfred had a very interesting wife named Lady Windermere (The Lady of the Lake), who was always clothed in the same white frock, and used to go bathing with Sir Launcelot (also of the Lake) and was thus a Bad Queen..."

So as you can see, if you aren't particular as to the exact precision of your historical facts, 1066 and All That is a rather wonderful little history--quite easy to understand. I have my brother's fellow flat-tenant to thank for introducing me to this peculiar book when I was attempting to flip him over to becoming an A.A. Milne fan.

I am currently in the process of reading my very first G.K. Chesterton book which happens to be a novel I was given for my birthday.

Manalive

By G.K. Chesterton

"A puddle repeats infinity, and is full of light; nevertheless, if analyzed objectively, a puddle is a piece of dirty water spread very thin on mud." -Manalive

Though I am not very far into the book, Manalive seems to be in a class entirely of its own. It appears, thus far, to be an allegorical novel about a boarding-house of pessimists who encounter an incurable optimist in the form of Innocent Smith and think him rather mad. I have enjoyed the book though I am eager to see where on earth it trots off to. It is a strange novel but pleasant, and goes nothing at all like you'd think it would...last I left Innocent Smith he'd just been arrested under charges of being a terribly dangerous criminal...just as he was off to get a marriage-license too. Very strange. But attractive, somehow.

The Covenant

by Beverly Lewis

By now you know exactly how I feel about romance novels--the Amish ones in particular. I kind of sneer at them mentally, which isn't exactly fair when you calculate how few I've read. My sister-in-law-ish Abigail took it into her wicked little head that it'd be a fine idea to order the entire Abram's Daughters series for my birthday. She did, and laughed like a little she-devil when I opened them and groaned helplessly. But for her sake (and as an experiment in modern literature) I began to read and found nothing sneer-worthy in the novels. Exasperated, I admitted to Abigail that the first in the series, The Covenant, was not all fluff. Delicate topics were handled with a clean sweetness hard to find in most romance books, and I found myself curious as to what the second novel will hold. Darn Abigail's mushrooms--she might have the last laugh yet!

Eats Shoots and Leaves

By Lynn Truss

All I can say is that this book has been on my To Read list for quite some time, as I'd heard that is is a remarkable little volume that packs a whole lot of grammatical punch. I bought it as my yearly Birthday Present To Me at the little college book-store in Northern Virginia as a helpful clerk looked on and wondered why the array of Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkien entranced me so. I set to work with my feet propped up on one of Daniel's co-workers' desks and cracked the cover. So far, I've been amused, blushing, and feeling guilt-ed into good grammar...not exactly what I was expecting, but still helpful. You just kinda get the sense that you're disappointing some strict grammarian somewhere in the universe every time you use a superfluity of commas or misplaced apostrophe. But you know, if you want to correct your grammar dead or alive, this book certainly makes you aware of key danger-spots, habits you'll want to break, and just how important punctuation really is. I have definitely found myself laughing over some of her examples and I am glad I bought this book even if it is a bit more of a rant than an instructional. 

"If you persist in writing 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightening, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave." -Eats Shoots and Leaves

So these are the tomes taking up my attention at the moment (or recently finished). Several more line the wall of my Lair waiting to be placed on the shelves, and my birthday is not finished being celebrated so there is still a prospect of more to come. What can I say? The life of a book-lover always has room for more!