“Neither Far Out Nor In Deep” – Robert Frost nails it

 

 

During these pandemic days of summer, I'm living a safely isolated life on a shore, near water.

Safe. Isolated. Away from my safely isolated kids, my newborn grandson, my close family and friends. Being careful and responsible. Sigh.

 

Living an isolated life means you have a lot of time to think about things, especially during a period packed with so much fear, so many unknowns. When listening to or reading the news is like submitting to a daily bludgeoning. When it feels like there’s no end in sight.

 

Yes, it makes you think. Sometimes too much.

 

Right now, the best place for me to think is near water. What is it about staring out at unknown depths that helps me find comfort? Maybe it’s the feeling of permanence along with change – waves, tides, horizon, sky. Day in, day out, but every time I look, the scene transforms.

 

“The people along the sand,” wrote Robert Frost, “All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day.”

 

That’s me. Staring out at the sea and wondering when this fraught pandemic time will ease back into something approaching normal – or, as I like to call it, The Beforetime.

 

“They cannot look out far. They cannot look in deep,” Frost wrote. “But when was that ever a bar to any watch they keep?”

 

Lots of questions, and few answers, but people just turn away from “the land” – a stark, unchanging reality – and keep looking, hoping, believing that the answers are out there.

 

Or in the context of pandemic times, that we’ll learn to live safely with the virus, find a vaccine, kick its butt, get on with “normal” life and leave this “land” behind us.

 

Until then, like Frost’s “people along the sand”, I’ll turn my back on the land, do my part, and keep watch for something better.

Grammar Wall of Shame #5: Subject verb agreement

Oh dear. I hate these mistakes.

But you would think an author - a professional writer - would know better, wouldn't you? Or that the editor in charge of publishing this writer's guest column in the newspaper would take a good look? Apparently not. Even the most experienced writers make mistakes. Read on.

Subject-verb agreement is a very simple concept:

Singular noun takes a singular verb:

The man reads.  He reads.

Plural noun takes a plural verb:

The children read. They read.

Problems arise when additional words are placed between the subject and its verb:

The man travelling with a pile of suitcases and two teenagers reads.

"Teenagers reads"?  Our ear picks up that the verb doesn't sound right next to the plural noun - but the noun teenagers is not the subject of the verb reads. The subject of the verb is man.

And that's exactly the problem that arises in this excerpt.

The subject of the sentence is surgeon, and its verb is state (circled in red).

But wait a minute... The ship's surgeon state...?

The phrase talking of novels separates the noun from its verb. And because the last word of the phrase is plural, the writer chose a plural verb to follow....

Fail!

Why? Because the verb state doesn't belong to the noun novels; it belongs to surgeon. Yes, the singular surgeon. Take out the modifying phrase and the subject-verb relationship becomes clear.

The ship's surgeon, Stephen Maturin, states that...

(I've added the required comma, too. I mean, how many ship's surgeons were there, anyway?? Don't get me started...!)

Which all goes to prove that even the most accomplished writers make mistakes. Editors, please take note!

The Ashes: Cricket has a language all its own

Yes, but what does it mean??

My day job (well, one of them) is Coordinator of Web Content Services for the Canadian Curling Association. This means that from September to April, I write about the sport of curling - a lot!

A month ago I posted a story to my blog Grassroots Curling about the strange and wonderful words and phrases we curlers use to describe the action in our sport. (Here's a link to that post: Curling lingo: Anyone ready to weagle? if you're interested). It was inspired by comments made by a friend of mine during the 2010 Olympics about the indecipherable commentary from the announcers and players at the curling competition in Vancouver. The curling lingo made her laugh out loud.

Okay, I get it. The trademark "Hurry haaaaard!" has become the poster child for funny curling phrases. But you know what? I believe lingo belongs on the Fun Side of language. When a group of communicators - be they curlers, or politicians, or pipe fitters, or knitters, or musicians...well, you get the picture - gets together and talks about their enterprise, magical things happen. Individual words are thrust together in the most extraordinary combinations, taking on new meanings. And in many cases, completely new words are created.

I was reminded of the joys of lingo as I was reading about The Ashes, the famous cricket contest between England and Australia that takes place every other year. My friends in the UK assure me that this year's first Test match was unusually exciting and close. All I know is this: when I read reports about the games, I am confounded. And impressed. And delighted.

"Century partnership?" "Drinks break?"

I love this passage: it's language at its most creative and meaningful, even if I don't understand any of it. These words, put together this way, make perfect sense to cricket fans everywhere: a secret code. And if I want to, I can put in the effort and break that code too. And isn't that what language is? Coding and decoding, using specific words put next to each other, just so?

One day, I might even be able to speak Cricket as well as I speak Curling. Long live lingo!

Writers and audiences: Who do you write for?

As a writer, I craft "stories" for all sorts of readers. Curling fans read my musings on my blogs for the Canadian Curling Association and in my features for The Curling News. Book lovers read my reviews in Quill & Quire. My words (and my name) turn up here, there and occasionally elsewhere as I ply my writing trade.

But today I'm reaching a whole new audience. A savvy (I hope) fiction-reading audience. No, it's not a novel, although I have a few of those floating around (there's The Toymaker's Son, left). It's a short story published in the online literary journal, Lies With Occasional Truth. (Is that the best name ever or what?)

My story, Lament, is about - well, it's about death. And bagpipes. And regrets. And love, sometimes fierce, sometimes random.

I am thrilled to see my name in print for the very first time attached to a publication with "literary fiction" in its title. And I'm inspired by today's success to explore this side of my writing more deeply.

Oh yes - and the audience I wrote this story for?

You. And perhaps, more than a little, myself.

Wake Me Up When September Comes

September always feels like the start of a new year to me – far more than January does. And the start of a new year means announcing those well-intentioned resolutions. I will <insert your resolution here>.

Yes, we mean well, but how many of us actually keep our promises to exercise more, eat more vegetables, check in with friends more often or, in the case of writers, write every day?

Here are three tips to keep your September resolutions on track:

1. Introduce a buddy system.

When my writing group felt its daily “joywriting” quotient slipping down, down down, we agreed to report to each other every day with a quick email that simply said “Done.” That meant that my email inbox received five messages with “Done” in the subject line. There wasn’t a message, necessarily, just that indication that my colleagues had reached their goal for the day – and a reminder that it was my turn to reach my “Done” goal.

2. Set realistic expectations

Take a look at your daily life and decide just how your resolution is going to fit. If you have a full-time job, a family, and volunteer or recreational activities, don’t promise yourself that you’re going to write a novel between September and December. Why? Because you’re setting yourself up for failure. But promising to spend ten minutes a day with your manuscript – writing, revising, editing, planning – is a more-than-reasonable goal. Set realistic expectations and you may very well find yourself exceeding them.

3. Be kind to yourself

So you don’t meet your daily or even your weekly goal: should you just give up? No, your energies are obviously being directed elsewhere. Life happens, and that means people get sick, deadlines get shortened, unexpected tasks show up on your To Do list. Don’t beat yourself up. Move on and try to meet your goal today, or tomorrow or the day after.

September is here. Let those resolutions fly and remember to find a buddy, keep it real, and let your resolution be a guide, not a dictator!

(Photo by Tristan J.R.M.)

Practice Makes Perfect

In a few weeks, I’ll be performing at a concert for the Mill Race Festival of Traditional Music. Every day I sit down with my dulcimer and run through the set, practicing each piece and trying to program my fingers – and my musical mind – to play everything without effort. It takes a lot of effort to make it look as if I'm doing something effortlessly.

It occurs to me that this principle applies to writing as well. Inspiration strikes, and we dash off our exciting ideas in a story or poem, using all the writing tools and skills we’ve collected over time: skills we've practiced over and over, every time we write. We gaze at the finished product in pleasure – but is it really a finished product?

No. When I come to the end of piece of music, I very rarely think that I played it to perfection. And when I come to the end of a writing experience, I just know I’m not done. I need to revisit, rethink, revise, rewrite. I need to rehearse that written piece over and over before I get it right.

It takes time, energy and commitment to be a musician - or a writer. Practice may not make Perfect, but it certainly helps!