Good morning, afternoon, evening, night my internet friends.
It's been yonks since I've seen you — who would've thought that doing your honours year, moving house, and all the little things in life could be so big. Starting today I will endeavour to get back to you more often but for my recent absence I thought I'd give you a little present.
It's not overly easy to do this but I think it's better to than not. I know everyone goes about their writing their own way but we're always looking for new tricks to fit into our bag of writing goodies. For this reason I have decided to update once per week with a section of my thesis, starting today with the first draft of part one (it's a six part project). Yes, my writing is pretty damned terrible in this but I use the first draft to get the ideas down and to make sure that I am including everything I feel is necessary for the work.
I was going to put in an introduction to my piece, explaining the themes present in both capitalist dystopia (the first three parts) and communist dystopia (the last three parts) but this isn't about my thesis as such. This is about drafting, revision, editing — how we do what we do. For that reason here is the first (very rough) draft of part one of my piece which has the working title 'One plus one'. Over the coming weeks I will add the entirety of my first draft and my revisions. This way you can see what I do and how I do it. I will also add beneath the text the synopsis which I started with for this section to illustrate the link (or lack thereof) between the planning and execution of the work.
Part One - Quinn
Chapter One
Your nose is itchy. Want to know how I know this? I know this because I just told you it was and because I told you this it has happened. It's the cause which is the effect. The neat little equation that needs no journey — it is its own end and its own beginning — Ouroborus.
Another equation that contains its own result is this one:
a x (tc/1,000)
——————— = x
(pfe/100,000)
In the everyday this means that age times training costs divided by one thousand is then divided by projected future earnings divided by one hundred thousand. Where x is greater than zero the result is conclusive: retirement. I have been subject to this equation my entire working life but I never gave it a thought. Not until it was turned on me.
Things before that had grown into a loop. Since Marissa left (well, since she stayed I guess; she broke it off but kept the house) I was in a rut. I went to work, I dealt with customers crap (‘Lady, you took a bad photo. That’s not something I can help.’) and I fulfilled my obligations to a dying industry. In fact we were all waiting for our retraining orders; no one used camera film anymore so no one needed developers. That was five days. Saturdays were poker night at Bobby’s. The other was Sunday afternoon with my daughter, Miranda.
She’s the cherub Raphael painted on a good day. She’s warm, bright and full of good intentions. I’d take her to a park across town or to a movie. We’d sit together and watch people or characters do their things. She’d tell me about the life I no longer shared with her: ‘We have to do a project on our favourite animal but I can’t decide which one’s my favourite’ ‘You tell people your name is Blakewins but Mum calls you Quinn. Why?’ ‘Mum and Chris took me to see Disney on Ice.’ ‘I think I want to be a journalist. They get to go lots of places and tell people things. Either that or a hockey player’. These moments felt stolen and guilt pulled me from the side that said she’d be better off without me to the side that said that I should be as good a father as I could. She never stayed with me, she never even saw my flat. How could I take a bright gem and put her in the middle of all that? In the inner city the days were grey, washed of colour. The grey people pushed their way from the grey train stations to their grey office buildings, clutching coffee like a talisman against the smog and chaos. The nights, though, they were something to see. Brighter than day, louder than the sound of a clock at 4am to an insomniac; there was a fight on every corner, a hooker in every laneway and sirens rushing to revive partiers and free victims of drunken brawls. This was no place for Miranda, so I contented myself with her picture by my bed.
Of course, nothing stays frozen and while Miranda was getting awkward about the subject of boys I was getting worse. I didn’t even know there was anything wrong at first. A headache that stayed for a couple of days, a blotch in my vision that I put down to the transition between bright shopfront and darkroom. Then the headaches and the blotches took up residence in me. I had just started to wonder if I should try to see the doctor down the street (or if I should save up to see one whose degree wasn’t from the Online University of Mexico) when life gave me the answer. What are the odds that the blotch would hide a stop sign? What are the chances that it was Sunday afternoon? Who would’ve thought that a man who drives by himself so often would be carrying his daughter when it happened? We were lucky; Miranda escaped with a cut on her neck from the seatbelt and a headache. I didn’t have a single injury. Marissa was furious. ‘How’d you miss a bloody stop sign?! How could you be so careless with Miranda in the car?! What if she had’ve been killed?!!’
Chapter Two
From that time I saw Miranda only twice. Each time it was following a three-hour journey on two buses and a train to get to Marissa’s house. On the first occasion Marissa didn’t speak to me at all — she just opened the door and called Miranda out of her room. The second time was worse. The blotches were bigger now and I was having trouble at work. I was lucky that I had some friends on staff, so they covered for me for a little while but it couldn’t last forever. My half-yearly physical showed up what I already knew to be true; my vision was too far gone for me to work there. The doctor promised me he would make it clear in the paperwork that with treatment some of my sight would return but the company weren’t interested — they applied the formula and discovered that I was not economically sustainable. That’s what started it — when I told Marissa I couldn’t pay child-support that fortnight.
‘What are we supposed to do? I don’t earn enough to cope on my own. Chris is waiting on a promotion so we can all move in together. Isn’t it enough that you put her in danger? Now you won’t even help me provide for her. You never take her for nights so I can have some time to myself, you take her one afternoon a week and think you’re the best dad in the whole world. You’re not!’
‘You know I’d give you the money if I could. It’s not up to —‘
‘Yeah, here we go again. It wasn’t your fault when the christmas tree caught fire. It wasn’t your fault when you put in that stupidly beg cat-flap and we got robbed. It wasn’t your fault ever and now it’s still not your fault. Have I got that right?’
‘I’m being retired.’
‘You want me— You’re what?’
‘Retired. My hearing’s in six weeks. I’m so close to blind now that they won’t bother with trying to rehabilitate me.’
‘Fuck. I’m sorry. I— Shit. Shit!’
‘She knows about retirement, they cover it in economics at school. I’ll talk to her.’
‘We should both talk to her.’
‘Are you saying I can’t handle this? She’s my daughter! For fuck’s sake, Riss, it’s my problem and I’ll handle it.’
‘Your problem? It’s yours, hers and ours. You might be most affected but you’re not the only one who’s going to suffer from this.’
‘Yeah, nice one, Riss. All I heard was “You’re going blind and you’re going to be shipped off to the island but I need pocket money!”’
‘So because this means my daughter will have to learn to live on two-minute noodles and mince I’m selfish? Oh, and nice one on playing the blind card, Quinn, really nice.’
‘Don’t you EVER accuse me of using my blindness! D’you think I’m happy about it?! The fuck—‘
‘STOP!’ Miranda screamed from behind her mum’s legs. ‘Is it true? Are you going to the island?’
‘Mirry, I’ve got to go. I don’t have a choice.’ Quinn was holding himself together as though he were shards of glass that were too broken to fit together again.
‘Can I come and see you there?’
‘I’m sorry, Mirry. They don’t let people come to visit. You have to stay here with your mum,’ Quinn bit down ‘and Chris.’
‘But I wanna see you, too.’
‘I know, honey.’
Chapter Three
There’s a couple of things I could tell you about what happened next but, to be honest, it’s hard to know where to begin. For one thing, being blind is a bitch. It’s hard to remember which part of the footpath has that crack in it, it’s damn near impossible to pour a coffee without burning yourself and porn without the vision is just a series of grunts that may as well be coming from a donkey.
That’s not the worst of it. The worst is the way your place with your friends and family is taken from you. In a few short weeks I was no longer a father, an ex-husband, a buddy, a colleague. I had become ‘the blind guy’ and suddenly that was the only thing people saw in me. It was bad enough with people on the street but it was so much worse with my family. I would’ve degenerated slowly to hell, I would’ve welcomed the ferry to the island, if Felix hadn’t called.
How to explain Felix? He’s my cousin but as we were both only-children we were more like brothers as kids. Despite this we really couldn’t be more different. I remember the photo that used to sit on my wall at home: I was the pudgy blonde kid with a goofy smile and a baby face who could make a computer do anything he wanted wheras, Felix with his big smile which combined with his blue eyes and wavy dark hair to make him into the man he is today. He’s a Casanova who’s got the fat wallet and the good college background to back it upF. Even when we were kids he could get anything he wanted — he once charmed a teacher out of giving the class tests for an entire year.
The thing about Felix is his talk. Before the end of a fifteen minute phone call he had me convinced that I could stay on the mainland and provide for Miranda. His plan was simple; leave all of my assets to Miranda and go on the run. I probably wouldn’t be able to go back and see Miranda but at least she would have money and I wouldn’t end up on the island. Felix didn’t listen when I tried to tell him that a blind man going on the run sounded like a Monty Python sketch. He said he knew someone who could help me. He didn’t mention two things: that he’d been embezzling money from the corporation he worked for and that he was intending to run with me.
Synopsis:
Themes: Dehumanisation, Nature
Capitalist setting: I'd prefer giving Quinn a boss and a soul-sucking job. Perhaps something like a call centre. The money he makes there is barely enough to live on and he has to put in extra hours (unpaid) to be seen as promotion material. He lives alone - his ex-wife and child live in his old house and he visits them when he can. His place is a worn-down apartment in the outer-city - out enough so that he still has to factor in transport but close enough so that the rent is exorbitant. His area is industrial - smoggy and loud and ugly NATURE. He has little in the way of possessions as he is alone with a small income and provides child support (happily, I might add) to his wife. His small apartment is constantly having difficulties (water pipes freeze regularly, heating goes out, in fact, I think this is set in winter). He eats the same thing over and over because he never learned to cook anything (meat and three veg). He picks up his daughter every Sunday afternoon and takes her out somewhere cheap. They never go back to his place as he doesn't want her to see how he lives (despite the fact that she's only young and probably wouldn't get it).
His eyesight has already begun to go at the start of the story. Perhaps we see him poring over bills in the hope that he can afford to see an ophthalmologist (is that the right person?). He has a car accident with his daughter in the car with him. She needs some very basic treatment but the ex-wife doesn't want him to drive around with her anymore so he has to visit her at the ex-wife's house which is across town. As his eyesight continues to fail it gets to the point where he is fired because he cannot complete the tasks required of him. He is scheduled for 'retirement' under ‘the formula DEHUMANISATION.
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Thursday, 9 August 2012
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Offensive Language
2 Words Forward
Offensive
Art should offend people because art should challenge people.
Eriq La Salle
I came across a stumbling block recently when I realised that no one had ever told me they had been offended by my writing. I felt like I hadn't pushed nearly enough boundaries if this was the case. But then I asked myself, does writing have to offend? Am I crap because I'm not Salman Rushdie? Some of my favourite works offended the hell out of me when I first read them. I hated Gregor Samsa's family when I read Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'. Why? Well, I guess it's because he was so devoted to the family that banished him as a freak and then rejoiced in his death. Am I being unfair? I'm really not sure how I'd react to a family member turning into a giant cockroach but I'd like to think that I'd still hang out with them. Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' was another one that offended me - I hated the colonial aspects of the text: the descriptions of the natives as being sub-human. Then I realised that both of these causes of offense are products of their time. Kafka wrote 'Metamorphosis' at a time when people were beginning to turn against Jews in Europe just before World War II. Kafka was merely relating this to us in an uncanny little package. Conrad was in the middle of the colonial era where it was common to see people as being sub-human because of their different culture. Perhaps his point was to make others aware of the folly of this - I really can't remember. In any case, there's no offense in either of these stories when they are taken contextually. It'd be like being offended by Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' because you don't get the satire. When I think about my favourite authors now, I'm not offended by anything they've written but that makes sense - many of them are my contemporaries and write within my time. Of course, I love classics, offensive books such as 'Metamorphosis', 'Frankenstein' (if you don't find Frankenstein offensive re-read it with a modern view) and 'The Count of Monte Cristo' among them. They are of their time, though, and that's not offensive — that's context. So, I'm cool with not being offensive. I'm still going to aim for challenging, though.
1 Word Back
Language
I'm sure I've bemoaned this before but I really don't have time to do as regular updates to my blog as I once did due to studying honours this year. One of the texts that I'm working on is Yevgeny Zamyatin's 'We'. I adored this book when I first read it - it's the predecessor of another favourite, 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell. I did, however, receive a sharp wake-up call when I downloaded it to my Kindle last week. I do own the paper copy but for researching the Kindle's search function cuts out heaps of time. So I started searching. I tried 'One State', the name of the Earth in Zamyatin's united nation. No results. That's weird. So, I started flicking through my paper copy to find a reference that I could cross with my Kindle version. It turns out that I have two different translations which are not just slightly off but have very different words for core themes. My Kindle calls the 'One State' the 'United State', a term that I'm not overly pleased with as it seems to refer to America in a book which was written in the USSR. As I flicked further I realised that it was not only key terms but the flavour of the book had changed. The Kindle version was clumsy. Perhaps this is a sign that it's a more correct translation but I liked the flow of the paper version. The case being that I don't speak Russian I can't tell what the difference really is. It would take me a long time to learn Russian to a standard where I could understand Zamyatin's original words for what they were. So, I'm choosing enjoyment of reading over clumsy. If anyone knows what the better translation is, though, I'd be very interested in learning this.
Offensive
 |
| 28 Pounds doesn't sound very modest to me! |
Art should offend people because art should challenge people.
Eriq La Salle
I came across a stumbling block recently when I realised that no one had ever told me they had been offended by my writing. I felt like I hadn't pushed nearly enough boundaries if this was the case. But then I asked myself, does writing have to offend? Am I crap because I'm not Salman Rushdie? Some of my favourite works offended the hell out of me when I first read them. I hated Gregor Samsa's family when I read Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'. Why? Well, I guess it's because he was so devoted to the family that banished him as a freak and then rejoiced in his death. Am I being unfair? I'm really not sure how I'd react to a family member turning into a giant cockroach but I'd like to think that I'd still hang out with them. Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' was another one that offended me - I hated the colonial aspects of the text: the descriptions of the natives as being sub-human. Then I realised that both of these causes of offense are products of their time. Kafka wrote 'Metamorphosis' at a time when people were beginning to turn against Jews in Europe just before World War II. Kafka was merely relating this to us in an uncanny little package. Conrad was in the middle of the colonial era where it was common to see people as being sub-human because of their different culture. Perhaps his point was to make others aware of the folly of this - I really can't remember. In any case, there's no offense in either of these stories when they are taken contextually. It'd be like being offended by Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' because you don't get the satire. When I think about my favourite authors now, I'm not offended by anything they've written but that makes sense - many of them are my contemporaries and write within my time. Of course, I love classics, offensive books such as 'Metamorphosis', 'Frankenstein' (if you don't find Frankenstein offensive re-read it with a modern view) and 'The Count of Monte Cristo' among them. They are of their time, though, and that's not offensive — that's context. So, I'm cool with not being offensive. I'm still going to aim for challenging, though.
1 Word Back
Language
 | ||
| A less glassy Integral than I expected |
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Wave of the future!
2 Steps Forward
A Year of Action
Welcome to 2012. Now what? It's already the fourth of January and I've done nothing! I'm so pissed off with myself. Luckily a friend of mine put up a very useful list to remind me of the important things. What have I taken away from this article (apart from the fact that I ripped it off to use in my blog)? There are two things that struck me in the head at point blank like a frozen fish (gratuitous Monty Python reference). Firstly, voice. Your voice is your voice. My voice is my voice. I often write in another voice as practice but when I write a piece I want to use I write in my voice and I was surprised to find that this is not the way everyone writes. So the moral is to write as you because you're the only one with your voice. In a larger way the several sections covering procrastination won me over. This article makes me remember something very important - if you want to be a writer then write. It's so simple but so often forgotten as we avoid a snag in a plot or an unsatisfactory character and don't end up writing a damned thing. So, I said to myself, if you want to call yourself a writer then your writeriness will now be measured in words, not procrastination. I think tonight will be a writing night!
1 Word Back
20twelve
Numbers. If you spell it with a '3' you get a cool tv show that died too soon. Otherwise, in their normal guise, numbers are the forgotten characters of our writing. So what are the rules with numbers? Well, mostly numbers are left to stylistic choice. All of the following: 04/01/2012 (Aussie), 01/04/2012 (USA), January 4th 2012, 4th of January 2012 are acceptable. There are also variations on these that are fine - the important thing is to make sure that all numbers of the same type (ie. dates, times, general numerals) are consistent. There are, however, some guidelines for general numerals in Australia which can be found in the Style Manual. Amongst these are the suggestion that numbers under three digits be spelled out in letters, while those three digits or larger can be written in numerals. Once a number gets larger that hundreds of thousands they can be abbreviated to both letters and numbers (ie. 1.5 million, 2 billion). Of course there are also rules for the phrasing of money and currency and mathematical sums but these are for another time. In the meantime make sure you're following the same rules all the way through and you should be okay.
A Year of Action
Welcome to 2012. Now what? It's already the fourth of January and I've done nothing! I'm so pissed off with myself. Luckily a friend of mine put up a very useful list to remind me of the important things. What have I taken away from this article (apart from the fact that I ripped it off to use in my blog)? There are two things that struck me in the head at point blank like a frozen fish (gratuitous Monty Python reference). Firstly, voice. Your voice is your voice. My voice is my voice. I often write in another voice as practice but when I write a piece I want to use I write in my voice and I was surprised to find that this is not the way everyone writes. So the moral is to write as you because you're the only one with your voice. In a larger way the several sections covering procrastination won me over. This article makes me remember something very important - if you want to be a writer then write. It's so simple but so often forgotten as we avoid a snag in a plot or an unsatisfactory character and don't end up writing a damned thing. So, I said to myself, if you want to call yourself a writer then your writeriness will now be measured in words, not procrastination. I think tonight will be a writing night!
1 Word Back
20twelve
Numbers. If you spell it with a '3' you get a cool tv show that died too soon. Otherwise, in their normal guise, numbers are the forgotten characters of our writing. So what are the rules with numbers? Well, mostly numbers are left to stylistic choice. All of the following: 04/01/2012 (Aussie), 01/04/2012 (USA), January 4th 2012, 4th of January 2012 are acceptable. There are also variations on these that are fine - the important thing is to make sure that all numbers of the same type (ie. dates, times, general numerals) are consistent. There are, however, some guidelines for general numerals in Australia which can be found in the Style Manual. Amongst these are the suggestion that numbers under three digits be spelled out in letters, while those three digits or larger can be written in numerals. Once a number gets larger that hundreds of thousands they can be abbreviated to both letters and numbers (ie. 1.5 million, 2 billion). Of course there are also rules for the phrasing of money and currency and mathematical sums but these are for another time. In the meantime make sure you're following the same rules all the way through and you should be okay.
Friday, 30 December 2011
The truth about writing
2 Words Forward
The Trouble With Writing
One of the reasons I wanted to write a blog about writing was to dispel the myths. Believe it or not, writers are normal, if a little eccentric, people - we have trouble with our work, we get frustrated, and we feel lost sometimes too. Another misconception about writing is that the first draft is a magnificent piece of art which only requires the slightest of tweaking to be made into the book that is sold. Want to know how good my first drafts are? They're so wonderful I actually do a full rewrite. This is not because I have difficulties with spelling and grammar - it's because my first draft is the process of the deluges and trickles that form the first writing of a story. There are times when I can't find the words I need and I put others in their place. There are others where I have a scene so clearly that it falls out of my head faster than I can type. This kind of writing leads to a very handy template for further attempts at the novel, but not the novel itself. It's problems like these which are addressed in this blog which I highly recommend to anyone who is concerned that their writing progress is abnormal or that they are not churning out books as good as Ernest Hemingway with the speed of Stephen King.
1 Word Back
I could of been an editor
The main problem with 'could of' is that it is a bastardised version of 'could've'. It is used by people who don't understand that they mean to say 'could've' or 'could have'. I encountered the problem once; I was in a class and we were workshopping a non-fiction piece by one of the students. He used the phrase 'could of' in a piece of dialogue. All of the trainee editors in the room jumped at it, myself included: 'You can't use 'could of', it's not proper English!' Now, as an editor I think I was wrong; in non-fiction pieces it's important to quote people accurately. If someone said 'could of' you should write 'could of'. Likewise, if you are writing a fictional piece and you can hear your character saying 'could of' then you should write it. Outside of dialogue, however, 'could of' will only make the writer appear as though they don't understand the words they are using.
The Trouble With Writing
One of the reasons I wanted to write a blog about writing was to dispel the myths. Believe it or not, writers are normal, if a little eccentric, people - we have trouble with our work, we get frustrated, and we feel lost sometimes too. Another misconception about writing is that the first draft is a magnificent piece of art which only requires the slightest of tweaking to be made into the book that is sold. Want to know how good my first drafts are? They're so wonderful I actually do a full rewrite. This is not because I have difficulties with spelling and grammar - it's because my first draft is the process of the deluges and trickles that form the first writing of a story. There are times when I can't find the words I need and I put others in their place. There are others where I have a scene so clearly that it falls out of my head faster than I can type. This kind of writing leads to a very handy template for further attempts at the novel, but not the novel itself. It's problems like these which are addressed in this blog which I highly recommend to anyone who is concerned that their writing progress is abnormal or that they are not churning out books as good as Ernest Hemingway with the speed of Stephen King.
1 Word Back
I could of been an editor
The main problem with 'could of' is that it is a bastardised version of 'could've'. It is used by people who don't understand that they mean to say 'could've' or 'could have'. I encountered the problem once; I was in a class and we were workshopping a non-fiction piece by one of the students. He used the phrase 'could of' in a piece of dialogue. All of the trainee editors in the room jumped at it, myself included: 'You can't use 'could of', it's not proper English!' Now, as an editor I think I was wrong; in non-fiction pieces it's important to quote people accurately. If someone said 'could of' you should write 'could of'. Likewise, if you are writing a fictional piece and you can hear your character saying 'could of' then you should write it. Outside of dialogue, however, 'could of' will only make the writer appear as though they don't understand the words they are using.
Friday, 16 December 2011
Of Nano and trying
2 words forward - My ode to November
So Nano has come and gone for another year. For those of you who are new to the writing game or haven't experienced the horror and ecstasy of the challenge Nano is short for National Novel Writing Month (also called Nanowrimo). Throughout the thirty days of November we fearless wordsmiths take to our keyboards and get down all the words, that's right, all the words. Well, actually 50,000 of the words and many are repeated. My point is that in one month we write 50,000 words in the form of a novel. A friend asked me the other day why we do this. I told her it's because we love to write. She then asked if anyone fudged their word count (copied crap from wikipedia or something like that) and I told her no, I've never heard of anyone doing that because it all comes back to the first reason: we love writing.
Sure, I could copy and paste a heap of words into the wordcounter on the Nanowrimo website and make it look like I'd written 50,000 words when really I just have a copy of 1984 saved to my desktop but how would I feel? There'd be no rush of adrenaline each day as I return to my project and attempt to figure out the next twist, the next happening, the appropriate reaction for my characters. Instead I would be heavy; weighted with words that hadn't poured from me onto the page. When I'd hang out with my fellow Nanoers I'd feel like a thief, someone who stole a prize that they earned. And what is the prize? The Nano site offers discounts and even bound copies of your project if you hit the 50,000 before the end of the month but, while that's pretty awesome, they are not the real prize. The real prize is the fact that you are proud of your achievement, you have conquered the 50K, you have put an idea on paper and you can now call yourself a writer when people ask what you do.
That's why I've done Nano for the past three years and that's why I'll be sweating over character profiles and chapter summaries all the way through next October and why at midnight on November 1st I'll be torn between chatting with my fellow writers and hitting the ground running on my new novel: I'm a writer and I love what I do.
1 word back - Try and read this
As well as being a writer (I'm allowed to call myself that now, see above for details) I'm also an editor. While I'll talk writing for 2 words forward, 1 word back will be dedicated to the work of taking other writers sculptures, firing them in a kiln and adding a little glaze. Today I'm going to start with a phrase that's been popping up a lot lately and has been getting to the point where I need to bite my lip to stop myself from yelling every time I come across it: 'try and ...'. But what is so harmful about 'try and ...'? Why does it elicit such a strong response? The harmful aspect is that it doesn't mean what people who write it thinks it means (as I'll explain below). The strong response is because I not only see this on facebook and twitter - places where my editing brain turns off for fear of burnout - but in published material. Even worse, a lot of those published works are really well written.
So, let's pull apart 'try and ...' and put it back together again. If someone tells me to 'try and read this' I'll do both - I'll try and I'll read it. This is because that's what you are asking me to do. There is no option for failure, you must try and you must succeed. On the other hand if someone tells me to 'try to read this' then I'll take a shot at reading it and hope I get through it. To all the 'try and ...' users out there, I'm sure you just mean that you want me to have a go at reading something, the problem is that you're telling me to do both and I don't think that's what you mean.
For my sake and the sake of people like me who read literally please try to avoid the phrase unless you want me to try and put down your book.
So Nano has come and gone for another year. For those of you who are new to the writing game or haven't experienced the horror and ecstasy of the challenge Nano is short for National Novel Writing Month (also called Nanowrimo). Throughout the thirty days of November we fearless wordsmiths take to our keyboards and get down all the words, that's right, all the words. Well, actually 50,000 of the words and many are repeated. My point is that in one month we write 50,000 words in the form of a novel. A friend asked me the other day why we do this. I told her it's because we love to write. She then asked if anyone fudged their word count (copied crap from wikipedia or something like that) and I told her no, I've never heard of anyone doing that because it all comes back to the first reason: we love writing.
Sure, I could copy and paste a heap of words into the wordcounter on the Nanowrimo website and make it look like I'd written 50,000 words when really I just have a copy of 1984 saved to my desktop but how would I feel? There'd be no rush of adrenaline each day as I return to my project and attempt to figure out the next twist, the next happening, the appropriate reaction for my characters. Instead I would be heavy; weighted with words that hadn't poured from me onto the page. When I'd hang out with my fellow Nanoers I'd feel like a thief, someone who stole a prize that they earned. And what is the prize? The Nano site offers discounts and even bound copies of your project if you hit the 50,000 before the end of the month but, while that's pretty awesome, they are not the real prize. The real prize is the fact that you are proud of your achievement, you have conquered the 50K, you have put an idea on paper and you can now call yourself a writer when people ask what you do.
That's why I've done Nano for the past three years and that's why I'll be sweating over character profiles and chapter summaries all the way through next October and why at midnight on November 1st I'll be torn between chatting with my fellow writers and hitting the ground running on my new novel: I'm a writer and I love what I do.
1 word back - Try and read this
As well as being a writer (I'm allowed to call myself that now, see above for details) I'm also an editor. While I'll talk writing for 2 words forward, 1 word back will be dedicated to the work of taking other writers sculptures, firing them in a kiln and adding a little glaze. Today I'm going to start with a phrase that's been popping up a lot lately and has been getting to the point where I need to bite my lip to stop myself from yelling every time I come across it: 'try and ...'. But what is so harmful about 'try and ...'? Why does it elicit such a strong response? The harmful aspect is that it doesn't mean what people who write it thinks it means (as I'll explain below). The strong response is because I not only see this on facebook and twitter - places where my editing brain turns off for fear of burnout - but in published material. Even worse, a lot of those published works are really well written.
So, let's pull apart 'try and ...' and put it back together again. If someone tells me to 'try and read this' I'll do both - I'll try and I'll read it. This is because that's what you are asking me to do. There is no option for failure, you must try and you must succeed. On the other hand if someone tells me to 'try to read this' then I'll take a shot at reading it and hope I get through it. To all the 'try and ...' users out there, I'm sure you just mean that you want me to have a go at reading something, the problem is that you're telling me to do both and I don't think that's what you mean.
For my sake and the sake of people like me who read literally please try to avoid the phrase unless you want me to try and put down your book.
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