I don’t mean that for people who can translate it in their minds, but rather those who see the above statement and immediately recognize what it says: “If you can read this, you are less likely to become a good writer.”

Textspeak is not English.  [...]]]>

if u cn read this ur less likely 2 bcum a gd writer.

I don’t mean that for people who can translate it in their minds, but rather those who see the above statement and immediately recognize what it says: “If you can read this, you are less likely to become a good writer.”

Textspeak is not English.  It is a language similar to and rooted in English, but that is where the association ends.  It is a variant form of English utilized by those who are inhibited by speed or character availability limits.  Call it textspeak, SMS, Lingo or any other term, but it is not English and it should never be mistaken for such.

The use of this pidgin dialect is on the rise, and I am not complaining.  Anything that facilitates communication between people is something to be embraced, in my opinion.  But it must be recognized for what it is.  Equating textspeak and English inexorably leads to mingling the pair, and the habits of textspeak are not the habits of English.

The spelling differences are apparent.  Also evident, though somewhat less so, are the loss of capitalization - commonly a bloody sacrifice on the altar of speed – and the abandonment of punctuation which accompanies character limits.  Least obvious, however, and therefore most insidious is the diminution of vocabulary.

English is a popular language for writers for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the array of words available.  Note I do not use the term panoply; it conveys a meaning similar to array, but with militaristic connotations.  English is full of slight variations and subtleties, enough to popularize a book which simply gathers and cross-references such under the name of thesaurus.  Textspeak, in its need to be understandable to another in the smallest character set available, relies upon extensive use of acronyms and shortened versions of common words.

If a person intends to be a writer, they need an extensive vocabulary, and vocabulary expansion isn’t simply a matter of encountering a new word.  Ideally, a person should learn the precise definition of a new word (surprisingly uncommon; many people merely glean the definition from its context when they encounter it, and this is a contributing factor to the evolution of word meanings.)  After learning what a word means, it has the potential to become part of their vocabulary – but only if it is repeated.  If left to disuse, a word’s precise meaning becomes distorted, then forgotten.

Textspeak is ideal – for texting or tweeting.  When it becomes the default language for activities where English is typically used, it hinders vocabulary exercise and growth and that greatly reduces a writer’s prospects for success.   It can also lead to a familiar experience for multilingual people, and that is the unintentional slipping in and out of multiple languages.  While it may be charming to hear someone drop into their native Spanish or French in the middle of a heated discussion, it is not charming to a copyeditor to see a sentence in their latest submission that includes “u” where “you” was intended, or “b4″ in place of “before”.  You will get a rejection letter, not an appreciative smile.

& that isnt gd for ne1.

To the unpublished writer — and maybe there’s another level here we’ll call underpublished — life on the other side of the divide can seem like a place of rarefied air.

This can lead to some erroneous assumptions about [...]]]>

“What’s that, you say? Please send you my six volumes of unpublished gothic poetry? I’d be delighted!”

To the unpublished writer — and maybe there’s another level here we’ll call underpublished — life on the other side of the divide can seem like a place of rarefied air.

This can lead to some erroneous assumptions about what writers farther down the path can actually do for someone still at the trailhead.

I doubt I know a single veteran writer who didn’t, at some early point, reach out to touch some of that mojo and see if a little might rub off. I certainly did. Most accomplished writers, I’m convinced, won’t hesitate to give others the benefit of their experience, when asked.

But if your expectations are unrealistic, or based on erroneous assumptions, this will, at best, lead to a fruitless exchange. At worst, it could completely undermine what might have been a valuable association.

Myth 1: Publishing is a tight-knit cabal intent on keeping you out.

Some people apparently believe that the publishing world is structured like a coalition of country clubs where everybody with a byline periodically gets together to compare elbow patches on their tweed jackets, then circle the wagons and blackball everyone else.

This can, perversely, be more comforting than this unappealing diagnosis: that if you’re not making any headway, maybe it’s because your stuff isn’t ready for prime time. Yet.

Another possibility: You know how you’re always hearing about people losing out on job opportunities because prospective employers know how to use the Internet too? And can see what these people are really like? Editors are more likely to shy away from someone whose online conduct makes him look like a paranoid sociopath with rage issues.

You only have a certain amount of time and energy. Devoting them to conspiracy theories may mean you’ll never lack for company … although it will never advance your cause.

Myth 2: Authors are eager to read the unpublished, unsolicited work of strangers and will drop everything to get right on it.

They’re not. Sorry.

Most of us already have reading lists that would take 3 lifetimes to get through even if all we were was a head in a jar, with one finger on the outside for turning pages.

Another reason? Fear of accusations of plagiarism. We live in a litigation-happy world where anyone can sue anyone else for anything. Including “stealing my ideas.” If this is a factor in a writer’s refusal to read your work, it’s no reflection on you. It’s simply a policy in place to deny that one buzzing human mosquito out there an entry point to sink his proboscis. It’s easier to fend off a potential accusation by establishing a clear precedent of not reading unpublished works, period.

Now, why ask a stranger or distant acquaintance to read something in the first place? Ah, now we’re getting to the heart of it…

Myth 3: It materially matters whether a writer tells you if something is any good or not.

We all need validation. We all want to know, early on, whether we might actually have something going, or if we’re just deluding ourselves and wasting our time.

Except, in my experience — and I bet I’m far from alone in this — the person who’s asking for an honest reaction is really prepared to hear only one answer.

Yet even if they get an appraisal that raises their hackles, so what? It’s just one person’s opinion at one point in time. And one person’s opinion, in a vacuum, doesn’t mean much.

It’s just a verdict. This isn’t what a hopeful writer really needs. In truth, if it’s so early an effort that the writer can’t even tell whether it’s any good or not, then the odds are that it’s not publishable. As is. But could be, with more work.

What a hopeful writer really needs here is detailed feedback, possibly on an ongoing basis. This isn’t something that a working author is in a position to provide on demand. It’s time-consuming and takes a lot of focus. Most working writers are too busy with their own work to act as an unpaid editorial advisor.

The alternative? Classes. Workshops. Reading and critiquing groups. None of which, thanks to the Internet, have to be based close to home. These may not provide the immediate encouragement or ego boost of having the writer give some piece of work a thumbs-up, but in the long run, they’ll do the writer more good, by providing actionable feedback.

Myth 4: Published authors can hook you up, no sweat.

“I just need a publisher,” someone once told me.

As if I could tell this querent right where to go, and done deal.

Contrary to popular belief, authors aren’t plugged into the system in any broad sense. Their connections are often limited to a relatively tiny sphere of active participants in current projects. They don’t necessarily know, or even need to know, who’s reading for what, who’s buying, who may be a likely candidate for a particular manuscript. This is what agents are for.

Oh, okay, I just need an agent, then. Could you…

Not so fast. Working relationships like these are valued, and virtually all working writers are sensitive to how insanely busy editors and agents are. And are reluctant to add to their workload with continued referrals. To expect otherwise is to put the writer in an awkward position.

I can count on one finger the times that I’ve actively interceded, sending a novel to a likely-to-be-receptive editor. But in this instance, the writer had been a friend for years, and someone whose work I’d admired for even longer, who’d published numerous pieces of short fiction, and had a lot of people anticipating what she would do for a first novel.

At most, I expedited what was already destined to happen as a result of her own hard work.

These things do happen, certainly, but when they do, they’re more likely to happen because a friendship or association developed naturally, without expectations. And because they were earned through years of sweat equity.

Myth 5: Published writers don’t care about anyone else and are only out for themselves.

Which is sometimes the conclusion after all else fails.

Again: Most writers, I’m convinced, are willing to give others advice and the benefit of their experience. They want to see others do well. They want to see hard work rewarded and new talent flourish.

But, realistically, they can do only so much. Their time is short and their influence limited.

Ironically, the people I’ve felt most compelled to assist, in whatever small way I could, were the ones who asked for the least.

These are the ones who seemed to understand — by their actions, and not just lip service — that one’s time is a valuable resource.

That the hard work and legwork were up to them, and nobody else could do it for them.

In short, these were the ones who had already mastered the art of professional conduct, regardless of how many times their bylines had seen print.

They got it, and this was obvious in how they presented themselves.

In my experience — and I bet I’m far from alone in this, too — there are 3 kinds of people who ask for advice:

(1) Those you never hear from again, because what you’ve told them sounds too much like more work.

(2) Those you don’t hear from again right away, because they’re too busy acting on the advice they’ve received.

(3) Those you do hear from again right away, because you must’ve been holding back before, and there really is more you can do for them, if they’re just pushy enough.

Two out of three ain’t bad.

***** For a potentially too-close-for-comfort look at the writing life, please check out my own blog’s latest, “A Survival Guide For Writers In Love (And Those Who Love Them).”

Last month, I went hiking off into the desert and completely forgot what day it was. By the time I realized I’d missed my April Storyteller’s post, I was a good fifty feet into the black depths of a dusty mine and at least thirty or more miles from the spot where the last lone [...]]]>

Last month, I went hiking off into the desert and completely forgot what day it was. By the time I realized I’d missed my April Storyteller’s post, I was a good fifty feet into the black depths of a dusty mine and at least thirty or more miles from the spot where the last lone bar on my husband’s iphone weakly bled away. There was absolutely nothing to be done about the missed deadline and yet, for a split second, I twisted around and looked back at the little hole of white sunshine that was the opening of the mine. It was no bigger than a flashlight beam by this point and the only civilization to be found beyond were five dirty four wheel drives, two blue tents, a rather handsomely preserved but primitive miners cabin, and the rusted bits and pieces of a community that died off over a hundred years ago. Still, I had the uncanny urge to sprint as fast as I could toward the light and try to get something worked out. Alas, Google wasn’t out there. The majority of people I keep in my phone weren’t out there either. I’ve grown so used to being the press of a button away from everything I “need” in life that I felt the remoteness of where I was more keenly than I ever have before. But hey, this is why I love camping in Death Valley, right?

Missing deadlines is no good and I don’t suggest doing it, but if you prepare right (and I usually do), taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. A good number of people here at Storyteller’s Unplugged have said it better than I will say it now, but its a plain fact that you need to step out of the office sometimes and live a little in order to feed your soul and your memory banks.

Here’s the thing: I’m made unreasonably happy by my cluttered desk with its vast piles of un-pitched junk mail, half-emptied coffee cups, and hundreds of little post-it notes reminding me that I need to kill off someone or change the chapter title on page 32 or pick up milk. And yes, I’ve completely buried the postcard that tells me it’s time for my next check-up, and it takes me, on average, six and a half minutes to find a red pen, but I still adore it and am loathe to ever separate myself from the unholy mountains of mayhem. When I’m in the zone, I want to do nothing but write. And maybe eat Frosted Flakes while I write. That feeling carries over sometimes even when I’m not in the zone. That’s when taking a hike is advised.

My first book came out the end of October and I’ve been working my tail off ever since. You won’t hear me complaining about that but hitting the road and driving until the running boards on the truck became shredded by the narrow, brambly one-way passage that led far from my desk – this was a very therapeutic thing! Sometimes the only way to recharge your batteries is to leave the battery-operated world behind.

If you’re a writer straight through to your core, you will be writing even as you live through the big and small things in your life. Your desk will not end with the dust-covered globe that sits atop the Papa John’s coupons. It will stretch to your grandmother’s bedside, to the weeds under the rose bushes, to the curve of broken ore-cart tracks that wind through the mine you visited on vacation. Its important to remember that inspiration does not come at the keyboard, rather it is brought there from points beyond. Even the realization that you’ve missed a deadline and can’t do anything thing about it can offer you something to write about in the future.

Of course, all of this probably goes without saying but sometimes I personally need a little kick out the door. My hope for you is that your desk will stretch to many fine places this summer and inthe wintery months beyond.

Happy writing!

Carole Lanham is the author of a collection of award-winning short stories called the Whisper Jar.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Whisper-Jar-ebook/dp/B0062ID33K

There were the pretty ones – a couple of blondes and my favorite, the little black-haired one with cute bangs and eyes that opened and closed and eyelashes to die for and a curious half-smile painted on her rosebud mouth. These [...]]]>

When I was young, I had dolls. I remember them, clearly – all of them.

There were the pretty ones – a couple of blondes and my favorite, the little black-haired one with cute bangs and eyes that opened and closed and eyelashes to die for and a curious half-smile painted on her rosebud mouth. These were real dolls, maybe a foot or two in height, no silly poseable Barbies with wasp waists but REAL dolls, to me real “people” with names and stories each her own.

There were also the other kind, the odd kind – I had a rubber Pagliacci character (a clown with a pointed hat with a pompom, all in a single piece of rubbery material) and I had my bears.

I had the Barbie tribe, later, too – I had several, but again, my mostest  favourite was not the classic Bland Barbie Blondie but instead a fairly rare Amerind-looking specimen with this long silky black hair that fell down to her (relatively natural, proportion-wise) waist, a Pocahontas type whose origins were obviously far from mine – distant, exotic, full of stories of her own.

I had an entire collection of other dolls, ones I didn’t “play” with, but which stood as mute witnesses to my life and the way it was unfolding – they were dolls wearing national costumes of many different countries, places where I’d been or my Dad went and brought me back a National Doll. I had a little blonde Dutch girl with carved wooden clogs. I had an American Indian woman with a baby board and a tiny bronze baby on her back. I had a flamenco dancer in scarlet flounces. I had an Austrian girl in a dirndl with two fat blonde plaits wrapped around her head. These lived in a glass-fronted display cabinet and were rarely exposed to dust and direct sunlight.

They are gone now. All of them. Somewhere. I still have my original teddy bear – the one I was given on my first birthday – the bear who is pushing fifty now, about to turn half a century old in just a handful of short years thus making him into what is probably a genuine antique. But the rest of them, all the dolls, they vanished somewhere along the way in our many moves from home to home, from continent to continent, as I grew and they were deemed superfluous.

But I played with dolls until quite late – probably later than most girls would admit to doing so very probably much after some of the more precocious members of my gender were out with real live boyfrirends. And for me, part of the joy of it all was the stories I got to tell. I guess I was writing even when I wasn’t writing, the stories came to nest in my head and all of these creatures just happened to be stiff and plastic and porcelain and rubber and plush and inanimate only when I happened to be DIRECTLY looking at them, and when I put them away they would sit up and wake up and live the secret lives that dolls live inside of toy boxes and toy chests and the backs of wardrobes where they might ordinarily live.

The reason this all came swimming back into my head right now was because of a recent episode of the show  “Castle”, where the eponymous title character opens this particular episode by “acting out” a scene between a Barbie doll and a plastic dinosaur, complete with dialogue spoken in “character voice” as the two doll figures interact.

His mother walks into the room. “Playing with dolls?!” she asks, with a degree of incredulity.

And Castle, the writer, the creative mind, puts his avatars down hastily and corrects her. “ACTION figures,” he says.

Somehow, dolls are bad, you see. Dolls are what little children play with. Dolls have no role in even an older girl’s life, let alone an adult man’s. But hey, action figures now, they’re…

Oh, I don’t know. There’s a lot of baggage here. Dolls can be anything from pretty-pretty-cute to downright scary and menacing (Chucky, anyone…?) Dolls can have exquisitely detailed features, or they can be completely faceless ragdolls, or they can lack bits of faces (like noses, like mouths…) and I don’t know which could be construed to be potentially scarier, really, the kind that look like they could just draw breath and walk and be as alive as you or I – or the kind that are forever alien by simply missing the signals that let us interpret human thought and emotion on a human face.

But whatever they are or do or represent, dolls are – have always been – so much more than “action figures” and they so don’t need the rationalization or justification of that defensive terminology.

Being caught playing with dolls hardly disqualifies you from being a grown-up, and even if it did, what of it? Sometimes it is just fine to be a child, to let a child’s unfettered and unfiltered mind loose in a story and see what comes out of it all in the end.

I’ve been in classroom situations where I’ve given kids as young as 11 or 12 writing exercises to do – and the sheer unbelievable and exuberant gush of potent creativity that comes out of this, the juxtapositions and connections that an adult mind would never have made because they were too unlikely, the incredible leaps of faith of and imagination – these are the products of minds which are free to tell and to explore the stories that our kind has evolved to tell, to listen to, to crave.

And sometimes it takes a doll.

I miss mine, now, today, with a sudden and terrible fury. My little black-haired girl with the long lashes and her gingham apron and the white plastic shoes on her broad plastic feet. My Pocahontas (and I had her, and dreamed her dreams, long before she became the poster girl for Disney, and I BET mine had the more glorious adventures). All of my little national-costume dolls, my little clog-footed Dutch milkmaid and my regal Spanish dancer that was my pride and joy.

I wonder if they were given away, if some other little girl’s worlds were shaped by these tangible incarnations of my own past existence as a child. I wonder, and I have to hope. And somewhere out there, at the back of some wardrobe, they may be sleeping it off, all of their adventures, waiting for the hour in which they wake again, and walk, and touch the place from which the stories come, and give the stories their own faces.

Many harbor the thought that seismology has to do only with measuring [...]]]>

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra details. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

Many harbor the thought that seismology has to do only with measuring and recording energy releases of earthquakes and has nothing to do with forensics. A definition of the word “forensics” states that it generally refers to scientific methods used to investigate crimes. This piece describes how a geoscientist, Terry Wallace, who had no apparent connection to criminology, used seismology and smarts to discover a number of criminals and to enable him to actually witness their criminal acts.

Terry was a member of a group scientifically studying ground movement in the area of the Andes Mountains along the Bolivian-Chilean border. He was puzzled by recorded measurements of occasional micro-earthquakes emanating from an out-of-the-way plain located more than 13,000 feet above sea level.. This itself was not too unusual, but the quaking was mysteriously happening only late at night.

Micro-earthquakes are those having a magnitude of less than 2.0 on the Richter magnitude scale and are too feeble to be felt. Many readers will recall having heard of the Richter scale. It is used to quantify energy released by earthquakes and is often mentioned by newscasters when reporting them. A few readers might remember that the Richter magnitude scale is base-10 logarithmic. For example, an earthquake having a magnitude measurement of 5.0 on the Richter scale would indicate that the earthquake had a shaking amplitude of ten times that of an earthquake having a magnitude measurement of 4.0. Accordingly, the amount of energy it released would be equal to the square root of 1,000, or 31.6, times that released by the 4.0 earthquake. Those who stayed home from school with the flu on the day that the Richter magnitude scale was being taught need not be concerned. The Richter magnitude referred to in this piece is less than 1.0.

Knowing that earthquakes were not the only phenomenon that shook seismographs, Terry developed a theory about what might be causing the quaking. Close examination of seismographic tracings led him to believe that the source might be trucks driving across the plain. The approach from one direction would have been across flat land. From the opposite direction, it would have been uphill. He believed he could determine the direction of the trucks by the different traces made when the trucks had been shifted into low gear while driving uphill. Eventually, Terry even began estimating the weight of passing trucks.

Given the route along which they were traveling and the time of night they were doing it, Terry figured that smugglers might be transporting contraband. Confirming that trucks were the source of the seismic disturbances might have cost him his life, but he was sufficiently adventurous to meet such a challenge. He hid one night and observed, as he had suspected he would, a passing parade of blacked-out trucks.

In addition to detecting the passage of trucks in the night, seismologists use thousands of sensitive instruments permanently located around the world to pinpoint and monitor, as they were originally designed to do during the Cold War, nuclear weapons tests. The instruments also provide information bearing on such events as submarine explosions, aircraft crashes, tectonic plate movements, landslides and mine tragedies. Other gathered information aids in predicting tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic actions.

According to Terry, water conducts sound so well that a submerged seismometer (hydrophone) can detect an underwater explosion of a single stick of dynamite anywhere in the world.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

A magnitude 4.0 on the Richter scale would rattle loose items within buildings but would not likely cause serious damage to the buildings. A magnitude 5.0 might cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings, but would not likely cause more than slight damage to those that were well constructed.

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that caused the devastation in Japan in March of 2011 had a seismic energy yield equivalent to the energy yield of 480 million tons of TNT.

To put energy yields in some perspective, the asteroid that struck the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico some 65 million years ago had an energy yield equivalent to that of 96 million, million tons (a teraton) of TNT. The asteroid was estimated to have been 6.2 miles in diameter, and it left a crater (the Chicxulub Crater) that was 110 miles in diameter. The strike would have created a tsunami rising thousands of feet.

I recently read an interview where an ardent fan asked questions of a well-known director. The interviewer had several hypotheses about the director’s work that he wanted the [...]]]>

A couple of months ago I wrote about my experiences interviewing people. Since then, I’ve had some more thoughts on the subject that I thought I would share.

I recently read an interview where an ardent fan asked questions of a well-known director. The interviewer had several hypotheses about the director’s work that he wanted the interviewee to confirm. His questions were long and involved as he laid out his theories in intricate detail. The director’s responses were mostly only a sentence or two. Often just a couple of words, generally refuting the hypotheses or claiming that he didn’t remember what he was thinking when he set up a particular shot. As a result, the interview ended up being 85% about the interviewer and 15% about the director. In another article, it seemed like this same interviewer was trying to prod a different subject into criticizing a third party, making him party to the interview’s admitted disdain for the other person. The subject didn’t take the bait, but that didn’t stop the interviewer from trying again.

I don’t know about you, but when I read an interview, I’m more interested in hearing what the subject has to say than I am in parsing convoluted questions. It made me think about my approach to interviews. There are times when I want to elicit certain kinds of information from the subject, but I don’t want to try to coerce the subject into saying something.

While I was writing up the interviews I conducted for the manuscript I submitted recently, I found myself editing down my questions until they were no more than a sentence when possible. The actual questions were longer because I wanted the interview subject to understand where I was coming from. However, having garnered a response, that setup was no longer important. The questions functioned as signposts in the text to indicate a change in topic.

The extreme example of this is the Locus magazine style of interviewing, in which no questions are presented at all. The interview is published as a first person monologue. It completely abstracts the interviewer from the process. I’m not sure how they go about doing this because it means that the interview subject has to answer in fully formed sentences that, in a way, contain or summarize the question. One issue I encountered in conducting my interviews is that the subject would often answer in sentence fragments, switching gears, backing up, changing thoughts in mid-stream. The answers by themselves would often have been unintelligible.

I think I found a middle ground between these two approaches. The interviewer is present, but only as a guide, stating the question in the barest possible manner, without a lot of folderol. I wanted to get out of the way and let the interview subject take center stage. If someone wants to know what I think about something, then they can interview me.