You Know the Name.

Onomatopoeia.  “The soft soughing of a gentle breeze”; “Silent, almost sibilant, susurration of cosmic radiation...”

With an added bonus of alliteration.

‘Soughing’ and ‘susurration’ are both examples of onomatopoeia, which has been around in literature forever but was not described until about five hundred years ago.

Odd, isn’t it?  That onomatopoeic words can be used frequently and commonly for their specific effect of sounding like the sounds they describe and yet the name itself is almost unusable.

Nobody goes around saying “I heard a great example of onomatopoeia today, want to hear it?” but often people will tell you a ‘knock, knock’ joke (especially children).  ‘Knock’ is onomatopoeia, of course.

Possibly the most common one is ‘zip’ or ‘zipper’—it is how it got its name.

A friend of mine is called Ting Ming Ching.  No, really.  This is absolutely true.  We joke with him that his parents got his name by throwing cutlery in the air and listening to what it sounded like when it hit the floor.  Lovely man, and brilliant, too.

Another word is ‘anthropomorphism’.  We all do it.  We all anthropomorphise things but we don’t actually use that word.

Especially animals.  Pets.  We love to anthropomorphise pets.  We treat them as small humans, give them human traits and emotions and even pretend that they understand every word we say.

They are not small humans they are animals.  They have their own characteristics and instincts that are not remotely like ours.  Nevertheless we insist on doing it.

We do it to cars—especially if they go wrong!  Perhaps the battery is a bit flat so starting becomes a problem, “Come on, Girl.  You can do it!” we urge.

Strange it is that when our car is giving us problems it becomes female.  Hmm.  I think we shall leave that alone!

Where is this leading us?

It is a fact that there are many famous authors out there.  We could actually resolve that statement to ‘there are many authors out there who have famous names.’

For centuries authors and playwrights, specifically, have been able to walk amongst us in the street and not be recognised.

Politicians require to be recognised facially.  It is a vantage point from which they are elected.  Actors, of course, are famous, often, by their looks.

Actors, it may be said, are often the reverse—you look at them and say “Oh, that’s... er... wossisname?”

Writers have been anonymous to the public.  Mostly.  Of course there are famous authors whose face has lit up the night sky.  We all, now, have seen J K Rowling and Terry Pratchett; we all saw Asimov and Clarke.

Many authors’ faces appeared in their books but who looked?  Who would remember them?  You could put the book down in a café, look up and see that same author enter the café and yet not connect the dots.

Now we have so much TV and Internet.  The flood of information is almost overwhelming.  Between sundry mobile ‘phones, ipads/pods, computers, laptops, landlines, faxes, the archaic (but still used) radio, DVD’s, ‘YouTube’, ‘Facebook’, ‘Tweets’, ‘Twits’ and who knows what else, we are inundated with pictures and facts and news that is local, personal and international.

Author’s faces are becoming almost as ‘household’ as actors and actresses (can I still use that word?) but would we stop them in the street and say “Hey!  You’re Marge Blenkinsop-Smythe, aren’t you?”

So far we are still in the realms, except for the few, of authors being anonymous.  Only the names are famous to protect the innocent—and the copyright!

That’s a comfort.  That’s almost onomatopoeia.

Humour

The Family Skunk

A mother skunk and her little family lived underground in a clean and well ventilated, as you would suppose, hole.

Her family was made up of two boys who, like all young boys, were mischievous and scampered around constantly.  However, the difference with these two boys was that they rarely scampered around together.  One of them would, at every available opportunity, run outside to play and the other would not.  In fact the other was so hesitant to go outside that his Mum feared that he had agoraphobia.

Both boys had names that their Mum had given to them in their infancy but, because of their individual peculiarities, they had developed nicknames.  One of them was called ‘In’ because he liked to stay inside the home all the time and the other was called ‘Out’ for the entirely opposite reason.

All was well in the family Skunk household until, one fateful day in late August.  Mum was busy, as ever, making a delicious dinner for them all when she heard one of her boys calling out.

“In!  In!  Are you in In?”

“Why are you calling In, Out?  In will be in—why aren’t you out, Out?”

“In’s not in, Mum.  I came in from out to find In to take him out for a change.”

“But if In’s out and you’re in, Out, then In will get lost out because In stays in all the time—he never goes out.”

“Don’t worry, Mum.  I will go out to find In and bring In in from out.”

“Please go out, Out, at once and bring In in—In can’t stay out without you, Out, he’ll be lost out.”

“I’m going out now, Mum.

So Out went out to bring In in from out.  Mum stayed in and worried about Out finding In out.

In just a moment, Out came in with In from out.

“Out came out to bring me in, Mum.”

“But how did you find In so quickly out, Out?”

“Instinct!”

This is a short story—a very short story, that I wrote to put on my web page.  I should say that it is a story that had been wandering around the Royal Air Force for many years, I just ‘dressed it up’ and wrote it down.  If anybody can claim copyright, and has the provenance, I shall be happy to apologise and remove it.

Why have I reproduced it on my ‘Blog’?  Well, because somebody read it, they wrote to me about it and they said that, while they enjoyed the story, they did not understand the humour.  “Was it,” they asked, “A joke?”

Well, yes.  But.

There are also some ‘Shaggy Dog’ stories on the web site.  Isaac Asimov, of whom mention has previously been made on this ‘Blog’, wrote such stories beautifully.  One of them was called ‘Shah Guido G’.  How cool was the Master, eh?

The humour in such a story depends on having a long story with a weak punch line.  It can be clever and it can be witty but, essentially, it must be weak.

Asimov’s humour in his story was contrived but excellently written so that, at the end, the ‘groan factor’ was exploited to the full.

It also relied very heavily on the reader understanding the colloquialism involved.  I explain as follows:

Fifty years before ‘Avatar’ Asimov came up with the idea, as have others I agree, of floating landmasses—islands in the air, if you will.  The rich and élite lived on these islands in the sky, the biggest was called ‘Atlantis’, while the great unwashed lived on the dirty ground grubbing, as best they can, for a living.  The story gets to a point where unhappiness is turned into action, the military become involved; they send in female marines to ‘take’ the islands.  Unfortunately the engines that keep the islands airborne cannot cope with the extra mass of these heavily armed women and slowly descend to the ground.

Punchline?  “And so, for the second time in history, Atlantis sank beneath the WAVES.”

Monumental.  Perfect.  The great ‘shaggy dog’ as related by the Grand Master.

But.

You need to understand the reference to ‘Atlantis’ and also that ‘WAVES’ were a World War II-era division of the U.S. Navy that consisted entirely of women. The name of this group is an acronym for "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service".  Without that, you are lost.

The other part of humour, especially when used in the ‘Shaggy Dog’ type of story, is the ‘play on words’.  British people love this.  It is, very often, the root of British humour such as was characterised by the great Spike Milligan (Also know as ‘Milligna the well known typing error’).

Exemplars?  Certainly.

“Today convict Eccles fell into a vat of concrete and looks like becoming a hardened criminal.”

“How’s your German?”

“He’s fine—how’s yours?”

“Here’s your breakfast, Lads.  Boiled eggs, I’ll be bound.”

“I have cunningly disguised myself in a leopard skin coat.”

“Hello, Ned.”

“Damn!  I’ve been spotted.”

“You in the Crow’s Nest!  Can you see ahead?”

“Yeah!  A dirty great, big, bald one.....”

And so on.  The pun, the ‘play on words’.  Wonderful.

It is, as I said before, frightfully British.  That is not to say that other English-speaking peoples will not understand it but something may be lost in the vernacular.

For instance, the story about ‘Hermann Limpitt’ requires a person to understand old British currency; even younger British people may not understand that since the currency was changed in 1970.  Forty years ago.  Staggering. 

Forty years ago I was a young man in the correct ‘blue’ uniform writing stories and drawing cartoons every month for the local magazine.  How time flies.

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”  Grouch Marx.

Puns.  Got to love them.

‘The New York Times’ Sunday Book Review

An excerpt from the Web-Site:

“The Use and Abuse of Literature,” the latest book by the prolific Harvard literary scholar Marjorie Garber, is in part about this “centripetal movement” in artistic appreciation “from the edges to the center, from the outside to the inside, incorporating once disparaged genres and authors into respectable, canonical and even classic status.”

By CHRISTOPHER R. BEHA

Christopher R. Beha is an editor at Harper’s Magazine and the author of a memoir, “The Whole Five Feet.”

Since publishing my most recent ‘Blog’ only ‘minutes’ ago, someone asked me what the relevance was to, or for, authors.  The opinion was put up under the heading ‘The Write Stuff’ and is, thus, aimed at writing.

Someone who writes does so under various guises.  They may be writing pseudo-journalism’ (there’s arrogance!) in a tabloid, ‘proto-journalism’ (more condescension!) in a broad sheet, articles in magazines, short stories, novels, plays, TV/Film Scripts (2 very different animals), reviews or ‘Blogs’.  Even writing in a semi-public domain like ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’—and make no mistake, getting an idea across in less than 140 characters takes some skill, makes any person a ‘writer’.

In all of these cases the person who writes is attempting to get an idea from their head into the head of another person.  The ‘other person’ may have a completely different thought process from the writer because of geographical location, religion, education, social up-bringing, custom and tradition.  So many factors accrue in our minds to make us all individuals.  We are, each of us, different.

That is where the point is.

To whom are you writing?

Your thoughts that you put on the Internet are, presumably, aimed at someone.  Someone specific or a specific group of individuals. 

Sadly, there are those who indiscriminately use foul or profane language profusely throughout their writings.  These are the same people, very often, who would cringe at the thought of you entering their house and using the same language to their Mums and Grannies.  Yet they feel free to do so in open forum that is read by, potentially, sensitive people.

There are many who adopt the “If I were you....” approach.

These are people to whom it is important if you have read the ‘right books’ and know the ‘right words’.  Condescension abounds.  Arrogance abounds.  Yet it is these same people who, often, do not know the meanings of the words they themselves use.

“Centripetal”.  A centripetal force does not exist.  It is used to counter the ‘centrifugal force’ that is measurable in a rotating object.  ‘Centripetal’ force is a notional force that opposes, in a Newtonian sense, ‘centrifugal’ force.  ‘Centrifugal’ is the force that exists, in fact.  It radiates outwards from the centre (Note:  ‘radiates’ from ‘radius’).  ‘Centripetal’ is notional because the starting point is not known, only the force measured at the centre—the distance (radii) is inferred or ‘notional’.

Now go back and read the excerpt above.

The author who reviewed that book, above, is obviously an intellectual—at least by his own standards and those in his immediate coterie.  For whom was his review written?  Clearly, for fellow intellectuals and the ‘literary’ clique into which he has insinuated himself or, at least, desires to enter.

This is a case of “If I were you....”  But he is not ‘us’.  He has not written this review for the masses.  He has not expressed a viewpoint from the standpoint of the majority.  The book, by Marjorie Gerber, appears to be aimed at authors.  It appears to be an attempt to assist authors in an explanation of what ‘literature’ means.  This is laudable.

“If I were you....I’d read this (because it might improve you)”

But you are not me.  Just tell me what you think of it openly and honestly.

Sometimes reviews, however well meant and praiseworthy are damning in their attempt to intellectualise, or, even, oversimplify, the object of review.  I wonder what this reviewer would make of ‘Winnie the Pooh’?  That might be entertainment.

A tight line to follow.  A narrow fence to sit on.  I did think to buy this book but, maybe, now.... Hmmm.

Spread Yourself ‘Out’ or ‘Thin’?

Michele, who is a dear soul, has asked me if writing too many different things at once is bad.  She gets, we believe, the following sounds from friends and relatives: “Scoff, hiss-boo, derision, jeer” and such.

This is entirely subjective.  It might, at this juncture, be useful to point out that there are many, many people out there who are bored with their own lives and wish to, vicariously, live yours.

Let me give an example:

You are in the garden.  You are happily, and innocently, planting marigolds in your border as part of an herbaceous lay-out.  Along comes Mrs You-Should.  She stands and watches you for anything up to, shall we say, fifty milliseconds before the temptation to say something takes over.

“If I was you,”  she says, “I would plant those marigolds over there because....”

We do not need to explore the variations of design and horticultural necessities that rotate in Mrs. You-Should’s mind.

The point is that she is not you.

She has planned this whole conversation around the idea that she knows better than you and that her advice is indispensible to you.  The advice will, therefore, be eagerly snatched up and taken with such rapidity that it will make your ears hurt.

That it does not will strike with such force as to make effrontery a considerable understatement.

Consider.

Somebody, a friend, perhaps, gives you a present.  Naturally you thank the friend for their kindness for the friend has thought of you and has gone to a great deal of thought and trouble to find something that, hopefully, you will like and appreciate.

But you don’t like it.

The gift is now yours.  It is do with as you wish.

Burn it, break it, give it away.  It is yours.

Of course, it is best to tell the friend about this or they may give you more in the belief that you were so rapt with it that you are starting a collection!

“Idea Sprite”!

Many, many years ago my cousin and her husband were invited to a friend’s house for Sunday lunch.  My cousin was poor, her friend was not.  This lunch was charity under the guise of “We always have too much on a Sunday – come and help us out”.  Condescending?  Patronising?  Yes, but kind hearted, nonetheless.

The friend made a delicious roast but was in a state of panic for dessert. In the end they made rice pudding.  Everyone likes a milk pudding and it is, too, quick and easy (except for me.  I am completely unable to make rice or macaroni pudding.  My great friend, Gerry Buxton – the finest chef in the known universe, will attest to this!).

Lunch was enjoyed but, then, came dessert.  Cousin and husband gagged the rice pudding down for fear of offending their hosts.  They both, as one, hate rice pudding.

“We are so glad you enjoyed the lunch, you must come again.  Next week?  Fine.  See you then.”

Hostess knows that she is safe with rice pudding and, thus, repeats the dessert.  Every Sunday.

Ultimately, cousin’s husband says, “I’m so sorry but we hate rice pudding.  We ate it so as not to offend you.”

Hostess and host laughed fit to burst.  “Why didn’t you say so, you silly-billies!  I should have made something else!  You suffered needlessly.”

They ‘suffered needlessly’.  Hmm.  Think about that.

Whenever you are given something it is always best to be honest.  Say “Thank you but I may pass this on.”

Advice is a gift.  It is offered, usually without request, on the understanding that the recipient will take it.

But it is a gift.  You may take it, or leave it, at your will.  If you give advice to someone do not be offended if they make their own mind up, if they reach their own decision on whatever matter it is.

Their advice is based on their own wants, needs or expectations.

“If I was you, I’d....”

But they are not you.

Use of Words

http://bit.ly/fhuCkv

I have put the link in but, whether it works for you, or not, I cannot say.  There is no real disadvantage if it doesn’t appear.

In a moment of enforced idleness, rare in itself, I was browsing through a few links and sundry web pages when I read this one.

It was alarming.

The term used, ‘YA’, is, I believe, ‘Young Adult’.  It refers to a genre of literature.

Genre.  Yes.  Hmph.

The alarming part was that they say that YA Sci-Fi is now regarded as ‘dystopian’.

Oh, no.  Really?  How dismal.

Let’s just take a pace backwards for a moment.  There may be people—nice, kind readers, out there who have not swallowed dictionaries.  There are, equally, people out there who pronounce the exclamation ‘Oh!’ so that it starts with an ‘e’.  Such people will look down their noses at people, like us, who are not familiar with the term ‘dystopian’ and who do not bandy such words around in their day-to-day speech.  These are the same people who will use words like ‘trope’ instead of ‘cliché’.  Fortunately, Chaucer, Shakespeare and Bacon all wrote in English—more or less.

As did Milton.

It was Milton who made a joke.  He called a perfect place: ‘Utopia’.

Why is that a joke?  Because Milton used a combination of a couple of Greek words to construct this new, non-word.  Words that mean ‘good’ and ‘non’.  So ‘Utopia’ is a ‘good place’ that doesn’t exist.  A joke.  Lovely one, too.

From this was derived the term ‘dystopia’ meaning ‘bad place’.

There is also ‘cacatopia’ spelt in sundry ways—all correct.  This uses a puerile and scatological term to describe a place that is.... not nice.

Why is this alarming?

Because the assumption is that all YA Sci-Fi is about a bad place.  Post-Apocalyptic wreckage of Earth and Humanity, and all that.  Bleak, no?

‘Blade Runner’ starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and the beautiful Joanne Cassidy, may be said to be set in cacatopia.  This could prove to be an exception to the YA Sci-Fi rule if ‘Blade Runner’ could be said to be YA!

I am disturbed by the idea that nobody has a cheery view of the future.  Is it not possible that there is some good out there?  Is it not possible that we humans will overcome and do wonderful things?  Is all really lost?

What does this say about the present?  Are we so absorbed with negative thoughts that we have given up on the possibility of everything turning out well for everyone?

Have we just accepted that the World is going to hell and there’s nothing we can do about it?

In that case, what price ‘Greenpeace’, WWF’, PEAMM’ and other such organisations?  Are they all for nothing?  If the World and the people in it are going to be raped to the point of destruction are we saying that it doesn’t matter?  That the people who are fighting against these things are lone and unheard voices screaming in the dark?

Do we ignore them or do we say ‘No!  We will stand up and we will support you!  The Sci-Fi writers are wrong.  There is a future, a good one, and we want our children—and their children to be part of it.’

I believe I will write a new story.  It starts:

“A golden sun rises in the East, streaming across fields of wave swept corn....”

Genres

Watching football (soccer) is an innocent pastime.  Not much opportunity to ‘wander off’ mentally.  Just relax, enjoy the game—occasionally boo the opposition and cheer my team on.

Wife brings mug of hot tea; life is good.

Then the commentator says something about a match statistic.

Suddenly, a flock of idea sprites rush in.

“Oy, you!”

“Hey!  What about this?”

They all shout at me.

“I’m watching football.  Go away!” I shout back at them (in my head, of course.  Don’t want to alarm Beloved).

They are persistent.

One of them is very rude.

“That’s very rude!”  I tell it, in a huff.

“Gotcha ‘tenshun, though.  Dinnit?”  It replies, gloating in victory.

“Oh, very well.  It’s half-time anyway.”

“Well, I’ss like this, see....”

There are those who watch football and there are those who play football.  Those who play football, very likely, watch football, too.

Then there are those who study football.  Deeply, I mean.

There’s a friend of mine—Rob.  He’s an expert on the game.  He can tell you every team’s nickname, how they got it, the name of the ground they play in, what the supporter’s song is.  He will, for example, tell you that the ‘Kop’ end at Liverpool’s ground, Anfield, is named after ‘Spion Kop’ in South Africa and that several clubs have, or have had, a ‘Kop’ end.  He will tell you how the Exeter City Grecians got their name or how Dundee United’s supporters became known as the ‘Arabs’.

This is not just a matter of remembering scores and League positions over the years—that would be more superficial.  This is having a deep factual, rather than statistical, knowledge of the game.

For my part, I have problems remembering who plays in what position and for what Club.  It is all I can do to keep track of where my team are in the League table.

No, no.  I just like to watch football.  I enjoy the game, whoever is playing, for it’s own sake.  Some of the best games this season have not involved my team.

How does this reflect on writing?

Well, I like to write.  I also like to read.  There are people out there who like to read but don’t write.  I believe most writers are also readers.

Then there are those who study books.

Just recently I discovered that there is a genre called PNR—ParaNormal Romance.  This came about because I have been watching India Drummond’s wind up to releasing her book, ‘Ordinary Angels’, and the ensuing, deserved, frenzy amongst reviewers.

You see, in my cozy little world there are only a few genres.

There’s Sci-Fi which is my favourite.  There’s Fantasy, which I also like.  And then there’s WhoDunnits, Humour and Period Romance; my Mum liked those.  After that my list tends to run dry.

That’s the point, you see.

When the publisher asked me what genre ‘The Hags of Teeb’ fell under I didn’t know.

“Well, Fantasy, I should suppose?”

I don’t study these things.  Why?  Because, to me, they are not important.  They seem to be hugely important to some people; some authors proclaim that they write ‘Steampunk’ (I had to go and ‘Google’ that!) or Gothic Dungeons and Dragons (which I have yet to ‘Google’).

I always thought of Tolkien as being a Fantasy writer but, apparently, I am wrong.

Does it really matter?  Really?  My stories are for entertainment.  There is no deep hidden sophisticated message buried in the text that is designed to philosophise about the state of the world.  They are just stories.  Something to keep you amused over tea and a biscuit, or two.

Keep labels for tea bags and jam jars.  Labels for writing are for academia not for authors and our beloved readers.  Neither of us wishes to be classified and filed under some strange nomenclature that someone has made up in a moment of idleness.

Now, speaking of tea bags, I do believe the second half is about to begin......

Poem

Another entry that is from the pen of another person.  This will be the third recently but they have all, for their own reasons, been irresistible.

This one, completely out of character for me, is a poem.

I confess to a liking for certain poems  -  mostly parodies, or spites, for example:

    Ring-a-ring o’geranium

    A pocket full of uranium

    Hiro-Shima

    All fall down

To ‘sillies’ like: 

    I wish I was a little grub with whiskers ‘round my tummy’

    I’d climb into a honeypot and make my tummy gummy.

 (Yes, yes, I know  -  “I wish I WERE a little ....”)

Very old-fashioned sort of poetic tastes.

This is a real poem:

The Gathering

by Chris Hamilton-Emery

You know when the world grinds its iron glove

and the chipped teeth of the town shine along the rivulets

beside those corny mansions you mentioned

and everyone piles into

their minds for a while, behaving.

Where the cats wallop through the buckets

of streets and dogs unfold tongues

into displays of dusk

and you can see thin suns mainly

sinking with decisions over prisons.

It’s where the grey fields of our torn insane are withered

in white. It’s where the trains come

flaming through under the brassieres

of old offices and Jupiter swings through

its rusty ear, bangled, burgled.

We can meet there, you and I, to smoke

our taken thoughts in the cupboards of the evening.

There will be opera and stars.

No one will cough or throw bolts

along the canal. Knives will be wet with meat, alone.

Cuddled in the briars we can mope among plastic sheets

shimmering with hairdos like a canteen.

Everyone will come. The vicar

will shake out gunmetal gowns

beside a small lake of trolleys. You will be missed.

Here’s the odd thing about this.

I absolutely do not understand it.  Not a bit. 

And yet.

I am compelled to read it again.

Why?

I like it.  I don’t know why.  It is like a Picasso.  I have no idea what it is supposed to be and yet there is pleasure in it.  Higgledy–piggledy word pictures.

Just like the last entry it pleases me because it was written properly in a man-like manner by a man.  It is not flowery, it is not delicate and lacey and yet there is a charm to it in a masculine way.

It supports my supposition in a previous ‘Blog’.

I am happy.

Thank you for letting me reproduce it.

Courtesy of Salt Publishing.

            http://saltpublishing.com

            http://embracebooks.co.uk

            http://proximabooks.com

            http://saltpublishing.com/kids/

            http://blog.saltpublishing.com

            http://thecoverfactory.co.uk

Stephan Curry

Here is some work from a young man.  He is American - but we can forgive him that.  It is unedited, still in 'the rough', as it were.  Read it.  See what you think of a new generation of writers.

I'll tell you what I think at the end.

"Love is forgiveness, love is kind, love is the power to be a light in the darkness for those who are blind. Love will never stop loving you because there is no time, and it has no beginning or end.  Thus love is the greatest dividend among all who have the strength and will to let it in. No longer shall we be held down by hatred or fear, this is my goal, my promise, my oath, my everlasting will. Love is who I’ll become. Love is who I AM.

With this I promise I will change the world in a positive direction, with these hands, from this heart, through the temporary body within my infinite soul. Let our minds intertwine into the universal all-knowing source to reveal the highest principal of truth, that all there is, was, and ever will be, is love’s existence.  

Yet, our soul is not limited to our mortal shells as it is made of unlimited boundless energy and cannot be recreated or destroyed. The soul is not simply contained inside the body or mind but extends, therefore our body is truly within our soul not the other way around. Your soul contains your body fills an entire room, a whole floor, a building, and extends both externally and from within. It is as omnipresent as the creator for they are one and the same. Every person in the world every living being no matter what color or form (plant, animal, insect, micro-organisms, planets, and stars) every particle, every fiber of existence is an extension of yourself like a limb.

I will assist in building a nation of people free of hatred and fear, where we will all live as one united race, individualistic without division from social standards, background, color, or place. We must rise and persist towards life, a collation of happiness, and creation. Together we shall build the first civil, civilization.   

This vision of a better tomorrow that we will bring forth into our present is not of my own but the combined will and dreams from the hearts, souls, and minds of the collective consciousness as a whole.

We are the wielders of light in the darkness, the unlimited unsung heroes that have gone through life and death only to perpetuate a cycle that seemingly will never end. It is us the people who have been used time and time again stretching back more than a millennium for the selfish and greedy desires of a select few to no avail. It is us the people of the collective consciousness who are the majority and the meek who shall inherit this New Earth. It is us the people who hereby demand through both the collective subconscious and consciousness of the masses that the world and all of its natural resources, land, and property be rightfully returned to the world’s masses. Never again shall a minority rule or take dominion over and manipulate the majority for their own meaningless endeavors of profit. Let every state, every country, and every continent be self-governed in that governments hand over rights to the individualistic peoples of this planet to govern themselves and act accordingly to their own individualistic ideas and beliefs so that no one shall ever be limited or fall victim to boundaries set upon them by another, except that of self, thus forming a common unity of like-minded individuals undivided throughout. Should these endowed rights ever be provoked in any shape or form, it is the responsibility of the masses, to take action in the preservation of all. We the massively united collective consciousness shall no longer stand for a world filled with hypocrisy, corruption, greed, war, genocide, and the exploitation of all races, genders, social classes, religions, or hereby any and all other divisible factors created by man, in the realization and devotion to the universal truth that we are all equal individuals and we are all one."

By Stephan Curry, New York, USA.

OK? 

It needs the punctuation brushing up and some of the words, and syntax, need sorting out.

But.

Overall?  I am impressed.  From a young man this is art.  Written art.

That is why it is here.  On my ‘Blog’.  Because this is how men should write.  It is beautiful, it is poetic but it is not flowery and ‘twee’.

This is what I have been talking about in my previous ‘Blogs’.

Established and professional authors and writers take careful note.  The standard is being set higher than that to which you are accustomed.  Do not rest on your laurels or they really will be being worn in the wrong place.

Corrigenda and Amendments

Led you astray there, didn't I?  Corrigenda.  Lovely word.  Had to use it.  Compelled, I was, to include it.  It means 'correction of an error  -  especially a typographical error".  Cool.

Amendment, we know, is a change that has come about since the last issue or instruction that needs to be incoprorated into the current set of instructions or thinking.


These words are not interchangeable.


There are lots of words that have similar meanings that are not interchangeable.  I have recently seen 'refute' used when 'deny' would have been more appropriate.


Care.


Care must also be taken in some singular/plural situations.  'Phenomena' and 'phenomenon' spring to mind as does 'dice' and 'die' ("the die is cast').  In this case 'cast' means 'thrown' and not produced from a mould by pouring in a liquid.  That is another thing, words that are the same but have different meanings.  'Spring' is a fine example.


Elephant traps.


The English language is full of them


I am, I will admit to myself, very good with words.  I have studied them all my life.  I wrote 'The Hags of Teeb' as a play on words and could have added many more (but did not wish to overload the story!).
Nevertheless, beside me are well-thumbed copis of the 'Oxford Concise Dictionary' and 'Roget's Thesaurus of Words and Sayings' because even I can fall into the odd elephant trap on occasion.


It is also easy to make errors when thinking of something else while writing.  Recently I responded to a comment on one of 'Facebook' photograph albums.  I wrote "A place where we would all like to live." based on a comment about Pulau (Island) Redang, off the East coast of Malaysia; arose from the computer, thought about it and hurriedly sat down again to change 'would' to 'should'.  Naughty me!!


I have remarked before that we all make errors.  Perfection is beyond even the most scrupulous of editors.  A friend of mine is superb at proof-reading and suggesting changes but, sadly, his interest lies elsewhere than in Science Fiction.  He will also tell you that he will make mistakes from time to time.  Errors of omission rather than fact.


Do not feel guilty about not getting it quite right.  It has been said that it is the errors in a painted masterpiece that make it what it is.  If a painting desired to be perfect they would have taken a photograph instead.


Treat your writing the same way.  Fiction is fiction.  You do not require to maintain factual precision.  It is the odd small error that give your work texture, feel.  Add that to your descriptions, and the imagery that you conjure up using words, and be content.


Now.  What was it I wanted to say at the start?


Oh, yes.


Amendment.


Recently I said, in another 'Blog', that 'A Cross-Stitch in Time' was available to read free on:
www.davidleyman.com


The publisher has removed all the science fiction stories, except 'Silicon Ballet' from the web site.  This includes 'A Cross-Stitch in Time'.  Only the 'humour' stories remain on the page for free reading.
The promotion, I am told, is over.


Sorry.


Everyone has a boss somewhere!