I Am Disturbed

Dear Friends,

Recently, I have observed something that disturbs me very much. Perhaps I have been living in a bubble of civility, but that’s the way I like it, so that is the way I live it.

There are multitudes of law-abiding citizens of the United States who are dissatisfied with what the government of this country is doing. I’ve never seen anything like it. Recently, these people, through word of mouth and the Internet, began to make contact with one another. They decided (again through word of mouth) to get together on the day upon which they paid their taxes, and let their elected representatives know that they were not pleased with those representatives’ conduct. That’s cool. People have been doing that in America since before the country became an independent nation.

Thousands of people, all across the country, brought their families, met, voiced their opinions, broke no laws, and, from what I saw, didn’t even leave a shred of trash behind when they went back to their jobs or homes.

What disturbed me was the conduct of the mainstream news media. I have seen them report on groups of five to ten screaming people as if they were many hundreds present. Day-before-yesterday, there were thousands and thousands of polite people gathered all over the country, and except for one network, the mainstream news media barely commented upon it... except to make crude jokes about law abiding citizens. How very vulgar!

No wonder the mainstream news media ratings are declining. Vulgarity should never be rewarded. After all, next to being boring, vulgarity is the second most unforgivable sin.

No one should ever be belittled. Everyone has the right to say what they think... so long as they do it civilly and don’t harm anyone else. It’s called FREEDOM OF SPEECH. It’s guaranteed in our Constitution.

Let’s keep it that way.

Frances
Writing Science Fiction Romance
Real Love in a Real Future

It's a Conspiracy...

...Of inanimate objects against human beings. They're out to drive us crazy. I'm not paranoid. They really are out to get us.

My dinosaur of a computer was working fine on the afternoon of September 17th. I was working happily. Then I had to run to the grocery. You know how it is... life intruded. I needed to eat. When I returned, one hour later, there was a black screen of death staring at me, saying, "Disk unable to boot." What tha...?

Nothing that I did could induce that cantankerous antique to get back to work. Therefore, it was off with its carcass to the repair shop the next morning. "It will be two weeks before we can work on your computer." No worries! I have a laptop that I can use as backup. Not !

The laptop was out to get me too. All told, it took me over five hours in as many days and two weeks to get online once again. In addition, I am sure that I have been black listed in New Delhi for shouting at the hapless child on the other end of the line, "I can't understand a word that you are saying. Please get someone that I can understand."

God bless that young man in the Philippines. I could understand him, and he could actually understand my Southern Belle English. It turned out that there was a little box in the Properties for my Network Connections that was supposed to have been checked at the factory. It hadn't! It is now... and... oh, there are men in white coats are at the door... I really must see what they want.

Isn't a global economy wonderful.

Frances

Writing Science Fiction Romance
Real Love in a Real Future

For the Love of Words

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” ~ Mark Twain

There is something about finding the precisely correct word that makes the heart sing. Poets are the consummate masters of the craft. Every word that a poet uses must be dense, with multiple layers of meaning; and, the poet deserves the highest praise, for his very reason for writing is to make his reader’s heart sing.

On the other hand... there is little that is more jarring to a reader than to be cruising through a book, and to encounter a word which is obviously taken from a Thesaurus, with little understanding of the nuances of the word. The glaring intents of this scenario are: 1) not to repeat a word too often; or, 2) to show that the writer knows some 'really big' words. The result is generally ludicrous.

“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” ~ Stephen King

As you can see, some authors seem to advocate throwing the Thesaurus away. But, that may not be absolutely true. It would be rather like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Thesauruses are wonderful tools for expanding one’s mind and vocabulary, to say nothing of being sheer fun. It's just that like ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, Thesauruses should be used with caution... AND A DICTIONARY! A writer who does not fully understand all the implications of the word which he/she plans to use, is playing with fire, or perhaps a bucket of water when the real intent was to light the fire. Wrong in either case.

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. ~ Hart Crane

I make no claim to the mastery of words that a poet must exercise. All that I can say is that I love words. I am a merely writer of plain prose. I simply try to choose the correct word to convey my ideas in the clearest possible manner. The correct and careful use of words is one of the foundation stones of civilization. We need to be careful of anyone playing fast and loose with our language.

May we all be discriminating in both our reading and our writing,

Frances

Writing Science Fiction Romance
Real Love in a Real Future

Life Gets in the Way, An Apology, Kudos for Me, and a Rant...

Did my title to this post say enough?

What can I say, life happened! I got food poisoning this past week and have had a hard time keeping up with anything. In addition to that, I am attacking "the black hole of long standing." This is not a one day, or even one week job. UGH! Sorry that it has been so long since my last post. I missed Father's Day, and really wanted to say something about that. I guess that I will just have to choose another day to honor Dad. I'll surprise you.

On the other hand, the last few days have been extremely productive, writing-wise. I have been writing a short story to post on my website once I activate it. It will be a prequel to the novel that I am currently working on. I hope to have the first draft of the short story finished by tomorrow. Can I crow? I have taken some of the techniques that I have been learning in my writing classes and applied them... I think successfully. You may judge for yourselves after I post it. But, I am so proud of myself. Day before yesterday, I knocked out almost 2,000 words (really something for me), and yesterday I added 1,600 more. About 2,000 more, and I think that I will have this baby ready to age in its own special oak barrel. CAUTION: Although my novel is a Science Fiction Romance with Adventure overtones, this short story is all Futuristic Adventure. It isn't a Romance because the Hero must wait to meet his Lady in their novel. *G* I'll post more later.

Now for my RANT! (aren't RANT's fun?) Yesterday, MSNBC posted a poll online about "Do You Like Romance Novels?":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25195786/

If you go to the site, you will immediately notice the weasel wording of the questions to be rather manipulative. Being the unreconstructed REBEL that I am, and not liking to be manipulated... I had to comment. I think that they may have opened a rather larger can of worms than they expected. Notice the sum of the first with the last question. If you would like to read the comments, this is the URL: (they're very entertaining *G*)

http://krisharding.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/18/1589197-vote-do-you-read-romance-novels?threadId=293187&cmt=2003476#c2003476

If you don't have the time, this is what I had to say:

I, like the posters above, also found the term "bodice rippers" to be offensive... even though at first amusing. The writers that I know have amazing intellects. They have to be astute psychologists as well as master craftsmen/women.

However, I wish to add to the posts above that, not only is the term dated, it was consciously meant to be offensive from it's first usage. It was meant to demean women. The very thing that women like about the Romance genre is the Happily Ever After ending. It implies hope for the future, along with commitment and stability within the family. These are the very things that hold a society together. When a man belittles a woman, for any reason, he shows his own deficiencies. When a woman belittles a man, she does the same. Any time one person denigrates another, they are working to destroy the society which gives us all the opportunity to achieve our dreams. Call it what you like, by framing your question as you did, you were trying to influence your poll and, belittling more than half of the population of the Earth. Men like Happily Ever Afters too.

Studies have shown that men whose wives read Romance get their HEAs more often than not.

And that my friends is my RANT. Whew, I feel so much better! Time to go write.

Frances

Writing Science Fiction Romance
Real Love in a Real Future

When Writers SCREW UP!

This picture typifies what I think when writers betray their fans' trust. Duh! OK, this morning, I was over at RBL, and one of my sisters there brought up something that made me want to RANT.

WHEN WRITERS SCREW UP!

I am jumping in here because it seems that it is happening, A LOT. For me, it all seemed to begin a few years ago when Bill Panzer (Highlander) and Josh Whedon (Buffy, Angel) started killing off their major characters. Don't get me wrong, I have truly enjoyed their twisted humor. Now other directors are doing the same. This past week I have seen it happen on at least three of my favorite shows. By favorite, I mean the only shows that I make the time to watch. Anyway, this really ticked me off. You would think that the writers would have a little more imagination than: "Gee, we need a cliff hanger. Gee, let's kill somebody important off! Gee, let's kill an important relationship! Gee, let's have one of our main characters do something REALLY awful."

Folks, what is shocking one time, gets OLD by the tenth. As you all know, I have been taking beaucoup classes in writing from various chapters of RWA. One of the things that is emphasized (without fail) by the successful writers teaching the classes is:

"Thou shalt NOT break the contract with the reader!"

It is OK to have real risk. It is OK to occasionally have a sacrificial lamb to emphasis that risk. But when something irredeemable happens to one of our favorite characters... Writers and Directors... you and your program/book are so SOL.

Writers have a responsibility to readers and viewers not to destroy that which their fans love... at least not without offering them something better. It makes them angry! Angry fans will no longer invest their time or their money.

Now that I have had my RANT:

1) Which shows have really ticked you off lately (besides Desperate Housewives, of course)?

2) Which shows can you think of that have been killed off because of this violation of the fans' trust?

Happy writing,

Frances

Trying to Write Science Fiction Romance

Real Love in a Real Future