Present Day Usage of the Language Creates a Feeling of Falling Behind

The Old Cobbler is beginning to feel like he has fallen behind with the English language. There was a belief, after a half-century of stringing words together, that a decent understanding of their meaning was in hand.

There also was an assumption that the results were coherent thoughts. But recent observations, which pulled me up short, drove me to my dictionary to see if I had missed revisions to the language.

A local fast-food outlet has this comment on its roadside sign, “Try our natural cut French fries.” I am left feeling bewildered every time I drive past the sign.

“Natural cut?”

My dictionary defines natural as “existing in nature and not produced or caused by people.”

Are these potatoes something akin to spaghetti squash? As these tubers grow in the soil, do the long, square strips of potato, which are cooked and called French fries, develop naturally? Where are they grown? How are they harvested?


A chapter’s beginning sentence in a novel I am reading reads as follows, “I must have slept because I woke with a start.” It was a “well, duh” moment, one that, as is often said, yanked me out of the story.

“… I woke …”

My dictionary indicates that woke is past tense for wake, a verb, meaning, “to stop sleeping.”

The previous chapter ended with the character in bed with her boyfriend, after whatever activity it was that left them “among tangled sheets.” What other alternatives other than going to sleep, might there be, from which one would wake after some period of rest?


And this headline over an on-line story,” The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue; An intellectual history,” was another moment that made me wonder what I was missing.

“Intellectual?”

According to my dictionary, the word intellectual means one who approaches something with “intelligence rather than emotions or instinct.” So does that mean looking at pictures of mostly naked women is a sign of intelligence?

Yep, looks like The Old Cobbler needs to buy a new English language dictionary. Many of the words don’t seem to mean what they once did.

Pat Herring Suggests, "Read it Aloud." Another Way to Do the Dreaded Edit

A big welcome to Peg Herring, a former teacher who decided to practice what she taught in the classroom, a move that has proven to be a successful choice.

Today, she shares a few thoughts about what she has found helpful during that often dreaded phase of writing—editing.


READ IT ALOUD

It's tedious. Your voice gets scratchy. You think of all the other things you could be doing. You might even consider cleaning that spot behind the refrigerator instead. Don't do it! When you write something, anything, and want it to be right, you MUST read it aloud.

Reading aloud is magical. It uncovers all sorts of errors, pinpoints weaknesses, and spotlights breaks in the flow of the piece. Some recommend reading your work into a recorder and then listening to it. Others read and listen at the same time. It's up to you, but here are a few things you might find.

Repetition. It's easy to use a word too many times. We all have our favorites, but when we read aloud, your ear will pick them up. Because I read my work to myself, I now know that I am stuck on the word "just". If I'm not careful, everyone "just" wants something or "just" turned around. This and other empty words can be ferreted out as you listen to yourself. In fact, due to past read-alouds, I now do a word find for "just" on my computer and replace or remove most instances of the word before I start editing.

Inconsistencies. Don't ask me why, but reading aloud helps to assure that I said what I meant to say and did not contradict myself. I've written things besides novels: plays, magazine articles, newsletters, and even federal grants, and I have always used this technique. With plays, my mom and I read the lines back and forth. It helped me see how long the play would be when staged, but it also helped with corrections and hearing how the dialogue would sound to an audience. (Bless you, Mom!) Business letters certainly require an out-loud reading. Does the whole sound too casual or too formal? Did I state clearly what my purpose is in writing? Did I answer the reader’s questions adequately?

Flow. Every writer, small and great, has a rhythm to his writing. Read John Steinbeck's work aloud, or Margaret Atwood's, and hear the flow of words. Then read an essay by an average eighth-grader. The student has not had time to develop a style, so the writing probably will not flow well. Writers can improve the smoothness of their writing by listening to it read aloud. Words that don't work stick out. Sentences sound awkward. Phrases are misplaced. The ear helps the eye, the mouth helps the brain, and the writing improves.

Everything works together when you read your writing out loud, even though it might make your throat scratchy and, after while, make cleaning that spot behind the fridge look good.
If you don't see what's wrong with the sentences below at first, read them aloud and see if it helps.

*Mr. Green saw several Japanese beetles looking over his garden.
*Little Gerald said to his mathematics teacher, "The problem I have with the square of the hypotenuse is is that there is not a square in that triangle anywhere."
*I am applying for financial assistance due to illness. I have been in bed with the doctor for three days now. If things do not improve soon, I am going to get a new doctor.




THE POSER: Name three books/series where an amateur sleuth has a cop as significant other.



THE PRIZES-Weekly prizes (your choice of THE DEAD DETECTIVE AGENCY in e- or print format) drawn from the names of those who comment on the blogs as we go. Comment once/day, but the first commenter each day gets entered twice in Saturday’s drawing!




The Pathway: Yesterday’s post, “The Possessive Problem”, is at suspensenovelist.
The next entry, “And What About Contractions?” and the answers/comments to the Poser will be up on Monday at thelittleblogofmurder. Prizes for the week will be announced Saturday at Peg’s blog, itsamysterytomepegherring.

A Brookins Book Review

THE ANTEATER OF DEATH
By Betty Webb
Poisoned Pen Press,
December, 2008, Hard cover,
230 pages, $24.95,
ISBN: 9781590585603

This is the beginning of a new series for this veteran author. Just look again at the title. Somewhere in the back of my head there's a Shakespeare quote. Ms. Webb is an accomplished writer with several excellent novels to her credit. This one is a distinct departure for her, and it seems she is almost unable to restrain herself. There are a great many asides and some tongue-in-cheek humor that sometimes distracts the reader from a rather thin plot, although the setting is intriguing and Webb uses it well.

Theodora Bentley, the central character in this drama, is a zookeeper in a private enterprise somewhere in Southern California in an old seaside town interestingly named Gunn Landing. This zoo is the private plaything of some very wealthy families who have deep roots in the community. The situation is made more complex because some of those family roots are deeply entangled in their own history. Thus there is a darkness to this novel which offers some opportunities for the author to move in directions which would have been unthinkable even a couple of years ago.

One of Teddy Bentley's responsibilities is the giant ant eater of the title, in the wild, a fearsome creature indeed, equipped with razor claws designed to rip logs open in search of ants. The book opens in the mind of this anteater, improbably named Lucy, in a highly unusual approach, which has the potential to cause a number of readers to immediately close the book. I suggest that such readers persevere. Pregnant Lucy is disturbed when a male human enters her enclosure and she goes to investigate. Her investigation leads to an accusation that the animal has killed the man, a director of the zoo.

This accusation against Lucy rouses anger and frustration among the zookeepers especially Teddy. Gradually Teddy becomes snarled in the murder investigation, complicated by her own roots in the community and her past relationships with the Sheriff and several others. Eventually the smoothly written and complicated plot gets sorted out and Teddy receives lots of help from a substantial range of off-beat and even strange characters, not all of whom are caged in the zoo. Funny, ironic and sometimes irreverent, the book will give readers an inside look at zoo keeping, animal protectionism and the often distorted lives of wealthy idlers.


Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

My First Experience at a Crime Festival; An Enjoyable, Informative Affair

The affair was billed as a mystery writers’ conference. Its official title was The Cape Fear Crime Festival, held last Saturday in Wilmington, North Carolina. But for The Old Word Cobbler, who was attending his first such affair, It was more than just another conference. The affair had the friendly flavor of a family reunion and the comfortable passion of a Sunday church service.

It was evident from the beginning of events, an informal gathering for pizza and drinks on Friday evening, that this was a gathering of old friends, one that at first made me feel like an interloper. But that feeling disappeared in less time than it took me to type that last sentence.

I have read many times that writers of mystery novels are the friendliest group of people in the world. I now can make that statement based on first hand experience. I’ll not attempt to list all the people I met because I know I’d never remember them all. Assuming the CFCF site is still up, a list of participants can be found there.

And did I mention passionate? Not passionate in the sense of zealots who say my way or die, but a group of people who have genuine enthusiasm for, and enjoy a common goal while respecting alternate ways of accomplishing it.

As a compliment, I call them tomato growers. Every person who grows tomatoes has a different way to go about it. But in the end every tomato produced is a tasty and enjoyable fruit. And so it is with mystery writers. Love’em all.

The only downer during the weekend was that The Old Cobbler didn’t wear the proper shoes for the weekend. I got my feet wet going to the pizza party on Friday night; woke up on Saturday morning with a full-blown head cold. What I had to say during the day probably was too clear or easily understood. Sorry about that.

And one last thing. I’ve had a love affair with the Wilmington region since I first lived there over forty years ago. I’m including a cover of Susan Whitfield’s book, which is set in Wilmington, in hopes that someday, it's reproduced as a large poster for framing and I get lucky enough to get my hands on one.

The cover reminds me of the many sunsets I've seen over the Cape Fear River.
Yeah, it’s called shameless begging.

Solving Crimes Can Be Humorous...... As Geraldine Evans' Series Proves

Geraldine Evans, a Londoner by birth, who now lives in Norfolk, England, with her husband George, has been writing since her twenties, though only began to get novels published halfway through her thirties. As well as her popular Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series, she has a second crime series, Casey & Catt and has also had published an historical and a romance novel, plus articles on a variety of subjects, including, Historical Biography, Writing, Astrology, Palmistry and other New Age subjects. She has also written a dramatization of DEATH BEFORE MORNING, the first book in the R&L series.

DEADLY REUNION is her eighteenth novel and fourteenth in the humorous Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series.













INTERVIEW

Q. First off, let me as the question I always have for authors from the other side of the pond. What are your thoughts on being a British author writing for, among others, an American audience, considering the differences in our common language?

A. My audience is mixed, with the Brits, Aussies, Canadians, Irish and Kiwis thrown into the reading pie, as well as plenty of Americans of course, who seem to be my biggest buyers (for which much thanks. It really is appreciated, you guys). There’s the obvious problem of language, of course, with Brits having expressions like ‘lovely jubbly’ (really good) and ‘wicked’ (also really good) and ‘plonker’ (idiot). The first and third of which are from the popular television show from the eighties, Only Fools and Horses. There’s no reason why Americans or anyone else should understand such expressions, though the Internet makes it easier to get to grips with the sayings of other English language speakers. Older and wiser than when I was first writing, I try to avoid the more confusing expressions in my writing, knowing such things can be irritating and may cause a reader to cast the book aside.
Then there’s the worry that you seem to be in advance of us Brits in a lot of things, so you have a concern that what we write might seem stale to American eyes. Though, having said that, British authors seem to be popular with Americans, so I’m not going to worry too much on that score.
I think where American authors really have it over British ones is in their marketing knowledge. On the whole, I think British authors are way behind when it comes to marketing. I’ve learned so much from just one American writing website, Yahoo Groups’ MurderMustAdvertise. Because of the members’ knowledge and generosity in sharing with the list, I’m now the proud owner of a blog and a newsletter as well as two ebooks and three book trailers with another trailer of me being interviewed (don’t watch – you’ll squirm at how awful it is. The next one will be better. Promise.). So I’m quite advanced! I find, when I try to persuade other Brits to go the ebook route with their backlists that they tend to shy away. I tell them it’s easy – it must be if I can do it – but they’re still not keen. I don’t know how to convince them.

Q. What started you out on the novelist’s road, now eighteen books published and more to come?

A. I suppose one of the main push factors was a hatred of the deadly day jobs. I left school at sixteen after a pretty basic education. University was unthought-of of in my family and that of everyone else’s that I knew. Anyway, I started work, in a library of all places! But young and stupid as I was, I Ieft there after a year to go and work in an office. Turned out I loathed office work, the oh-so-boring humdrumness of it all. I didn’t like having to stick to a set routine, either; especially someone’s else’s set routine. If I start at nine o’clock, I want it to be my choice. I have also always been a very creative person and to be happy, I needed to do work that was fulfilling. But I had no qualifications, so I was stuck. But I knew I could never find fulfillment in office work with its dull letter typing and filing and query answering. I wanted more, much more. Gradually it dawned on me that I could perhaps put my love of reading to good use and write my own novel. Ignorance is bliss. It finally took hitting the milestone age of thirty to get one novel actually finished. I then wrote a book a year for each of the following six years before I was published. But, like most other authors, I worked long and hard to get that far. Seven days a week for years, which is what is what most aspiring authors have to do.

Q. What would you say were the things that got you through all the rejections of the early days?

A. I would say there were three things that got me through: perseverance, the willingness to seek out professional criticism and learn from it and the love and support of my husband, not necessarily in that order. If I’d lacked just one of those things, I doubt I’d have made it.

Q. What was it about writing crime novels that attracted you?

A. I suppose it was the diversity of the genre. I came from trying to write romantic novels for Mills & Boon and I found that such a straitjacket, it was a relief to sink into the arms of murderers! I wasn’t cut out, anyway, to write romance, as I’m not a pink and fluffy sort of woman. Mentally, I think I’m more masculine. God knows what started me down the romance road in the first place! But after oh so many rejections of my romantic novels I decided it was time to get real and kill someone.

Q. Your latest novel, DEADLY REUNION, features a strong American character in Cyrus Rafferty. Tell me, why did you decide to include an American character?

A. It seemed the natural course. The book is about the murder of a man at a school reunion and to bring the humorous sub-plot together with the main plot, I decided that Ma Rafferty, my Detective Inspector Joe Rafferty’s mother, would organize a reunion of her own – a reunion of both sides of the family, the Raffertys and the Kellys. Ma Rafferty is Irish, so, with the emigration of many Irish people to America, it seemed natural to have her invite the American cousins. And given lapsed Catholic Joe Rafferty’s aversion to religion, it amused me to have him saddled with a tub-thumper from America’s Bible Belt as a temporary lodger, who actually ended up helping Rafferty to solve the crime.

Q. Your crime novels always have a humorous subplot. Why did you decide to write your novels with a humorous element?

A. As a reader of crime novels, I have often found myself longing for a bit of light relief from the relentless round of interviews and procedure, so when I came to write my own crime novels, this is exactly what I decided to do. I created London-Irish working-class detective DI Joseph Aloysius Rafferty who comes from a large Catholic family not averse to the occasional law bending – nothing major, at least, not amongst the immediate family, but the occasional distant cousin is a bit less particular. I thought that was realistic; who hasn’t bought back-of-a-lorry bargains? And the working classes, having less money, tend to buy more iffy bargains.
Joe Rafferty’s Ma is particularly prone to this and persists in it in spite of Rafferty trying to persuade her on to the straight and narrow. When you add to the brew a Superintendent who would be only too glad of an excuse to suspend him and a partner, in Welshman Dafyd Llewellyn, who is morally upright as a Puritan, you will see that Rafferty’s life is endlessly complicated. And provides a wealth of humorous subplots. And that’s even without bringing Father Kelly or estate agent cousin Nigel Blythe (aka Jerry Kelly), into the equation. My Rafferty novels provide me, as the creator, with lots of fun. I hope the reader finds them as much fun to read.

Q. In addition to your one romance novel, LAND OF DREAMS, (Hale 1991), you have one historical novel published under the name Geraldine Hartnett. What made you write RELUCTANT QUEEN?

A. I’ve always loved history – at least since I left school and escaped teachers’ relentless obsession with dates! I love the Tudor period in English history and was keen to set a novel there, but everyone really well known has been done to death. But then, I read about Henry VIII’s little sister, Mary Rose Tudor, and I decided to write a novel about her and her life. Although she’s a little known character from history, Mary was Henry’s favourite sister and it was she after whom he named his famous ship, The Mary Rose.

Q. What’s the one piece of advice you would give to aspiring authors?

A. Never be satisfied with your work, certainly don’t consider it completed after one draft. The first draft is just the beginning, just setting the scene and putting the characters and the plot in place. You need to go over and over your draft, rounding out your characters and smoothing your storyline and prose. Most professional authors are never completely satisfied with their work and it’s only deadlines that mean they have to call a halt. So make sure you behave as professionally as the pros and are never satisfied, either. Certainly don’t be easily satisfied. At the very least, there are always repetitions, awkward phrasings and unfortunate metaphors to be corrected.

Q. What’s your opinion of ereaders? Do you love them or loathe them?

A. I love them. In fact, I got my husband to buy me a kindle for Christmas. I’ve also, in the last few months, published the first two of my out-of-print novels in my Rafferty series as ebooks. They’re available on Kindle and iPad, iPhone, iBookstore, nook, sobo, android, etc. I love them as both a reader and a writer.
As a reader, they take the waiting out of wanting and as a writer – they do the same. Anyone can epublish a book, without having to wait for acceptance by an agent or editor. Of course, for readers, this is also a drawback, as anyone with half a mind to publish a book does so, leading to a lowering of quality. Personally, I prefer to buy backlist books that have been brought out again as ebooks as you’re assured they have had a professional edit. Some ebooks are so badly put together, so irritating with all their myriad formatting, spelling and grammatical imperfections that they‘re counter-productive to the author’s career. My backlist novels are slowly making an appearance as ebooks. So far I have two up and I plan to get the rest up as soon as I can. But I’m not going to rush it as to do it properly is a large investment of time – the American lady I use to get my novels ready for epublishing (the wonderful Kimberly Hitchens at hitch@Q.com) would ideally like me to proofread them three times! We’ve compromised on two. Hell, none of my hardback publishers have expected more than one proof. Anyway, by the time I’ve finished the second proof, I’m sick of the sight of them (bearing in mind that I’d already had to do another proofread when they were converted from my old Amstrad disks). They were as perfect as I could make them – at least as far as spelling and grammar, for the rest, I leave it to the readers’ judgement.

Q. What do you do to market your books?

A. It’s more a case of what don’t I do. I’m currently on a 17-date Blog Tour. For those who wish to follow along, I’ve posted a list of dates, sites and post subjects on both my website and my blog
In addition to the website and blog, both of which I created and maintain myself, I send out a monthly newsletter –you can sign up for this from both website and blog. I give talks and will do signings if asked. I send out postcards and create bookmarks and flyers, which I hand out when I do a public appearance. When I can afford It, I attend conferences. Trouble is, most of them cost so much money, what with the upfront fee, other fees, hotel and travel costs, they are becoming prohibitive to many midlist authors, especially as I like to attend with my husband, thus doubling the already hefty costs. There are a lot of conferences and literary festivals I would like to attend, but they’re beyond my pocket. Maybe one day.
I also create my own video book trailers, which I put up on Youtube. They’re also on my website and blog and various other sites. I use Facebook and twitter and post on Goodreads, the Red Room, Crimespace and other author websites. I give interviews, for other bloggers, journalists and radio hosts. I’ve also just done my first video interview for The Lit Chick Show. It should be up on their site on 25 February 2011. Watch it, even if it’s just for the opportunity to have a good laugh at my and my interviewer husband’s ineptitude. We’ll get better. Won’t we?

Q. What are you working on now?

A. I’m working on my nineteenth novel, KITH & KILL. This is my fifteenth Rafferty & Llewellyn novel and sees Rafferty & Llewellyn investigate the murder of the head of a fashion house, on her ninetieth birthday, and with all her family staying in her house. I’m still working on the humorous sub-plot. It doesn’t sound very amusing thus far, but it’s only at first draft. The second and following drafts are where I whip the book into shape (I hope). I’m a ‘seat of pants’ writer, so it’s always a case of skirting dangerously close to the precipice.
I’ve also recently completed the dramatization of DEATH BEFORE MORNING, the first Rafferty novel and my debut crime. Offers gratefully received! To any British television moguls reading this, think of my Rafferty series as Inspector Frost meets Del Boy Trotter and family – with murder thrown in.

THE NEXT STOP on the tour will be Friday, February 4, at Lelia Taylor’s Creatures ‘n Crooks Bookstore

After the tour ends, three names from among those who leave a comment at one of the stops will be pulled from a hat. The winners will receive one signed hardback copy of DEADLY REUNION,plus one copy each of two ebooks, the first and second novels in the Rafferty & Llewellyn crime series, DEATH BEFORE MORNING and DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN. They will also receive a subscription to her blog.