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Sitting on Shrimp. @ Mamacita Jane@janegoodwin.net. Scheiss Weekly: http://janegoodwin.net.
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@Mamacita Jane@janegoodwin.net Scheiss Weekly: http://janegoodwin.net
That was, of course, a literary reference.You recognized it as such because you have cultivated your cultural literacy.Writers must cultivate a bumper crop of cultural literacy, and apply it accordingly.
It’s all about making connections. The more you already know, the more you continually learn.
Your audience is your context. Be sure your readers understand where you’re coming from. And vice versa. State your genre. Write about what you know, or imagine.
Be sure you are addressing the right audience. Context.It all boils down to context.
Sitting on Shrimp Until we put ourselves OUT THERE, there will be no results. As writers, we are our own bait, and our readers come when they see us waiting for them. We know they’re there when we feel them bite, and most of the time, it feels so good.
When I hear pompous people talk about the purity of the English language, I have to stifle a smirk. American English isn’t pure; it’s a veritable stewpot of thises and thats. It’s a multicolored patchwork crazy quilt of words, phrases, clauses, and expressions most of which were stolen from other languages. American English is a lot like American people in that way.
American English is not pure at all. It’s a fabulous blend of every language on the planet. It’s colorful and majestic and unique. American English rolls with the tides and changes with the seasons. It’s a patchwork quilt. James D. Nicoll put it this way: The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore.
James D. Nicoll owned a popular SF/game store in Canada. When his quotation “caught on,” he had this to say: If I had only known that was going to be my fifteen minutes of fame, I'd have run that sucker through a spell checker and taken more care while writing the surrounding material.
Stealing a lot of words from other languages has its advantages.
The more words you know, the better you can communicate with others.
Keep books in your bathroom. Learn a new word with each twosie.
Writers need schema. Lots and lots of schema. TheMost Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell. Unless you’ve read it, you won’t get it. Schema. Writers need schema. SCHEMA.
You have a story to tell that nobody else in the universe knows. Don’t die with your story untold.
Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t start writing her “Little House” books until she was in her sixties.
Grammar and spelling are important!Don’t allow your message to the world to be lost because your mechanics aren’t good!
A single simple punctuation mark can change your message completely.
I bet you thought you knew all the punctuation marks. This one means “because.” Raise your hand if you knew that.
This is an exclamation comma. Just because you’re excited, or shouting, doesn’t mean your sentence is finished. Necessarily.
You told your mother what I said about her and now her feelings are hurt.
This is a question comma. Sometimes we pause and ask a question in the middle of a statement.
Are you insane and now we have yet another bill to pay each month.
SNARK This is the snark mark – not to be confused with the Dark Mark. It is also called the percontation mark, or irony mark. It indicates that one needs to read between the lines.
This is a hedera. The hedera, like the pilcrow, indicates a paragraph break.
