Political over-correctness

     It began reasonably and innocently enough, as political correctitude always does.

     Women should have the right to vote. 

     Well of course they should, come to think of it.

     Women should be able to have careers. 

     And why the devil not?

     Women should receive equal pay for equal work. 

     That’s only fair, really.

    

     Women should be able to serve their country in the military.  Even in combat. 

     Well, if they’re absolutely sure that’s what they want.

     Men damn well better eradicate all forms of sexism and start watching their spoken and written language closely to erase all forms of gender favoritism.

     So we guys started doing our best to comply, alternating the use of she and he, and him and her, making sure we use Mr. and Ms., respecting hyphenated last names, desisting from ogling cleavage, not calling the waitress cutie-pie.

 

     There should be, and there is, in fact, essentially no difference between women and men whatever.

     Whoa.  Wait a minute.

     There’s correct.  Then there’s over-correct.

     If there’s no difference between the genders, then why don’t we allow both sexes on a football field or on a basketball court?  Why do we insist on different Olympic events for women and men?  Why do we allow women’s magazines and men’s magazines?  Why don’t men attend breast-feeding classes and why don’t lingerie boutiques offer codpieces?

    Sorry, but the genders are different in many ways.  Not just psychologically and emotionally but also down-deep physically.  That’s inescapable fact and has nothing to do with fairness.  Female and male brains are even wired differently.  According to a National Academy of Sciences study, confirmed by brain scans, a woman’s brain is configured to be feeling-oriented, while a man’s brain is set up to be action-oriented.  A little thought backs this up.  For uncounted generations the men of most tribes were by tradition the hunters and providers, while the women nurtured and protected the children they bore.  Our brains have evolved exquisitely to reflect and perpetuate this. 

     And do we really wish it were not so?  I like being a guy.  Naomi likes being a gal.

    

     But we writers had better be aware  of ever-changing politically-correct sentiments at all times in creating our fiction, lest we inadvertently tread on sensitive toes. 

     Nails painted or not.

Phil

p.s. 1  Yesterday (3/8) was International Women’s Day.  More power to you, ladies.

p.s. 2  Once in a while an author will attempt to write a story from the opposite gender’s point of view.  Sometimes it works.  Often it doesn't, quite.  As for me, it’s plenty-enough challenge trying to write well from my own gender’s point of view.

Blogging into the void (2)

         As I’ve said, for much of my life I’ve written on speculation.  Cranking out articles, short stories, and in recent years novels, as a sideline to my regular bill-paying day jobs, and sending my work around the circuit hoping some of it would be accepted and even paid for, and much of it eventually has been, even by several top magazines and a traditional book publisher.  But it’s always been an inefficient, time-consuming, and often frustrating process, accumulating vastly more rejections than acceptances.  Yet I’m still at it today.  Still mostly on speculation.

          I began this weekly blog a year ago in the hope of helping a few talented but struggling writers out there, maybe saving them from many of the learning pains I’ve gone through over the decades.  It’s a way to pass on a little of the generous help and advice I’ve received from kind folks over the years.  And of course it’s also a way to promote my writings.

          But once again I’m working on sheer speculation, posting into the great void.

          If you’re enjoying this blog and maybe gleaning a few useful tips on writing from it, would you please take a minute and let others know about it?

          Thanks.

Phil

The wondrous power of  a few

     Naomi and I spent a week in Orlando as a warm-up from this brutal winter.  For three sunny days we roamed the pair of Universal theme parks and Disney’s Hollywood, and we were thoroughly enthralled.  The $660-million Wizarding World of Harry Potter alone is phenomenal, the best such attraction we’ve seen.  Shrek, The Simpsons, Despicable Me, and Spiderman were also standouts.

     On the tram from the vast parking lot to the Hollywood entrance, there was a timid six-year-old brown-eyed girl seated opposite us beside her Latino mom.  The girl wore a pink fairy princess dress and a glittery crown and held a wand.  We thanked her for allowing us to ride in her carriage, and she smiled shyly.  I suspect she’ll remember that enchanting day at Disney for many years.  In the thronged Diagon Alley of the Harry Potter fantastic otherworld of magic, grown people were wearing wizard hats.  Smiles and good cheer were abundant everywhere we went.

     Disney’s four Orlando theme parks drew over 50 million visitors in 2013 while the two Universal parks attracted over 15 million.  That combined single-year total is nearly equivalent to a quarter of the entire United States population.   I’ll bet virtually all those visitors found the experience uplifting, as did we.

     It occurred to me that the wonderful power behind these parks originated as elusive wisps of imagination in the minds of only a few dozen unusual people.  Disney, Dr. Seuss, J.K. Rowling, Michael Crichton, the writers and illustrators of Marvel Comics and the creators of the Simpsons and Shrek and Betelgeuse and other purely fictional characters. The digital conjurers of Pixar.  They all must have been highly satisfied to see their imaginary creations made real by a host of clever engineers and craftsmen, and to know their work continues to bring smiles and enchantment to the souls of so many millions every year.

Phil

Note: One of my short stories, a SF yarn titled “Silent Screams,” was named “Highly Commended” at the online Writers’ Village, where you can find lots of good advice about stellar storytelling.  It was one of 17 story contest entries I’ve submitted over the past two months.  I’ll let you know how those other entries fare.  You might want to enter a few such contests yourself.  It’s excellent writing practice, if nothing else.

Tips from the mountaintop

             If we resolve to achieve success in our writing (especially in thrillers and suspense) during 2015, we can do no better than to heed the hard-earned wisdom of those who have summited the best-seller lists.     

            

Catherine Coulter has written an incredible 66 NY Times best-selling novels.  She shares excellent tips on how it can be done here:

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/catherine-coulter-9-simple-ways-to-be-a-better-writer

During a ThrillerFest conference panel, four top guns—David Hewson, Lisa Gardner, John Sanford, and M.J. Rose—revealed these seven writing sins:

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/the-7-deadly-sins-of-writing

Ann Rule certainly rules in the true crime genre.  Intense curiosity, a background on the fringes of law enforcement—and a fortuitous (though dangerous) stint as a volunteer alongside then yet-to-be revealed and arrested serial killer Ted Bundy in a Seattle crisis clinic—took her to the best-seller lists.  Good advice for wannabe true crime writers here:

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/ann-rule-on-breaking-into-true-crime

Notice anything special?  All these web pages are from the same fount of writing information, the venerable Writers Digest organization.  They’re publishers of a respected magazine devoted to the craft, and of valuable annual guides like Writer’s Market, sponsors of excellent online writing classes and of prestigious writing contests.  They’re long-time staunch supporters of struggling writers everywhere.

Phil

Writerly wisdom

Excellent  advice from various pros:

From William Safire (author of the New York Times Magazine column “On Language”)

Tips in which he cleverly commits the very sins he warns about:

1. Remember to never split an infinitive.
2. The passive voice should never be used.
3. Do not put statements in the negative form.
4. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
5. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
6. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be by rereading and editing.
7. A writer must not shift your point of view.
8. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
9. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!! (I never use any!)
10. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
11. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
12. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
13. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
14. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
15. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
16. Always pick on the correct idiom.
17. The adverb always follows the verb.
18. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

A few more nuggets:

“Never use a long word where a short one will do.”  —George Orwell

“Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods.  If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong.  Then take the other road.”  —Margaret Atwood

“Write first and always.  Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.”  —Henry Miller

“Never use a verb other than said to carry dialog. “ —Elmore Leonard

And my favorite:     “Write.”  —Neil Gaiman

Phil

Instigating inspiration

“ For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can.  Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.”       —Ernest Hemingway

          I’ve learned you can’t sit around waiting for inspiration to magically descend upon you like an invisible cloak out of a fair-weather cumulus cloud that resembles Tinker Bell.  Or for your muse to whisper excellent plotting suggestions and lyrical phraseology in your ear as you sleep, perchance to dream.  Try that philosophy and you could be hanging around taking up space for years, not getting anything at all written.

          There is such a phenomenon as inspirational magic, though, and when it happens it’s a fine experience.

          For some years I played fiddle with a group (violin is the same instrument, only it’s played in more sophisticated circles).  We got together weekly in a drafty garage and worked up a play list of classic country stolen from Nelson, Jennings, Harris, Colter, Gosdin, and Zevon, along with popular favorites from Buffett, Seger, Santana, Madonna, and Kristofferson.  We played at small receptions, at big charity affairs, out on the deck of a hotel/marina, at posh and not-so-posh private parties, once even in a dewy field on a cold night during a deer-hunting contest barbecue.  Our fingers kept going numb, and a couple of our members were surreptitiously sipping high-octane moonshine to ward off the chill.

          When you play in public for a client, you have to begin at an appointed time, no matter whether you feel particularly musical just then or not, and you have to keep at it for an agreed-upon interval of from one to several hours.  It’s not always the thing you’d most like to be doing.  Sometimes it was a real struggle for all six of us to keep correct and steady time, get all our amplified volumes balanced, start and stop each tune together, and sync the harmony.  But there’s no alternative except to keep flailing away at it, at least if you want to get paid at the end of the gig.

          Then there are those rare and wonderful times. Like one night in a smoky bar in the military town of Jacksonville, NC, where the crowd was well-lubricated and boisterous, singing along and giving us excessive ovations.  Around eleven o’clock, my fiddle began almost playing itself, the tones sweeter, the pitch perfect, the gliding bow vibrating the strings without effort.  I could feel all of us playing flawlessly together, far better than we had in months.  It was magical, and the crowd seemed to sense it.  The gig was supposed to be from eight to midnight.  We didn’t reluctantly quit until two.

          A similar magic can happen in writing, when the words seem to be floating in out of nowhere and fitting together seamlessly, emotively, powerfully.  The feeling is exceptional.

          But the only way to have any hope of achieving that wonderful magic, I believe, is to plug away at our writing as best we can hour after dogged hour and every possible day.  Until, one day, we happily find ourselves writing better than we can.

Phil  

Didits

             In 2013, I decided to finally  realize a lifelong dream, despite the considerable cost and logistics.  I flew all night long at eighty percent of the speed of sound to Santiago, Chile, where I joined a group on a fantastical trek along the Ruta de las Estrellas. 

             The Route of the Stars. 

From an arid mountaintop high in the bone-dry Atacama Desert, where it has not rained since 1973,  where there is no light pollution, negligible air pollution, and insignificant atmospheric moisture, I saw a night sky few others are privileged to see these days.  Many who live out their lives in heavily populated urban areas have not the slightest idea what the universe actually looks like. 

          It was spellbinding.  The planet Venus was casting my shadow onto the barren mountaintop, and the elusive zodiacal light softly tinted the night.  The Pleiades—those ancient Seven Sisters—were stunning, with their own scattering of jewel-like attendant lesser stars I’d never been able to see with only my eyes.  The sprawling Milky Way was heart-breaking in its riverine splendor.  The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds and the beautiful Southern Cross were boldly prominent.  From my yard back home, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Orion Nebula had never been more than faint smudges on the clearest of nights.  From the Atacama they seemed almost touchable.  I lay on my back for hours with a pair of binoculars, utterly enthralled. 

          Our small group also got to scrutinize the incredible panoply in detail over two nights through large telescopes, which burst 47 Tucanae into a dense cluster of more than a billion suns; and quickened the heart by plucking out an astonishing super-giant blood-red star; and resolved Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to us (other than our own sun) into a diamond-hard disc that beckoned the wanderlust human spirit.

          The experience filled up my whole being, and I’ve never been so glad I decided to actually carry out a dreamed adventure.  The price was insignificant when weighed against the benefits to my soul.  In fact, in retrospect, it would have been worth almost any cost to me.

          A number of people have told me they want to write a book someday.

          For those and for others who harbor longed-for achievements and adventures in their hearts, as we set out on the year 2015, please bear in mind two of my own rediscovered life guidelines:

          Each of us has only a brief time to be alive and aware on this beautiful borrowed planet.

          And, near the end of those allotted days, not a thousand sad Shouldas will begin to equal a solitary Didit.

Phil