Category: Writing

This week, my editor/publisher/son, Steve May, owner of Alderson Press, has my latest novel, To Find A Home. To those friends and relatives who have been hearing me say “it’s finished,” I confess all those declarations were pre-mature.  Writing a novel is much like birthing a baby, but can take a lot longer.

I started this story almost two years ago, to keep my sanity while waiting for the arrival of my first novel, The Last to Know, which was published in January 2009. I wrote the final chapter of this current effort while on spring break.  I let the manuscript cool for a couple of weeks before I read through it again. I tweaked some of the scenes, but I also could see it needed another chapter to clarify and smooth the story line.  I shared these latest pages with my critique group, Central Arkansas Writers, who helped me flesh out this part of the story.

In late June I gave the ‘finished’ manuscript to my daughter, Linda, for proofing. She returned it a week or so later with pink tabs marking each page with a typo that needed correcting. A valuable service!

After those corrections were made, I edited the entire manuscript word by word, usually reading aloud to gauge the flow of the writing and pick up redundancies. A couple of times I used Microsoft’s word-search feature to find over-used words. Several times I found a better way to say what I was trying to convey or thought of something to add to the story. For instance, when Becca is about to be disciplined for misbehaving, her dad demands an apology.  I decided she would give one of those non-apologies teenagers are good at, “I’m sorry you made me so mad that I …”

After I finished the word-by-word edit, I wrote the acknowledgement and ‘about the author’ pages. And then, read through chapters again, skipping around through the book. (Some self-editors read the text backwards.) Very few corrections this time, so I sent it off electronically.

The next step for me (besides waiting) is to write the text for the back cover and choose art/photography for the front cover.  When I receive a galley from the printer, I will read and edit again, hopefully “with fresh eyes.”  

Maybe by Christmas the baby will be here.

In the comment section, fellow writer Charles Prier asked a good question (which I deleted by accident): What is an apprehensive definition of malapropism?  Or did he say what is the origin?  So sorry, Charles. I’ll try to answer a question I don’t remember clearly.

When I first became captivated by this “humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase”, I heard it was named for a Mrs. Malaprop.  But I didn’t know who she was.  I have since learned (Mr. Google is wonderful) that Mrs. Malaprop was a character noted for her misuse of words in R.B. Sheridan’s comedy The Rivals. (1775) Thus something said that was so ludicrously wrong it was funny, became known as a malapropism.

Now, I must confess my own recent goof.  While working on my novel the other day, I had become a little brain dead but was trying to finish the thought before it went away. When I wrote that someone with head trauma had come to, I couldn’t seem to spell the word consciousness. I tried several options but couldn’t make the red line underneath the word go away.  I clicked on spell check and chose a correction.  Only later as I edited did I see that my character had regained conscientiousness. Which is not a bad thing, but not what I meant.

These things happen to keep me humble.

Nothing is funnier to me than when a speaker gets a twisted tongue or a writer has a slip of the pen. Not that I enjoy laughing at other’s mistakes, it’s just that . . . well, I guess I do.  Different celebrities have entertained us with their misspeak, but today I have gathered some from little known sources.

The list of needed items for the women’s shelter included “caned food” and “clean supplies.”

A woman, caught in a “blond” moment, said, “I’m as ignorant as bliss.”

“There is no prostitution in China. However, we have some women who make love for money.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

“Happy Easter! We Sell Handguns” – Sign in front of a store in Racine Wisconsin.

From a church bulletin: “Visit our Christian bookstore, where Jesus is King and carries every translation of the Holy Bible.”

Sports personalities seem to have a propensity for malaprops. Ron Pickering, sports announcer for the BBC: “He’s going up and down like a metronome.”

Wes Westrum, manager for the New York Mets in the Sixties, about a close game: “Well, that was a cliff-dweller.”

Have a great week. As Porky Pig would say, “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks.”