It's Sunday, people. Time for some good ol' fashioned writer's confession:
1. My foreign travel experience is limited.
Everybody knows that almost all good writers have traveled extensively to foreign lands in order to taste the fruits of exotic cultures and therefore enrich their artistic experience. My tale of exotic experience would be as follows:
Once upon a time, I went to Canada.
I had one too many drinks there.
On the way home that night, I puked over the Ambasador Bridge.
The end.
2. I, still get confused, over commas.
Correlative conjunctions, coordinating conjunctions, and coordinate adjectives just confuse the hell out of me, and I usually have to look it up. There are other noodle-baking comma rules too, like essential and non-essential elements, that expose my otherwise perfect piece of writing to the perils of the dreaded splice.
But never ever underestimate my otherwise mad punctuative skills; I will faceroll you with my semicolon.
3. My vocabulary totally sucks sometimes.
During those moments when I'm tempted to cling to my thesaurus like a Puritan to the Book of Common Prayer, I remember the sage advice of George Orwell in his essay "Politics and the English Language" (to paraphrase): Never use a long word when a short one will do.
Two of my very favorite short but effective words? Piss. Off.
4. I edit obsessively. Wait. No. I obsessively edit.
Read this quickly because in five minutes it will have morphed into a treatise on the deliciousness of bacon.
5. My writer's ego is HUGE.
No, seriously. It's big. Surly recently provided a genius description that rang painfully familiar: "On most days I just read my own posts over and over again; it's like masturbation with eye strain."
If I were that good with simile, I'd never leave my house if ya know what I'm sayin'.
In the last few months since joining OS I've met some really cool people who also happen to be excellent writers and bloggers -- with nary a douchebag in sight. These people have actually taken time out of their busy days to read something lil ol' me has written, and then, as if that weren't enough, taken additional minutes out of of their day to say something either productive or supportive.
Really, you all need to stop doing that; you're just feeding the beast.
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Comments
No, wait: a breezy Voice, instantly likable, that doesn't waste out time over-explaining, who just knows writers will Get This, and naturally funny, funny bones funny, plus the use of the 5 things entices us to read because when we aren't re-reading our own work (Surly! You Rock!) we want to read things that we know ahead of time are short.
No, Wait: when I was a kid my cousin was kicked by a mule, there was a langourous, melodic drift in her forever after, though she remains my favorite cousin. Your work here reminds me of ...
(btw, you spelled embarrass wrong :) But don't feel bad. I can't remember how to pre-format and get the spacing right on this thing.
I love how you incorporated your "faults" into the headings. I too can jockey the word "obsessive" with whatever follows, and it all makes sense to me. I'd love to pass you some popcorn, OK?
If you're already this good....
Stay away from Canada. It's full of fuckin' Canadians. Did you notice that no one ever has those fabulous stories about how they went to Canada and met a hot guy and had great vacation sex? Enough said.
You invited confessions so here goes...I write poetry because I hate punctuation.
R
P. S. My sins are too numerous to list!
@Greg - your comment is the best!
That you are a Michigander works in your favor. That you mention bacon makes me like you. That you made me laugh, well... I have to like you now. Laughter is essential.
Keep writing; you are a good writer, because I say so.
Rated.
Stellaa: The money I used to put in my secret hiding place for beer and cigarettes is now being put toward the purpose of buying a copy editor one day. Know any good ones?
Dirndl: I liked what you said about my title so much that I took it and ran with it. I wanted people to know right away this wasn't some stuffy piece about writing and I think that really helped. Thanks for the tip.
Joan: I think you are right punctuation in general is so overrated I think we should all just put our focus more on what we're trying to say and say it well rather than worrying about where all those silly marks go after all what difference does it really make in the end the important thing is that you remain true to yourself in your writing and you tell your story everyone else can go to hell fight the power
surly: I dunno: They don't call 'em Canadian Mounties for nothing I imagine. If I did find a hot Canadian I would marry him right away and get in on some of that hot public health care action.
aintthatamerica: I think ee cummings did the same thing and it worked for him. You might be onto something.
JK Brady: Feel free to make sex confessions here as well. I'm all ears.
CK: Being a Michigander works in my favor? Really? I've been living here 32 years. It's about damned time. Thanks for stopping in. Have some bacon...
oh and... Hai Thoth. Why do I always feel like a giddy, giggly school girl when you write things on my page? *sigh* My first OS crush. How adorable.
Unless you mean Francis Bacon, of course, in which case, I'm not a cannibal, so I'd have to pass there :))
Thoth: I've had plenty of editors. They're all useless. Lazy. Just want the fast buck with minimum effort.
Love your work, Kasey. R
Write on girl....
Here are the rules:
1. Never use an apostrophe to indicate a plural.
Incorrect: Cheney can go suck a bag of dick's.
Correct: Cheney can go suck a bag of dicks.
2. Use apostrophes to indicate possession. With singular possession you put the apostrophe before the s.
Incorrect: "I don't give a rats ass."
Correct: "I don't give a rat's ass."
(The ass belongs to the singular rat so therefore it is 's.
Put the apostrophe after the s for plural possession.
Incorrect: "These assholes commentaries at Fox News makes me want to stick my face in a fan and be done with it."
Correct: "These assholes' commentaries at Fox News make me want to stick my face in a fan and be done with it."
In this case there are many assholes at Fox News giving their commentaries and so we use s'.
3. Use apostrophes in contractions such as don't, isn't, wouldn't, can't, isn't, there's, etc.)
Incorrect: "Oh no you didn't!" *snap snap*
Correct: "Oh no you d'int." *snap snap*
4. Be aware of the "its/it's" trap. Use an apostrophe with the word "it" only when you want to indicate a contraction for "it is" or "it has." It is a pronoun, and pronouns have their own possessive form that does not use an apostrophe.
Incorrect: "Its bullshit that we have to bother to learn to use apostrophes correctly."
Correct: "It's bullshit that we have to bother to learn to use apostrophes correctly."
Dig it?
Except on Tuesdays night, that's Douchebag night down at the bowling alley, bring in a douchebag, get a free game!! ;)