Creative Life – Page 36 – Rebekah Lyn Books

The Light Comes On

Over the past few months, while I’ve been working on my novels, for the Florida Springs Trilogy, I’ve had many questions. Along the way, I pondered what makes a good path for excellent writing, and how to use my word processing program to help me along that path. I offer three of my musing for your delectation.

What trigger can alert me that I’m writing myself into a passive voice?
How can I disable spell/grammar checker’s correction about a single rule, one that I wish to ignore maybe forever?
Is my spell/ grammar checker always right? I already knew the answer to that one. A friend sent me a funny list of things the computer thinks are right, but are not, and vice-versa. Today, however, I experienced a delightful example, so I want to share it with you.

A writer’s blog on polishing your own work helped with the first question. Look for the ings, it said, when you have an ing you may have a was or an is making the sentence passive. Suddenly I moved ahead. (Not suddenly, I was moving ahead.)

The next answer came from one of my mistakes. I polished away blithely clicking on the Ignore Rule unaware that I had shut off some of the suggestions for that document permanently. That works. If you don’t want contractions click on Ignore Rule. Novelists, who want their writing to sound casual, and to move the reader along, often go ahead and use contractions.

My example for the spell checker’s sometime frivolous pronouncements follows: in my poem, Woodrat the title had a red line under it. The top choice for a correction was woo drat. Since I don’t know what a woo drat is and don’t much care, I kept woodrat, even though it wasn’t strictly correct. After all, it is my poem.

When I was almost home, the sun shone suddenly in my eyes. As I slipped my sunglasses from my pocket, I realized that the Holy Spirit who lives in me knows all about writing and everything else. He answers when I ask for His help with the smallest, seemingly most unimportant matters. In other words, the light always goes on, sometimes immediately, sometimes later. I rejoice.

I also take suggestion from people. Do you have any? Please be gentle. Please, don’t tell me about commas. I have an exterior editor for that.

Arise; shine, for your light has come. Isaiah 60:1

My Bad Book Review

Last week I was appalled when I read what I considered a bad review of one of my books. My first thought was, that’s it, I’m done, no more novels for me. But my love of writing immediately took over, and I decided to get whatever I could out of it.

First, I reviewed the review, and realized it wasn’t a review as much as it was an editorial report or critique. That probably came from the fact that the person who wrote it sells author services and was eager for me to pay her to help me.

The second thing was that this person liked to make broad generalizations that led me to believe that I had repeatedly made the same mistake, which wasn’t true. Conversely, in her view, I never did certain things she thought I should have done. That was one of the reasons I felt judged and condemned.

That’s not a good feeling, so instead of continuing to think in that vein, I looked for a compliment. I found one, too. I’d like to have found a few more, not that I believe in false flattery. I just happen to know that politeness oils the wheels of communication. Mother always used to say, “Think before you speak. Ask yourself if what you’re about to say is true, is it kind, do I have to say it?” In others words why be harsh when you can be gentle?

The one thing I liked about the critique was when the reviewer spotted and commented on the way I had rushed through the book. What that observation did was to allow me to give myself permission to work at my own pace and do a thorough job without hurrying for the several reasons I had hurried. When a critic agrees with something you knew about yourself, but didn’t want to face, it can be helpful.

Yes, at first I was angry. But that felt awful, and I wanted the Holy Spirit’s help to feel me better about myself, to be encouraged, to go on. He reminded me to thank God for the entire experience (I Thessalonians 5:18). Next, I prayed for the reviewer and forgave her. When I did that, I saw that the way she treated me may have been the way she had been treated, and that she needed loving kindness as much as I did. I sincerely asked our Lord to give them to her (Luke 6:28). I felt a lot better after that.

I’ve recently read two articles from the big book distributors, Amazon and Smashwords. Both say we writers must not respond to hurtful reviews. They also say that even a big writer can receive a one star review. I was surprised at that. I went back and looked at my stars and there were three of them. A three star review is not a bad review. Yea!

In the days since, I’ve been rebuilding my confidence. Using the Message and the Amplified Bible, I wrote out passages from I Peter 5 as if our Father God were speaking them to me personally. I took the liberty to add some thoughts that came to mind. It was so refreshing, and I was able to cast this particular care on Him as He said to do.

Here’s what that looked like: I’m teaching you to cast your cares on Me. You need not fear any kind of punishment. There is no punishment, only My loving, gentle correction of error so that you will not be hurt. I know you love Me. You love Me because I first loved you

From all that, I learned that receiving the review wasn’t a bad thing after all. I had learned more about my writing and myself than I could ever have learned any other way, and I am grateful.

Naming Names

We have an endless number of choices in naming our characters and their animals. I have recently named a cow Brunhilda. I’ve always got a kick out of that name, and not long ago when we stayed in a convent/motel in Rome we met a nun by that name. It was a German convent.

Anyhow, Bill and I always enjoy different names. Remember Festus Strunk form, “Gunsmoke?” I like Moriarity for a villain in the Sherlock Holmes stories. I’ve named the villain in some of my novels Luskin because it sounded villainous to me. Charles Dickens used names to describe his characters. Wasn’t he the one who had a Uriah Heap as a villian?

Of course we keep the names in the correct era. Kings and Queens had names like Elizabeth and James. People love royal names and they are plain, easy to spell and elegant. They never seem to go out of style. Take my husband’s and son’s name: William. Of course both are called Bill. When naming heroes and heroines you can’t go wrong with that kind of name. Be ready with a nickname or diminutive, though. I’m reading a book where a person of Charleston “royalty” is called Foot because there were so many other men in his family with the name Hugh, which was his as well.

Essie, Bessie, Agnes. and Dora would be from another time. Babies have their own names for themselves and their siblings that often stick. I’m glad my brother’s name for me didn’t. All he could call me at first was Doo Doo.

Of course you can get ideas from baby name books and the phone book. Just looking at names on line will inspire you. You can look for names from different languages. For my present book, I named an Italian woman Orsina, then Lia, and now I’m thinking about going back to Orsina again. I’m not sure why I wavered.

I have children in my Sunday School named Zarriya, Traviayana, Ahshalyn, and Shyasia. When we have visitors I let the children tell someone else’s name and I write them on the board. Some with which I am not familiar are hard to learn to spell. I’m still not sure about Ahshalyn, but I know it has one h and then another. One time I wondered why people had to have made up names that I couldn’t spell. I quit wondering, however, as soon as I realized I had that kind of name myself. Now I enjoy learning to spell them.

Another made-up name I heard once was Lastus. A girl in my elementary school told me her baby brother’s name was Lastus cause her momma and daddy sure didn’t need any more children. So here’s the lastus of this story.

My parents made up my name from theirs. It was the nurse’s idea. Dad’s name was Ivan (which by the way, was a UK name as well as a Russian one.) Mother’s was Dora. They put in two capital letters so there would be one from each. Don’t forget, names have meanings. My mother’s and father’s names both meant gift of God, so looky there, I am doubly blessed. What does your name mean?

My Inner Perfectionist

Nowadays we have so many right ways to do things that I usually choose the easiest way and move on. Recently, however, that policy has broken down. I’m going to have to let little Miss Priss Perfectionist out in order to save my writing career.

I have good Beta readers. They told me I needed to spruce up my punctuation. I resisted, but then I thought: why should I be lacking in anything, when a bit of concentration will improve my writing and make it easier for my dear editor when we’re getting ready to publish another book?

What had me confused was that many of the writing rules taught in middle school were out-dated or not even true as we were learning them. One was that you shouldn’t begin a sentence with and nor but. Another was that you couldn’t place a preposition at the end of a sentence. I learned from an English professor from Wheaton on a CD course that any preppie that wanted to live at the end of a sentence should be allowed to do so.

My problem was with the almost microscopic comma, and its two cohorts, the semicolon, and the colon.

Anyhow, I went looking for technical writing books in my home library and I came to The Little, Brown Handbook I bought at a sale a few months ago. I looked it over, but it was so dense I didn’t know where to start using it so I put it away. I was the dense one, of course, not Little Brown.

Today, I decided that as an Indie writer I need to adopt a manual of style in the same way that long ago I adopted the Bible as the one basic book for guidance in my life. So because I have it on hand, I’m going to make the Little Brown Handbook my own. Oh, yes, I know I can look things up on the Internet, but that also gives many options and for my own peace of mind, I want to settle on one way of doing things

I picked the tome out of the bookcase, laid it on my lap, and opened it. Right in the middle, randomly exposed, was the information I needed. As Corrie ten Boom used to say, What a joy! Next, I will see what Little Brown has to say about the use of italics.

I made up a love story to entertain my brain as it retains the coma, semi colon, and colon information.

Two sentences got married by Justice of the peace, Comma, and a conjunction named And.

And and Comma went away so the sentences had to separate and each take on a period for a while.

The two got back together when Semicolon came along, all by herself, to help out.

For a short time, Semicolon wasn’t available so Colon took over. When And and Comma returned they became the mainstay of the family. Semicolon and Colon were invited occasionally, Semicolon more frequently than Colon because you never knew when Colon might become overbearing.

The two sentences had much in common and needed to stay together. That meant that as long as they had And with Comma, or Semicolon or Colon around they would live happily ever after.

Keep writing,

Love,

DiVoran