Feb 22, 2006 | Uncategorized |
It's come to my attention recently that there's confusion over what constitutes passive voice. For instance, is this sentence active or passive? The dog was walked by the boy.
It's passive because you have 1) a form of the verb to be (was) and 2) a past participle (walked). A past participle usually, but not always, ends in -ed. Also, the subject of the sentence usually takes the action of the verb in a passive sentence. The boy is the subject, above, and the dog is the object. The boy walked the dog is active; it shows the subject doing the action.
Now, what about this sentence: “It's over there,” Beth said, gesturing toward the back of the room. Definitely active. Beth does the action here. The confusion comes when people mistakenly believe that the -ing form of a verb is passive. It's not.
Seems obvious, I know, but I ran across something very similar recently and I was amazed that someone thought it was a passive construction. I've even seen it where people think any sentence with a form of to be is passive: John was counting the money. Um, no. It'd probably be better if John counted the money, but was counting isn't passive. John is doing the action to the object (money).
Google “passive voice” and see what comes up. Thus ends the unasked for grammar lesson. 🙂
Feb 21, 2006 | Uncategorized |
Yesterday, whilst lying around and bemoaning my aching hips/feet/ankles, the phone rang. Mike answered it. It was clearly for me by the way he said yes, but may I ask who's calling. And I thought, oh heck, I don't want to talk to anyone right now! It obviously wasn't anyone I knew. Can't it wait?
But, I took the phone, said hello, and heard this friendly voice say she was Angi Platt with the North Texas RWA. My WIP, Seducing Evangeline, finalled in the Steamy Hot category of the Great Expectations contest! Needless to say, I was very happy. The aching body parts were momentarily forgotten as Angi and I talked. 🙂
This is the second contest I've entered with this WIP. I revised based on comments from the first, so I'm very pleased that I've achieved finalist status this time around. As I told Mike, this is a nice thing, but I refuse to pin hopes and, worse, ego on it. If I win, fine. If I don't, fine. It's a great confidence booster, but it doesn't mean the book is practically sold.
But, dang, I'm happy. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Feb 20, 2006 | Uncategorized |
No post from me today. I'm off to the Great Aloha Run. I wasn't going to do it. I really wasn't. Mike registered months ago. I registered today, finally talked into it at the last second by a man with long legs who promises he won't outrun me. Hopefully, I'll survive the 8 miles.
The racism debate continues throughout the blogosphere. See the previous post, click on the links, click on the commenters' links. It reminds me of a Faulkner novel about the nature of truth and reality. No two people see things the same way. My truth is different than yours which is different than the next person's and so on. Not that we can't agree on things, but our perceptions vary. This is not an excuse for inaction, or maintaining the status quo, simply an observation.
Peace and aloha.
Feb 19, 2006 | Uncategorized |
JA Konrath is talking over at his site about segregation on the shelves. The conversation stems from another post by Bestselling Author about his/her own (sorry, not sure because the author is anonymous) experience as an African-American author. Sad to say, but it seems as if AA authors get shelved in the AA section whether they want to be there or not. I never thought of this before, which shames me. I assumed there was an AA section because folks wanted it. I never stopped to think which folks. Can it be possible that African-Americans weren't clamoring for their own section in the bookstore? Is it merely a publishing/bookselling decision that leaves the people most affected out of the process? Why aren't there Irish-American sections? Or Jewish-American sections? Or Catholic-American sections? Has white America become so sensitive to the issue of race that we think having a section devoted to black literature makes us enlightened and supportive? Are we afraid that if we don't have it, we'll be accused of being racist?
I'm just asking the questions. I have no answers. For myself, I believe everyone should be taken as an individual. I don't want to be thought of as a racist because I'm white any more than a black person wants to be thought of as inferior because he or she is black. I am me, and I try my damndest to understand everyone. I know I have the privilege of race in my corner. On the other hand, I live in a state in which I am the minority. They call us haoles here. It means, basically, without breath. It also means I am white, not Hawaiian, not a local. This doesn't mean that I suddenly know what it's like to be a minority in a world where white images of power and beauty are still the norm (read THE BLUEST EYE for an idea what those images can do to someone who doesn't have a prayer of possessing them).
So, it was with some interest I went to the bookstore today. I know that at least one of the Borders here segregates literature. Today, I happened to be in Barnes & Noble, Ala Moana (Honolulu). What I found pleasantly surprised me.
The AA section was one shelving unit, and it contained non-fiction and some classic autobiographical narratives like Harriet Jacobs's INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL. Then I went into the “Fiction/Literature” section. There, on the shelves with everyone else, were the AA authors. They BELONG there, just like any other book. I expected to find Toni Morrison there. I also expected Terry McMillan and Eric Jerome Dickey. But finding Kimberla Lawson Roby and Brenda Jackson was nice too. (See Brenda Jackson shelved under John Irving.)
How about Mary Monroe under Rohinton Mistry? The purple-spined book next to Mistry was AA too, but I can't read it in the pic or remember the name.
A few other pics, just for the heck of it. I got some strange looks snapping these, but what the heck. 🙂 There were several Kayla Perrin books here….
Here are Kimberla Lawson Roby's….
And, finally, the queen of gorgeous language, Zora Neale Hurston shelved next to Stephen Hunter. We should all be so lucky as to write like Hurston.
I know it's not a lot, but it's a start. At least one store in one state has got it right. Now if we can just get the rest of them to shelve accordingly. I've never been afraid to shop the AA section for books, but it never occurred to me what I might be missing because those books weren't marketed to me (ads, reviews, displays, etc). I'd have never known about Hurst
on if not for an AA Lit class. I'd have never branched out on my own without that class, which means I'd have never read Alice Walker's POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY (should be required for all women–I even made my husband read it).
A good book is a good book, dammit. And it's not just AA authors we should seek out. Leslie Marmon Silko and Yasunari Kawabata should not be missed either, for example. They are Native American and Japanese accordingly. Kawabata is a Nobel winner.
Okay, just my thoughts, such as they are. I'll read anything that's good, I'll try any book (other than horror). Don't segregate the literature for me. If you want to market AA authors to an AA audience, fine. But don't leave the rest of us out of the loop once you've done so. A hundred years ago, it was women authors trying to make inroads into men's stranglehold on serious literature. The fight now is no less important. A good book is a good book. So, got any recommendations for me? I have the TBR pile from hades, but I'm always buying more books (and sneaking them in too–oops. Honey, ignore that.) 🙂
Feb 17, 2006 | Uncategorized |
Angela Knight has a great post about what to do when your book goes wrong.
It happens to every writer, no matter how skilled you are: the book from hell. This is a book that absolutely does not go where you want it to go, and which limps like a three-legged dog as it wanders away. When you read over it, you get this sick feeling in your stomach that whispers, “This book sucks.”
Have you ever had that feeling? I know I have. Like Angela, I've known when the book wasn't right, even if I didn't know how to fix it. I've often had to go away from it for a while, spend some time doing something else, and then approach it with a new attitude. I will slice and dice what isn't working pretty ruthlessly. I wasn't always this way. I used to whine and cry about keeping things just because I liked them. Scenes, descriptions, etc.
But they aren't really important in the scheme of things. It's the arc, the overall plot that matters. Took me a long time to learn that. Sometimes, I read work in contests and I know the writer doesn't know that yet. I've known people who keep polishing those same few chapters over and over and over, until the prose is lovely and shines, but the story has no life. The conflict isn't there. I get no hint of character, no idea what's going on in the story.
How do you tell someone that without crushing them? I've been there, I've written pages of beautiful nothing. But I don't know how to tell someone else when they've done it. I'm not sure they'd believe me anyway. Maybe it's something you have to discover for yourself. Reminds me of a quote:
What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish. — Thomas Wolfe
Oooh, that's a tough one. 🙂 But it's a lesson we all have to learn.
