writing – Page 33 – Patricia J. Parsons

Writing Christmas

Posted on 12 Dec 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

Someday I’m going to write a Christmas book. But since I also plan to try my hand at a travel book, perhaps I’ll write a Christmas travel book.

I’ve been thinking about this over the past week as I get ready to head out on the annual Christmas pilgrimage to visit our peripatetic son who now dances with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in Monaco. Spending Christmas in a hotel might not be something that many of you would like to do, but I hardly know how to spend Christmas any other way at this point in my life! So, I think I’ll write about Christmas in a hotel. I’m going to think about that over the next couple of weeks, but before I leave, I thought I’d give my writing blog readers a bit of a Christmas gift — a book recommendation and a Christmas travel story.

Have you read Skipping Christmas? At fewer than 200 pages in a small format, it’s one of John Grisham’s lesser known books. However, if you’re a Christmas movie junkie, you sort of know the story. Hollywood turned his gem of a book into Christmas with the Cranks. I wish they had kept the title and a bit more of the soul of the book. Grisham’s story-telling has a lot more depth than the scriptwriter’s has; you should order the book, pour yourself a drink of your choice, and curl up with it before the onslaught of the season begins in earnest.

We tried to skip Christmas one year… I now invite you to our travel blog to read about it. Merry Christmas – or whatever other kind of holiday you might be celebrating. Just click on the Christmas tree…

Ideas generation, Reading

The things that shape us: Books & their stories

Posted on 7 Dec 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

green darkness 1972 — Green Darkness: The original cover from 1972. I remember it well.

From time to time I wonder if what I read as a child and young adult has had any impact on what I write today – or on what I like to read. It would make sense that it would, since what we read and experience do influence us in many other ways (our beliefs, attitudes etc.). It’s in my mind right now because I’m currently re-reading a book that was one of my favorites back in the early 1970’s and has stayed in my mind for many years (it has also made me wonder if books I loved years ago would feel the same to me now.)

The book is Anya Seton’s classic historical novel Green Darkness. I remember the feeling of the book more clearly than the content of the story. I remember being swept up in it as the characters move from the 20^th century to the 16^th and back. It’s a bit of a romance I guess, but it’s the historical detail and the characters that paint the picture for me. As I read it now, with the benefit of maturity (I guess), I’m struck by the writing this time around. Seton is a classic historical novelist who died in 1990 but not before writing more than a dozen books, many of which were bestsellers, and several of which were subsequently made into movies. But, back to my original musing: has this book that I first read thirty years ago influenced my writing?

I think it probably has – but it’s difficult to say which came first – the reading or the influence. Why did I choose the book in the first place? I think my sister recommended it, but if I were not interested in historical fiction I would likely have ignored her – God knows I have ignored other recommendations she has made over the years!

So, there must have been something that compelled me to read and enjoy historical fiction at that time – long before I ever considered writing it. Somehow, though, that love of reading historical fiction has manifested itself in my love of research and writing in this area, and not because I studied history in university. I did not. So if Anya Seton’s work (after Green Darkness I read several others all of which I enjoyed), influenced me, what other kinds of books influenced me? Or at least, what are the most memorable books I read over the years?

At the top of the list – more of a favorite than Green Darkness – is Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. If asked to identify my favorite all-time book, this is it. It is, of course, now a classic (originally published in 1938) and it has been made into a move more than once.

I also remember a book called Eighth Moon by Sansan as told to Betty Bao Lord which I notice now has a sub-title (I’m certain it did not when I read it – I wonder if we need sub-titles these days to select books). The modern sub-title is The True Story of a Young Girl’s Life in Communist China and it takes me back a very long time.

I know that I read a lot of books back then, but this is the only one I remember. I can remember particular aspects of the book, like when she had to work in fields where human feces were used as fertilizer, and that’s going back a very long time in my life. I read it in junior high school.

eighth moon original cover — Eight Moon: The original cover -- the one I can actually remember!

I can only imagine how I found the story so divergent from my own life experience with this young woman who was about my age at the time of the story.

I can’t really articulate what it is about the book that it is the only one I remember from that point in my life, but I’m sure that remembering is reason enough to think it has influence.

What books influenced your work?

Grammar, Writing craft

“Grammar is important”…really?

Posted on 23 Nov 2011 by Patricia J. Parsons

I was listening to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) noon-time ‘open-mouth’ show on the radio as I drove from one appointment to another on Monday. The guest ‘expert’ that day happened to be a grammar expert: I missed the introduction, but I inferred that he was a high school English teacher. He and the host discussed various aspects of grammar, and people called in with their grammar-related questions, as well as their pet peeves. In his attempt to avoid the jargon as he put it, his explanations of why certain English grammar rules are what they are lost something in the translation making it difficult to view his explanations with much credibility.

The show ignited my inspiration to write this blog post and then, oddly (is grammar in the air this week?), colleague Alison Delorey wrote a blog post on our students’ newsletter on the very same topic. Truthfully, though, her post is on grammar as style and you should read it. She suggests that “Grammar can be creative, interesting and exploratory…” and I agree with her; my concern in response to the call-in show, though, is that grammar is first and foremost a framework or structure for verbal communication in general. Grammatical mistakes frequently result in failure to communicate, and so your message, whatever it may be, is lost.

A caller to the radio show guest asked him the simple question: What is the difference in usage between ‘bring’ and ‘take’? It was his answer to this particular question that started to get me riled up about over-simplification of the rules.

His response was to tell her that “I bring” and “You take.” I started thinking about this as the caller also tried to process this new information. I was thinking that this couldn’t possibly be right since you can also bring clarity to a situation (you wouldn’t’ ‘take’ clarity to a situation), and I can take action on something (I wouldn’t ‘bring’ action). Clearly you can also decline both of these words: I bring, you bring, he brings etc. So, it sent me flying to Margaret Shertzer’s The Elements of Grammar (a kind of companion to Strunk and White’s classic Elements of Style, and my bible for all things stylish (although not my wardrobe!).

According to The Elements of Grammar the difference between the two words is this: to bring means to convey toward (the speaker); whereas to take means to carry from (the speaker).[1] There, now I feel better. He had over-simplified it and muddied the ability of the speaker to convey a message.

Although messages can be the victim of the grammar-challenged among us, for me it’s often more of a simple stylistic issue – which takes us back to Alison’s point. In fact, most of the grammar mistakes that I find particularly annoying (somewhat like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard in my world) are personal peeves. So, now it’s my chance to rant a bit.

For the love of god, let us stop turning nouns into verbs! It’s beginning to get out of hand. One curmudgeonly grammarian on the internet came up with examples that even I haven’t even heard. “I’m going to suicide,” “after I enema it all out”, for example, then this grammarian questions when we stopped “writing” books and began “authoring” them. Hmm.

Now if I could just banish the word “impact” used as a verb in my students’ writing, I think that I will have had an impact on (not impacted) their style!

But that’s just me.

[BTW The title “Grammar is Important” is the title of my grammar text from elementary school – other books have come and other books have gone, but I still have this one on my bookshelf from about grade four. What does that say about me?]

[1] Shertzer, Margaret. 1986. The elements of grammar. New York: The Macmillan Publishing Company, p. 144.