Sometimes spelling and grammar doesn't matter.

I stand by my last post about good grammar and spelling, but there are times when it doesn't matter at all - the message is what counts.

This note is from a little girl with significant language and literacy difficulties, who is mastering both and is revelling in her new found skills. We've read many stories together - I used to read to her, but now she reads to me and is beginning to write her own stories.  

She has a world of literature awaiting her.

Grammar With Mother.

The English language is evolving. Words come and go and pronunciation changes. This isn’t just the newer American pronunciations that have crept into English, it has been evident since there were records of our language. The Great Vowel Shift was probably the first major change in pronunciation to be studied and analysed.

A word of warning, should you ever write about this yourself, make sure you avoid typos. A fellow student on my Literature degree course handed in a beautiful essay entitled 'Causes of The Great Bowel Shit.'  He didn't even mention  Phaal as a likely candidate so was marked down.

Back to the point, grammar, too, is changing. Purists criticize what they perceive as incorrect grammar (and there is plenty of it about) but others claim that correct usage is current usage. But current usage by whom? Who or whom?

The teaching of grammar in schools seems to have disappeared years ago, but authors had a handle on it. Or perhaps it was the editors who had a handle on it. In recent years I have noticed numerous grammar and spelling errors in books. Is this because authors now have less ability in spelling and grammar or because fewer manuscripts are rigorously edited? Or perhaps modern editors haven’t learned grammar?

Six books I've read in the past couple of months, all by respected authors and published by well known publishers, have thrown up these little gems. (These have all been narrated in standard English rather than dialect.)

1. She didn't know how this would effect her.

2. He was bored of playing on the computer.

3. The class were put into teams…

4. He was laying on the unmade bed…

5. Compared to Jane’s results, she had done well.

6. He handed the letter to Peter and I.

7. None of them were going to say anything...

Readers may consider some of these acceptable but my mother, taught grammar in school 80 years ago, would have a fit. Her lessons have stayed with me far more successfully than anything I learned during my own school days where grammar was theoretical rather than practical.

Many claim the creativity of writing is more important than spelling and grammar. I recently saw a piece of flash fiction published online which conjured up a lovely picture but, for me, was spoiled by the author using 'lay' instead of 'lie.' I didn’t comment as the author's note said he hadn't written for a long time because of a crippling fear of grammar and punctuation. I have no wish to put someone off writing for life and if he wishes to pursue writing, the basic rules of grammar can be learned without, I hope, too much difficulty.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and comments.

PS. I use the Oxford spellings. The suffix -ize  was used in Britain before the English language hit America so it's not, as many believe, an Americanism

PPS. Regarding pronunciation you might like Shakespeare's pronunciation..

And now for something serious...a taster.

My last post was tongue in cheek but here is a taste of my more serious short fiction. 

Chocolate in Summer

Seated at the grand piano, Margot became the woman she might have been rather than the one she was. Gone was the carping woman craving her headache pills; in her place was a maestro.

‘Oh how wonderful. You’ll have some help,’ people cooed when I muttered through clenched teeth that my mother-in-law was coming to stay. How they thought it was helpful to be driving over a hundred and fifty miles to the airport, with a two-month old breast-feeding baby in tow, I couldn’t imagine.
   She spent the entire six weeks moaning. The bedroom was too hot, too cold, the baby cried, my cooking was terrible, I didn’t iron Patrick’s shirts properly.
   ‘She’s asking for Gentleman’s Relish,’ I said to Patrick. ‘What the hell is that? I’ve never heard of it.’
   ‘Oh yes, she used to love it on toast,’ he said, frowning over our bank statement. ‘She used to put a little jar of it in my school tuck box every term. I’d sell it to one of the older boys because I hated it, and bought sweets from the tuck shop with the money. She never packed sweets. You can probably get it at Fortnums.’
   ‘Are you insane? Do you really expect me to high-tail it to London to get a jar of something for her bloody toast?’
   But make the journey I did, for Margot must be appeased, although nothing would ever make me good enough for her son.

‘Have you put Toby’s name down for Patrick’s prep school yet?’ she asked one Sunday lunchtime while I was clearing the table.
   ‘Margot, he’s barely three months old,’ I said. ‘Rather premature, don’t you think?’
   ‘These good schools are subscribed years in advance,’ she said curtly.
   ‘Besides which,’ I said, ‘I do not intend for my son to be sent away to school, even if we could afford it, which we can’t.’
   ‘Patrick, surely you can’t want your son educated in a state school?’
   ‘I rather think I do, Mother,’ he replied. ‘I have no wish to put Toby through what I endured.’
   I didn’t hear the end of that conversation because Toby began to wail, much to my relief.  I hurried off to placate my son who would not be sent away at the tender age of eight when, I hoped, he would still be wanting a story, a teddy snuggled into his bed and a goodnight kiss.

Each year, two months of summer were utter misery. As he grew older, even Toby began to dread the visit from Grandma: her headaches that demanded his utter silence; the outings that were curtailed because she felt unwell; the meals that must be just so.
   ‘Give me a hand,’ Patrick yelled down the stairs one Saturday before the impending visit. ‘I need you to hold the ladder. It’s wobbling.’ I switched off the iron, glad to have respite from squirting steam over the curtains from the spare room, Margot’s room, and plodded up the stairs, pushing my damp hair behind my ears.
   I held the ladder while Patrick inexpertly painted the room in his mother’s favourite colour.
   ‘She’ll like this,’ he said as he rolled the paint on. ‘She found the greens too bright.’ He was being tactful; ‘nauseous’ was the word she’d used. My carefully chosen two-tone green room disappeared under a coat of magnolia-meets-mushroom. The curtains would look quite wrong now but at least they would be dust and crease-free.
   A month later, I heaved Margot’s luggage up to the room. She was already lying on the bed in the delicate pose of a dying martyr.
   ‘Pull the curtains,’ she ordered. ‘There’s too much sun. Where are my pills, I think a headache is coming on.’
   ‘Do you like the new colour?’ I asked as I slid the curtains closed, banishing the few rays of sun to have graced our summer that year.
   ‘It’ll do.’
   ‘I’ve made your favourite cake so pop down for tea when you’re ready.’
   ‘I couldn’t possibly eat cake. My digestion. Some cucumber sandwiches, I think.’
   ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any cucumber. How about tomato?’
   ‘Tomato? With my delicate stomach? Good gracious girl, you should know this by now. Just run out and fetch a cucumber. It’s hardly too much to ask.’

It was when we visited my new neighbour who had invited us for coffee, that the ground shifted. Standing in their airy living room was a grand piano. Enormous, shiny and proud, it took up most of the space. Margot drifted towards it and trailed her fingers on the keys.
   ‘Do try it, if you’d like to,’ trilled the neighbour.
   To my astonishment, Margot seated herself on the padded stool and began to play. Music rippled from beneath her fingers as effortlessly as breeze on water.

   That was the day I first saw her smile.


If you would like the read the whole story it is published in The Greenacre Writers Anthology Vol 2 available from Greenacre Writers

or for just 39p  from Alfie Dog Fiction

The Continuing Saga of Lit Ward 10.

Since the spectacular success of  Dr Read’s literary medicine - helped by the odd glass of G&T - on Lit Ward 10, his Specialist Registrar, Dr. de Licious and Staff Nurse Gorgeous had volunteered to take on the extra duty of selecting suitable medication but now the new Chief Exec had insisted he be on the selection panel.

‘Now what evidence base do you have for this book stuff?’ he asked.

Dr Read handed him a print out of Lit Ward 10 outcomes.

‘With the government trying to close libraries and the NHS, we must do all we can to fight these disastrous decisions,’ Dr Read explained. ‘This is the only dedicated adult Literary Ward in the country and so far we’ve excellent outcomes.’

‘Yes, there has been some success I’ll admit, but evidence based practice is the pillar of clinical governance...’ mumbled the Chief Exec. He hadn’t read a novel since he was at school. He vaguely recalled something called 1984. Or was in 1984 that he last read a book? He couldn’t quite remember.

‘The Reader Organisation and InterAct Reading Service both have anecdotal evidence of literature helping recovery from illness,’ added Dr de Licious. 'As well of course as Read Well for children.' He couldn't miss them out although he knew Dr Read had been a bit upset to find that name had already been taken.

After reading about  Friern Barnet Community Library in leafy North London, reclaimed from closure by the community and reopened with 10,000 donated books, Dr Read’s appeal for books had been similarly overwhelmed with good books, but careful selections had to be made.

‘Can’t have this,’ yelled the Chief Exec holding up a copy of Bring Up the Bodies. 'Gives quite the wrong idea. Or this.’ He pointed to a copy of Death Bed by Leigh Russell, one of Dr de Licious’s favourite thriller writers.

I Googled titles with ‘health’ in them’ said the Chief Exec’s assistant, ‘and I came up with How I Scaled the North Face of the Megapurna with a Perfectly Healthy Finger But Everything Else Sprained, Broken or Bitten Off By a Pack of Mad Yaks, but it doesn’t seem to be on Amazon. I did look.’

‘That’s because it’s a fictional book,’ explained Dr de Licious slowly (he’d noted the assistant seemed to be having some kind of processing problems), while rolling his eyes at Nurse Gorgeous.

‘Exactly, That’s what Dr Read wants, isn’t it? Fictional books.’ The Chief Exec looked cross while his assistant continued to look his normal gormless self.

‘What Dr De Licious means, is that that title is a made-up book in a book,’ said Nurse Gorgeous. ‘It’s in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now that’s a good one for Lit Ward 10.’

‘But you said we’re having only fiction here, no travel books,’ complained the Chief Exec, who been annoyed that they’d rejected his old copy of Guide to the Most Boring Places Where You Can Park a Caravan in England. Since his promotion to Chief Exec, he’d got rid of the caravan as he didn't think it fit his new image. ‘And we shouldn’t encourage hitch-hikers, they’re scroungers, the lot of them.’

‘Here’s a safe bet, Pride and Prejudice.’ Nurse Gorgeous held up one of her favourites.

‘Out of the question,’ barked the Chief Exec. ‘Haven’t you done your mandatory training in Equality and Diversity? No prejudice is allowed on these premises whatsoever.’  He snatched the book and binned it. ‘My wife says there’s a book named after her, Emma. So I think we should have that.’

‘We do have that one. It’s a very good choice.’ Nurse Gorgeous didn’t add that Jane Austen had come up with the name some 200 years ago.

‘Excellent,’ said the Chief Exec, oblivious to the fact that it was by the same author of the book he had just tossed away. ‘So what others have names in them?’

‘Doctor Zhivago,’ suggested Dr de Licious with a slight smile.

‘But what’s he got to do with this project? He works in orthopaedics.’

‘That’s Dr Santiago.’

‘So why bring up this other chap then? We don’t have time to waste…Is there a book called Clarissa. That’s my mother’s name?’

‘Yes, there is, but I’m not sure we should include it,’ said Dr Read.

‘Why not?

‘Unless you are happy to have bed blockers.’

The Chief Exec shuddered. Bed-blockers were the bête noire of all chief executives and bed managers. ‘What’s it got to do with bed blockers?’ Really, literary types were a pain in the neck, going off at tangents all the time.

‘It’d take even the speediest reader a while to complete as the later editions are over a million words,’ said Dr Read. ‘Better for our community patients. Although I wouldn’t consider it for anyone with heart problems or any form of muscular weakness.’

The Chief Exec couldn’t see what that had to do with anything. ‘I think all our books should have names in the titles. My name’s Adrian. Is there a book called Adrian?’

‘There’s a whole series of Adrian Mole books,’ said Dr de Licious.

‘Excellent!’ said the Chief Exec. ‘I’m sure the hero is a worthy person. I see him as a hard working, leader of people, someone who has a vision of how things should be in the 21st century. Someone like me. Is he at all like me?’

‘Two peas in a pod,’ sighed Dr Read. 'Two peas in a pod.'

The tricky dilemma of self promotion.

There are those who self promote endlessly - their e-mails, tweets and blog posts bombard you like hail on a cold wintry day. Others leap at every chance to not just read their work at an open mic but do a spot of advertising too, when the work they are reading should do the job.

But the fact is writers do have to self promote, even those published with a big-name publisher must appear at festivals and book signings in the name of promotion. It’s all about publicity.

Self promotion works - I've bought books purely because of exposure via twitter - some were great, even if others were not and I wish I’d kept my money. And that is the problem with self promotion - it can be difficult to discriminate between the good and the awful, although the latter sometimes has poorly presented self promotion blurb to go with it.

This blog, like that of every other writer, is partly about self promotion. Without taking part in blogging and tweeting, fewer people would have heard of me. Although you will see my following is still modest, you are reading my words! But I’m still not entirely comfortable with posting my successes.

I was brought up in an era when we put other people first. As a child, if I had friends round to my house to play, I was encouraged to defer to my guests’ selection of activities and games. If we had visitors they were always served with the choicest food on the table and being a large family, my mother would whisper ‘FHB’ (Family Hold Back) when an unexpected guest sat at our dining table and she was worried about stretching the meal to an extra portion. I brought my daughter up in the same tradition even though this was the era of the 80s and 90s which was all about self, self and more self.

My parents objected to boasting and our family joke was a neighbouring family who did nothing but sing their own praises. In reality, they had very little to boast about yet they all carried on as if their achievements were spectacular. Carol’s screeching on the violin became virtuoso performances, Mark’s daubs became fine art and as for Peter’s skilled driving, let’s just say the number of dents on his old banger told their own story. If any of them are now writers, their tweets will be the avalanche engulfing all others.

Of course, I’m pleased with my achievements, so here are a few - each of the publications above contains one of my short stories or flash fiction pieces. I hope this time next year there will be a few more.

Mind the Gap...

‘What do you mean, you’re a writer?’ asked a fellow guest at a party. ‘How many books have you published?’

‘None.’

‘So you’re not a real writer then?’

‘I’ve had several stories published- ’

‘Well, they don’t count,’ he interrupted.

‘And some non-fiction articles-’

‘Ah yes, but do they earn you money?’

‘Yes.’ (True, although I didn’t add that several articles were for my local magazine and unpaid.)

My interrogator didn’t wait to hear more but stalked off under the impression that I was a liar and a fraud, because I wasn’t a REAL writer. I didn’t bother to pursue him to ask him why published stories didn’t count because I thought my time would be better spent turning him into a character for my next flash fiction although I do wish I’d asked him if he was a real reader. Presumably reading anything other than published books doesn’t count.

I wrote When Can You Call Yourself a Writer? a while back, but in spite of now being brave enough to call myself a writer, I’m discovering the gap, a veritable chasm, between calling myself a writer and other people calling me a writer.

I did have a moment’s glory when I met someone at a local event who, on hearing my name, said, ‘Oh, hello, I’ve read your articles.’

I wish I could tell you that he enthused over my informative, beautifully written articles and asked if I would consent to being interviewed on the BBC. But he didn’t because they were in that local magazine I mentioned and  it was only later that I realized he hadn’t even said if he thought they were any good.

Meeting fellow writers is balm to my soul. Whether part-time writers like myself or full timers who have published loads more than I have, far from considering me inferior because I'm not a ‘real writer’, they are generous with their encouragement and sometimes practical help too. The following blogs and websites of some writers I met this week, will give you an idea of what I mean.

Patsy Collins
Karen Clarke
Tracy Fells
Wendy Clarke
Helen Hunt
Alison Carter

Note to self: Repeat three times every morning ‘I’m Lindsay and I’m a writer…’

Greenacre Writers Literary Festival: A personal perspective.

My day's itinerary for preparations for the Greenacre Writers Literary Festival was worked out to the minute. Boxes were lined up for transportation, lists were written and laminated so what could possibly go wrong? Waking up on Friday morning with a violent headache and the room spinning - that's what! I'll spare you details but it wasn't anything catching.

But somehow I managed the shopping with the help and support of staff at Finchley's Waitrose, printed the signs (in a bit of a haze) and helpers stepped into the breach while I had a bit of down-time so co-organizer, Rosie Canning, was able to get the second Greenacre Literary Festival off to a great start.

By the time I arrived at Friern Barnet Community Library on Friday 17th, pale but not very interesting, Miriam Halahmy's writing workshop was closing and the tables and chairs were being re-organized ready for the Open Mic.

Allen Ashley did a great job in hosting a variety of writers from all over London, one from Bristol and one from USA who read poems, flash fiction, non-fiction and extracts from novels. Lyrical, stark, humorous and serious, different styles and all sorts of themes. I loved the sheer variety - our readers ranged from those in their 20s to 70s, from writers who have lived all their lives in Finchley to those who have fled their countries of origin to avoid persecution. We all had our stories. And we all listened and learned.

And just for the record, I had gone an entire day without coffee.

Saturday dawned and I felt a little more human, as today's headache was of a lesser variety and no doubt mostly because of caffeine withdrawal and enforced starvation. By eleven o'clock Trinity Church Centre was transformed into a venue fit to host our second workshop led by Dr Josie Pearse, and the Main Event. Two hours later, with help from our Greenacre members and supporters, Rosie and I were ready to welcome our four guest authors.

CJ Flood, Gina Blaxill, Leigh Russell and Sarah Harrison fulfilled all our hopes and expectations by being entertaining and informative speakers. They all wove the festival's theme of truth and fiction into their talks and readings.

Reading about my heroine's opinion
 of scary stomach-squashing-in pants.
Photo: Emily Benet.

I was one of seven Greenacre Writers to read. There is always the dilemma of what to read. At the open Mic I'd read  a serious flash fiction relating to Mental Health Awareness week so I decided it should be '...and now for completely different...' and read the opening paragraphs of my WIP 'Do Not Exceed Fifty' chick-lit for the older woman, OK, the menopausal woman.

To my relief it went down well. As for the lady who asked, 'can I buy your book here?' it was all I could do not to fling my arms around her and have 'Lindsay's No 1 fan' tattooed on her forehead. For a few minutes I felt just a little bit famous.

But mine was only one of many readings. Rosie Canning, Liz Goes, Linda Louisa Dell, Mark Kitchenham, Mumpuni Murniati and Wendy Shillam showcased their work too, which, as at the Open Mic, explored a variety of styles and subjects. We may not yet be the million-book bestsellers that our invited guests are, but just watch this space.

The day rounded off with a panel, facilitated by Allen Ashley with Sarah Harrison, Leigh Russell, Dr Josie Pearse and Alex Wheatle, one of our fantastic speakers from last year's festival, exploring further the theme of truth and fiction. Whether a reader or a reader/writer, much was to be learned from those who have spent many years writing and perfecting their writing.

As I gave the final thanks, I felt very proud of Greenacre Writers - not only are we developing our writing skills, we have a huge talent for inviting wonderful authors who have been very generous in their support of a small festival. (Two other speakers from last year were in the audience: Emily Benet and Andrew Bradford.) But it was co-organiser Rosie Canning who got in the last word and presented me with a lovely surprise of a beautiful bouquet of flowers. And of course our GWs hadn't forgotten one for Rosie too.

Now I'm enjoying a couple of days off and guess what, I'm reading four books at once as inevitably I've started Sarah Harrison's The Flowers of the Field, Leigh Russell's Cut Short. CJ Flood's Infinite Sky and Gina Blaxill's Pretty Twisted. Oh, and yes I must re-read fellow writers' excerpts for this evening's Finish That Novel 2 meeting. And note to self  'I must Finish That Novel.'

The official and more objective account with lots more pictures can be found at www.greenacrewriters.blogspot.co.uk

For a really detailed account, read Morgen Bailey