Monday, August 07, 2006

Of Obituary's and Yellow Sharpies

I have figured for you the distance between the horns of a dilemma, night and day, and A and Z. I have computed how far is Up, how long it takes to get Away, and what becomes of Gone. I have discovered the length of the sea serpent, the price of priceless, and the square of the hippopotamus. I know where you are when you are at Sixes and Sevens, how much Is you have to have to make an Are, and how many birds you can catch with the salt in the ocean - 187,796,132, if it would interest you. ~James Thurber, Many Moons

In case you're wondering, that quote has nothing to do with anything, I just really liked it for some reason, especially the end. So, I had to share.

Yesterday, I received back some help on my edits from D (*waves*). She didn't do a ton, but what she did do was wonderful. She inserted one particular paragraph that was incredible and gave life to a character who had none before. I sat there and wondered why something like that (maybe not the exact words, because those are hers, after all) hadn't occurred to me. It made the story richer, deeper.

Some of what she did suggested other ways I could improve some places as well. It gave me a hard shove in the right direction. I wonder, is this why people collaborate? Do they find just the right person so that their strengths and weaknesses are complimentary? Not that I think D has many weaknesses in her writing. I love what she does.

She also pointed out some repeated words. I have one place where, in the space of only a few sentences, both the H/H "tipped his/her head" and then another tip shortly after. Do you have any idea how many freakin' times I've looked at that particular piece?

All I have to say is THANK HEAVENS for another pair of eyeballs.

On the dog front, she gets her bandage off today. I'm not sure if I'm happy or worried about that, but the doggie doc must know what he's doing. After all, I trusted him to cut her open, I should trust him in this. I'm really ready for the recovery to be all done. Two weeks and she start physical therapy (performed by ME!).

I stumbled across this whilst blog hopping and thought I'd share. It's an admirable cause IMHO and close to my heart because if I had my druthers, I'd open an animal rescue, too. Check it out:

One Yellow Sharpie - Incidentally, her profile shows her other blogs if you're interested in seeing what kind of girl she is...

And... my obituary:




QuizGalaxy!
'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com


End note: I just ran this through spell check in Word, and would you believe that "druthers" passed? Druthers...?

I had to look at the dictionary, and guess what? It's in there, too!

druth·ers
pl.n. Informal
A choice or preference: “Given their druthers, these hell-for-leather free marketeers might sell the post office” (George F. Will).

LOL...

Have a great day!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

and would you believe that "druthers" passed?

Isn't the English language fun? :)

Judy said...

I was surprised about druthers as well. I always thought it was just one of those 'redneck' terms we used down here. Actually, I was surprised when you used it! I didn't know it was prevalent north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Anonymous said...

Great news about the feedback you've gotten, Maria and I'm glad you're getting some wonderful help taking another look at your story. :-)