Spelling Evils

I've been thinking a lot about spelling this past week. I'm irritated when I read misspelled words, but I'm thoroughly humiliated when I misspell words and those words go off into the world for all to see and there is nothing I can do about it. So, since those words are already out there in the world, here are my thoughts. I make no apologies for the misspelling, however. The terrible deed is done.

When I'm writing, I get into a kind of zone. I don't think about the spelling, just getting those words to page.

there becomes their
they're becomes their
you're becomes your and so on.

I need to remember to hit the grammar button in Office Suite. It'll point out these "words often misspelled" and I can read them in context to make sure. Now, I know how to use these simple words. The misuse is ridiculous, but I do it time and time again and I can't fathom why. I hurry. I type before thinking. I know better. I can easily see the errors in other people's writings, but I'm blind to my own. I'm not illiterate. That's all I have so far.

When I'm in that zone, I don't bother to look words up. I just spell them phonetically, because I just can't stop now, so feces becomes fecis (I've never actually written that word in my life. I mean, shit is shit, no matter what way you look at it.) and tome (book or manuscript) becomes tomb (the place where all the bodies are buried) etc. I always intend to check "later", but nine times out of ten, I forget.

Need to train myself to watch this....maybe try to remember to stick brackets or question marks to the words I'm not sure of. Copy-edit more carefully, rather than rush it through.

I've kicked myself so many times this week and it hurt, bruised ego for life...well, for a little while. It's just spelling.

Hitting spell-check now.

National Novel Writing Month

I'm very impulsive in the morning and found myself signing up for NaNoWriMo It was like my mouse was working against me, filling in all the blanks on the sign-up page. I was half-way through my first cuppa and I just don't think I had anything to do with it. Somehow, I've committed to write a 50,000 word novel in one month.

I've put away A Twist of Rotten Silk for a bit. It/I need a rest. My NaNoWriMo novel is stuck with the ridiculous title of The Ropemaker's Friend or the Remarkable Adventures of Half-Hangit Maggie With the Story of her Life, Death and Life Again Found Herein, long and typical of the novels of the period. Well, it doesn't have to be my Mona Lisa - just has to be words to page. Gee, I wonder if the title counts in the final word count.

I look at it this way. 50,000 words is half the average-sized novel, so I've decided to see it as a very long summary, sans all the pretty shiny bits. If it turns out, I like the story, I can have fun adding the pretty shiny bits later.

Now to stock up on a months worth of food, hire a maid and fill the fridge with Red Bull. (I'm not sure what Red Bull is, but I hear it'll keep me awake.

Breast Reduction in 1694

I was searching for info regarding the transportation of women to the colonies in the 17th century and came across a snippet about a book printed by John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultry in 1694. It is titled The Ladies Dictionary, Being a General Entertainment For the Fair Sex: A Work Never attempted before in Englifh (err, English).

It was the cosmo of the day with info on exercise, diet, reading, wobbly bits, make-up, dating, prostitution and adultery.

Written by a man they think, but with initials NM as the author, so I don't know how they know that.

Here's a sampling. Wish I had the whole book, but it sold for $9500. Cdn.

BREAST REDUCTION
Breasts that "hang loose, and are of an extraordinary largeness, lose their charms, and have their beauty burried in the grave of uncomliness". To reduce them, bind for several nights, coat with a mixture of seeds, then wash with white wine and rose water.

MAKE-UP
"A painted face is enough to destroy the Reputation of her that uses it."

READING
"It is not necessary to read many Books, but to read the best. The forbidding of idle books makes young people more curious to read them."

SEX
"Is it proper for a Woman to yield at the first address, though to a man she love? You'll get better Conditions if the Enemy does not know how weak you are within."

ADULTERY
Women are warned not to be tempted due to "dangerous consequences" and "dishonour it puts on your Sex". On prostitution, he says it "causes a man to spend silver for flesh, till he becomes so lank that his legs are scarce able to support their late master".

EXERCISE & DIET
Diet advice includes taking vigorous exercise before meals. The author also suggests not eating "any thing that is very Salt, Sharp, Bitter or too Hot, but let your Food be Sweet and nourishing". He recommends: "New Eggs, Veal, Mutton, Capon."

LOSING WEIGHT
Re "fatty lumps", the author says: "Bodies sometimes fall away in one part, and not in another." To combat this, take "Oyl of Foxes, Capons Grease, and Goose Grease" with "Pine, Rosin, and Turpentine". Boil with "Virgins-Wax" and plaster on to the body.

The only thing I have to ask is what is Virgins-Wax?

Ahh! not what one would think.....

From British History Online

Virgin wax[virgins-wax; virgin's wax; virgins wax; virgin ditto]Originally fresh, new or unused BEES WAX, sometimes that produced by the first swarm of BEES; in later and more general use, a purified or fine quality of WAX, especially as used in the making of CANDLES. In the latter sense WHITE BEES WAX.OED earliest date of use: 13--Found in units of DRACHM, LB, OZ, PENNYworthSee also WHITE WAX. Sources: Inventories (mid-period), Recipes, Tradecards.
From: 'Viol - Vizard mask', Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities, 1550-1820

The Romance of Lichen on Boulders in Relationship to History

When Dave the Cat took me for a walk this morning, he sat on a large boulder in a field by our drive. This boulder is gigantic, worn by the weather of millions of years, full of cracks where plants have taken root. There is even a juniper starting to grow from one of these cracks and there is, here and there, the dried up spongy green moss, brown now, at least until we get a rain when it will spring to life again. There is also a small crust of orange lichen. I was reading a while back, this particular lichen is very slow growing - takes about one hundred years just to grow a square inch. By my rough visual reckoning, I date this to about 1660. This lichen was starting to grow when Charles 11 was restored to the throne, during the plague in London and the Great Fire. The old London Bridge still existed with the tarred heads of traitors and highwaymen stuck on posts above the gate at Southwark. This is the time and place of my novel. The real Jonet Howat was presumbably freed from the tollbooth cell in 1663. Two years earlier, her mother, also accused of witchcraft in Forfar, Scotland was executed. All this happened when 3000 miles across the sea in a largely undiscovered wilderness the lichen on a boulder in my field was starting to grow. It doesn't mean anything. In the mornings, I think too much and dwell on things like the romance of lichen on boulders in relationship to history. Just sayin'.

The True Story

I'm writing fiction, but if you want to read the true story of the Forfar Witches there is plenty of info on the net and one book by a Forfar historian.

The Plausibility Factor (thinking out loud)

I have my protagonist as a Shakespeare quotin', intelligent, witty, stubborn young women living in the 17th Century. However, from the age of thirteen to seventeen, she was in a tollbooth cell in Forfar, Scotland, having been accused of witchcraft. Her mother, among others, was executed - strangled and burnt to ashes in a barrel of tar. Now, how do I make this character a Shakespeare quotin', intelligent, witty, stubborn young women? Is is plausible considering this history? Well, I don't know. Certainly good writing can make it so, but for a first novel, am I asking too much of myself? I'm stalled.

How do I make myself believe my character? Oh, I can justify how she knows Shakespeare. I can justify her intelligence and wit. But would she have those traits? Four years is a hell of a long time for a young girl. She lost most of her youth to a dark cell. She would be malnourished among other things - certainly that could affect her thinking.

Hmm, second-guessing is painful. I have to fix this.

Blog Beginnings

I'm writing a novel. I can actually say it now and mean it. I wrote a prologue a year ago, hoping it would take me somewhere. It didn't, but I was happy with the prose regardless. So, not wanting to give up again, I wrote the first chapter and it stalled too. In the words of Miss O'Hara, "Where will I go? What will I do?"

I joined a writer's community and I can't tell you how grateful I am. Turns out, you don't have to write the first chapter first. You can hop about the story like a rabbit, writing scenes anywhere in the wip (work-in-progress). The story begins to tell itself, eventually one scene meeting up with the other, shaking hands and patting each other on the back. It's exhilarating. Some writers call it "writing in chunks" or "chunk writing". When I think of the word chunks, I think about throwing up, so I prefer to call it "writing in fragments". Sits better in my belly.

I can write one thousand words a day or more when Fritz isn't hovering or Dave the Cat isn't sitting on the keyboard. The next several days I'll spend fiddling with the scene, tweaking, editing, preening, adding salt or sugar to taste. I love this part - finding words and phrases to show visuals, emotion, ways to move the story forward by saying a lot or a little. (Less is more) It's the joy of writing and the pleasure of knowing the final result works .... well, works for the moment. Things change however, when you write a scene placed much later in the work and realize you've already said such and such in a scene coming earlier. Now you have to go back and fix such and such to make so and so work, thus urging you to tweak. I love to tweak, so I'm not bothered by these foibles.

Back to the thousand words a day thing. Yes, it's doable. If I just wrote and wrote and worried about the tweaking at the end of the novel, once all the various scenes fused themselves together, I could finish a 100k novel in three months, but it would be really, really bad. Lots of writers do it and don't mess with anything until "The End" is typed at the bottom of the last page. Every writer eventually finds their way. Every writer has a different process and there are no rules, other than owning a copy of Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White and keeping beside the computer. (No, I have no financial interest in the book, just interest in general )

Therein lieth my first post.