Same number of not-quite-random things as have always made up a post.
1. Did someone else from Minnesota say that it's cold here tonight? Because it is. In case you didn't hear. Cold. Yah.
2. It's always more amusing than helpful when a nonfiction author, trying to be helpful, tells the reader that a word is pronounced like "____" or "_____," which are not, to my way of thinking, pronounced the same way. Latest example: "deuce" and "moose." That is not the same vowel. I know a lot of Americans would say "doose, moose, it's the same." The deuce it is. It's a subtle difference. This is not the same as no difference. Which is why people who try to "sound Canadian/Minnesotan/Northern" by saying "aboot, hahaha," are grating and wrong. There is another option than "bow" and "boo" for that noise, people.
3. Now I feel very sorry for Doc Tichy bellowing, "Marry merry Mary!" at someone in high school debate class and having her obediently repeat, "Mary Mary Mary," back at him for quite a stretch of time. (Note: "someone" was not, in this case, code for "me." I don't actually remember which of the possible suspects it was.)
4. Over lunch:
mrissa: "...so I told him that in his lj, because apparently this is what passes for a compliment in my mind."*
timprov: "There are some sentences only you have. No one else has that sentence."
mrissa: "It's a perfectly good sentence!"
timprov: "I'm not complaining."
5. Despite having a headache I can't quite shake for the second night in a row, I am having an awfully good time writing The True Tale of Carter Hall tonight. This makes me suspicious. Specifically I am suspicious whenever I think I have been funny, because there are few things more awful than having to slog through a passage the author clearly found hilarious when that author was wrong. I know for a fact that some people are not going to find this book funny, which doesn't bother me, because nothing is appealing to everybody. But if it's otherwise the right audience and I've missed on the funny, then we have a problem. On the other hand, if I definitely didn't think it was funny, that's not a very good sign for the reader thinking so, either.
Deadpan is not a full solution to this problem. Which you wouldn't know from the amount I use it. But that's not really a fully conscious choice so much as a genetic imperative. Maybe it's an environmental imperative. Either way, we know the result.
Does anybody else remember some of the Mary Poppins scenes--real Mary Poppins, not Disney--where they are waltzing with all the animals or the stars or whatever? Writing this chapter feels like that. Only without the bit where the children can wake up in their beds and have to figure out some kind of proof that it really did happen. And a lot more risk of death. And funnier. Um.
*Sorry, snurri. It really did sound more complimentary in my head.
2. It's always more amusing than helpful when a nonfiction author, trying to be helpful, tells the reader that a word is pronounced like "____" or "_____," which are not, to my way of thinking, pronounced the same way. Latest example: "deuce" and "moose." That is not the same vowel. I know a lot of Americans would say "doose, moose, it's the same." The deuce it is. It's a subtle difference. This is not the same as no difference. Which is why people who try to "sound Canadian/Minnesotan/Northern" by saying "aboot, hahaha," are grating and wrong. There is another option than "bow" and "boo" for that noise, people.
3. Now I feel very sorry for Doc Tichy bellowing, "Marry merry Mary!" at someone in high school debate class and having her obediently repeat, "Mary Mary Mary," back at him for quite a stretch of time. (Note: "someone" was not, in this case, code for "me." I don't actually remember which of the possible suspects it was.)
4. Over lunch:
mrissa: "...so I told him that in his lj, because apparently this is what passes for a compliment in my mind."*
timprov: "There are some sentences only you have. No one else has that sentence."
mrissa: "It's a perfectly good sentence!"
timprov: "I'm not complaining."
5. Despite having a headache I can't quite shake for the second night in a row, I am having an awfully good time writing The True Tale of Carter Hall tonight. This makes me suspicious. Specifically I am suspicious whenever I think I have been funny, because there are few things more awful than having to slog through a passage the author clearly found hilarious when that author was wrong. I know for a fact that some people are not going to find this book funny, which doesn't bother me, because nothing is appealing to everybody. But if it's otherwise the right audience and I've missed on the funny, then we have a problem. On the other hand, if I definitely didn't think it was funny, that's not a very good sign for the reader thinking so, either.
Deadpan is not a full solution to this problem. Which you wouldn't know from the amount I use it. But that's not really a fully conscious choice so much as a genetic imperative. Maybe it's an environmental imperative. Either way, we know the result.
Does anybody else remember some of the Mary Poppins scenes--real Mary Poppins, not Disney--where they are waltzing with all the animals or the stars or whatever? Writing this chapter feels like that. Only without the bit where the children can wake up in their beds and have to figure out some kind of proof that it really did happen. And a lot more risk of death. And funnier. Um.
*Sorry, snurri. It really did sound more complimentary in my head.