Did you know that Monday is Blogger Appreciation Day?

Well, it’s kind of unofficial, but here’s the idea:

We’re in it together, blogging is about collaboration and together going further than we can by ourselves - so why not help another blogger today by shooting them a word of encouragement, a pep talk, a congratulations, an idea to help them improve or some other positive constructive message. Better still, do it publicly on your blog and tell the world about another blogger who you appreciate.

So, for the record–I appreciate all of you!

There’s a weekly meme over at Booking Through Thursday which is usually based on reading, but this week, it was geared toward writing, so I thought I’d chime in here. Everybody (meaning you) is free to play along–all you need to do is post an answer on your blog and then head over to BTT and leave a comment so the other participants can find you.

Anyway, here’s mine:

• Pick up the nearest book. (I’m sure you must have one nearby.)
• Turn to page 123.
• What is the first sentence on the page?
• The last sentence on the page?
• Now . . . connect them together….
  (And no, you may not transcribe the entire page of the book–that’s cheating!)

My nearest book is The Snake, the Crocodile & the Dog by Elizabeth Peters.

Howard arrived in time to see the end of this performance.

“Bravo!” he called as the band began to play the performers off the stage. “That looked wonderful, I can’t believe I missed it.”

“Waylaid by thieves, no doubt?” I inquired gently, inquisitively raising one eyebrow.

“Of a surity. Definite thieves. I barely escaped with my life.”

“Yet you managed to escape with your theater ticket intact. How very fortunate. Were there many of them, to detain you through the entire first act?”

“Dozens.”

“But you managed to save your wrist watch, your cufflinks, and the flower in your lapel. Are you quite certain there were more than one?”

“The plural, decidedly,” said Howard.

This was fun!

(And, actually, I was going to use the writing book I had sitting nearby and come up with something closer to this blog’s “theme,” but the two sentences, “It’s risky, what you’re doing,” and “If you’re not interested, you can be sure your reader will feel like tearing her hair out–if not yours.” But tying those two sentences together sure sounded like they were a succinct summation of my post from yesterday, so … I went with the fiction instead!)

Joanna is asking about Power.

I’ve written about using your own knowledge to empower your writing, and I’ve written about how a foundation of knowledge can give your writing the power to explore the world beyond those boundaries.

But, here’s the thing–none of that matters if you don’t drive your writing. If you don’t feel a certain amount of passion about your writing, it’s going to fizzle alongside the road, drained and empty.

I’m not saying that you have to love and feel deeply moved about every word that you write. You can’t write a description on how to use a software program with the same passion that you have a character seduce a woman in your novel. (Or, if you do, that’s a software program I so want to learn.) But that doesn’t mean those instructions shouldn’t be written as well as you possibly can write them.

Ultimately–the power that drives the writing comes from within you. You can do a workmanlike job that’s perfectly adequate, but for great writing (yes, even a great user’s manual) you need to write to the best of your ability, with verve, with enthusiasm.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the Owner’s Manual that came with your computer, DVD player, or cell phone–anything, really–and take a look at the text describing the features. If you’re lucky enough to have text rather than pictograms. Now check out a really good, how-to website. Like this one on customizing your own graphics. Or this great tutorial on darning socks (no, really). They could be boring as anything, just giving the bare basics of what you need to know, but instead, they’re interesting. You can tell they were written with joy in their authors’ hearts.

The power for fantastic writing is right there, in you, at this very moment. I don’t want to sound too New Age kind of mystical here, or anything, but it’s true. If you feel motivated to write, if you feel passionate about your writing (even if it’s a series of how-tos), and if you feel the drive … that’s all you really need.

Well, okay, there is that whole vocabulary, grammar, being able to string sentences together thing, but that’s just technique. What we’re talking about here is the whole reason for mastering it. Because it’s a rush. Because it’s fun. Because–done right–there’s nothing quite like it. You just have to get behind the driver’s wheel and go.

Why don’t you take it out for a spin and see what it can do?

Back in February (yes, I’m late), Peter asked:

I would like to know when you are allowed to use the hyphen (”-”). I tend to use it pretty often - like now - and I’m wondering if it is proper use. I also get confused when two words are joined up through a hyphen. In my primary language - which is dutch - we tend to stick words together. With english, I’m not always sure when you are supposed to place a hyphen, leave a gap, or join the words togethers. Like for instance: all together, altogether, all-together. Well placed, well-placed, wellplaced?

First, there is a difference between a dash and a hyphen. We’ve discussed dashes before–they are used to indicate a break or pause in thought, much like a comma does. Where Peter says “- like now-” he should rightfully use two dashes together (–).

A Hyphen, on the other hand, has two functions.

• One is for pulling words together. (”Well-placed”)
• One is for separating them into syl-la-bles.

Since Peter’s questions is mostly about the first one, we’re going to focus on that.
I’ve touched on the first one, back when I told you about compound-adjectives, but the “compound” part is not restricted solely to adjectives. Generally speaking, when you’re putting two or more words together because they are acting as a team, you need to tie them together with hyphens. (“Blue-green yarn.” “The next-to-the-last chair in the row.” “The well-placed decoration is just the right touch.”)

If they are working individually, however, you keep them separate. (”I like the blue, green, and yellow yarns.” “I’m sitting next to the door.” “I must say, that chair is so well placed, it never falls over.”)

Also, if they get tied together long enough, they eventually become one word. (Handspun yarn. Lightbulb.) So in Peter’s question about “all together,” you can use “all together” to describe the action of a group, but you would not use “all-together” at any time I can immediately think of. “Altogether,” of course, can describe (ahem) a person without clothes, as in “The king was in the altogether, as naked as the day that he was born.” If you’re not sure whether a pairing has passed into the not-needing-hyphen stage yet, it doesn’t hurt anything to use it.

Thanks for the question, Peter. Hope this helps. Anybody else have questions?

We talked about ways to improve your handwriting–practice, muscle-control, patience–all that. But what if you simply need a whole, new style? Something different? Something that will be unlike the handwriting you’ve been using and that has fostered such bad habits?

Well, Italic Writing may be for you.

Of course, you might already write this way, and not have any idea what I’m talking about. It’s just … handwriting! But if you grew up learning to either “print” or write “cursive” or “script,” then chances are you do not write in italics. (And, no, I don’t mean the emphasized italics of font-faces used for titles and such–we’re talking more along the lines of calligraphy.) This style is popular among home-schoolers and I hear it’s popular in Britain (though I really couldn’t say for sure).

It’s a surprisingly practical way to write. It’s made up of single letters, like traditional printing, yet they can connect for speed like cursive letters. The difference is that the letters themselves are the same either way. Unlike calligraphy, it doesn’t require a special pen. It does look even better with a broad-tipped fountain pen, it’s true, but you can write in the italic style with a pencil.

Besides, it’s so darn pretty to look at.

Interested in a book? The series by Barbara Getty is hard to top. There are online sources to help you get started, too.

This is the fifth and final post in my series on handwriting. The first post, on the act of writing is here, and the second, on the personal touch, is here. The third, on bad handwriting, is here, and the post about ways to improve your handwriting is here.

There’s an AT&T Wireless commercial, showing a father knocking on steamy car windows at a make-out spot, looking for his daughter because he hadn’t gotten her text message about spending a night at a friend’s house. The voice-over has him saying something to the effect that, “Come Monday, you’ll be known as the girl with the annoying father that nobody wants to date.”

Well, this annoys me every time I see it. Because, of course, why would anyone want to date the poor girl’s father?

This is a classic example of a dangling modifier, which is exactly what happens when you attach a modifier to the wrong word. Clearly, in that commercial, it’s the girl that nobody will want to date, not her father. All the writers needed to do was say, “…Known as the girl that nobody wants to date with the annoying father.”

Some more examples?

• Tossing the frisbee in the air, the dog ran to catch it.
• While talking on the phone, the doorbell rang.
• Running across the floor, the rug slipped and I fell.
• He was staring at the girl by the door wearing tight jeans.

We have talked about the epidemic of bad handwriting. So now that you know that you’re not alone (if you’re one of the many people suffering from poor penmanship), what can you do if you want to improve yours?

• Number one answer? Practice. Good penmanship is based on muscle memory, so the more you practice the basic shapes and angles, the better your writing will be.
• Of course, you’re going to want to be sure to use the right Muscles. Ideally, when you write, your fingers should barely move at all–it should be your shoulder muscles that do all the work (as discussed here). This is one of my personal handwriting faults–I tend to rest my hand on the paper and use my fingers to move the pen, which effectively means that I can’t write on a pad when I get to the end of the page–nowhere for my hand.
• Discipline is important, too. All of us are used to writing in specific patterns, and it’s easy to just let those patterns continue. If you want to change, however, it’s time to break new writing paths–and that requires work. You have to resist the temptation to “just this once” scrawl a quick note in your usual, messy fashion just to save time. You have to exert the strength of mind to make your hand do what you want it to do, just as if you were learning to write all over again.
• This, of course, also demands Patience. Re-structuring your handwriting is not going to happen overnight. If you expect improvement after only a few days, you’re going to be discouraged–so, don’t!
• Then there’s the Grip. Hold your pen or pencil lightly–if you hold it too tightly, you’re just going to be adding stress which is going to make your hand tire quickly. You’ll want to hold it at a 45-degree angle to the paper, too (especially important with a fountain pen).
• Slow Down. Even my own less-than-stellar handwriting improves when I take the time to slow it down from its usual break-neck speed and focus on shaping each letter.
• Pay Attention. Part of what makes good penmanship good is its consistency. So focus on making the angles of your letters consistent (90 degrees, more or less, in the U.S.), the curves the same shape. Make the space between each letter the same. Keep all the extenders and descenders the same height. (Those are the parts that rise above and below the basic letter–like the top of a “d” or the bottom of a “y”.) 
• One handy tip I saw here was to have a “test sentence” that you write once a week, which will show how much your writing has improved. Sometimes the changes are infinitestimal and you won’t see them … until you look back to where you started from and say, “Wow. My writing was really that bad?” This is the penmanship equivalent to yearly school pictures for your kids.

Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ll want a book on the subject. (Any time I’m interested in a new subject, I immediately go two places–the internet and a bookstore. The internet is great for instant gratification, but there’s still nothing quite like a book for studying.) Write Now is a good one. So is Teach Yourself Better Handwriting.

This is the fourth post in my series on Handwriting. The first post, on the act of writing is here, and the second, on the personal touch, is here. The third, on bad handwriting, is here.

If you are anything like me, your handwriting is, um, less than ideal. The word “scrawl” may be bandied about, and jokes about illegibility abound. (Though, in this regard, I truly am my father’s daughter.) It’s not just me, though. It’s practically an epidemic. I’ve often said that if a genie offered me three wishes, I’d take the first two to ask for health and prosperity for me and my family, and for the third, I’d ask for fast, beautiful, legible handwriting.

Why? Well, first, schools don’t seem to teach penmanship anymore. Once a child can spell out the alphabet and has learned cursive script–somewhere around third grade–the entire subject is more or less dropped from the curriculum. As soon as you look at other countries, the differences grow–Different styles, different ways of forming letters. Just to make things more fun.

Of course, we are all such rampant individualists these days, we pride ourselves on being special and unique (as, of course, we are) and so the idea of distinctive handwriting has an innate appeal. Why shape your “D” just like the person next to you when you can write it unlike anybody else? Except that, unfortunately, that “unique” handwriting all too often means “illegible to anybody but you,” which can be a little problematic.

And then, of course, the biggest reason–we just don’t write by hand that much any more. Keyboards are everywhere. We type e-mails. We type memos. We type book manuscripts. We type reminders to pick up milk on the way home from work. And when we’re not sitting at a computer or typewriter, we’re sending text messages on our telephones.

So, not only are we typing the vast majority of what we’re writing these days, the mere fact that we do means that our fine-motor skills for hand-writing are getting flabby. I can touch-type at about 70 words a minute, which is respectable enough, but put a pen in my hand? Well, not only is that going to be slower, but it’s not going to be particularly legible, either. It’s a catch-22.The more I type, the lazier my writing muscles get. The lazier my hand gets, the worse my penmanship gets. The worse my penmanship gets, the more I type out of sheer necessity. The more I type … you get the picture. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs.

What do you think? How good is your penmanship these days?

This is the third post in my series on Handwriting. The first post, on the act of writing is here, and the second, on the personal touch, is here.

What do you think about using slang in your writing?

The official Rule is that you should avoid colloquialisms when you write. I can give you two good reasons for this.

1. They date your writing, just like any other popular reference. You can refer to some popular television show or catch-phrase, and all is well and good … for now. But a few years down the road? Not so much. Remember the Terminator’s “I’ll be back”? Or Bart Simpson’s “Ay, Carumba!”? Fonzie’s “Aaaaay”? Exactly. You remember them (or not), but if you used them in an article when they were popular, well, it won’t have aged very well.

2. They are unprofessional. Or rather, they make you sound unprofessional. Too many slang terms may make your readers think that you don’t know how to express yourself “correctly.” Colloquialisms by their very nature are casual.

That said, as with many (many) writing rules, this one relies on the context. So, when can you use slang?

1. When writing dialogue. No matter how correctly they speak, practically nobody completely avoids slang when having a conversation. You just expect less of it in a speech by a head of state than, say, a farmer from some isolated area. So, when writing dialogue, if your character would use more colorful language? Use it.

2. In casual writing. When writing a letter to a friend, you can and should write as naturally as you can. Because, again, unless you are a head of state, English professor, or someone in some other highly-literate line of work, chances are that you don’t speak like a textbook reads. Which means that, if you’re writing naturally, your writing isn’t going to be perfect. That might not be ideal when writing something official, but in an e-mail or a friendly note? By all means, go to town.

When is the last time you got a hand-written letter in the mail? A personal note? A greeting card?

Exactly. It’s a dying art. I have a drawer full of letters I’ve received from friends over the years, but I cannot remember the last time I actually had a letter to add. Maybe something that came with a Christmas card, but a real letter, just because a friend felt like writing? It simply doesn’t happen any more.

Don’t get me wrong–I love the electronic age we live in. I love the ease of communication. I love the fact that I’ve got e-friends all over the world. I love that I can ask a question and get answers almost instantaneously. The world has never been so connected. But, it lacks the personal touch.

There is nothing like getting a handwritten letter. The look of the ink–maybe from a fountain pen. The feel of the paper in your hand. The knowledge that the writer put forth a real effort to communicate, instead of clicking a few keys between tasks at the computer to send you a quick note. Even the look of the handwriting is special, as distinctive as fingerprints. Handwriting might flow fluidly across the page, might be made up of short, quick lines engraved into the paper, or might be scrawled to the point of illegibility, but, no matter what, it makes a nice change from Times New Roman. 

And then, there’s the content. Tell the truth: do you write long, chatty e-mails to your distant friends? I’d wager you probably don’t. One of the oddities about electronic communication is that its instantaneous nature inspires “quick” notes. Rather like telegrams fostered short, cryptic messages, the convenience of e-mail spawns correspondence something akin to the, “Honey, could you pick up some milk” phone calls. Short and to the point, passing on bare facts or information, but not inspiring anyone to the literary heights. I’m not saying it never happens–and I have had some thoughtful, insightful e-mail exchanges with all sorts of people–but most of them? The quickie variety.

Which is a shame. E-mails don’t lend themselves to being saved for posterity–nor are they (necessarily) worth it. We can read the legendary correspondence between John and Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson. We can read copies of letters sent to Eleanor Roosevelt. Heartfelt letters sent home from soldiers throughout the ages. A quick look on Amazon.com for books about letters yields 603,310 results–some of which are fiction or how-to books, but many are collections of letters between famous people, world leaders, great writers.

But, think about it. Even if you and I both become world-famous overnight so that future generations are panting to know everything about us, somehow, I don’t think that, 50 years from now, we’re going to be seeing collections of “Greatest E-Mails,” filled with quotes like, “See you at the movies at 7:15,” or “Great post, Deb!” Just like you don’t see many collections of “Telegram Messages of the Ages.” Because, well, they’d be kind of boring, don’t you think?

I found a great editorial by Andrew Lam from 2000 about this subject which says,

These days I find the only people who write good letters are the old or those living in refugee camps or in countries not yet “wired.” The dispossessed refugee, especially, robbed of his home, his future uncertain, becomes the consummate writer. She picks up her pen and begins to bleed herself into words. For the rest of us in this age of mobility and information, there simply isn’t any time for such a thing as a long flowing, hand written letter. Odd, isn’t it, in a world where one does not need fire to boil water or a teller to withdraw cash, there isn’t any time left to complete a whole paragraph?

So, let me ask you–When is the last time you wrote a hand-written letter?

This is the second post in this series about handwriting. The first post, about the writing process, can be seen here.