Can I be your friend? ENO

Can I be your Friend? Can I write on your wall? 


Now, that's what I call opera.


HAPPY FRIDAY!

BIG MOTHER IS WATCHING YOU?

I'm not saying it's dull... but it's dinner.

No. Big Mother is not watching while I dig into the main course of my writing.

Surely, there's no reason why I can’t slurp on over to the tastiest morsels: the test, trials and the unfolding of Lucas?

What’s stopping me from pushing aside the smooth set up? 

I want pudding and the cherry on the top.

I've got too many responsibilities and far too many distractions at the moment. If I was writing the juicy, cram it all in sections, I don’t think I’d notice anything but the expanding word count.

I can’t wait to finish and be able to sit back, print a feast of paper, and relish the finalised first draft.

Some one tell me to leave off gnawing on the bones and go and indulge ;) 

AT LEAST I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE AURORAS

MANCHESTER is near Warrington
Which direction will she set off in?

My daughter is driving back from Manchester, on Thursday. Geographically challenged, she could get lost circumnavigating our back garden (and it is so small it could be overlaid onto a postage stamp ;)

She has a SATnav, what could go wrong?

According to NASA, a massive cloud of particles, roughly equal to half the surface, has mushroomed off the sun.

Coronal mass ejections and solar flares lashing out all over the place, NASA says they should strike Earth from early this evening, 8^th June through to 9^th June.

Although the flare isn't heading directly for us, it could trigger auroras at high latitudes and cause minor disruptions to satellites.

It is a geomagnetic storm! It could trigger disturbances to Earth's power grids and GPS satellites.

Forget the fact that the flare could "lead to some re-routing of flights over the polar regions," my kid can get lost travelling along a ruler.

It’s not that I worry, obviously. I just hope Lanarkshire is nice this time of year ;)

I WONDER IF THEY MAKE COTTONWOOL COATS IN THE BABE'S SIZE?

Is there any easy age for children to be?

BUY THEM BOOKS

BUY CHILDREN BOOKS - THEN READ WITH THEM :D

The Telegraph and The Evening Standard (London) had very interesting articles about book ownership this week.

According to new research conducted on young people aged, mostly, between 11 and 13 years, it was found that four in 10 boys in the UK, do not own a single book of their own. The statistics are not much better for girls: three in 10 girls do not own a book.

Researchers have found that children who do not own books were more than twice-as-likely to be reading below the expected level than those who had their own books.

The young people who have books of their own are more likely to be girls, socio-economically better off, from white or mixed ethnic backgrounds and without a special educational need:

·         parents are more likely to buy books as presents if their child is a girl

·         mums are more likely to be seen reading than dads.

Boys’ literacy levels lag behind girls; this trend emerges in the early years of their education.

It isn’t as if the problem is only related to conventional, paper books, The National Literacy Trust's researchers Christina Clark and Lizzie Poulton found that, "Children with no books of their own are less likely to be sending emails, reading websites or engaging with their peers through the written word on social networking sites."

A recent study by the University of Nevada, showed that the overriding predictor of a child's educational success is the number of books at home.

As few as 20 books made a huge difference.

Evidence showed that a child brought up in a household with more than 500 books is likely to spend on average three years longer in education than a child from a bookless home, after controlling for other factors.

"The evidence is there - the survey looked at 70,000 children in 27 countries over 20 years. The key to social mobility is not social class or race, it's not wealth, it's not even parental educational levels: it's books," says Michael Rosen, author.

I used to buy books in the charity shops to supplement the school library. I kept track of the books: amongst the ranks of the disappeared, books by Angie Sage, Anthony Horowitz and JK Rowling were popular but, in a five year period, 12 copies of Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer went missing. 

Congratulations Eoin – you are top of my list of books that children without books want to steal ;)

I'll be back later, I'm going to the CRICKET!!!! 

THE NAIPAUL TEST

The definition of sexism is:

1. Discrimination based on gender, especially 

discrimination against women.

2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviours that promote 

stereotyping based on gender

3. To conclude that others are inferior because 

they are different. 

VS Naipaul provoked fury by suggesting that women writers are 'sentimental' and 'unequal to me', 

He also claimed that 'I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.' 

I took the test, had to resist the urge to cheat and find out what the excerpts were before I began ;)

This is the link so you can score yourself properly

The Naipaul Test - Can you tell the author's sex by reading a paragraph of their work?

1. 1.“At once, though it was night and the way was lonely, she left the hut and walked to the next village, where there was a hedge of cactus. She brought back leaves of cactus, cut them into strips and hung a strip over every door, every window, every aperture through which an evil spirit might enter the hut. But the midwife said, ‘whatever you do, this boy will eat up his own mother and father.’”
   1. Male
   2. Female
2. 2.“Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end? The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of a life gone by. I’m a sight this morning: two shorts, heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck and tucked into a think sweater knitted by my daughter thirty birthdays ago. The thermostat in my room is set as high as it will go, and a smaller space heater sits directly behind me. It clicks and groans and spews hot air like a fairytale dragon, and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a cold that has been eight years in the making.”
   1. Male
   2. Female
3. 3.“But was it really like that? As painful as I remember? Only mildly. Or rather, it was a productive and fructifying pain. Love, thick and dark as Alaga syrup, eased up into that cracked window. I could smell it – taste it – sweet, musty, with an edge of wintergreen in its base – everywhere in that house. It stuck, along with my tongue, to the frosted windowpanes. It coated my chest, along with the salve, and when the flannel came undone in my sleep, the clear, sharp curves of air outlines its presence on my throat. And in the night, when my couching was dry and tough, feet padded into the room, hands repinned the flannel, readjusted the quilt, and rested a moment on my forehead. So when I think of autumn, I think of someone with hands who does not want me to die.”
   1. Male
   2. Female
4. 4.“Mungo drove with verve and dash. They had spent the night in an hotel by the Helford river. He had feared, when Alison insisted on stopping at a chemist in Truro, that she was planning one of her fucking headaches (to be exact a non-fucking headache) but this fear had been groundless. After dinner with Rory, who entertained them during the meal with a description of his life as a milliner, he had, elevated by circumspect consumption of wine, gone up to their room to find that she had bought not, as he supposed, soluble aspirin, but a choice of contraceptives. ‘Which do you prefer?’ Alison presented her offerings. ‘Arousal? Elite? Fiesta?’”
   1. Male
   2. Female
5. 5.“Why had she married him? – For solace, for children. But at first the insomnia coating her brain got in the way of her first aim; and children don’t always come at once. So Amina had found herself dreaming about an undreamable poet’s face and waking with an unspeakable name on her lips. You ask: what did she do about it? I answer: she gritted her teeth and set about putting herself straight. This is what she told herself: ‘You big ungrateful goof, can’t you see who is your husband now? Don’t you know what a husband deserves?’ To avoid fruitless controversy about the correct answers to these questions, let me say that, in my mother’s opinion, a husband deserved unquestioning loyalty, and unreserved, full-hearted love.”
   1. Male
   2. Female
6. 6.“I should know better than to read even as much as a headline in The New York Times; although, as I’ve often pointed out to my students at Bishop Strachan, this newspaper’s use of the semicolon is exemplary. Reagan Declares Firmness on Gulf; Plans Are Unclear Isn’t that a classic? I don’t mean the semicolon; I mean, isn’t that just what the world needs? Unclear firmness! That is the typical American policy: don’t be clear, but be firm!”
   1. Male
   2. Female
7. 7.“Is there a cheese sandwich left? She rummages in the paper bag. No, she says, but there’s a hard-boiled egg. She’s never been this happy before. Everything is fresh again, still to be enacted. Just what the doctor ordered, he says. A bottle of lemonade, a hard-boiled egg, and Thou. He rolls the egg between his palms, cracking the shell, then peeling it away. She watches his mouth, the jaw, the teeth. Beside me singing in the public park, she says. Here’s the salt for it. Thanks. You remembered everything.”
   1. Male
   2. Female
8. 8.“PS in answer to your ‘polite query’, yes, I am still one ... despite your evident contempt I’m feeling quite fine about it, thanks ... twenty is really not that late among young people these days, especially if they’ve decided to make their fellowship with Christ. It was weird that you asked, because I did walk through Hyde Park yesterday and thought of you losing yours to someone you had never met before and never would again. And no. I wasn’t tempted to repeat the incident...”
   1. Male
   2. Female
9. 9.“I have vascular dementia, the doctor told me, and there was some comfort to be had. There’s the slowness of the undoing, which he must have mentioned a dozen times. Also, it’s not as bad as Alzheimer’s, with its mood swings and aggression. If I’m lucky, it might turn out to be somewhat benign. I might not be unhappy – just a dim old biddy in a chair, knowing nothing, expecting nothing. I had asked him to be frank, so I could not complain. Now he was hurrying me out. There were twelve people in his waiting room wanting their turn. In summary, as he helped me into my coat, he gave me the route map: loss of memory, short-and long-term, the disappearance of single words – simple nouns might be the first to go – then language itself, along with balance, and soon after, all motor control, and finally the autonomous nervous system. Bon Voyage!”
   1. Male
   2. Female
10. 10.“A tall, broad-shouldered man came to stand in the doorway, dressed in faded jeans and an untucked tan chamois shirt, his feet shod in moccasins. Maggie could hardly take him in. Brown curly hair, a light stubble of beard, piercing green eyes framed by laugh wrinkles. Cookie halfway to her mouth and uncharacteristically breathless, she admonished herself, Get a grip. He's just another man…”
    1. Male
    2. Female
       It was a combination of writing style, vocabulary selection and subject matter that made me vote one way or the other. Numbers 5 and 7 were the two I reversed but I scored 8/10.
       I didn't rate as high as Sir Vidia.
       What did you expect, I'm only a woman, after all?HOW DID YOU DO?
       Does it really matter what sex an author is?
       Which excerpt would make you want to buy and read the book?
       Right now? 5 and 7.

The cruellest lies are often told in silence - THE APPEARANCE OF LIES

The plot of STARRING appears to hang upon a lie.

Lying is one of the most common wrong acts.

Most people would condemn lying unless there's a good reason for it.

It has been said that lying is an unavoidable part of human nature.

The liar:

communicates information

intends to deceive or to mislead

believes that what they are 'saying' is not true

The lie:

does not have to give false information

does not have to be told with a malicious intention

Whether the information given is true or false, the liar intends to deceive or to mislead the person they are lying to.

"The cruellest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his mouth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator." 

RL Stevenson

HAVE YOU MADE A CHARACTER LIE?

THE LEXICON OF LUSH - Collecting words, sentences and hooks

My favourite note book has a pale turquoise, fabric cover printed with silver leaves and flowers. The cream pages are sewn in with sliver thread. 

Empty, it was special. Beautiful. It sat on a shelf for months. I smiled every time I looked at it. I thought it was too beautiful to use.

After I heard about The Writer’s Portable Mentor, A Guide to Art, Craft and the Writing Life by Priscilla Long, I knew what to do with my notebook. 

Ms Long says all writers would benefit from collecting the juicy, hot morsels of words: the gourmet, 5-star Michelin vocabulary. She recommends recording words in a book.

A Lexicon of the lush.

Priscilla Long  says you should capture the special words -the ones that resonates with you. You should write them, not more than two words to a page. This collection should not be alphabetical like a dictionary, just a homage to the wonder of words. 

Written with my best fountain pen, the pages in my note book are filling up with words. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't add to my collection.

destiny  spindle  fissure  equitable 

A few months ago, it occurred to me that Hooks were almost more delicious than individual words. I started collecting opening sentences in the back of my Lexicon.

"Mum, Dad - if you're listening - you know I said I was going to the South Lakeland Outdoor Activity Centre with the school?"  COSMIC by Frank Cotteral Boyce

A week ago, I started writing Twitter length quotes. And they are not just the ones designed to inspire me to keep up with the word count.

"So, this is how you died, in whispers that you didn't hear." ~ Ernest Hemingway (in a short story)

It won't be long before I have to use an elastic band - or silver ribbon - to hold my Lexicon together. 

I collect words, phrases and sentences in a book.

If I'm stuck for words, I turn the pages until something sparks an idea, and then I'm off again.

Do you keep a note book of inspirational words?

How do you get the words to flow?