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True Writer/Reader Confessions
Apr. 29th, 2009 11:02 amSometimes I think I'm not really a "real" writer because I'm pretty much the anti-Grammar Nazi (a term that I thoroughly hate). I see a lot of other writers who are sticklers for grammar, punctuation, and other things of that ilk. I've seen writers who debate the placement of specific commas. I can't do that.
Grammar has always been the hardest thing to get right ever since I can remember. I've never been bothered by anyone else's bad grammar. You pretty much have to unintentionally be writing in LOLcat for me to notice, much less get annoyed.
Let's not even talk about things like semicolons. Semicolons confuse me because I'm not sure what their function is or why we have them. I understand commas are there to lift and separate. All I know about semicolons is that they're a sign of people who are smarter and better educated than I am and it makes me want to back away slowly before I offend somebody who can kill me with their brain. The use of anything more advanced than periods and commas was never discussed in either high school or college.
It all boils down to an inferiority complex about how I read. When I pick up a book, I'm lucky if the lines stay straight on the page and I can comprehend what the sentence you just finished telling me actually means. This makes reading when I'm distracted or tired really impossible.
I feel dumb as hell when I have to go back over a page three or four times because I skipped entire lines or the words don't say what I thought they said the first time around. You wouldn't believe the number of times I take a prefix from a word on the line above or below and attach it to another word and don't realize it until things stop making sense.
It's why I'm such a picky reader and I constantly start books and discard before the second chapter without even though the story wasn't that bad (so far).
One book that I'd love to read but can't? Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan. It sounds fascinating and I'd love to compare it to the other Elizabethan Faerie novels I've read, but that book started out describing rain falling on windows and describing a woman in a room in the Tower of London and didn't get around to telling me that it was actually the future Queen Elizabeth I in the room until, like, a page later.
I just couldn't go on from there. I love Elizabethan history, but I couldn't endure having to wade through long paragraphs about rain falling on windows to get to important information. I remember thinking: "Seriously? I just strained my tiny little brain to keep all these lines straight so I could find out that it's raining outside and there's a chick brooding in a tower?. What the hell am I reading this for? I'm an adult. I don't have to read this shit, there's not gonna be a test!"
Don't get me wrong, I love reading. When I find a writer who can motivate me to go through all this for the story they're telling, I treasure them deeply. But I get really angry and frustrated with writers who put me through that kind of work for nothing. It also makes me madly envious of people who can read quickly and pick off a book in a day or two even if they don't like it. If I'm going at a good click and really enjoying myself I can finish a short (maybe 250 page) book in about five to seven days. And that's if I'm really flying.
It makes me worry about my own writing, though. Especially since the Tower!Guy novel got rejected. Maybe all those agents immediately could tell from my writing that I'm kind of a hack? Maybe nobody told me that my stupid was showing?
Grammar has always been the hardest thing to get right ever since I can remember. I've never been bothered by anyone else's bad grammar. You pretty much have to unintentionally be writing in LOLcat for me to notice, much less get annoyed.
Let's not even talk about things like semicolons. Semicolons confuse me because I'm not sure what their function is or why we have them. I understand commas are there to lift and separate. All I know about semicolons is that they're a sign of people who are smarter and better educated than I am and it makes me want to back away slowly before I offend somebody who can kill me with their brain. The use of anything more advanced than periods and commas was never discussed in either high school or college.
It all boils down to an inferiority complex about how I read. When I pick up a book, I'm lucky if the lines stay straight on the page and I can comprehend what the sentence you just finished telling me actually means. This makes reading when I'm distracted or tired really impossible.
I feel dumb as hell when I have to go back over a page three or four times because I skipped entire lines or the words don't say what I thought they said the first time around. You wouldn't believe the number of times I take a prefix from a word on the line above or below and attach it to another word and don't realize it until things stop making sense.
It's why I'm such a picky reader and I constantly start books and discard before the second chapter without even though the story wasn't that bad (so far).
One book that I'd love to read but can't? Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan. It sounds fascinating and I'd love to compare it to the other Elizabethan Faerie novels I've read, but that book started out describing rain falling on windows and describing a woman in a room in the Tower of London and didn't get around to telling me that it was actually the future Queen Elizabeth I in the room until, like, a page later.
I just couldn't go on from there. I love Elizabethan history, but I couldn't endure having to wade through long paragraphs about rain falling on windows to get to important information. I remember thinking: "Seriously? I just strained my tiny little brain to keep all these lines straight so I could find out that it's raining outside and there's a chick brooding in a tower?. What the hell am I reading this for? I'm an adult. I don't have to read this shit, there's not gonna be a test!"
Don't get me wrong, I love reading. When I find a writer who can motivate me to go through all this for the story they're telling, I treasure them deeply. But I get really angry and frustrated with writers who put me through that kind of work for nothing. It also makes me madly envious of people who can read quickly and pick off a book in a day or two even if they don't like it. If I'm going at a good click and really enjoying myself I can finish a short (maybe 250 page) book in about five to seven days. And that's if I'm really flying.
It makes me worry about my own writing, though. Especially since the Tower!Guy novel got rejected. Maybe all those agents immediately could tell from my writing that I'm kind of a hack? Maybe nobody told me that my stupid was showing?
