Webster's Unabridged 1890

This is odd. I’m going to do something not often done: review a dictionary.

Bear with me here. It is my fervent belief that a writer is only as good as the books on his reference shelf; much the same as a carpenter, however talented, needs proper tools in order to do anything besides theorize about building something.

Now, a reference shelf: it should have more than just reference books, don’t you think? Shouldn’t it be more than what it’s been, as classically defined? It should contain those books that have affected us the most as people, let alone as writers. Mine contains books like Where the Red Fern Grows, and The Pacific and Other Stories by Mark Helprin, and The Burnished Blade by George Schoonover. A reference shelf doesn’t just contain collated facts, then, as I’m defining it. But, and this is a big but, it should contain, in order to be all it can be, several dictionaries, thesauri, style guides, and other reference books. I’ll detail some of those on coming Fridays.

For now, though it sounds absurd, I’m going to write about a monument to the English language: the work of Noah Webster in the nineteenth century. My particular volume dates to 1890 and is unabridged. I swear, and I’m not joking, one could sit down to read this thing for sheer entertainment. It’s that good.

Here’s a list of some words you’ll probably not find very often. Besmear. Canoness. Dialist. Inflexure. Prepositure. Smeeth. Yend. And before you dismiss them as entirely unusable in today’s greasy world, remember that they are part of the foundation upon which our communications rest today, whether written or spoken. That, and it certainly helps to know, if one is a writer, a little more etymology; it tends to give scale and depth to your work. It’s not just for historical novelists, in other words. It’s not just for writers either, I’d argue. It’s for all of us who use the language.

In regard to etymology, take a word like infidel, for instance. In the 1890 edition of Webster’s unabridged, it’s actually defined, partially, as “One who is without faith…unbelieving…a Mahommedan.” I find this to be highly instructive. And I learned something else: the root in Latin is infidelis, which can be readily translated as unfaithful, or literally, “not faithful.” Isn’t it amazing how history moves in currents, in and out, changing definitions, sometimes 180 degrees opposite. Then again, I suppose context is everything—but I love how pre-PC this thing is. There’s something insidious about politically correct thought isn't there (there’s actually nothing correct about it; again highly instructive), how it infects our language, the meanings of our words, twisting fact into fiction and fiction into fact. Where are the writers who have anything to say about this? Well…I’m one.

Looking through an old dictionary goes to show how important history really is. Forgive me for this last little bit, but I’d like to point something out. I love writing. I love that lots of other people love it too—heck, it’s such a dream job that sometimes writers write characters, even protagonists, who just happen to be writers. These are bestsellers. Weird. Anyway, I love it. But I never want to take it for granted. In other words, I think we writers have a large responsibility to posterity, since our work is in print. We have to master our trade or craft to the best of our abilities. We can’t just go off half-cocked and start writing books with no working knowledge of grammar, punctuation, or for God’s sake spelling. We can’t do that and still call ourselves writers. I don’t think so. Yes, there’s room to develop, and take your time at it, but start today; now. And yes, find and hire a great editor, but learn and retain what you learn along the way. I think we owe it to ourselves and our readers, however distant in future history they may yet be, to know what the hell we’re doing. We have a responsibility to know what words mean. We use so many of them. Again, it’s all about the right tools.

Review of Airel by Ramblings of a Teenage Bookworm

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How to Be a Good Writer, Part 4

Let’s talk about attitude. As in, “I’m a professional creator and I couldn’t care less about the business aspects of my career.” Or, “You publisher-type people ought to know how lucky you are to be talking to me.” And there’s, “Editing is for amateurs. Don’t you dare critique me.” As acquisitions editor for an indie publisher, I can tell you for a fact that whenever I run across even a hint of this kind of sentiment my finger hovers precariously over the delete key.

It’s not professional. It’s not even realistic. And I daresay, if you suffer from this kind of thinking and yet persist in calling yourself a writer, perhaps you should consider getting in touch with reality. And a vocational change. To something in government. Tyrants and thieves are peas in a pod.

Right. On with it then. We know what’s not productive. The question is, how do we purge this blackness from our minds and professional careers? I don’t think successful people set out daily with the intent to cause as much pain and suffering as possible everywhere they go. Quite the opposite, in fact. But after writing your one-hundredth query letter, after you reach your one year anniversary for your blog and still have only two followers, after you have attempted to sit down and write that sticky part of your current project once more—only to be interrupted yet again—it’s difficult to remain optimistic about much of anything, let alone remain professional.

Once thing you can do is exercise your second amendment right to keep and bear arms and take up a new hobby—obliterating old milk jugs at close range. If you’ve got a twelve gauge I recommend rifled slugs and rotten produce. Downrange effects with that combination are like an all-Taco Bell diet: explosive. The point of it is to blow off a little steam whenever necessary.

Once you’ve done that and you’re feeling better both about yourself and your (indispensible) work, what then? I strongly recommend a group setting that is both supportive and honest. Join up with fellow writers who are actively writing, who are unafraid to read their work for critique and are eager to return that courtesy to you. Professionals are not defined by their salaries in any given field. Professionals are, at least in part, defined by their bearing and comportment, their civilized kindnesses. What you’re looking for then is fellowship.

My old 1890 Webster’s unabridged dictionary defines fellowship as “partnership in act or suffering, profit, success, or loss.” Well, that’s one of the definitions. My point is to assert that in order to be a successful writer you’ve got to have a good attitude—and the best way to have that is to surround yourself with quality, like-minded people.

Next week we’ll talk about investments, plus a little dry mechanical nuts and bolts action. Until then, writers, write boldly.

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Here's the basics: All Airel ever wanted was to be normal, to disappear into the crowd. But bloodlines can produce surprises, like an incredible ability to heal. Then there’s Michael Alexander, the new guy in school, who is impossibly gorgeous…and captivated by her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she can hear the sound of pages turning, and another, older story being written. It is the story of an ancient family, of great warriors, of the Sword of Light, and the struggle against an evil so terrible, so far-reaching, that it threatens everything. Airel knew change would be an inevitable part of life. But can she hold on when murder and darkness begin to close in and take away everything she loves? Will she have what it takes when the truth is finally revealed?

On Writing, by Stephen King

Coming up with recommendations for writers is a sticky business. For me, that is. I can’t avoid my own eclectic tastes spilling over into my work, and for some reason I feel as if I should temper my output toward what’s more generally acceptable. But after a moment’s thought, I’ve decided that’s complete crap and I’m going to move on with what I think is best. After all, this is my blog and you’re reading it because you want to know what’s going on inside my head. Anyway, if you find out please let me know.

This week I have no decision to make, though. I’ve been so compelled by one book that I absolutely cannot wait any longer to recommend it to you. Next week I’ll give you something crazy, but for now…I may have touched on this book briefly here or there in previous posts. I’m talking about Stephen King’s On Writing.

Forgive me, but I think so highly of this book that I can honestly say that it is a monument to the craft of writing. A book for writers by one of the masters of the trade, On Writing stands, in my opinion, as one of the last words on how to go about it. Writing, that is. It’s honestly that good.

Here’s the caveat: you maybe won’t like all of it. King gives a bit of an autobiography toward the front of it that I personally found a little irritating. I was in a mooditude when I picked it up and wanted nothing more than for him to get to the #$@!^& point. But I pressed on, and when he served up the main courses my mind gorged itself without shame. If it could be compared to a five star dinner, I was at table with a bedsheet tucked into my collar and a shovel in my hand, bits of food and gravy peppered across my face.

Take, for instance, this little gem: passive voice. I didn’t really know what it was, though I had a sneaking suspicion that it was bad because all things wishy-washy and noncommittal are rubbish. Sure enough, it’s bad. Very bad. What’s worse, I was a prime offender. Blast. Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s a harsh mistress when it finally climbs off you and leaves you cold and exposed in the light of truth.

I cannot say this enough: if you are a writer, this book is required reading. No exceptions. Your local public library owns a copy. All your excuses are gone. Go forth, read and learn, and watch your writing transform under your very hands from blah to extraordinary. You didn’t know you had it in you. But you do.

How to Be a Good Writer, Part 3

Last week I posted another blog in a series of highbrow lectures about how little ol’ you can be more like Ernest Hemingway. Not that I have the slightest clue. But these days, who gives a #@!% about whether or not anybody actually knows what they’re talking about? Full steam ahead.

On to the business, then.

Let’s talk about references. When I was earning my wee business degree at a school that I can decidedly recommend against attending, I nevertheless picked up more than one useful thing for all the tedium and money expended. One of these was a grammar guide. It’s laminated and three-hole punched for your convenience, and tells you all about how to use pronouns. And other useful tidbits. I recommend finding something like this at, say, a college bookstore.

Another useful publication that resides happily on my shelf is this: The Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions (Shaw, Harry, McGraw Hill, © 1975). This book tells you when to use farther versus further, the difference between hung and hanged, lay and lie, than and then and so on. These are all handy things to know, and they make you look far more intelligent than you actually are. I use it ceaselessly and obviously to great effect.

While we’re talking books to have on hand, we really need to, as professional writers (or at least people who fancy themselves professional writers), build our own library, starting with our very own reference shelf. To that end, I suggest starting off with a quality dictionary. I mean an actual paper one. The older the better (those old ones have such nicely groomed words in them; they never chew gum whilst speaking). I have one from the 1950’s and an unabridged Webster’s from 1890. At one point or another, you’re going to outgrow the stupid and clunky Encarta tools that Microsoft builds into its Word application, and you’re not going to have anywhere to turn if you’re not prepared. I’m warning you now. These older dictionaries are really handy, by the way, for writers of historical fiction or steampunk.

We can include in this vein of reference materials a quality thesaurus. Contrary to what most ignorant bumpkins might think, these are alive and well, and not in fact extinct.  I have a youngish one; it’s paperback and about thirty years old, and already segregated at the binding around the l-m area. So I must treat it carefully. This, again, is an indispensible tool for writers looking to find another word for “suddenly,” or, “therefore.” I’m told by an accountant friend of mine, who was highly irritated as she read through the Twilight books, that she suspects that’s mostly what Stephenie Meyer did especially in books two and three of the series: right click>synonyms in order to make things more interesting. I’ll leave it to the peanut gallery to decide whether or not, as Stephen King has asserted, “She can’t write.”

Now that I’ve worked in a King reference for three weeks straight, I’ll call this a perfect finish.

Waiting for My Ship to Come In

There’s an old expression oft used by hopeful optimistic people the (English-speaking) world over: “I’m waiting for my ship to come in.” English common law, developed over centuries and aided by the British culture’s emphasis on the importance of the written record (as opposed to the oral), is one of the foundations upon which the modern world rests. Investors in prior centuries would buy shares in ships that were bound for the frontiers of Asia or the New World. The written record of common law ensured that they would be paid—or that they would lose everything they staked—whenever that ship came into port a year or two after sailing. Spices, exotica, timber, precious stones and metals—these were the rewards a businessman speculator (or gambler in respectable garb) could expect to receive in return for his risk.

So why the history lesson? Because I’m waiting for my ship to come in. I too have risked, and believe I have backed a winner. I too have been hearing low rumors from the ether about its fortunes now for about two years. That ship is my own writing career. Roundabout September I believe I’ll see her majestically sailing into her home waters with the tide, making port heavily laden with the produce of the venture.

I’ve not financed her with gold or silver. Well, maybe a little treasure; whatever has been required. But mostly I’ve financed her with God’s favor, my own toil, my own time and effort and sweat, my own conviction that doing whatever it takes to be successful at writing will be worth it. That’s why I’ve gone back to residential painting again—because I need a little more cash to get through to September, yes—but mainly because that’s what a man does. Whatever it takes. I’ve been painting walls and trim in a rental home recently assaulted by several cats who marked their territory with impunity. The carpets ought to be pulled out and burned (they’d probably blaze with neon green flames), but that’s not my call. Maybe the same ought to be done to the previous tenants, but that also is not my call. I just open all the windows and crank up Journey on my iPod and paint in the midst of the poisonous fume. This kind of thing builds character, and besides: what right do I have to complain about anything at all?

My ship is coming in soon. Unlike my forebears in business, who had to risk their investments in the face of shipwreck, squalls, treacherous waters and still more treacherous men; and the captain and crew of the vessel itself, who risked all that in the flesh and still more besides, I risk only my time and effort. If for some reason that is not enough, I shall have more tomorrow to wager. The question I put to myself is this: how badly do I want it? I can assure myself of the answer: that I want it very very much; enough to have brought me this far and to carry me on as well.

If you’re a writer or think you are, my honest prayer for you is that you would find encouragement in the words of a fellow sojourner along the same pathways you no doubt tread yourself. The process is not easy; you and I know that. But it can have rewards, and not just at the end. Sometimes we gather fuel for the fire along the way. I hope as well that you would find a little healthy fear. Maybe that will be enough to spur you onward. Now I’ve gone from ships to paths to horses; oh dear.