Writing

(or, Embracing My Inner Language Geek)

Count me among the people who can't spell their way out of a high school English test. Who the hell thought it was a good idea having both "ible" and "able" as word endings, making both "ie" and "ei" valid letter combinations, or having so many different rules for adding "ing", not of which apply for "skiing"? And we haven't even begun talking grammar!

As an adult I've learned the rules of language are not only fluid and situational, they can often be completely ignored. But given the option of throwing them away I'm forced to admit I don't want to! To my chagrin, I care about language. How else can I explain my emotional investment in thinking the inventor of the dictionary is a skeevy literary fascist (I'm kidding, well, mostly kidding) and the spell checker is a modern marvel of the 20th Century (most emphatically not kidding), or that one of my favourite podcasts is Grammar Girl?

Then along comes Stephen Fry with an elegant, well thought-out position that brings together an unabashed love of language and pragmatic approach to (ignoring) rules. He clearly argues what I've felt: I can simultaneously care about language and tell the language police to take a valium!

I encourage you to check out his "podgram": Language by Stephen Fry

I couldn't find a media player on the page, but this link will load the audio file so you can listen in your web browser: http://fry.positive-dedicated.net/fry-podcast2-episodes-03.mp3

Tip of the hat to Tom Johnson and his post: The Pleasure of Language - Essential Listening for Hyper-corrective Grammarians.

Those of you reading this blog who are also bloggers might be interested in a post I just made at Group 42:

Building Your Personal Brand - Rebecca Bollwitt

Rebecca Bollwitt, Vancouver's Miss 604 and star blogger spoke on personal branding at a recent meeting of Third Tuesday Vancouver and I caught it on video. Some great information on blogging in general and building a readership through branding. There's also links to notes if you want skim the information without taking in the video.

The end is near for Battlestar Galactica fans! If you're in Vancouver, you don't have to experience it alone!

With rollicking good stories worthy of the Peabody award, a writer's strike, and the general insanity that is network television, it's been quite a ride for fans of the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica. And now we're at the beginning of the end. The start of 2009 brings the end of Season 4, and with it, the end of the series.

The local BSG fan club, The 13th Colony has arranged a special treat: 13 Weeks of BSG! It's 13 fan viewing parties, one a week, for the 2 Season 4.0 marathon refreshers and the 10 final episodes! And just for good measure, there's a final post-mortem get together to wrap everything up. I've even heard there will be prizes.

All of the viewings are at LaFontana Cafe, 3701 Hastings St, in Burnaby (Google Map). It’s just a couple of blocks from the Kootenay Bus Loop on Hastings Street, so easy to access even if you don’t have a car.

Author and force of nature kc dyer has been wrapping up 2008 with series of guest posts called Top 8 of '08 at her blog, leftwriter. You might wonder about why someone would take on a task like this along with all the other holiday craziness. kc is also the powerhouse coordinator for the Surrey International Writers' Conference, she's an expert cat herder and eats inbox emails for breakfast!

I was tickled to be among the bloggers asked, and a bit humbled to be in the company of so many published authors!

My contribution, Top 8 of '08, with Guest Blogger Dale McGladdery, is a selection of movies containing deeper meaning for writers. Little did kc know, I've always wanted to get this info out of my system!

If you're looking for some fun light reading, I encourage you to read the series. From dead falling hedgehogs to wine to books to treats to Northern Lights there's an eclectic mix of people's favourite things. Great idea, kc!

Traveling any distance in the winter, especially during the holidays, is seldom worry or hassle free. In spite of this, I become part of the thronging masses that join their family for Christmas. In no particular order, here are some of my reasons.

My sister makes a great cappuccino

There's a love of espresso in 2 of the 3 sibs, as well as my sister's husband (who also makes a good cappuccino). Getting a cappuccino in the morning might seem like a small thing, but it provides great pleasure.

Doing the bookstore crawl

I've talked about this before in my Easter 2008 post. Vernon has a couple of used book stores I enjoy visiting. My Dad usually joins me, or maybe I'm joining him. This year the power was out at the Book Nook because of some building power issue. The owner apologized and said he had a flashlight if we still wanted to look around. Indeed we did! My Dad scored a Louis L'Amour novel he hadn't read, a rare occurrence, and I found some interesting sci-fi.

Taking the dog for walk

I would love to have a dog. Since my apartment doesn't allow it and I'm not sure I could properly look after one on my own, I live vicariously through other dog owners. This is Nikita, my sister's dog. It took a long time for Nikita to warm up to me, she is generally skittish around men, but now we're walking buddies. It's too much fun watching her enthusiastically sniff out game. Too bad that bastard holding the lease won't let go.

Seen on a street in Vernon, my nomination for the best snow fort ev'ah!

I'm back from the family Christmas in Vernon and yes Virginia, I've been a lazy blogger. While it's still 2008 and arguably still the holiday season I'm going to sneak some posts under the wire.

The weather was all over the place, from socked-in, overcast, snowy grey days, to the kind of brilliant sunny days that makes winter pretty (though still a pain in the butt):

Coldstream and North end of Kalamalka Lake 1

Coldstream and North end of Kalamalka Lake 2

Sunset over Kalamalka Lake from the balcony

In all this snow my car stubbed its toe, which is to say I slid into a curb going down a side street hill. Sometimes going slow with winter tires isn't enough. Though I wish it hadn't happened I'm never-the-less happy it wasn't worse. I could have slid into another car or, God forbid, a person (though the latter was unlikely on a back street during a snow storm at 11:30pm). Getting this aftermath cleared up turned into a minor saga and resulted in my "going Greyhound" for the annual Vernon Christmas trek.

The Good

• Can sleep or doze
• If bad road conditions, someone else is worrying about them
• Can read, sort of (see The Bad)
• Bathroom
• Bigger vehicle, better traction, better accident survivability
• Great view out of a window seat, nice and high

The Bad

• Sardine seats, so squished you can't work on a laptop, or barely hold a book in front of you to read
• Takes longer to get to destination
• Sardine seats
• On just the cost of gas, is not cheaper than driving, even with a single person
• Sardine seats
• Sometimes crying kids
• Sardine seats
• Asshats with loud personal audio gear
• Sardine seats
• Have added time, cost and hassle of getting to/from the bus terminal

Have you picked out my biggest complaint? I may not have a big readership, but you're a clever bunch!

Back on December 12th I posted: First Winter Snow 2008 - M'eh. It was looking like a standard Vancouver winter until a couple of days later. Thanks to the cold air flowing down from the artic it started snowing and hasn't melted away. Here's a picture I took a day or two after the second snowfall.

And the snow has kept on coming. Sadly, I neglected to take a picture of the most recent accumulation. This picture by Roland Tanglao will give you some idea.

I don't mind the snow after it's been cleared off the roads and sidewalks. I thoroughly hate it while it's coming down and waiting to be cleared. With more of the latter than the former, all I can say is: Go Pineapple Express!

Last night was the Christmas gift exchange at BIFF. I don't go as often as I used to, so was happy I could make it yesterday. It's been a while seen I've seen many of the gang. We laughed a lot exchanging gifts with the "unwrap a new pressie or steal someone elses" method.

Here we are at the end of the evening when the smoke cleared and the last gift was stolen, er, unwrapped. And no, although there were plenty of offers of adoption, baby Inara wasn't one of the gifts exchanged. Her parents obtained her the usual way.

I wound up with a new set of D&D dice. I originally went for (stole) the Serenity book, but it was stolen away (back) late in the exchange. My current D20 is quite fickle and has rolled low a few too many times, and there was Spacepug with a shiny new set of dice. After test rolling them a couple times - test driving gifts, what a concept - stealing them seemed like the right thing to do. They feel like winners!