Category writing

Feb 7 2016

Wild Irish Heart— quick review and comments

Irish romanceWhile I don’t often read romance, February is the month to do so, now isn’t it? This novel is a bit of mystery, but with plenty of romance. It is not, however, one where a major sexual encounter happens before a third of the book is over. FYI!

Tricia O’Malley’s Wild Irish Heart (The Mystic Cove Series Book 1) begins the “Mystic Cove Series,” and it is a pleasant read, if not a compelling one. Our heroine, Keelin O’Brien, has been reared in Boston, by her successful real estate agent mother, who left Ireland and Keelin’s dad behind long ago. For reasons that are a bit of a mystery to Keelin, her mother doesn’t talk about the past, especially about Ireland. Soon, the reader learns that Keelin herself is a bit of a mystery, too, because she has a power that most of us don’t have.

When an ancient book arrives with a note which simply says, “It is time,” Keelin decides to go to Ireland, on an extended visit with the family that her mother shunned long ago. Thus begins her dual quest: to learn her past, and to see how her gift fits into her future. There are not many surprises on this journey, but Keelin does struggle to figure out how her attraction to a certain fellow that she meets early on will fit into her new life. Or is she somehow mistaken, and this isn’t the guy for her?

This novel has some supernatural elements, but it is mostly a bit of a mystery wrapped up in romantic garb. And it is a nice read for the month which features Valentine’s Day.

BTW, I read the Kindle version, as it was featured as a freebie a while back, and as of this post, the current price is 0.00. According to Amazon, it is also available in paperback and as an Audible book, if you like that format.

Dec 31 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Since Star Wars The Force Awakens has broken lots of records for attendance, there are no doubt too many audience reviews for mine to matter. There are several elements that make this a film worth watching, and fans are mostly happy with it, at least in part due to the items (in my own order of excellence) enumerated here:

#1 The Score! John Williams’ score was instrumental in turning the original Star Wars from a mere comic book B movie into a box office bonanza. For the other films his compositions have kept the audience entertained, and Williams’ music is just as important here ever. For those not into classical music, the technique he uses is called leitmotif, wherein each character or plot device has it’s own musical theme, all interwoven into the whole. This is an operatic technique that helps the audience be even more emotionally involved the happenings on screen. It’s very cool, and it works beautifully in Episode VII.

#2 The respectful treatment of the aging stars of the original series. Although there is considerable exposition prior to the appearance of the famous trio, each character is given his (or her) moment on screen. The audience has a chance to see what’s happened during the passage of time, and the situation of each is organic in regards to their characters and situation way back when the Jedi returned in Episode VI.

#3 The new characters are interesting. Writing is hard work, and creating characters that readers (and/or viewers) care about can be difficult. In Poe Dameron, Rey, and Finn, the writers have given us a new generation of action characters. Hey, there’s even a cool new droid, BB-8. Compared to the characters in Episodes I, II, and III, these new guys are…oh, let’s be real. There is no comparison with those films. The new kids seem to be worthy successors, however. The actors do an excellent job of bringing them to life, too.

#4 Real “special effects” rather than CGI. Don’t get me wrong, computer generated effects have their place. But when Yoda ceased to be a puppet and became a glowing figure out of a computer game, his personality shifted from cute and quirky to something less interesting. This Star Wars has the look and feel of the original, but with more money. No doubt the prop masters were kept very busy during filming, but there is a difference when the actor is doing lots of stuff against a green screen vs. real props and sets.

#5 Good vs. Evil is central to the story line. For audiences to care, the good guys have to be mostly good, but have enough flaws for us to identify with them. The bad guys should be so bad that even Oprah wouldn’t try to understand them, instead she’d just shoot ’em.

The links are present for those who want to know more about certain aspects of the film, but that’s my take on the new Star Wars movie, which I recently saw with hubby and our young adult son.

Dec 22 2015

On “Conversate” is it a real word?

Webster's 3rd

When I was an undergrad, this was the definitive measure of whether or not a word was acceptable English.

Okay, I’m wearing my “English Instructor” hat when I write this post, and no, “conversate” isn’t a real word. Not yet, anyway. However, since the word is beginning to appear in a variety of contexts, from print to the courtroom, this non-word is going to be a candidate for real word status in the future. Right now, it is best classified as slang. Maybe it will be like “groovy” and become a relic of the era, or maybe it will make it into common usage. But don’t use it in formal writing if you want to project the image of being educated. Just don’t.

How do words become accepted? Traditionally, via being used in print. As print becomes less and less the standard of usage, and electronic documentation becomes the standard, probably many non-words will gain status. And English is has always been more open to accepting new words than many other languages, so “conversate” might make it into whatever lexicon determines acceptable usage. Other non-words have made it into standard usage, including “normalcy,” “software,” and even “couch potato” so it is just a matter of time and usage.

Until then, if you are searching for alternatives to “conversate” go back to basics; try talk or converse. They mean exactly the same thing, are both verbs, and the spell checker won’t try to change them into something else.

By Pamela/Pilar • Posted in writing
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Oct 19 2015

Infinity Lost— a quick review

I’m in the midst of a semester of teaching writing, and I generally read and write less when faced with lots of student papers. However, I did spend a couple of evenings with Infinity Lost by S Harrison. The main character is Finn, the only child of a reclusive industrial tycoon. Finn is an innocent, but as the story unfolds, she is not just a teenage girl. Certainly, science fiction is a favorite genre, and this entry by a new-to-me author is quite interesting.

There are some neat concepts in this story. At times, it was a bit confusing, but mostly, the author does a very good job of describing interesting technology. there is quite a bit of suspense, too. Actually, I began thinking that this novel reads well, but it might be a better screen play than a novel. It is the first entry in a trilogy, and I suppose there might be a film in the making.

Sep 25 2015

What’s selling from my “used” collection? Old grammar books!

I’ve been selling off my “teacher” stuff for about five years. During my on and off teaching career (at both private and public schools, in grades 6 through college) I did manage to accumulate a lot of books. One thing that surprises me is that really old books do sell, especially grammar books. Today, I received notice to ship an eleventh grade grammar text, published in the early 80s. Believe it or not, that one is modern. For whatever reasons, during the mid 80s, grammar began to gradually fall out of fashion in the classroom. Budgets seemed tight, and textbook price inflation was just getting started. Our school, like many in that era, bought new lit books, and each of those generally had lots of ancillary materials, including “daily grammar” lessons— usually one concept illustrated via a handout or a transparency for an overhead projector, and grammar books were either not used, or we used old ones. My friend, Janet, used a set of Warriner’s until the covers came off. Then she got the administration to find her some more of the same one on eBay. Until I left teaching high school, I used the same ones, over and over. I taped them together each August, and hoped they would make it another year.

My current teaching gig is as an adjunct at a local technical college. (For readers outside of Georgia, you would probably term it a “community college.”) Anyway, our institution pays for students to take self-paced grammar lessons online. The reason we do it that way is that we never know how much grammar the students might have already mastered, so they take assessments and are required to do lessons based on the topics they did not pass initially. From my experience, there are many students who have to take all of the lessons (known as modules) which is probably due to their teachers having been trained in the “non-grammar” era. The lessons are quite basic, including each part of speech, sentence structure, and so forth.

From time to time, I do sell grammar books, usually really old ones, and that lets me know that some people are either teaching themselves, or someone else, English grammar. I’m glad, because I see a lot of bad grammar in student writing these days. Actually, I see it in many other places, too!