Career Peaking

Sharon Wildwind

This morning we’re starting with a pop quiz.

How old was dancer Martha Graham when she created and danced what critics called her defining work, Chronicle?
a. 32
b. 42
c. 76
d. 91

If you answered “b,” congratulations. Chronicle came to the stage in 1936, when Graham was 42 years old.

Ten years earlier, at the age of 32, she established the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. In her thirties, she created 19 dances; in her forties 23, including Chronicle; in her fifties 8; in her sixties 13, including her longest work; in her seventies 10; in her eighties 17; and in her nineties 6. She was working on a seventh production, The Eyes of the Goddess, when she died at the age of 91.

She became director of the Batsheva Dance Company in Israel in her seventies and finally gave up performing herself when she was 76 years old. In her late seventies she almost died from depression and alcoholism, became a recovering alcoholic, and reorganized her dance company.

Twenty-five percent of her lifetime achievement came after she began to recover her health at the age of 77. This was thirty-five years after critics had said that nothing she did would ever equal Chronicle. I can’t help thinking that she showed them.

As writers we joke about writing the Great American—in my case, the Great Canadian—novel, the seminal work to which our name will forever be linked in a knee-jerk reaction.

Try thinking about Mark Twain without linking him to Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. Alice Walker without The Color Purple. Our own Edgar Allan Poe without The Raven. Stephenie Meyer without Twilight.

This probably doesn’t matter much to Twain and Poe, since they are likely enjoying a good cigar, brandy, and each other’s company on another plane, one than involves neither body scans or a search of their luggage.

At sixty-six, Alice Walker has published, in addition to The Color Purple, 13 novels and short story collections, 9 poetry collections, and 11 non-fiction books. Like Martha Graham, her creativity has taken her onward and upward since The Color Purple.

What about Stephenie Meyer, who is a young writer? What about the rest of us?

Writers face the page most mornings with co-joined terrifying thoughts in our hind-brain that a) we will never write a seminal book to which our names will forever be ever linked, and b) that we will write a seminal book, which will be the only thing people remember about our writing.

We live in interesting co-joined society that crazily embraces both a been-there, done-that philosophy, and a more-of-the-same hunger. A couple of months ago another writer told me that her agent actually said to her, “I hope your next book is exactly like your last three, but completely different, of course.”

People wonder why writers go mad.

Personally, I think that we should all aim for both things: write that seminal work, then go on and continue to create for decades after it. If Martha Graham could show the critics, we can, too.
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Quote for the week:

The sustained creativity and intellectual energy required to explore an idea fully is at least equal to—and often greater than—that required to launch it.
~Dr. Gene L. Cohen (1944 - 2009), founder of the Center on Aging, Health, and the Humanities, Washington, D.C.

A Literary Mystery

by Julia Buckley
One of the fun things about teaching literature is that I have the opportunity to examine certain texts again and again, and often this gives me insights I never would have discovered with only one reading. It also brings to light certain mysteries within the novels or poems themselves.

For example, I teach the great Russian novel CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, which many of you reading this blog probably read in high school or college. Because I teach the novel, I have developed a deep love for it, and I have examined the moral dilemmas of poor, tormented Raskolnikov from many different angles. What I am about to write below references a crime that happens very early in the text. It's not really a spoiler, since the book's focus is less on the crime and more on the punishment. BUT if you don't want to read any mention about the crime, don't read on.

There are some mysteries within the text which, for me, have never been solved. Some of them are matters of differing translations. For example, one character, Lizaveta, is said in the Oxford version of the text to be pregnant, much to everyone's surprise. Lizaveta, a young and almost simple-minded character, has a kind heart, but lives with her much older and meaner stepsister, Alena Ivanovna. Her pregnancy, it is implied, means that some man has taken advantage of her.

However, in at least two other translations, Lizaveta is described as "always pregnant." This causes a great deal of discussion in our classes, as the second translation implies more that Lizaveta is of easy virtue rather than that one man managed to take advantage of her. But it also poses this problem: if she is "always pregnant," what becomes of all her children? There are no youngsters in the mean flat she shares with her sister. It would be difficult to believe that Lizaveta aborted them, since she is a devout Catholic and regularly reads the Bible with her friend Sonia.

The book never addresses this little mystery, and Lizaveta and her sister are murdered by Raskolnikov early in the novel. That brings us to another interesting mystery, although I think I know the answer. Lizaveta is pregnant when she dies; Dostoevsky goes to the trouble of including this little detail in the painting of her character portrait. But after Lizaveta is murdered, the baby is never mentioned again--not by police, not by Raskolnikov when he speaks of his crime. The child ceases to matter in the scheme of the novel with Lizaveta's death.

I understand that this may well be an issue of time period and of culture. An unborn child would be of little importance, since living women and children barely had any significance in society. In fact, one of Raskolnikov's friends is translating an article called "Woman: Is She a Human Being?" Still, I wonder why Dostoevsky bothered to mention the pregnancy if no one was ever going to make a point of saying that Raskolnikov ended three lives, not two.

Instead, the investigating magistrate says, at one point, "It's a good thing you only killed an old woman." It's an odd cultural contrast--think of Lacy Peterson and the huge focus that the media and society in general put on the fact that she was pregnant when she was murdered. When her husband Scott Peterson was eventually convicted of that murder, he was called a monster for killing his unborn child.

This is a far cry from the way that poor pregnant Lizaveta is treated in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. If I, in some alternate universe, were able to talk with Dostoevsky about his great work, this would be one of the first issues I'd raise. I have a feeling, though, that his answer would disappoint me.

Guest Blogger: Gerrie Ferris Finger

I love to research. Having hopped a slow moving train once, I knew I had to jump off before it got going too fast, and there have been few periods in my life when I haven't had a dog. But what did I know about the workings of a train yard, or how search and rescue dogs are trained?

At times, I'd rather research than plot action or get inside a character's head, to say nothing of those tender love scenes. When I've written myself into a conundrum, I'll throw something into the mix of which I know nothing, and go on a researching mission.

I also love authenticity, which means I have to get to the source, the gritty in the nitty. When I wrote The End Game, I knew from the start trains and dogs would figure prominently in the story. Computers, too, along with cops and prisons. Cops were easy. I worked with them when I reported for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. My heroine, Moriah Dru, is a former cop, now the owner of a PI firm specializing in finding missing children. Her lover, Richard Lake, is still a cop, useful in getting information, and often a partner when the Atlanta Police Department allows it.

The story is set in Atlanta, where I've lived most of my life. Still I needed to go into a specific neighborhood and get the feel of it, make it a character. Historic Cabbagetown is a small in-town community, built on the railroad tracks in 1881. It provided workers for the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill.

Because my tale involved kidnapping and murder, I renamed the streets and disguised the houses. I wouldn't want a resident to think I'd pegged him or her as the bad guy. That being said, my former newspaper reviewed the book the reviewer wasn't fooled.

Back to trains, I must have filled half my computer's memory with articles and opinions on trains, from the workings of a rail yard to hoboes – excuse me – box car tourists. I visited a rail yard, and a media representative answered all my questions and invited me to follow up any time. He did ask that I not use sensitive information about guards and shift changes and photography – this for Homeland Security purposes. I had no problem arranging shifts to suit my story, and, I learned, despite vigilance, box car tourists are as determined as ever to ride the rails.

Did you know air horns (trains no longer have whistles) are tuned like instruments? Knowing horns helps Dru and Lake track the bad guys.

And did you know there's such a thing as train talk? Short toots means the train's backing up. A blast, blast, toot, blast means the train is going across a grade crossing.

I love research, but I never, ever let it bog down the action. The way I do it is sneak relevant information into the copy bit by bit. There's nothing worse than showing off your knowledge by boring your reader.

Search-and-rescue dogs, I'm convinced, were given to us mortals by a benevolent goddess. In my next life, I'm going to be a trainer. I witnessed these dogs working and learning their specialty (not all dogs are genetically qualified). These specialists do it for the pure joy of showing off their talents and getting a treat at the end of the search. They are tireless in their quest, and, like us, they suffer disappointment if they don't succeed.

Buddy and Jed, my search-and-rescue dog characters came out heroes. Maybe because when I wrote them into the plot, I thought of them as heroes.

I had fun researching computer hacking. I wrote the novel before Criminal Minds shot its first episode. My computer hacker, Webdog, does basically the same thing as Garcia in the show. He is as essential in solving the case as Dru, Lake, the dogs and train talk.

Here's a sample of Webdog's work:
Webdog: "No (human trafficking) ring's advertising on the Web, but they use the lists to troll for buyers. There are contact codes in some of the ads. One has an embedded e-mail address in it."

Dru: "I bet you're going to decode them."

"I ran the alphabet on the script kiddies who do the routine codex of using numbers and characters for the alphabet, and the routine hacker prefixes, suffixes and equivalencies."

Dru: "Dandy."

Webdog: "I found one e-mail series that's interesting. I finally figured out what crypt they're using. It's a Perl-Crypt-Enigma simulator."

"Which is?"

Webdog: "It's an application of the Enigma machine used by the Germans in World War Two."

Dru: "You mean you use World War Two technology to crack an e-mail code?"

Webdog: "Alan Turing, who is the brains behind the first computer, cracked the code because the Germans got sloppy and left their prearranged setting on letters like AAA or XYZ. Default settings will get you every time."

Some things I didn't have to research. My father taught me to play chess when I was growing up. If I lasted to play the end game, it was because my king didn't fall to his rooks or knights.

Gerrie Ferris Finger is a winner of the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. She lives on the coast of Georgia with her husband and standard poodle, Bogey. For more about Gerrie and her work, visit her web site or her blog.

Fireworks and other stuff . . .

By Lonnie Cruse

This weekend our country celebrates its annual birthday. Picnics, fireworks, swimming parties, you name it. Much of the country will be busy and noisy with celebrations. I'm hoping to attend an annual family reunion, but recent gall bladder surgery may sideline me. Not much keeps me away from a table full of food, so there is still hope.

Back to America and celebrations. I watch a lot of HGTV and I like House Hunters International where people sometimes buy 1400 to 1700 year old buildings and try to refurbish them. WHAT a task. Most buildings in this country can't claim to be as much as three hundred years old. We are young, compared to most of the other countries, and in many ways we are as bright and bouncy and immature as a teenager waiting for a driver's license. We do things wrong. We do things right. We simply do things.

When you read some of our country's past history, you find that people were as pessimistic and as optimistic about our country's future back then as we sometimes are today. Where are we going? What are we doing? I dunno. I worry a bit sometimes because we have grandchildren and I want them to enjoy the same freedoms we always have. But overall, I'm optimistic.

This weekend, may you have all the hot dogs and homemade ice cream and ice cold lemonade your stomach can hold, may you "oohhh" and "aahhh" over the best fireworks you've ever seen, and if you think we have it bad here, take a look at some of the third world countries. And like they say, if you can read this, thank a teacher, and if you are free to read it and have an opinion about it, thank a soldier, either modern day or historical. They all fought for the same thing. Freedom.

God bless America, and God bless us all. And don't get burned by a sparkler.

(Thanks to this website: http://hubpages.com/hub/Free-Clip-Art-4th-of-July for the clipart!)

Going to the Beach

Elizabeth Zelvin

For some it’s mountains, for others, a big sky. For me, the essential landscape is the ocean, preferably the Atlantic off New York’s Long Island: jade green, cold enough to be bracing, with swells gentle enough to sail over and breakers big enough to ride in on. White sand beaches backed up by grassy dunes complete the picture. The season is upon us, and I’m delighted.

The women in my family have all been swimmers. My grandmother went into the ocean till 81 and the bay till 88. My mother exceeded her record with the ocean till 90 and the bay till 95. I remember her with her cane at 93 on Block Island, striding back and forth across hard-packed gray sand at the water’s edge with a hurricane coming in. The second the lifeguards looked away, she’d be in the forbidden ocean up to her shins, cane and all, until they shooed her out again. At 96, she still insisted on being helped across the vast expanse of sand to the very edge of the water. I had to enlist the hunky lifeguards to push her in a sand wheelchair with giant inflatable yellow tires, like a giant children’s toy, until she could feel the sea breeze on her face and dabble her toes in the skirt of foam that edged each incoming wave.

After a lifetime of beachgoing, I’m still shocked to see how many women, my age and younger, come to the beach but don’t go in the water. They could sun themselves, read, listen to music (headphones, please!), schmooze, and, increasingly, use their cell phones in their own backyards. Don’t they know the water is the whole point of the beach? How can they resist those beckoning waves? Don’t they know how good it feels? Don’t they get hot? I visited Phoenix, Arizona for the first time on my 2008 book tour. The weather was superb, as I’d always heard, blue sky and sparkling sunshine every day. But I can’t imagine retiring there, as many do. As I explained to friends and family on my return, in Arizona, every day is a beach day, but you never get to the beach!

The best emotional and spiritual cure for stress is living in the here and now: one day at a time or however you choose to put it. This is a lot easier said than done. It’s terribly hard to banish the regrets and frustrations of yesterday and anxiety about tomorrow. But immersing myself in the ocean will put me in the moment every time. Everything falls away but the crisp, clean water, the moment of weightlessness when I catch a rising swell, the sensation of soaring, the music of crash, sizzle, and hiss as the wave breaks behind me.

I used to body surf, which requires even more focus on the moment, but I gave it up many years ago after a bad experience. If you must know, I was showing off: proclaiming my feminism by going in with the guys the day after a three-day blow, while the other women stayed on the beach. My idea of heaven now is hanging out beyond the breakers and jumping the high rollers, preferably with at least one companion to schmooze with. The companionship is the hard part. When I can, I’ll attach myself to a group of adolescent girls. Treasure this moment, I want to tell with them (and occasionally do). You are lucky to have each other’s company, because it may not last. Thirty or forty years from now, not all of you will still want to go in.

Who buys books, and why?

Sandra Parshall


TV and movies may be aimed mostly at young men these days, but if publishers and booksellers are wise, they’ll go after the older female audience. A comprehensive survey of book-buying habits that was released at Book Expo in late May leaves little doubt that the book business as a whole would be sunk without the patronage of middle-aged and older women.

The survey, which you can see in slide-show format on the Verso Advertising website, involved 9,300 book-buyers 18 or older, 48.2% of them male (the U.S. population is 48.4% male) and 51.8% female (U.S. population: 51.6% female). The margin of error is given as 1.5% and the “probability threshold” as 95%.

The most encouraging statistic the survey turned up is that 28% of the country’s population 18 or older – that’s 62.4 million adults – reads more than five hours a week. Half of those read 10 or more hours per week. Of these avid readers, 63% (39 million) are female and 37% (23 million) are male.

When the study breaks readership down by age, it gets even more interesting. The majority of avid readers are over 45, and the largest group is over 55.

It’s not surprising that the amount of time “avid readers” spend reading rises sharply as they enter their mid-forties and jumps again as they move into their fifties and sixties. Kids grow up and leave home, people retire, and they simply have more time for leisure reading. The 25-34-year-old group reads least of all, perhaps because those are the years when many people are establishing themselves professionally, getting married, and having children.

But what explains why women, at any age, consistently read more than men do?

In the mystery community, people always point to the willingness of women to read books by men as well as those by women, and the resistance of many men to reading books written by female authors. Maybe this holds up across all genres, but it doesn’t really explain why women spend more time reading. It’s not as if men run out of books by male authors to read. A man could read every minute of his life and never exhaust the supply of books written by other men. Something else must explain the difference between the reading habits of the sexes, but I have no idea what that something is.

A major section of the survey has to do with e-book purchases – the market share is growing, and is expected to reach 12-15% within two years, but only 7.5% of readers are willing to pay hardcover prices for electronic downloads. Of the rest, 28% want prices kept at $10 or less and another 28% won’t pay more than $20 for an e-book.

When asked about the primary factors in book-purchasing decisions, 52% of survey respondents cited author reputation, 49% said personal recommendations, 45% said price, 37% said reviews, 22% said cover artwork and blurbs, and 14% said advertising (including online advertising).

The survey (which is being conducted in several “waves” over the course of a year) is designed to help independent booksellers understand who the avid book-buyers are and how the stores can gain more of their business, but a couple of its conclusions should be noted by all booksellers – and publishers. Older Americans make up two-thirds of the country’s avid readers. And 63% of that sought-after group is female. A lot of older women say they feel “invisible” in society, but wise booksellers and publishers will recognize the value of this group of readers and be sure to provide them with the books they want to read.

Reading Deprivation

Sharon Wildwind

Since I’ve written about writing being a time battle for the last three weeks, I figured this past week it was time to walk the walk.

So for my walk—more about another kind of walk later—I chose reading deprivation, which I’d mentioned last week as one of the techniques recommended in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.

Beginning last Tuesday, I set out to find out if I could survive a reading-reduction week. Okay, so reduction isn't the absolute no reading for a week that Ms. Cameron recommended, but I figured even a little less reading was a start.

I have a lot of boxes set up to capture and sort incoming mail, so very few messages actually stay in my Inbox. Those that do are usually from family and friends. I promised myself that for 7 days, I would read only my Inbox and one other box, which was likely to contain time-sensitive material. I’d allow all of the other messages to languish for a week in their variously-assigned mail boxes.

I’m afraid I’ve been treating book reading as an indulgence. On a day off, if I want to lay down in the middle of the afternoon and read for hours, I do just that. Only lately, I think reading got a bit out of hand. So I proposed to the reading fairies that live in my head a limit of 60 minutes of book reading per day.

They counter-offered 60 minutes per book with a daily limit of three books.

We compromised on 30 minutes per book with a daily limit of three books.

The first thing I noticed on Tuesday morning was that my time spent every morning reading e-mail dropped from an-hour-and-a-half to fifteen minutes.

The second thing I noticed was that I was getting a lot of newsletters and electronic flyers that had come along because I’d once bought a product from a company, or I had a shopper’s card, etc. Every time one of those newsletters/flyers came in during the week, I unsubscribed.

The third thing I noticed was that if I didn’t start reading at 7:00 PM and keep reading until bedtime (or beyond), I had a lot more time in the evening.

What did I do with all of that found time?

I took a 30-minute walk every day. That produced a lot of side benefits. My hip stopped hurting. I enjoyed beautiful weather. I found two objects to use in art projects. I actually had time for a conversation with the guy who works at the art supply store. I slept better.

I made a gift for a family member.

I spent more time writing in my journal.

I thought up new characters for a stand-alone mystery.

I did critiques for two other writers. I would have done the critiques anyway, but I felt I could devote a little more time to them instead of hurrying through them.

I played with Zentangles. If you like doodling, check them out. They are even more relaxing that playing computer solitaire.

I realized it didn’t matter if I took four days to read a book instead of only two.

By the end on the week, I’d collected 207 unread messages and no one had been on my case about missing something, or not replying. When I went through those messages, it was amazing how much of what was in them was either outdated or just not interesting. I also unsubscribed to an additional three newsletters that I’d outgrown.

Two must-read boxes stood out like they were lit with neon lights. Now I had a better idea of why they were important to me and I could make an informed choice to go back to reading them daily.

Oh, yeah, did I mention I also read four books and enjoyed them immensely. Even the reading fairies in my head were happy.

So now I’m going to try reading my Inbox and those two essential newsletters daily and everything else twice a week. I really like all of this new-found time.

Happy Canada Day to those of you north of the border and Happy 4th of July to those of you south of the border. Me? I’ll be celebrating both days, hopefully by doing something other than reading.

Writing Gastronomical Goodness

by Julia Buckley

I once had a part-time job which involved reading restaurant menus from all over the country and highlighting new dishes; my employer was creating a restaurant menu website and needed to update it constantly.

The job paid fairly well and I could work my own hours (I had a baby at home), so I was thrilled to get it. After a while, though, it became psychologically painful. Each day I had to read descriptions of delicious food written by people who had probably majored in creative writing in college. The entrees had names like "Macadamia Nut Encrusted Sea Bass with Mango Cream Sauce" and "Goat-Cheese Encrusted Lamb with Fresh Mountain Herbs." Everything was "encrusted" with something else, and it always sounded delicious.

The desserts were even more spectacular. Things like "Hazelnut Chocolate Praline Cake with Chocolate Drizzles and Raspberry Glaze." These menus were a tribute to the power of words. I always left hungry.

I was reminded of the great writers--usually mystery writers--who write so well about food that I have to stop reading and make a snack. Mary Stewart did this so well that I don't think I've found her equal. In Nine Coaches Waiting, she writes about a midnight snack shared between three people and it's one of the loveliest descriptions I've ever read. She does the same in Madam, Will You Talk?

Robert B. Parker wrote some food scenes that had my husband setting down the book and heading for the kitchen to forage. That Spenser does love to cook, and sometimes I think my husband pretends he's Spenser.

Who else writes food well enough to make you drool? Which mysteries made you hungry? And what's the most delicious thing in the world?

I vote for the chocolate cake I ate at an Italian Restaurant called Marros when my husband and I were on our honeymoon back in 1988. I've tried to find a cake that delicious ever since, and I haven't. Are taste and happy memories entwined? Or is some food just that good? :)

PUNCTUATION

by Sheila Connolly

I've always enjoyed rules. It's nice to have something to follow, to know where you stand, to have a standard to meet. Writing was no exception when I was young.

Since I am of a certain age, I was taught a variety of rules for spelling, grammar and punctuation. You know, the trusty "i before e except after c," and one my mother passed on to me, "a preposition is a word not to end a sentence with" (joke there, people). Dependent clauses, independent clauses. Does anybody else remember diagramming sentences? What was that all about?

Spelling is holding its own, save for all those made-up words that keep popping up and gaining acceptance more and more quickly. And how many words have shifted their use? Like impact. When I was young, impact was a noun. Impacted was something that happened to a bad tooth. Now impacted is a verb. And likewise friend: once that too was a noun, and now we friend people on Facebook all the time.

But mostly I wrestle with punctuation. As a writer shepherding books into print, we have to submit our work to not one but two editors (not even counting the proofreader), both of whom feel free to tell us how things are supposed to be done. Which is usually not the way we did it. The first editor tells you that your characters are stiff and unsympathetic, and your plot resembles moldy Swiss cheese, and can you please fix it by next Tuesday?

Assuming you survive that battering, your writerly voice intact, the manuscript makes its way to the copy editor (in case you're wondering, Webster's says that must be two words, no hyphen). Danger, danger! The copy editor is responsible for cleaning up all your "errors" in spelling, grammar, and punctuation (and occasionally she nails you for repeating a word or phrase too often). She sends you a multi-page (Webster's has no opinion about that word, so I'm leaving the hyphen there) set of instructions telling you what you were supposed to do (which of course you didn't do, since you've been living in a cave since 1982 trying to write a book and you never got the memo about grammar changes).

Many of these changes I'm willing to accept, because I really don't feel strongly about them, and I hope they serve to make the text easier to read. But some just rub me the wrong way, no matter how many times I see them. Take "too," for example. I'm supposed to use a comma before a terminal too. Like, "you come, too." That just looks wrong to me.

Or hyphenating adverbs. I swear I can hear in my head some long-ago English teacher saying, "if you use a two-word term as a modifier, you should hyphenate it." This is enshrined in my memory. Like "newly-minted coin." Newly-minted is a single term, isn't it? Nope. Not now. I have it in writing that I may not do that. Unless, of course, the first word is "half." I am graciously allowed to say "half-witted copy editor."

My latest bugaboo is italicizing. Internal thoughts are italicized. I'm good with that. Foreign phrases are italicized. No problem. (But when does the phrase cease to be foreign and become part of our daily language? Like déjà vu? Hoi polloi? But that's for another day.) Book and newspaper titles are italicized. Fine by me.

What's burning me up now is whether a form I've used for years is now apparently a copy editor's no-no (Webster's approves that hyphen): the quotation marks within a sentence. In the past, I would say, I stashed my "bounty" in a safe place. The quotes there signified that I was using the term "bounty" sarcastically or with tongue wedged in cheek. The "bounty" might have been the last cupcake in the box, so the phrase was not meant to be taken literally.

Now I'm told I have to italicize that. I stashed my bounty in a safe place. I don't like it. In this context, italicization means to me that the word is meant to be emphasized (as you might hear it in your head) within the sentence. The copy editor's introduced italicizing looks wrong to me. It sounds wrong to me (see the difference?).

I have this image of editors and copy editors as nice, young (well, younger than I am) women who were English majors in college. I've met a few, and some of them are my daughter's age. Therefore I have to assume that they grew up with a different set of standards than I did. Life goes on. I accept that.

BUT! I'm guessing that the majority of my readers are closer to my age than to theirs. So when those readers read a paragraph with those weird italicized words, they're going to stumble. They're going to stop, if only for a microsecond, and say "huh?" (Not huh, I hope.) And that's going to take them right out of the reading, break the flow, disrupt their immersion in the story. It will work against all that we as writers have tried to create.

What are we supposed to do? Write to make the little copy editors happy? Or write to make our readers happy?

Is it just me?

By Lonnie Cruse

Sigh, ALL of my favorite television series ended this season with huge cliff-hangers. White Collar, NCIS, NCIS LA, The Closer, Burn Notice, you name it, I watched it, and then I was stuck waiting until June/July for the new seasons to begin. All at the same time. Sigh. And once they DID/DO begin, I'll be on series overload, trying to keep them all straight. Who died? Who survived? Who's new? Who isn't? Whew.

Lots of good drama on television these days. (Lots of garbage too.) This isn't Father Knows Best or The Donna Reed show any more (though they were good, in their day.) But the writers have to keep topping themselves, or the series dies. (Same for mystery writers writing a book series, but that's another story for another day.) How do they top explosion after explosion or disappearance after disappearance? How do they keep the characters fresh? Keep them growing? How many murders can Jessica Fletcher solve in one town? (Solution for that one, they moved her to New York where murders were a bit more numerous. Works for me.)

I'm old enough to remember riding with the neighbors over to the nearest television store and watching TV through the window on a warm summer night. I still remember who had the first television in our neighborhood (same neighbors, of course.) Television has come a looooong way, baby, since the 50's. Whew. A VERY long way. Like I said, some good, some not so good. I fear that our kids spend way too much time in front of the TV, instead of outside playing. Still, we can see news from across the world in an instant. Keep up with what's going on. We just need to control it, not let it control us, don't you think?

I'm going back to DVRing my fave shows, so I don't miss any explosions. You?