what a friend we have in Grandma

Memories of my Grandma Elizabeth inspired me to write this little retrospective. What grandparent memories do you have to share?

In the days following the baby's death, Helena often wondered what she'd do without her mother. Her mom brought her tea on a tray, helped her wash her hair in a speckled basin beside the heater, and took care of four-year-old Aaron. She often sang as she worked: Welch ein freund ist unser Jesu. What a friend we have in Jesus.

Helena's mom's hair was a wavy river, brown at the waist, graying as it approached her face. Every morning Helena and Lenny watched her brush it by the heater. "Don't roll it up, Grandma," Lenny pleaded as the practiced hands gathered the river and braided it into a bun at the back of her head. "Let it hang down."

"Too much to do," said Magda, inserting the imprisoning pins and rhinestone studded combs.

more links for writers—and readers

Worst storyline contest: http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/The+Third+Worst+Storyline+Ever+Contest.aspx

Favorite childhood books. Does this article bring back memories? What were your favorite books as a child? http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/ShelfTalker_A_Children_s_Bookseller_s_Blog/31500-Favorite_Childhood_Books_No_One_Else_Knew_Picture_Book_Edition_.php?nid=2286&source=link

Thoughts on backing up your work on the computer:

http://emilyakin.com/do-you-have-backup/

Using your keyboard to type symbols:

http://www.yourdictionary.com/dictionary-articles/Keyboard-Symbols-Glossary.html

random useful websites for writers

Invitations to submit to anthologies, notices about contests and writers' conferences, etc. http://www.writersrelief.com/blog/post/Anthologies-Contests.aspx

Free downloadable English dictionary and thesaurus [I have it on both my computers and wouldn't want to be without it] http://www.sequencepublishing.com/thesage.html

Jobs of yesteryear http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124251060&sc=nl&cc=nh-20100305

giving credit for sources used in your writing

If you're writing a book for publication and you quote directly from another book or other source, you should either cite your source right there or use a footnote number. If you use a footnote number, place a corresponding list of sources at the end of each chapter or at the end of your book. If you quote more than a sentence or so, you need permission from the copyright holder of the source from which you quoted. Getting this permission is often not a big deal. Just request it, telling how you want to use the quotation, and they may give it to you for nothing—or they may charge a fee. If you think the fee is too high, you can try to negotiate or just not use that particular quotation.

On the other hand, if you refer to several sources and use what you learn to write your own stuff in your own words, you don't need the footnote numbers. However, it can be a good idea to list your sources in a bibliography, often placed at the end of the book. Listing sources gives credit where credit is due, i.e. acknowledging that you found them informative. It can also lend greater credibility to what you write, i.e. suggesting that your work is based on reliable sources. The standard format for bibliographical entries is illustrated in the following invented examples:

Grainger, Thea. Massachusetts history inside out. Boston: Seabreeze Press, 1999.

Millet, Petunia. "Stone circles of the western plains." In Regina Times, May 2010.

Nesbitt, Edgar, editor. Saskatoon berries: Presbyterian pioneering stories. Calgary: Zimmer Publications, 2010.

Sommerfeld, Sonia. Salt sage. Coyote, Montana: Windham Press, 2003.

Note that in the last case, the place in Montana is small and not well known. Therefore one adds the name of the state or province as the case may be. The Chicago Manual of Style is a standard reference regarding such matters. It provides other examples covering other kinds of cases.

history of aprons

My husband's Aunt Ev Jeck is a source of lots of fascinating information including retrospectives. She just sent me this "history of aprons." I've shortened and adapted it slightly.

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath. Because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for  removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When company came, aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped her apron around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folks knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

am, are, is, was, and were: bad words or not?

Recently a writing friend was told to eliminate from her writing as many state of being verbs as she could, i.e. "am, are, is, was, and were." I believe the state of being verbs problem isn't as serious as some writing advisers make it out to be. It's kind of a hobby horse, often ridden by [sorry] those whose grasp of grammar is shaky. For example, they don't completely understand passive tense. They think a statement like "he was drying the dishes when the ceiling fell" contains a passive verb, i.e. "was drying." It doesn't. "Was drying" is a present progressive verb and there's nothing wrong with using it. In fact, not using present progressive verbs can lead to confusion. For example, if you say "he dried the dishes when the ceiling fell," we don't know what you mean. Like he'd finished drying before the ceiling fell or what? Passive is something else. You're using passive when the object of the action is the subject of your sentence, e.g. "the dishes were dried by him" instead of "he dried the dishes" (active). A burning question: Where is this dish-drying guy when we need him?

faith and fiction

I'm interested in how religious faith, especially Christianity, is expressed in fiction (or not expressed even if the author subscribes to a certain faith). As I investigated the topic a bit, I came across the following websites. The first two deal with science fiction/fantasy. The third is more general. Hopefully I'll blog more on this topic in the future. If you have insights and information to add, please leave a comment. Thanks.

Science fiction/fantasy authors of various faiths—Christianity in its various forms, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. http://www.adherents.com/lit/sf_other.html

Religious science fiction links and major books—http://www.adherents.com/lit/sf_rel.html

Authors who are converts to a different religion—http://www.adherents.com/lit/sf_conv.html