I do like sunglades.
With sunlight dancing on the water, I strolled around near the house, camera in hand. There was a wonderful sunset on April 2nd, but those photos will have to wait as instead I bring you an afternoon’s sun magic.
It’s all the rage these days among writer-mavens to advise the disuse, where possible, of –ly adverbs. (Some of us, for the record, disagree.) Substitute instead, these mavens urge, a stronger form of the verb. Use of –ly adverbs weakens your writing, they say, by implying poor verb choice.
I absolutely agree.
Oh. Excuse me. That was a mistake. What I meant to say is that I am in complete concordance. There. Much stronger.
Writers should use the strongest appropriate verb instead of a weaker verb and one of those pesky –ly adjectives. Where possible.
But of course this is not always possible.
In particular, these same writer-mavens also advise never to use speaker dialog tags other than “said” because they get in the way of the dialog itself.
“But my third-grade teacher encouraged me to use verbs other than ‘said’!” I gasp.
I remember—I remember, and this was half a century ago—the class making a list on the blackboard of all the picturesque, strong verbs we might use instead of “said.” And our teacher encouraged us to use them.
Oh. Half a century ago, that explains it. Times change, and so do writing styles. Nowadays, if dialog tags must be used, “said” is the one. It’s the only one where the writing does not insert itself between the reader and the dialog. This is fine. But now we face the conflict of two writer-maven rules: Always use the strongest verb form possible, except always use “said.”
And forget those –ly adverbs, even with “said.” What’s a poor writer to do?
I have been listening to Diana Gabaldon’s An Echo in the Bone, the seventh in her brilliant Outlander series. This generally well-written and thoroughly enjoyable book has almost completely solved the –ly adverb problem. (Which, you may have noticed from the previous sentence, I have not.) You see, it turns out that adjectives are still acceptable. Use them instead of those pesky –ly adverbs. Behold, actual quotes from this book.
“Only until the war is over,” he said, encouraging.
“You never said anything about wanting to write a book,” Ian said, curious.
There must be at least one construction like this on every page. Maybe more. I love this book, but the eradication of –ly adverbs is painful to listen to. Every time the –ly should be there but isn’t, I cringe.
It’s a gift, that’s what it is.
I realize this almost every time I look at the sky. The sky is filled with unutterable, incomprehensible, exquisite beauty. I don’t know whether this beauty is inherent in the sky itself or in how we humans are wired to perceive it, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? Because either way … it is given to us.
So here is another ordinary everyday breathtaking sunset on Block Island. April 1, 2010. We are blessed.
I especially like how the sun image reflects in Sachem Pond.
Later, the breeze picked up a little, ruffling the pond. But the sky show went on.
I have recently joined a new writing critique group, organized at least loosely through the Kentucky Romance Writers of America.
(Aside to everyone who knows me, knows my fiction, knows my home in New England: You are thinking, “Romance?” You are thinking, “Kentucky?” It’s complicated. Don’t ask.)
This crit group was so successfully subscribed that it divided itself into subgroups, and I am in the Fantasy subgroup.
(Aside to everyone who knows me: You are thinking, “Well, aha!” You sit back in satisfaction at knowing *something*, at least, that makes some sense. And I feel the same way. I know something about you, too.)
There are nine of us in this group. So far, maybe half a dozen have submitted pieces to be critiqued, and each of the submittals has received three to six reviews. The reviews are detailed and thoughtful. I can honestly say that the three reviews I received so far on my story have been eye-opening.
And not just the reviews. *We* are eye-opening. We are so different, one from another. We live in all parts of the country (okay, maybe more in Kentucky than elsewhere, but plenty of elsewhere too). Some of us are still in college and some of us have children who have already finished college. Though we all write “fantasy,” our works are in quite different genres. You would be surprised. Some of us have published many books; others are still hoping.
And here’s the thing that blows Dan away. The critiques are given generously, carefully, wholeheartedly. I’d even say lovingly. (Adverbs… one of our topics of discussion… Aren’t writers an interesting bunch? 😉 In a profession where competition is so mind-bogglingly fierce, writers are unselfishly kind and helpful to one another. If any of us makes it, we are all genuinely happy. We want to boost every last one of us over the fence.
We’re in this together.
And here’s the thing that blows me away: We’re also all in our own separate worlds. Jagi frets over Kestrel and shapes him and smooths him and lives with him and loves him and molds him and makes him real. I do the same for Kell, and Linda for Moira. There’s no overlap. Not of time, space, world, or destiny. We create them with such love and such tenderness and such difficulty, and so imperfectly.
This is *hard work*.
We have to help each other, or we wouldn’t stand a chance.
It’s 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday, a day I’d hoped to sleep late. But it was 24-karat sunshine angling into the bedroom window, that worth-more-per-ounce-than-you-have-money-in-the-bank kind of light, and it drew me out of bed just as surely as if they were giving out thousand-dollar bills on the beach.
There aren’t many places on the island from which you can see both sunrises and sunsets over the ocean.
This house is one of the few.
To the west, the lighthouse glowed in the dawn light. Quite a different sight from when the fog rolled in that evening–see last week’s post.
What a beautiful weekend on the island! I’ll have a couple of great sunsets and a delicious sunrise to ease the nostalgia sometime when we’re far away, but for today I’d like to share Saturday’s stunning weather phenomenon. In the early afternoon we were in town and noticed how a brooding grey fog bank blanketed the shores of America, while on the island it was sunny and warm. But later in the day a fog rolled in out of the west, shrouding the North Light in mystery.
Later, the fog thickened, a dark roiling grey lying on the sea just beyond the dunes of the National Seashore.
Then it closed in.
After nearly four months away, we returned to the island last Friday on the 6pm ferry. What a wonderful homecoming! Of course, the question that kept our pulses racing was: Will we make it back to the house in time for the sunset?
Early signs were encouraging. The sun had not yet set when the ferry docked. We raced up Corn Neck Road. Oh–no, sorry, officer, what I meant was: We drove up Corn Neck Road just as quickly as traffic (nonexistent) and the speed limit would allow.
But there was a problem with the photographer.
The photographer wanted to stop at every photo opportunity. The photographer even made Dan turn the car around and go back once when he hadn’t realized she wasn’t joking. The photographer had to take a picture of the violent waves crashing on Crescent Beach, with the wings of the sunset spreading to the north.
The photographer *also* had to stop and take a picture of the sun setting over Great Salt Pond.
So it will come as no surprise to anyone that by the time we arrived home at about 7:15, the sun had already set. But it was one of those glorious sunset that keeps up the light show for a while after the sun goes down.
The contrast of colors was remarkable. An arrival to remember.
Next weekend is the weekend we’ve been looking forward to all winter! Yes! We’ll be opening the house on Block Island.
(Well, okay; we are also looking forward to our son’s wedding, but that won’t be till May.)
Will we have a beautiful sunset while we’re there? The weather forecast looks promising. If we do, the sun will be setting between Sachem Pond and the lighthouse, much like this photo from early April, 2008.
Spring is almost here in the Boston area. The sturdy early flowers have appeared, crocus and snowdrops and a bright yellow flower whose name I don’t know; and already there are leaves–perhaps daffodils–pushing up in protected spots. The waterfall in our back yard is running again, and I am listening to it through an open window.
In less than three weeks we will be back on the island. The sunsets will look similar to the one below as the sun works its way northward to the lighthouse.
Can’t wait!
The first time my friend Charlie came out to Block Island with us, we drove together out to the house. As we came down the final hill approaching Sachem Pond, Charlie leaned forward, squinted maybe a little, and stared intently at the view. “Look at that!” he said.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” we replied. We were feeling warm inside, the way a person does who is coming home after a long absence, and we were enjoying the view ourselves.
But Charlie said, “Yes, it is pretty, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. I was wondering why the water in the pond is so much higher than the water in the ocean. You’d think, with the two of them so close, it would equalize.”
Have I mentioned yet that Charlie has a background in engineering, and he’s very good at it?
In all the years we’ve been coming to the island, we never noticed a difference in the water level. But Charlie was right. You can see it in this picture. Kind of. If you squint and stare intently at it.
