NanoWriMo?
Published October 27th, 2010 | 
I’m debating whether or not I want to participate in NanoWriMo this year. As much as I’d like to churn out another bad novel this year, I really don’t have the time. But I’ve been getting so many emails about it the past couple of weeks that it’s been on my minds. Novels. Novels like spun gold or diamond stud earrings or at least a greasy meal. There’s certainly an appeal to writing 50000 words in 30 days. So, I don’t know. Last year, I made my 50000+ words by essentially dropping everything else. I guess I’ll puzzle it over during the weekend and see if there’s a schedule that’s workable.
Jane Austen Would Probably Laugh About This
Published October 26th, 2010 | I’m going to let you guys in on . . . well, I’m not sure that it’s a secret, but a tidbit that some would not believe about me: I read Jane Austen. Yes, it’s true. I adore Jane Austen. So it is with a measure of both fascination and silent horror that I read this headline in The Telegraph: "Jane Austen’s famous prose may not be hers after all".
To even suggest that Jane Austen didn’t write her books is something close to sacrilege in the literary world. Of course, when I actually read the article, it wasn’t nearly all that. Leave it to mainstream journalism to sensationalize the smallest things to attract readers. No, the “controversy” here, is spawned by an academic who studied some early drafts of Austen’s novel and came to the conclusion that — gasp — Jane Austen must’ve had an editor. See, in Austen’s early drafts she misspelled some words, used unorthodox grammar and didn’t always break passages into paragraphs.
A few things about this:
1) I’ve always imagined that Austen wrote her stories in something of a fever. So, it really doesn’t surprise me that she initially laid her story down without regard for convention.
2) Name one writer who can spell. Even I’m not the ace speller I was back in the fifth grade.
3) Jane Austen is Jane Austen not for her ability to break things up into paragraphs, but for her memorable characters and for her insights into the social mores of her time.
4) Does Professor Katherine Sutherland really imagine that novels are published without being edited? I know in this day and age it must be hard to imagine but come on!
Maybe I Should’ve Read Bleak House
Published October 6th, 2010 | I was summoned for jury duty this week. I’ve been fairly lucky in the past. My first stab at jury duty, I was dismissed by the judge on that occasion. The second and third time my boss got me out of it. The fourth and fifth time, my oncologist wrote a letter. This time, I had no out. And, yes, I know it’s my civic duty and we should all be grateful to live in a country where we get duty process and a jury of our peers, but it is a pain in the ass. For you young readers who haven’t yet had the privilege, Jury Duty goes something like this:
You get a summons in the mail with a short form you have to fill out an return by a certain date. You are given a date to report — usually within 30 days after receiving the summons. In my case, there’s a website you can check the Friday before you report that has reporting instructions.
I get to the courthouse a little early because of the parking situation (courthouse parking at my local courthouse is a tiny lot behind an old abandoned schoolhouse a block from the court building). I couldn’t find a good spot, so I ended up parallel parking between these two other cars near the entrance. Because it took so long to park, I was 10 minutes late. The jury management team must be used to this due to the parking. I signed-in, took my Dickens novel and sat in the lone empty seat in the back of the room.
Imagine a hundred people sitting in a room all talking at once (it reminded me of high school in the cafeteria). Two old men the next aisle over chatting about their golf game and the life insurance quote one of them received. The hot young Latina woman two rows in front of me talking to her boyfriend on the cell. A young guy talking to a buddy on his cell about how he rather be home in bed. People getting up to grab a coffee. Lots of milling about. And I’m sitting there in the most uncomfortable chair I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting in, trying to read Martin Chuzzlewit, the only Dickens novel I’ve never actually read before. Trust me when I say that Martin Chuzzlewit is not the kind of novel one should bring to jury duty. The only way I could’ve made a worse choice is if I’d brought along War and Peace. Nonetheless, after several hours with nothing else to do, I managed to get through almost the whole book.
After about an hour and a half, one of the women in charge of the potential jurors, called the names of the first 53 persons on the list (which included yours truly) and told us to line up for a trip upstairs. So all 53 of us trudge down the hallway in two lines and march up the stairs and stop in front of a courtroom. We stand there for about a minute and we are told to march back down to the jury management room (the defendant had apparently taken a plea deal). Another woman lines up the second group of jurors and marches them up to the same courtroom for another case.
The first woman then tells us that we probably won’t be needed and will most likely be dismissed at lunch. The young guy who’d been complaining on his cell and who was a part of my group seemed happy. Of course, lunch break rolled around, and this proved inaccurate. Apparently, they’d gone through several members of the second group and hadn’t yet seated a jury, so the judge ordered us to return after lunch "just in case".
So, I went home for lunch, grabbed a quick bite, splashed water on my face, slapped on a fresh coat of deodorant and headed back. Went through security again and marched upstairs to the jury management room and returned to read my book.
Another half hour went by and they called roll again. The second group went back upstairs. After two hours, we were told that there were six people left. About every fifteen minutes or so, another person from the group returned until there was only one left upstairs beside those selected for the jury. We were told we’d be going up if this last person wasn’t seated on the jury.
It was getting close to four when we were told two pieces of good news: the jury had been seated and we wouldn’t be needed for the remainder of the week. We were dismissed and turned in our badges. So I dodged a bullet there, but this morning I’ve got a crick in my neck from sitting there reading in that infernal chair. Ah, democracy at work . . .
