“Spreading your wings in a perplexing world”
December, 2016 James Hurd
Contents
- New blog article: The Game My Mother Taught Me
- Writer’s Corner
- Book and Film reviews
- E-zine subscription information
- How to purchase Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying
- Quotable quotes
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New blog article: “The Game My Mother Taught Me”
“Mom, I’m bored. What can I do?”
The clock nibbles away at the afternoon. It’s Sunday and I’m a fidgety ten-year-old sitting on our living room couch. We Fundamentalists embrace a strict set of biblical doctrines, and a list of forbidden “worldly” practices—practices especially prohibited on Sundays. I can’t go to the movies or read the newspaper. Can’t ride my bike out of the neighborhood…. Read more here: https://jimhurd.com/2016/12/05/the-game-my-mother-taught-me/
Writers’ Corner
Writer of the Month: Henri M. Nouwen (1992-1996). Dutch priest. Powerful devotional writing that shows great transparency and vulnerability. Read by millions of Catholics and Protestants alike. Books: The Return of the Prodigal Son, The Wounded Healer, In the Name of Jesus, Genesee Diary).
Words of the Month
Scening: Think motion pictures. A “scene” is a place where an un-interrupted series of actions takes place. Temporarily label each scene in your manuscript and make sure you’re signaling to the reader where she is in the story. This also helps you keep chronology and transitions straight.
Tagging: Temporarily use colored print to reveal the anatomy of your manuscript.
Normal print for narrative, story. Should be over half your piece. It’s what engages the reader.
Green for reflections about the narrative, and descriptions of people, places, etc. Limit this.
Orange for dialogue. Use lots of this.
Grey for “backstory”—explanations of the story; previous happenings—eliminate this, limit this, or feed it to your reader in small bits and pieces.
Answers to quiz for November
- Before I realized it, I had driven much further into the desert. (Use “farther” for distance)
- He noticed a large stain in the rug that was right in the center of the room. (Stain or rug was in the center?)
- The dog aggravated the little puppy. (Irritated. “Aggravate” means to make worse)
- He had shone how not to fly the airplane. (Shown. “Shone” is past tense of “shine”)
New Quiz for December. Correct these sentences:
- You should vote, irregardless of your political preferences.
- Today they have less workers than formerly.
- Caribou smells good like a coffee shop should.
Writer’s tip of the Month: Use descriptions (of places, people, things, weather) but limit them to a few essential details, and tell your reader only what they need to know.
Book and Film Reviews
Foreign Correspondent. 1940. An early Alfred Hitchcock film. American triumphalism. (three stars)
This Changed Everything. 2016. A video documentary on the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation (2017). Excellent, three-program set, narrated by David Suchet.
(five stars)
George Herbert (1593-1633), The Complete English Poems. Penguin Press: 2004. Great, insightful clergyman with a magic pen. (four stars)
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Buy James Hurd’s Wingspread: A Memoir of Faith and Flying. How childhood (Fundamentalist) faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America—and Barbara. Buy it here: https://jimhurd.com/home/ (or at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.)
See pics here related to Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying: http://www.pinterest.com/hurd1149/wingspread-of-faith-and-flying/
Quotable quotes
♠ Both optimists and pessimists contribute to aviation. The optimist invents the airplane; the pessimist, the parachute.
♠ Aviation training: Death is just nature’s way of telling you to watch your airspeed.
♠ Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!
♠ England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
♠ They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a typo.
♠ I changed my iPod’s name to Titanic. It’s syncing now.
♠ I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.
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