Spreading your wings in a complex world

Contents
1. E-zine subscription information
2. How to purchase Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying
3. Newest blog article: In Search of Pocahontas
4. Writer’s Corner
5. Favorite quotes

Subscribe to this E-zine   Click here http://jimhurd.com to subscribe to Wingspread  E-magazine (free), sent direct to your email inbox, about twice a month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

Buy Wingspread: A Memoir of Faith and Flying  Stories about how childhood (Fundamentalist) faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America. Buy it here:  jimhurd.com (or at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, etc.)
See pics related to Wingspread: http://www.pinterest.com/hurd1149/wingspread-of-faith-and-flying/

New blog article: In Search of Pocahontas

We just saw the church where Pocahontas got married . . . We see the excavated rectangle that dominates the site—the original church, discovered only a month ago . . .

Read more here:  http://wp.me/p5hvfJ-6k

(*Request: Please leave a comment on the website after reading this article. Thanks.)

Writer’s Corner

Writer’s Word of the Week:  one-inch picture window. Find the centerpiece of the most powerful anecdote, event, person, place, and tell your whole story through the lens of that single one-inch picture window.

Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Do you wish to get more serious about your writing, meet other writers, and learn from some of the best? Meet me at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Workshops are a single weekend, or up to two weeks. Check it out at: http://www.iowasummerwritingfestival.org/

Favorite quotes:

♫   When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.”
― Leo Tolstoy

♫  Thank you for sending me a copy of your book—I’ll waste no time reading it.
—Moses Hadas

♫  If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil
deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and
destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of
every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
—Solzhenitsyn

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If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread E-zine, send a note to hurd@usfamily.net and say in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not Your peace at my tears! For I am Your passing guest, a temporary resident, as all my fathers were.        —Psalm 39:12 AMP

We just saw the church where Pocahontas got married.

It’s August, 2010, and Barbara has agreed to go with me to explore the “historic triangle”—Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown. Today, feeling the breeze blowing in from the James River, we shun the reconstructed “Jamestown” and pilgrimage straight to the original island site, keen to learn how the great American experiment started. At first we see nothing but a statue of Captain John Smith and a few reconstructed fenceposts. Barbara and I walk over the rough ground toward the excavations and wonder about the tales told by broken pottery and bone fragments. The whole disappeared community is now hidden in the entrails of the earth.

We go inside a derelict tower and gaze up at the crumbling brick that seems to gaze back at us—miraculously, the tower refuses to topple.

Bill, the archaeologist, walks up carrying a clipboard and wearing a floppy hat that shades a few days’ beard growth. (Think Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark.) He tells us, “You’re standing in the tower of the third church of the colony, built about 1670.”

He walks us over to a long-abandoned well. “What did you find here?” I ask him.

“They found a signet ring, clay pipe stems, a pistol, a full suit of armor, and what we consider the most important find of all—a child’s school slate with pictures and writings.” I marvel at how a long-disappeared community can come to life through archaeology.

In 1607, England’s Virginia Company hurled her wandering children upon this very beach to manure New World soil. What a tale this island tells! Bill says, “People assumed the original fort had long ago washed into the James River, but in 1994, Dr. Kelso found 90 percent of the original fence postholes.” We rub our hands over the new locust posts planted in the old holes that mark off the triangular fort.

I remember learning in junior high school that Jamestowne was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Reverend Hunt and John Smith shepherded a hundred or so males that came over that spring, who soon began cultivating tobacco and peanuts for the palates of England. A few years later, the sponsoring Virginia Company imported ninety wives for the men. Assuming that seventeenth-century women were just as interesting as today’s, they probably had little trouble finding husbands. But today we learn that Jamestowne colony almost died stillborn.

In the first two months, Reverend Hunt, bereft of outside aid and hobbled by inadequate food and tainted water, buried two-thirds of these men—inside the fort so the Indians would not notice that they were falling like flies. We see small steel crosses marking thirty-four of these graves, all unexcavated. They buried only the landed gentlemen in coffins—the others lay in shrouds, or just in their clothes. We read the plaque at the base of a memorial cross: “To the glory of God and in grateful memory of those early settlers . . . who died at Jamestown during the first perilous years of the colony.” The plaque doesn’t mention the many Indian deaths. I mourn the adventurers who risked all they had, and died premature deaths. And I mourn the Indian deaths.

We see the excavated rectangle that dominates the site—the original church, discovered only a month ago! We watch the student volunteers from the University of Virginia filtering each shovelful of dirt through a sieve, searching for tiny beads, bone fragments, or seashells. Bill says, “Most of what we know about Jamestown was discovered in the last fifteen years. The yellow flags over there mark the postholes of the church. John Rolfe married Pocahontas here.”

I see several little yellow flags, and I ask Bill, “What are those dark outlines over there in the chancel area?”

“Those are unexcavated graves. Reverend Hunt, the first minister, is probably buried there.”

Along with the settlers, the good ship Godspeed carried other cargo—human greed and raw ambition. Soon the colonists were not only dying but also shooting the Indians and each other. A museum stands on pylons above fifty other gravesites in an ancient burial ground. In the museum we stare at the skeleton of a young English boy with a musket ball embedded in his right knee. We wander around the grounds, looking at the ruined remains of the old plantation buildings. We inspect the foundations of the burned buildings where Nathaniel Bacon (of the botched “Bacon’s Rebellion”) brought a jackbooted gang in and burned the town to the ground. In 1699, the capital of the new Virginia colony moved to Williamsburg, and Jamestown declined.

These first settlers established their beachhead here, holding on for dear life. They weren’t seeking “freedom” so much as wealth and commerce. But many found only broken dreams, frustrated hopes, and shortened lives. As we leave the island, I wonder what new things we will learn about Jamestown in the next fifteen years. We mull over these artifacts, these graves. I gain an insight—almost everybody who is born, dies. I guess I had always assumed that in my case there might possibly be an exception. I find here a story of fecund hopes, most of which were dashed by sadness and loss.

Barbara asks me, “Well, what do you think?

I reply, “Jamestown tells me that most of my endeavors are futile, and that I must pursue things that are not transient, but transcendent.”

“Spreading your wings” in a complex world.

Contents

1. E-zine subscription information
2. How to purchase Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying
3. Newest blog article: “Praying in a ruined cathedral”
4. Writer’s Corner
5. Favorite quotes

 Subscribe to this E-zine   Click here http://jimhurd.com to subscribe to Wingspread  E-magazine (free), sent direct to your email inbox, about twice a month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

 Buy Wingspread: A Memoir of Faith and Flying How childhood (Fundamentalist) faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America. Buy it here:  jimhurd.com (or at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, etc.)  See pics related to Wingspread: http://www.pinterest.com/hurd1149/wingspread-of-faith-and-flying/

New blog article: Praying in a ruined cathedral  

We pilgrim along the forested path. I smell the peonies and primroses that border the trail. Crosses populate a little cemetery on one side of the path, their planted stones listing but not toppling, marking the graves of the holy ones. I finger the rough limestone, trying to trace the faded names.

Up ahead, a ruined cathedral emerges through the trees—a huge, wounded hulk. We walk across a clearing and into the roofless nave, now open to the sky, where the warm wind disorganizes my hair….

Read more here:  https://wordpress.com/post/78053395/361

(*Request: Please leave a comment on the website after reading this article. Thanks.)

Writer’s Corner

Wondering how to solve layout problems for your article or book? Read my “On Writing: Layout” at:  https://wordpress.com/post/78053395/354

 Writer’s Word of the Week:  Pseudonym

Definition: A substitute-name for a person or place

Think very carefully about who may object, or who may be damaged, by what you write. How can you avoid criticism, or betrayal of others, especially friends or members of your own family? You can use pseudonyms for people or places. Keep a separate ID list so you can keep track of who’s who.

However, sometimes even pseudonyms are not enough—think Sinclair Lewis’ novel Main Street, where the good people of Sauk Centre were outraged at what he wrote about their town. You may need to mask places or events so as to protect identities. You may need to ask people’ permission. Or some things you may need to omit.

Writer’s workshop! Do you wish to get more serious about your writing, meet other writers, and learn from some of the best? Meet me at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Workshops from weekends to week-long. Check out their website at: http://www.iowasummerwritingfestival.org/

Favorite quotes:

♫   A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of ideas.            John Ciardi

♫  God gave you two ends: One to sit on and one to think with. Success depends upon which one you use most —

Heads you win
Tails you lose!
Anonymous

♫  I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but now I see I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin

♫  A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.               Frank Lloyd Wright

♫  You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.      Yogi Berra

♫  To pray only when we feel like it is more to seek consolation than to risk conversion.
Joan Chittister

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Follow “james hurd” on Facebook, or “@hurdjp” on Twitter

If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread E-zine, send a note to hurd@usfamily.net and say in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.

We pilgrim along the forested path. I smell the peonies and primroses that border the trail. Crosses populate a little cemetery on one side of the path, their planted stones listing but not toppling, mark the graves of the holy ones. I finger the rough limestone, trying to trace the faded names.

Up ahead, a ruined cathedral emerges through the trees—a huge, wounded hulk. We walk across a clearing and into the roofless nave, now open to the sky, where a brisk wind disorganizes my hair. I look above the bare columns, up to where the flying buttresses still support the clerestory walls, and see the sun pouring through their pane-less, sightless windows. Below, the fragrance of mown grass fills all the space where stood the pews. In the apse, birds walk and peck among the weeds that grow atop the abandoned altar. All else is silent.

Long ago, workmen sweat blood building these piles—impelled by hunger, or the need to gain church absolution through penance-work. Later, ignorant armies spilled blood grappling in the night, and then the winners torched these towers, burnt the roof, and besmirched the stones.

Time floods over this place, but, like battered antique furniture, it stands timeless, and still testifies to the ancient faith, the ancient ways. People worshiped and died here, and now lie in the nearby plot awaiting resurrection. How many Christmases and Easters were celebrated here? How many hymns sung? How many prayers lifted, sins confessed, and Eucharists chanted? We kneel and pray on the hallowed grass.

Today, heedless grass-muffled feet tread here. Careless hands caress the ruined columns, unmindful of those who built these halls, tilled this garden, dug these graves. I see a father with two children running beside him.

“What mean these stones?” they ask.

The father replies, “They remind us that Godly men performed great deeds here—deeds that still touch us today.”

This place demands nothing of me, calls me to no task, and only asks that I stop here, and reflect. The stones whisper, “Traveler—go slowly here. Reflect on these crumbling walls, walk the grass-grounded halls while you consider your short, anxious life. Is it not as a vapor? Who will care? Who will remember you? Live well, for one day you too will be missing from the earth.”

So many places we tread and heed not the dead beneath our feet—their labors and longings, aspirations and desperations, losses and lamentations. God has given us these places, spaces which time cannot erase. Dare I fail to pause and ponder the power of the past? I am found here on holy ground, wondering at the mystery, straining to see the disappeared faces. I feel as if I am a fragile, transient thing, who today haunts these eternal halls. As I stop to pray and worship, I can feel all the past leaning into my present.

Reluctantly, we chastened pilgrims turn to continue our journey. It is good to have been here.

“Spreading your wings” in a complex world

Contents

1. E-zine subscription info. Insure you’ll always receive Wingspread E-zine.
2. How to buy Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying
3. Newest blog article: On Writing: Layout
4. Writer’s Corner
5. Favorite quotes and books

 Subscribe to this E-zine   Click here http://jimhurd.com to subscribe to Wingspread  E-magazine (free), sent direct to your email inbox, about once a month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

Buy Wingspread: A Memoir of Faith and Flying  How childhood faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America. Buy it here:  jimhurd.com (or at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, etc.)  See pics related to Wingspread: http://www.pinterest.com/hurd1149/wingspread-of-faith-and-flying/

New blog article: On Writing: Layout

Even if you’re a great writer, there’s no virtue in ugly. After you’re sure your editing is done, you must think about layout (e.g., formatting). Layout has to do with type font and style, paragraphing, chapter headings and subheadings, running heads, paging and page numbering, justification, line spacing (the technical name is leading) and a bunch of other stuff. You’re thinking about aesthetics, clarity, and (a big one) consistency. Think about layout—your readers will thank you, and they will be more likely to read your stuff.….  Read more here:  http://wp.me/p5hvfJ-5I

(*Request: Please leave a comment on the website after reading this article. Thanks.)

Writer’s Corner
Wondering how to revise your work? Read my “How to revise your writing” at:  http://wp.me/p5hvfJ-42 .

Writer’s Word of the Week:  “tight writing”
Definition: Writing frugally, economically. Not one superfluous word. Fewer words makes every word more powerful.

Liven up your writing by tightening. Change a phrase into a single adjective:

Instead of “on a mat,” use “matted.” Instead of “who had fled” use “fled,” etc.

Here are some terse phrases from Leif Enger, Peace Like a River. Aren’t they wonderful?

the path beat backward under her feet.          [personifying the path]

weak light leaking through the clouds.           [metaphor]

a fled serviceman left her pregnant.               [adjectivizing a verb]

their eyes dustbowl-flat.                                    [metaphor]

suspendered baggies [referring to pants]      [adjectivizing a noun]

frostbit sunrise                                                    [metaphor that chills your bones]

cameled out of Egypt (referring to a mode of travel) [verbalizing a noun]

the hard, useless sun.                                      [personification]

the woman, Frenchbraided and scarf unslung…         [adjectivizing a noun]

a guestless [marriage] ceremony.                    [adjectivizing a noun]

Favorite new quotes:

♫   A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.
Leo Tolstoy

♫   I loathe dogs. They are kept by those who haven’t the courage to bite people themselves.
August Strindberg

♫   If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

♫   When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.
Leo Tolstoy

♫   Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

♫  WORK like you don’t need money,
LOVE like you’ve never been hurt,
DANCE like no one’s watching.
Anonymous

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Follow “james hurd” on Facebook, or “@hurdjp” on Twitter

If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread E-zine, send a note to hurd@usfamily.net and say in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.

This is fourth in a five-part series: 1. Starting your memoir-stories, 2. Revising, 3. Editing, 4. Layout, 5. Getting your story out to others. All these articles will (eventually) appear on the Wingspread website: jimhurd.com   Message me, or post comments on this, or any other writing, on Wingspread at http://jimhurd.com. Thanks! Subscribe free to the monthly Wingspread E-zine at http://wp.me/P5hvfJ-35, and receive a gift article. Wingspread: Memoirs of Faith and Flying. Review this book, or buy it at:   http://booklocker.com/books/7785.html, or through Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. Please recommend to interested friends.

*                      *                      *

Even if you’re a great writer, there’s no virtue in ugly. After you’re sure your editing is done, you must think about layout (e.g., formatting). Layout has to do with type font and style, paragraphing, chapter headings and subheadings, running heads, paging and page numbering, justification, line spacing (the technical name is leading) and a bunch of other stuff. You’re thinking about aesthetics, clarity, and (a big one) consistency. Think about layout—your readers will thank you, and they will be more likely to read your stuff.

Who should do your layout? Browse articles in magazines to get ideas for layout. Even though a layout person could charge $1-2,000 for a book, you can probably find cheaper. Sometimes your publisher will do some layout. (Mine did for my book Wingspread, but I spent 40 more hours making my own improvements and modifications.) And with study, patience, and practice, you can even do layout yourself. Check other books to see how they do it.

Think about type font. A default could be Times New Roman 12 point. However, you may wish to look at other font types and sizes. Larger font sizes are easier to read, but require more printed pages. In the Word program, you can do drop-caps for the first word of each new chapter. (This is a large, stylistic letter.) It’s quite impressive. However, watch out for “letter collisions.” Each chapter should start on an odd-numbered page. Titles should usually be bolded, center-justified, and a bit larger type font than the text. If you want to go crazy, insert a symbol, glyph, or little drawing above each chapter title. Be consistent with your spacing of all these. All subheadings should be the same format (type font, spacing, indenting). A running head refers to the words in the header portion of each page. Usually the running head is a shortened title of the book, or the title of the current chapter, and sometimes your last name. Page numbering should be here, or centered at the bottom of the page.

Justification refers to left and right margins of the text. Most books use full justification, meaning the text is even on the left and right margins. However, watch out—this may create large spaces between words. Usually, no extra lines are inserted between paragraphs. You probably wish to indent the first line of each paragraph, but the first line of text following a title or subtitle should not be indented. In a long quote, the whole quote should be indented. You can get away with a lot if you are consistent throughout your piece. Be sure to be consistent with: formatting, spelling, hyphenated words, italics (e.g., foreign words), or diacritical marks (e.g., façade).

For a book-length piece, create a style sheet to assure consistency. Front and back material. Organize your front materials: title page, copyright page, table of contents, acknowledgements, and preface. Then, organize your back materials:  glossary, endnotes, appendices, index, etc.

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Many casual readers do not notice layout, or they take it for granted. But writing with an appealing layout attracts and pleases the reader, and makes your writing more professional. Your readers will thank you for it.

An E-magazine dedicated to “spreading wings” in a complex world

CONTENTS

1. E-zine subscription info. Insure you’ll always receive Wingspread E-zine.
2. How to buy Wingspread: Of Faith and Flying
3. Newest blog article: Editing: the spit and polish of a good writer
4. Writer’s Corner
5. Favorite quotes and books

SUBSCRIBE. Click here jimhurd.com  to subscribe to Wingspread  E-magazine (free), sent direct to your email inbox, about twice a month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

BUY WINGSPREAD: A book about how childhood faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America. Buy it here:  jimhurd.com (or at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.)

See pics related to Wingspread at:
http://www.pinterest.com/hurd1149/wingspread-of-faith-and-flying/

NEW BLOG ARTICLE 

On Writing. Editing—the spit and polish of a good writer

So you’ve written your article and even revised it. You’re done, right? Well, not exactly. Now’s the time to carefully edit your piece.

Are you a lousy writer? Get an outside reader. Are you a great writer? Get an outside reader! You can never see your own writing as clearly as another pair of eyes. Friends are usually too kind—they love you and wish to encourage, not critique….  Read more here:  http://wp.me/p5hvfJ-5h

(*Request: Please leave a comment on the website after reading this article. Thanks.)

WRITER’S CORNER

Wondering how to clean up your writing? Read my “How to revise an article” at:  http://wp.me/p5hvfJ-42

Liven up your writing by cutting out “dead” verbs (e.g., is, was, been). Here are examples of some spritely verbs:

mouseholed (chose to not engage the problem)

ape (imitate)

bellow

blazes out (stands out sharply)

botch

bristle (react angrily)

broker (negotiate, mediate for another, e.g., broker a settlement)

browse (casually search)

cash out (dispose of a long-held asset, e.g., “cash out” of the marriage)

cauterize (cover over, paper over, gloss over, a matter)

cloy (sicken with excess sweetness, romance)

conjure (create out of nothing)

crimsoning (bloodying; using –ing to change noun to a verb)

cull (sort)

discomfit (make nervous, unsettle)

disembowel (evicerate, destroy)

elbow (push aside)

entomb (bury, obscure permanently)

envenom (poison, destroy, corrupt)

eschew (avoid)

exhume (dredge up)

evicerate

evoke (conjure up, draw out)

exorcise

flag (tire)

forestall (prevent)

hobble (handicap or hinder)

hurl (throw hard and far)

hurtle (move at a high speed)

inoculate (make impervious to)

invoke (ask for help; quote an authority)

jostle (trouble, irritate)

launch

leapfrog (surpass)

lurch (move irregularly, violently)

wither

Writer’s Word of the Week:  “sprawl”

Definition: Sprawl is a nasty thing. It means using too many subordinate clauses in a sentence before getting to the subject. E.g., “Because he was tall, and he liked to play basketball, although he played it poorly, Jerry neglected his studies.” (15 words before you get to the subject, Jerry!)

GOOD BOOKS ON WRITING:

Writer’s Digest

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

Joseph Williams, Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace

NEW FAVORITE QUOTES:

♫   Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
Groucho Marx

♫   He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

 ♫   I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

♫   The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

♫   There is a country is Europe where multiple-choice tests are illegal.
Sigfried Hulzer

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Follow “james hurd” on Facebook, or “@hurdjp” on Twitter

If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread E-zine, send a note to hurd@usfamily.net and say in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.

James Hurd, January, 2015 This is the third in a five-part series: 1. Starting your memoir or story, 2. Revising, 3. Editing, 4. Layout, 5. Getting your story out to others. All these articles will (eventually) appear on the Wingspread website: jimhurd.com   Message me, or post comments on this, or any other writing, on Wingspread at http://jimhurd.com. Thanks! Subscribe free to the biweekly Wingspread E-zine at http://wp.me/P5hvfJ-35, and receive a gift article.

Wingspread: Memoirs of Faith and Flying. Review this book, or buy it at:   http://booklocker.com/books/7785.html, or through Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. Please recommend to interested friends. *    *    * So you’ve written your article and even revised it. You’re done, right? Well, not exactly. Now’s the time to carefully edit your piece. Are you a lousy editor? Get an outside reader. Are you a great editor? Get an outside reader! You can never see your own writing as clearly as another pair of eyes. Friends are usually too kind—they love you and wish to encourage, not critique. A professional editor will be more critical—they charge upwards of $15 per hour, but they’re worth it. Or you can go the middle route with an unprofessional editor, for instance college English majors ($10 per hour). And sometimes, writer-friends will edit your stuff for the price of a medium vanilla latte.

Types of editing Editing comes in all different shapes and sizes:

1. Content—what to include/not include, structure, arrangement of parts
2. Voice, tone and writing style—is it too formal or informal (e.g., use of contractions, everyday language, etc.)
3. Logic—does it make sense?
4. Formatting—subheadings, paragraphing, spacing, margins, underlining, italics
5. Spelling, punctuation, and grammar

Tell your outside reader what you’re most concerned about and ask them to look for it.  

Sentences and paragraphs Aim to shorten your piece by 10-20%. The fewer the words, the more weight each carries. Vary the length of the sentences. Start the sentence with simpler, more familiar stuff, and end with the new, more significant stuff. Weaker: “John felt completely lost when he entered his first year of college” Stronger: “When he entered his first year of college, John felt completely lost.” A well-structured paragraph should start with a topic sentence, and end with a brief summary sentence. If the piece is intended for a popular audience, don’t run on with long paragraphs; break them up a bit, and provide a transition between paragraphs such as “In other words,” “In contrast,” or “Afterwards,” so the reader can easily follow you.  

Logic Never leave your reader wandering in the weeds (unless you’re William Faulkner, who could get away with murder). Orient your reader to the person, time, and place where each event happens. Never leave the reader asking, “Huh?” We know the logic behind our words (unless we’re fuzzy thinkers), but make sure your reader sees the logic also.

Punctuation In dialogue, each speaker gets a new paragraph, e.g., John said, “Where’s Mary?” Sally replied, “In the bedroom.” “OK.” With few exceptions, all punctuation goes inside the quote marks:     Wrong: Bill replied, “I don’t think so”!     Correct: Bill replied, “I don’t think so!” You may use three kinds of dashes:     hyphen (e.g., sit-ups)     en dash (e.g., 1985–6)     em dash (e.g., Semicolons are so 20^th century—-I tend to substitute an “em” dash.)  

Commas Ah, the pesky comma… so small, yet it causes so much trouble. You should use a comma at a pause, except when you shouldn’t, and sometimes when you don’t pause. See what I mean? Use a comma:

• between items in a series (…John, Jack, and Bill)
• after an introductory phrase (In the first place, …)
• before a conjunction that connects two independent clauses (He played the game well, but his injuries always hindered him.)
• some other places

Modern writers tend to use fewer commas than earlier, more formal writers do. In popular writing, I try to avoid commas unless they’re necessary for understanding. Use the rule: If a careful reader would not notice a missing comma, leave it out!  

Consistency Consistency impresses. Always spell the same word the same. A reader will forgive a unique usage, but they won’t forgive you for changing usages throughout the piece. Be consistent about how you format subheadings, how and when you use italics, and how you spell and accent foreign words. Keep track of your usages in a style sheet so you’ll be consistent throughout. Write out numbers less than 10, and numbers beginning a sentence. E.g., “Twelve people attended the event, nine of whom were already members, but 15 more joined the organization.” Don’t play fast and loose with tenses, especially within one single chapter or article—be consistent. Don’t jump between present and past tense.

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So, go through your piece several times. Have a friend read it. Then have a hard-hearted editor scrutinize it. You’ll be happy you did!

An E-magazine dedicated to writing about spreading wings in a complex world

Contents

1. E-zine subscription info.–Insure you’ll always receive Wingspread.
2. Fun at the Dunn Bros. Wingspread reading event
3. Newest article: Part II: Heating Bellefonte House
4. Writer’s Corner
5. Favorite quotes and books

Subscribe  Click here http://jimhurd.com to subscribe to Wingspread  E-magazine (free), sent direct to your email inbox, about twice a month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

Wingspread is a memoir about how childhood faith led to mission bush-piloting in South America. Buy it here:  jimhurd.com (or at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, etc.)  See pics related to Wingspread: http://www.pinterest.com/hurd1149/wingspread-of-faith-and-flying/

Signing event: We had a fun time on Wednesday at our Dunn Bros. book-signing event. I read a few excerpts, sold a few books, and we talked about the joy of writing. Wish you could have been there!

New article:  Heating Bellefonte House
We moved into Bellefonte House in the humid heat of August. But we knew that cold winter was coming. The house had radiators whose pipes went nowhere—the furnace was missing. The wooden coal bin in the basement was empty. How would we keep warm in winter? …
Read more here:  https://jimhurd.com/2015/02/28/heating-bellefonte-house/   (*Request: Please leave a comment on the website after reading this article. Thanks.)

 Writer’s Corner:  

Some ideas to help you edit your own stories:

• Be consistent. When you spell a word, when you use italics, and when you hyphenate.
• In dialogue, each new speaker gets a new paragraph.
• Cut out every word that does not do any work.
• Make your formatting consistent: paragraphing, line spacing, use of subheadings, font, ellipses.
• Be consistent with comma use (in series, after clauses, etc.)
• You may wish to put your own thoughts in italics (“I looked at him and wondered, Does he know how silly he looks?”)
• Write out numbers less than 10 (“three”)

Here are some “dead” words. Cut these out: 

a bit
a lot
arguably
in a sense
the fact is
as a matter of fact
in reality
in order to
interesting
irregardless
just
like
one of the most
pretty much
really
kind of
sort of
things
the thing is
very

Wondering how to clean up your writing? Read my “How to revise an article” at:  https://jimhurd.com/category/writing/

Writer’s Word of the week:  epigram
A pithy saying or quote. A short poem with a surprising twist. Use an epigram at the beginning of your piece to surprise or provoke. (Example: “When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.” Mae West)

Favorite quotes:

♠   Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from two, it’s research. Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)

♠   Writing is easy; you just stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood appear on your forehead.

♠   Rewriting is like rubbing a dusty window with a cloth. The more you rub the clearer the vision on the other side becomes.   Donald M. Murray

♠  Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.   T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Good books on writing:

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Joseph Williams, Style: The basics of clarity and grace
Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir

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