Autumn is most definitely here

[erastes]

We haven’t had a glimmer of sun for three days now, the sky is that colour you only seem to get in England, unremitting grey, and it’s chilly and damp. Apples are bursting out all over, ditto blackberries. I must stop off on the drive in tomorrow and pick up some wayside fruit. The worst thing about this kind of weather is waking up, when it feels like six am, but then it turns out to be eight. Yuk. Is this year i finally buy myself a light box? Possibly.

I Knew Him is moving, but it’s more a case of stop motion animation than a smooth 1000 words a day. However, if I CAN manage 1500 words today, which I might be able to, I’ll hit the 30k mark, which sounds a lot better than 28,500. I still have no idea how long it will be, but I’m hoping around 70k. ETA: DONE! Hurrah!

I wish I could blog properly about writing. I’m so in awe of these writers who blog two or three times a week about writing subjects but I feel that I simply don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve mentioned before that—and I’m not the only one on my UK flist who has the same problem—that I went to a Grammar School. This sounds impressive (and literally it only means that I passed a certain level of excellence to get into a “better school” at the age of 11) until you learn the irony that I wasn’t taught any Grammar after the age of 12. Consequently, I am completely incapable of blogging about sentence structure, grammatical tips, the types of verbs, tenses etc etc.  I feel at times like a caveman who looks at the pile of rocks he’s put up and grunts “Ug think it good.” And then being entirely incapable of explaining to Ig when he lumbers along how I built my pile of rocks.

I have found the key to the conservatory that Dad hid away. He’d taken the keyring off (the one that said “DO NOT REMOVE”) and had squirreled the key away loose at the back of a drawer. I still haven’t found the two spare keys of MINE that I had left here for “safety” in case I ever lost my bunch of keys—and I haven’t found the two backdoor keys that went missing a month ago, or his new wallet…Somewhere in this house there is a hidey hole that I don’t know about and he doesn’t remember—and believe me, I’ve looked everywhere (although obviously not everywhere or I would have found stuff)  I have copies of all keys now, and keep them in a safe place that only I know about. NOT in Dad’s house though! He has a talent for finding things that don’t need to be found and losing things that don’t need to be lost. Then forgetting about all of it! Argh!

Castle is back. Why didn’t someone TELL ME?

Comments

pick up some wayside fruit

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

Ah, the good old days! I used to stop rather frequently to pick up wayside fruit. Tall, good looking, nicely muscled wayside fruit.

But seeeeeeeriously, folks. I LOVE stopping at roadside stands and buying bags of apples and such. I've convinced myself that they're better than what the market offers.

May or may not be true, but the experience is enjoyable.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I have that Grammar school drawback too - no idea what I'm doing, it's all on instinct and the result of a massive reading habit.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

This might or might not be feasible for you at this point, but the best way to learn English grammar as a native English speaker is to study a foreign language. I learned squat about grammar in English classes (which I took up through twelfth grade, plus more in college) but I learned a lot of grammar studying Spanish in high school, then at college/university more Spanish, some Latin, and a bit of French. The multiple languages help too; I never quite got the whole subjunctive thing studying Spanish, but in Latin it all made sense, for whatever reason.

Don't ask me to speak any of the foreign languages I've studied, mind you. :) But they were all worth it for the grammar instruction, and just an over-all comprehension of language in general that you don't get when you only know one. And at that, they're all Romance languages, or sort of a Romance stepchild in English's case. I've always wanted to study Arabic or Cantonese or something, just to get into something really different.

Angie

[beckyblack]

I know exactly what you mean about the grammar. I didn't go to a grammar school, but I did go to a school that's still pretty much the highest achieving comprehensive in the city - an all girls Catholic school run by nuns. We didn't dare not work hard! But even there I wasn't taight formal grammar. It was still of the "grammar = fascism" era when "expressing yourself" was the order of the day.

If only they'd given us the tools to do so most effectively...

So, yes, mine's all either absorbed from reading, my ear for what sounds right and some memorised rules of thumb and handy reference books!

[kcwarwick.livejournal.com]

I used to be quite complacent about my grammar, until I started getting published. Almost every editor I've had has pointed out some major grammatical error I've been making for years, and yet I can remember having grammar lessons at school - and I did Latin too!