Category Archives: Writing

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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It is February 14th already.  I thought I would keep things short and sweet (just like me) for my inaugural post at TKZ’s new home by sending out three group valentines with literary connections. Accordingly, in no particular order, Happy Valentine’s Day to:

1) The authors of books for children and young adults, particularly in genre fiction. Yes, I started reading Richard Prather at much too early an age, but I cut my mystery teeth on Helen Fuller Orton (if you read MYSTERY IN THE OLD RED BARN, give me an “Amen!”) and The Hardy Boys. I keep saying this, but only because it’s true: today’s children aren’t going to suddenly start reading as adults if they aren’t reading now. The authors of books aimed at children do yeoman’s work and need to be recognized for same. Herein, a start.

2) Translators.  I am a huge fan of Nordic and Japanese noir and wouldn’t know a girl with a dragon tattoo from a boy in the suitcase without the folks who translate those books which are written in languages other than English into English. Bless you. And let’s not forget the legion of folks who translate the English language novels into hundreds of other languages, so that the talent which we take so much for granted may be shared with the world. At long last I’m beginning to see translators receiving proper credit on title pages and in some cases on covers. It’s late in coming, but they deserve the recognition.

3)  Parents. I’m talking about the ones who read to their children and take them to the library whenever they are asked.  You’re the best.

I could go on, but I’ll stop here. As for you…please consider today’s post to be one of those shoe box Valentine’s Day card boxes and submit your own offering. And Happy Valentine’s Day to you!

 

 

Stormy Seas for Little Free Libraries

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1littlelibI spotted the Little Free Library in our new neighborhood long before I started using it. Now I’m wondering why I waited so long. The first time I opened the door to peruse the book selections, I was pleasantly surprised to see titles by some of my favorite authors, such as Crichton and Clancy. The Little Free Library has also introduced me to books I probably wouldn’t otherwise have read. I’m always eager to see which new reads my neighbors have dropped off.

But not everyone is a fan of the miniature libraries, apparently. According to a recent article in the LA Times, “Little Free Libraries on the wrong side of the law“, the city threatened to remove one LFL after receiving an anonymous letter of complaint. The city of Shreveport, Louisiana is also cracking down on the curbside book exchanges for violating zoning laws. (Although one enlightened city councilman has proposed an exemption specifically for LFLs).

Other than the Crabby Appleton who penned the complaint letter, I think most people would agree that a Little Free Library is a positive addition to any neighborhood. But the LFLs may need a little help from the rest of us. For example, we can use social media to let city officials know that voters won’t think kindly of anyone who harasses, fines, or otherwise threatens the continued existence of the little libraries.

Little Free Libraries are worth saving, don’t you think? Do you have one in your neighborhood, and have you used it?

Yo! Muse!

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O Muses, O high genius, aid me now!
O memory that engraved the things I saw,
Here shall your worth be manifest to all!
— Dante, The Divine Comedy

By PJ Parrish

If you are like me, you take your inspiration wherever — and whenever — you can get it. Writing is not easy. (Warning: tortured metaphor ahead).

Writing is like sailing a Hobie Cat in the ocean in the middle of a squall. I know because I used to sail Hobies during my first marriage, which is probably why it didn’t last. The marriage, not the Hobie. The day is always sunny when you launch your Hobie from the beach and you’re all aglow with hardy-har-har-endorphins. So it is when you sit down and type CHAPTER ONE.

Then the storm hits and there you are, hanging onto a 16-foot piece of fiberglas and vinyl, hoping lightening doesn’t hit the mast and fry your ass. You are out there alone in the storm, out of sight of land, riding the waves and the troughs, hoping you can make it home. You might even throw up. This is usually around CHAPTER TWENTY for me.

End of metaphor.

I often wonder what keeps writers writing. Tyranny of the contract deadline? Blind faith? The idea that if you don’t you might have to do real physical labor for a living, like paint houses? All of those work for me. But sometimes, the only thing that keeps me going is a visit from my muse.

Now, let’s get one thing clear here. I don’t believe in WAITING for a muse to show up. I get really impatient with writers who claim they can’t write until they feel inspired because frankly, 90 percent of this gig is writing DESPITE the fact your brain is as dry as Waffle House toast. (or as soggy, depending on which Waffle House you frequent. The last one I was in was off the Valdosta Ga. I-95 exit in 1976 and the toast was so dry it stands today as my singular metaphor for stagnant creativity).

But I do believe that sometimes — usually when your brain is preoccupied with other stuff — something creeps into the cortex and quietly hands you a gift. And these little gifts are what get you through.

There are nine muses in mythology, who were supposed to be the origin of all artistic inspiration. They were Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polymnia, Terpsichore, Urania and Thalia. (I always thought it was cool that Dobie Gillis’s unobtainable ideal woman was named Thalia — the muse of comedy). The muses ruled over such things as dance, music, history, even astronomy. No muses for crime writers, unless you count Calliope for epic poetry but I think James Lee Burke has her on permanent retainer.

I don’t have just one muse. I’ve figured out I have a couple who specialize in particular parts of my writing. And they never come around when I am at the computer. Never get a whiff of them when I am actually in writing mode itself. They are like cats. They only come around on their own terms.

SweetSmell_081Pyxurz

First, there’s my dialogue muse. I call him J.J. because he sounds like Burt Lancaster’s gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker in “The Sweet Smell of Success.” Always chewing at my ear saying oily things like, “I’d hate to take a bite out of you, you’re a cookie full of arsenic.” J.J. comes to visit me only when I am jogging. Never on the threadmill, mind you, only outdoors. J.J. makes my skin crawl, but man, can this guy write dialogue.

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Then there’s my narrative muse. I call him Cat Man because he slips in on silent paws, sings in a fey whisper and only visits me just as morning has broken. He looks like Cat Stevens, but the old hot young version not the later one. Cat Man comes around about dawn, just as I am waking up as if from death itself. See, my husband’s insomnia means we sleep with blackout drapes, a white-noise machine and the A/C turned so cold the bedroom is like a crypt. So when I wake up, it is with a gauzy gray aureole rimming the drapes, icy air swirling around my nose and a soft swoooshing in my ears. And there is Cat Man, spinning a long segment of sensual exposition that salvages my stagnant plot. I have learned to lay there, very still, until he is done with his song, because if I get up and try to write it down, he vanishes. Praise for the singing, praise for the morning, praise of the springing, fresh from the word.

alice flo 2

And then there is my third muse. She’s my favorite. Her name is Flo because her voice sounds like that waitress who worked in Mel’s Diner on the old “Alice” sitcom. You know, like the door of a rusted Gremlin. Flo is my muse of getting real. Her Greek name is Nike (the goddess of victory) and her slogan is “Just Do It.” Because whenever those other two guys fail me, whenever they don’t show up, Flo is there. She is the muse who knows that the only way I am going to get the book finished is through plain old hard work. Like Nike, Flo has wings. They symbolize the fleeting nature of victory. Or, as Flo often tell me, “Honey, if you don’t get off your ass and just write the damn thing, you’re going to lose your contract and you’ll have to paint houses for a living.”

I’d be lost without her. Who — or what? — keeps you going?

INDIE BOOK CONTESTS 2015

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by Jodie Renner, editor & author    @JodieRennerEd

Book Contests in 2015 for Independent Authors and Publishers

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Have you considered entering your book into a contest? You’re not alone. My list here on The Kill Zone last January of 2014 book contests for independent authors and small publishers has received about 4,500 page views since then, so I know there’s a lot of interest in this topic.

Here’s the list, updated for 2015. If you know of any more good book contests for self-published authors, please let me know in the comments below, with the website, so I can add them.

Also, here’s a great list of free writing contests, mainly for short stories and poetry:

27 Free Writing Contests: Legitimate Competitions with Cash Prizes

If you’re experienced at publishing your own books, skip the next six paragraphs and jump down to the contests. If you’ve just recently decided to go the indie route and publish your next book yourself, read the next few paragraphs to ensure your book is ready for entering in book contests.

As you know, the competition is tough for independently published books, and an amateurishly produced book can sink a new author’s reputation before they’ve gotten started, so be sure to put out a professional product (and it is a product). How do you make your book rise up the ranks, sell well, and garner great reviews?

First, be sure to search out professionals to edit and proofread the manuscript, design the cover design, and format it properly. For an excellent, extensive list of professional resources for book design, editing, formatting, and more, check out Elizabeth Craig’s EBook Services Professionals Directory. Also, peruse our list here at TKZ (in the sidebar).

Limited resources for all of those necessities? You can save a lot of money on editing costs by doing a thorough revision and edit yourself first. (If your manuscript is long and rambling, see my recent post on Janice Hardy’s blog, Fiction University: “How to Slash Your Word Count by 20-40% – and tighten your story without losing any of the good stuff!” .) For expert help with the revision process, I recommend James Scott Bell’s excellent guide, Revision & Self-Editing for Publication. Also, check out my award-winning editor’s guides, Fire up Your Fiction and Captivate Your Readers.

You can also cut costs for formatting by doing the basic formatting yourself, per these instructions for formatting your manuscript.

And you can get a high-quality cover design for as low as $99 on sites like this one audcasinos where my three covers were designed – or even lower if you choose a pre-made cover.

Then, once your story is revised, polished, and presented in an attractive, professional-looking package, and you’ve published it, think about entering it in a book contest. Winning an award for your self-published fiction or nonfiction book is a great way to gain recognition and respect, so it rises above the masses. If you win an award, the publicity will boost your book sales, and you can add the award decal to your cover and mention the achievement on your back cover, in the book description, on your website or blog, and in all your marketing and promoting, for that extra edge.

Here’s a list of book awards specifically for independently published books. It’s for your quick info only, and is in no way an endorsement of any of them. Click on the title of the award to go to their website for more details. And do let me know of any good ones I’ve missed. [And if you’re looking to hone your skills and network, you might also be interested in checking out this extensive list (over 120) of Writers’ Conferences & Book Festivals in North America in 2015.]

BOOK CONTESTS FOR INDIE AUTHORS (Click on the titles to go to their sites.)

~ WRITER’S DIGEST SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK AWARDS

Sponsored by: Writer’s Digest Magazine (F&W Media) and Book Marketing Works, LLC

Requirements: Open to all English-language self-published books. Entrants must send a printed and bound book. Evaluated on content, writing quality and overall quality of production and appearance. All books published or revised and reprinted between 2010 and 2015 are eligible.

Early-Bird Deadline: April 1, 2015

What’s in it for you?                 

  • A chance to win $8,000 in cash
  • National exposure for your work
  • The attention of prospective editors and publishers
  • A paid trip to the ever-popular Writer’s Digest Conference!

Fees: Early-bird entry fees (by April 1): $99 for the first entry, and $75 for each additional entry.

Categories: 9, including 1 for poetry and 2 for nonfiction.

Winners notified: by Oct. 12, 2015

Notes: Very popular so very competitive. Your book needs to be professionally produced and sparkle in every way, including a stellar cover an enticing and error-free back cover, clean formatting, and a story that’s been professionally edited and proofread. I have served as judge on this contest three times, so can provide more general info if anyone is interested.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? Yes – minimum 200 words, plus a 1-5 rating on 5 points.

~ WRITER’S DIGEST SELF-PUBLISHED E-BOOK AWARDS

Hasn’t opened yet for 2015. Info from 2014:

This competition spotlights today’s self-published works and honors self-published authors. Whether you’re a professional writer, a part-time freelancer or a self-starting student, here’s your chance to enter WD’s newest competition, exclusively for self-published e-books.

8 different categories

One Grand Prize Winner receives $3,000 cash and lots more.The First-Place Winner in each category receives: $1000 in prize money and more. Honorable Mention Winners will receive $50 worth of Writer’s Digest Books and be promoted on www.writersdigest.com.

Entry fee: Early-bird – $99 for the first entry, $75 for each additional

Deadline: The 2014 deadline was Aug. 1, 2014, so look for this contest in the summer.

A definite plus is that, like the above WD contest, they do send you the judge’s rating and commentary, whether you win or not, which is very helpful.

~ FOREWORD REVIEWS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDS

Sponsored by: Foreword Reviews

Open to: all books from independent publishers, including small presses, university presses, and self-published authors, published in 2013.

Deadline: January 15, 2015 (oops! This one has passed. Bookmark this contest for next year, and get your entry in by Dec. or early Jan.)

Winners announced: at American Library Assoc. conference 2015, San Francisco

Entry fee: $99. Send two books per category.

Categories: 62 categories

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No.

Benefits/Prizes: Valuable publicity and $1500 cash prize for the Editor’s Choice in Fiction and Nonfiction.

Details/Advantages: Lots of categories, and “The judging is unique in that after the initial entries have been narrowed down to a group of finalists in each category by the magazine’s team of editors, the finalists are shipped to a hand-selected group of booksellers and librarians who determine the winners. This panel of industry experts use the same criteria for judging as they would use in their own acquisitions process.”

~ INDIEREADER DISCOVERY AWARDS

Sponsored by: Kirkus Indie

Requirements: Open to all self-published books with a valid ISBN. No restrictions on publication dates. Both eBooks and paper books can be submitted.

Deadline: March 2, 2015

Categories: Two main categories (fiction and non-fiction) and 49 sub-categories.

Entry fee: $150 per title, $50 fee for each additional category entered.  Submit two copies the first category entered and one each additional category.  One paper book and one ebook is preferred, if possible.

Winners announced: at the 2015 Book Expo America (BEA) in New York City.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No free review anymore. If you want a review, you have to pay for it.

Prizes: Award ceremony at Book Expo America, sticker, professional IndieReader review, exposure. First place gets a review from Kirkus Reviews.

*Note that compared to the others, the above contest has a high entry fee, no cash prizes and no feedback unless you pay for it.

~ NEXT GENERATION INDIE BOOK AWARDS     

Sponsored by Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group

Requirements: Open to independent authors and publishers worldwide. Enter books released in 2013 or 2014 or with a 2013 or 2014 copyright date

Categories: 70+ categories to choose from

Deadline: February 13, 2015

Fees: $75 per title for the first category entered, $50 for each additional category. Submission Details: Two copies of the book must be sent for the first category entered plus one copy for each additional category.

Prizes, Benefits, awards: Cash prizes ($1,500 to $100), trophies, awards, listing in catalogue, exposure of top 70 books to NYC literary agent, awards reception, NYC

Details: The largest not-for-profit awards program for independent publishers

Winners notified by: May 15

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No.

~ NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE BOOK AWARDS

Requirements/Eligibility: Open to books with an ISBN, published 2012-2015. Send one copy of the book per category entered.

Deadline: March 31, 2015

Fees: $69 per category

Categories: Lots of Categories!

Winners & Finalists: Will be publicized during Book Expo America; be listed on the official website of the IndieExcellence.com site; etc.

Winners announced: May 15, 2015

~ IPPY AWARDS – INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS  

Sponsored by: Jenkins Group Publishing Services, affiliated with Publisher’s Weekly.

Eligibility: independently published titles released between July 1, 2012 and March 15, 2014. Open to authors and publishers worldwide who produce books written in English and intended for the North American market.

Deadline: March 10, 2015

Fees: $85-$95 per category; $55 to also enter the E-Book Awards or Regional Book Awards

Categories: 76 subject categories in National awards; Regional awards for the United States, Canada, and Australia and New Zealand; E-Book Awards with fiction, non-fiction, children’s and regional categories.

Benefits: Winners receive celebration party in NY City, medals, stickers, certificates, national publicity in major trade publications including Publisher’s Weekly and Shelf Awareness. Learn more

~ THE BEN FRANKLIN AWARDS

Sponsored by: IBPA – Independent Book Publishers Association

Info: The IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in book publishing is regarded as one of the highest national honors for small and independent publishers.

Deadlines: First Call – Sept. 30, 2015; Second call – Dec. 15, 2015

Categories: 41 book categories + design = 55 categories

Entry fees: IBPA member – $95 per title, per category; Non-IBPA member – $225 for first title, which includes one year’s membership in IBPA; $95 for subsequent entries.

Benefits: Winners recognized at a gala event. Gold winners receive an engraved crystal trophy. Gold and Silver winners receive award certificates along with gold or silver stickers. All winners announced to the major trade journals and media.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? Yes. The Benjamin Franklin Awards are unique in that the entrants receive direct feedback on their titles. The actual judging forms are returned to all participating publishers.

~ READERS’ FAVORITE BOOK AWARDS

Requirements: Accept manuscripts, published and unpublished books, ebooks, audio books, comic books, poetry books and short stories in 100+ genres. No publication date requirement or word count restriction. Entries are accepted worldwide as long as the work is in English.

Fee: $89 per book

Deadline: April1, 2015

Awards: Four award levels plus a finalist level in each of our 100+ categories. Special Illustration Award competition for illustrated books. Roll of high quality, embossed award stickers ($50 value). Digital award seal for your book cover and print/web marketing. Personalized award certificate. Olympics-style physical award medal with ribbon. Awards ceremony with guest speakers and media coverage. Book displayed in our booth at the largest book fair in America. Book review posted on 7 popular book and social networking sites.

Feedback? Mini-critique of 5 key areas of your book.

FAPA PRESIDENT’S BOOK AWARDS

Sponsored by: Florida Authors and Publishers Association

Requirements: English language titles published in 2014 or 2015. Any author or publisher who resides in North America may enter. Bound books only, except for one category: e-books. Send four copies of your book for each category entered (e.g. one book entered in three categories = 12 copies of the book).

Fee: Until March 1: $75 (non-members), $65 (members); $50 for each additional category;  After March 1: $85 (non-members), $75 (members); $50 each additional category

Deadline: May 1, 2015

Categories: 30

Awards: FAPA will award one Gold Medal and up to two Silver Medals in each category. Winners receive: a gold or silver medal, a certificate, decals for book covers, and publicity.

Written review by judges: No

~ 2015 KINDLE BOOK AWARDS

Deadline: May 1, 2015

Details: Open to all independent and small press authors. For eBooks published on Amazon between May 1, 2013 – May 1, 2015 (Must have Amazon Link).

Fee: $29 (Use Code  SJC85  before April 1st for 10% Early Bird Discount)

Categories: Mystery/Thriller, Romance, Y/A, Sci-fi/Fantasy, Literary Fiction, Horror/Suspense, Non-Fiction

Awards: 7 category winners will receive $350 cash, and $900+ in promotion & tools

~ THE ERIC HOFFER AWARD

Deadlines: Books: January 21, 2015. Short prose: March 31, 2015.

Fees: Books: $55

Categories: 18 categories

Prizes: Two grand prizes, one for short prose (i.e. fiction and creative nonfiction) and one for independent books. Prizes include a $250 award for short prose and a $2,000 award for best independent book. In addition, various other honors and distinctions are given for both prose and books.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No. “Our judging process is a three tier system. Two successive category judges score the book on a seven point criteria system and provide feedback before it is passed to the higher level judges, but we do not provide feedback to the authors / publishers / nominators. We did in the early years, but it resulted in too many authors feeling the need to defend their books.”

~ SHELF UNBOUND WRITING COMPETITION FOR BEST SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK

Sponsored by: Shelf Media Group, Half Price Books

Eligibility: Any independently published book in any genre is eligible for entry.

Deadline: Oct. 1, 2015.

Entry fee: $40 per book.

Submission: Email a PDF or Word Doc of the book or mail in a physical copy.

Details and benefits: Top five books receive editorial coverage in the December/January 2016 issue of Shelf Unbound. The author of the book named as the Best Independently Published book will receive editorial coverage as well as a year’s worth of full-page ads in Shelf Unbound (rate card value $6,000). More than 100 books deemed by the editors as “notable” entries in the competition will also be featured in the December/January 2016 issue of Shelf Unbound.

Judges provide feedback/commentary on all books submitted? No.

OTHER BOOK AWARDS: (Click on the names.) Beverly Hills Book Awards, Bookworks Awards,  eLit Book Awards,  EPIC eBook Competition,  Global eBook Awards,  Green Book Festival,  Nautilus Book Awards,  Publishing Innovation Awards, Reader Views Literary Awards

BOOK FESTIVAL CONTESTS:  New England Book Festival,  New York Book Festival,  San Francisco Book Festival,  The Beach Book Festival,  The Hollywood Book Festival,  London Book Festival,  Paris Book Festival,  The Living Now Book Awards

INTERNATIONAL:  International Book Awards,  The International Rubery Book Award,  The WISHING SHELF Independent Book Awards [UK]

CHILDREN’S BOOKS:  The Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards     

Can you think of any more to add? Have you had any experiences with any of these book contests that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks!

IMG_5765_trimmedJodie Renner is a freelance editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Fire up Your Fiction, Writing a Killer Thriller, and Captivate Your Readers. Fire up Your Fiction was awarded a silver medal from FAPA President’s Book Awards, a silver medal from Readers’ Favorite Awards, and an Honorable Mention from Writer’s Digest awards. Find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, and on Facebook and Twitter.

Splat!

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By PJ Parrish

Good morning crime dogs,

This post is going to be extra short. Sunday evening, I went out for my usual run at the park. I took a bad spill and went down hard on the gravel path. Managed to roll so I am scraped up on only one side but I bopped my head pretty hard and ended up with a mild concussion. So I didn’t finish my looong post on “Making the Good Decisions that Will Make Your Book.”  I promise to post it next time.

I am fine! Just sore and headachey. And feeling foolish but grateful I didn’t break any of my old bones. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go lay down. So I will let my old friends The Blues Magoos stand in for me today.  See you on the back stretch…

Crunch Time

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There comes a time in every writer’s life when you just have to finish the book. That means you can’t have lunch with your friends. You have to tell your kids to grow up a little and make their own darn snacks. And you have to apologize to your significant other and promise you’ll be a better person as soon as you finish the book.
And wouldn’t you know it, I’m going through that perilous stage right now, which explains why this blog post will be a relatively short one. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve become very good at saying no. No, I can’t go to the movie theater and see Selma, even though I want to very badly. No, I can’t respond to all those Facebook messages. No, I can’t get a haircut now! I have to finish the book!
I’m glad, though, that I took a quick break on Wednesday to read Joe’s post about The Basics of Endings. As he mentioned, it’s crucial to bring all the elements of the story together at the end of the novel. One thing I’d like to add: it’s often satisfying to speed up the narration at the climax. In my books, everything gets faster and shorter at the end — the sentences, the paragraphs, the chapters. I bounce around more frequently between the point-of-view characters as the bullets fly and the bombs explode. This narrative acceleration sometimes makes me jittery. I have to finish, I have to finish!
Here’s an analogy: have you ever tried walking across a tightrope or a balance beam? And you were doing great until you were just a few feet from the end, but then you started to lose your balance? And you realized that the only way to make it across was to forget all about balancing and just run like hell? That’s the way I feel right now.

Okay, I’m done. No more interruptions. You know what I have to do   

Are You Homophonic?

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By Elaine Viets

impatiens and walkway

   “The walkways were a triumphant imperial purple march of impatience and spiky salvia.”
    I wrote that in the manuscript for my May 2015 Dead-End Job hardcover, Checked Out, to describe the garden at the Coronado Tropic Apartments. That’s the home and office of private eyes Helen Hawthorne and Phil Sagemont, in my Dead-End Job mysteries.

CheckedOut_FC
     Good thing I wasn’t impatient when I read the novel’s copyedited version last week. Impatience is “the state or quality of being  restless or short of temper.”

    Impatiens are flowers. Webster’s says they are:  “Any of a widely distributed genus of annual or perennial herbs with irregular spurred or saccate flowers and forcefully dehiscent capsules.”
    This photo says it better:

impatiens
        
    Traps for soundalike words – homophones – lie in wait for us writers. Here are a few recent  examples of homophonic behavior in public:

   (1) “Not phased by the Oscar winner’s petition to leave matters alone until after the show, the 52-year-old comedienne continued to vent about Whoopi’s actions.”

Whoopi_Goldberg_at_a_NYC_No_on_Proposition_8_Rally
    Phases are for moons.

phases-moon
    Gimme an F here. The comedienne was fazed, as in daunted.

    (2) Another writer talked about “a deep seeded fear.”

eugenie-bouchard-new top-seeded

    Really? Afraid of a tennis player? Eugenie Bouchard has arms of steel, but she’s a top seeded player. What that writer really had was a deep seated fear.

    3) I was startled when I saw a newspaper call a neighborhood artsy-fartsy. The author meant that word to be an admiring description of an artistic area, like this street in Greenwich Village.

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    That neighborhood may be charming or artsy, but artsy-fartsy is no compliment.

   (4) Curiosity rises to new heights when it’s peaked. Or peeked.

pike's peak

If you’re curious, this is a peek at Pike’s Peak. Now your curiosity is piqued.

    (5) “Do you think Justin died his hair blonde for Selena, Hailey or himself?”

   
    None of the above, gossip magazine. The Beeb dyed his hair. Without that crucial Y, the lad is dead.

    (6) This last one isn’t a homophone, it’s just plain confusing. “The man had a  ‘deep base voice.’ ”

king_richard_iii
    His voice was contemptible or meanspirited? I doubt it.  William Shakespeare wrote that King  Richard III was a brutal, cold-hearted villain, a thoroughly base man. Some historians say Will had base motives, since he was writing for the Tudors, who wanted Richard’s name blackened.
    Actually, the man had a deep bass voice.

bass-hooked
    Oops. That bass is bass-ackwards. A bass voice is pronounced like base.
Fishy word, that.

Same Old Same Old

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By Elaine Viets

Madonna

   “So there she was, showering naked by the pool,” I said, “and the people in the condo next door complained. A naked old woman wasn’t the million-dollar view they’d paid for.”
    I was giving my friend Linda the latest local gossip. A foreign woman, free of Americans’ prudish prejudices, was stripping off her suit and showering naked after a swim. The condo with the unwanted view had registered a complaint with the offending condo.     
    “How old was the naked old lady?” my friend Linda asked.
    “At least seventy,” I said.
    “I’m seventy,” Linda said and she was clearly offended. “And while I don’t plan to shower naked in public, I don’t think I’m old.”
    Linda is a stylish seventy who wears her blond hair in short spikes. She  travels the world, taking cooking classes in France and Italy, and helping Spanish executives improve their colloquial English. Definitely not old. Well, not old old.
    “The naked lady is a grandmother,” I added.
    “I’m a grandmother,” Linda said. “Twice.”
    Now I was backpedaling – fast. “But the naked shower woman was an old grandma, like my grandmother.” (Forgive me, Grandma. You’re the best grandma ever, but you’d be spinning in your grave at the thought of showering naked in public.) “Grandma was a wonderful cook, but she had a figure like a flour sack.”
    “Well, if you say so,” Linda said.
    I did say so, and now I realized I’d better say it with precision. It’s time writers look at how we portray older people.
    Ageism can cost us readers.  AARP says “for the next 18 years, boomers will be turning 65 at a rate of about 8,000 a day.” Boomers are big mystery readers and they hate being called old. But how often have you seen people in their sixties called “elderly.” Is Helen Mirren elderly?

Helen-Mirren-helen-mirren-32853620-2000-2020

    I’m guilty of describing an old, unattractive man as “a scrawny seventy.” Keith Richards is scrawny as a plucked chicken wing, but that old plucker is damn sexy.

a-keith

    The term “grandmother” is used to dismiss women as powerless. But globetrotting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a grandma, and she’s aiming for the world’s most powerful office.

Hillary Clinton
    Nobody tries to dis George Bush because he’s a grandpa.

George-W

    Sophia Loren at 79 is gorgeous.

sophia lauren
    Age is more than a number. It’s attitude, energy and style. When you write, get it right. Don’t settle for the same old cliches.