Volume VI, Issue 25 June 19, 2017 Word of the Week: exclamation (as in
point) Dear ,
Last week took me back 26 years! That's when Richard and I last spent seven
glorious sunny, sandy days at the beach with a one-year-old and a four-year-old. Then, it was our daughter and son. Now? Our daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons.
Here we are, taking a break from the sun to visit the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort
Fisher.
Don't let Baby Harry fool you. He looks more than ready for his nap, but trust me, he did plenty of exclaiming! See what I mean?
And Rhys? After a whole year of living in the D.C. area, he's a pro at getting the most out of exhibits, and he had a wonderful time checking out all
the marine life.
He also loves to have me read him all the signs we see. We both really liked this one. But he was puzzled. Where, he asked, was the exclamation point? (Rhys has become mesmerized by exclamation points, and many of our favorite books to read together are lavishly endowed with
them.) I don't have the heart to tell him, as I did WordPlayer Ben Romine, that exclamation
points, like adverbs, should be used SPARINGLY. Rhys is a bit young to grasp the concept that, if you use a strong, vivid verb, you won't need either of these unprofessional writing crutches, but Ben...Well, Ben and I, in fact, have a running joke about exclamation points.
A year or two ago, I nailed him for using too many of them in
the first draft of his very good novel, Root of the Sacred Tree. (It takes an over-exclaimer to know one!) I told him he was allowed no more than a dozen in the entire book. Ever since, he’s kept me supplied with the best of the best commentary on this
punctuation mark editors love to hate. His latest “gift link” was so much fun (it has dialogue from the TV show Friends in it!!!!) that I chose it for this week’s featured writing. Scroll on down to check it out. How about you? Do you agree with Rhys (and Fresh Air commentator Geoff Nunberg) that it's time to say 'Yes!' to the exclamation point? After all, isn't life worth getting
excited about? Upcoming WordPlay
CLASSES AT CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
WRITE YOURSELF (Week 1)
Reap the benefits writing can provide – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually – in this class in which you’ll learn and practice whole brain methods for using writing as a transformative process as well as a creative one. These techniques can
be used to create essays, poems, memoir, fiction and/or nonfiction. For beginners and seasoned writers.
WHERE: Chautauqua Institution. 1 Ames Ave, Chautauqua, NY 14722. Hall of Ed. (Sheldon) Room 204
WHEN: Monday, June 26th – Thursday, June
29th, 2017. 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
COST: $82
TO REGISTER: Please visit the Chautauqua Institution registration page here.
MEMOIR: TELLING THE TIMES
OF YOUR
LIFE (Week 2)
Our life stories are a precious legacy. Writing them is a gift, not only to ourselves, but to those who love us – they’ll be treasured for generations to come. Come learn engaging, easy-to-use tools and techniques to retrieve and record your adventures, loves, losses, successes, and more with ease and enjoyment, no matter where you
are in the process, and whether you are writing for yourself, your family, or to publish for a wide audience.
WHERE: Chautauqua Institution. 1 Ames Ave, Chautauqua, NY 14722. Turner 105
WHEN: Monday, July 3rd – Friday, July 7th, 2017. 2:00 to
4:00 p.m.
COST: $82
TO REGISTER: Please visit the Chautauqua Institution registration page here.
-----------------------------------------------
MEMOIR: TELLING THE TIMES OF YOUR LIFE
Our life stories are a precious legacy. Writing them is a gift, not only to ourselves, but to those who love us. They will be treasured for generations to come. Come learn engaging tools and techniques to retrieve and record your adventures, loves, losses, successes, and more with ease and enjoyment, no matter where you are in the process.
Participants are asked to bring along photos of people, places, or events that are significant to their lives to be used as inspiration for writing.
WHERE: Olmsted Manor. 17 East Main Street. Ludlow, PA 16333
WHEN: Friday, August 4th – Sunday, August 6th, 2017
COST: $230.00, which includes class, 2 nights stay, and 6 meals
TO REGISTER: To register by phone, call 814-945-6512. You can also register by sending an email to olmstedreservations@gmail.com or online at www.olmstedmanor.org/events.
-----------------------------------------------
FALL WRITING
RETREAT
Renew and delight yourself. The Fall Writing Retreat is an opportunity to create new pieces of writing and/or new possibilities for our lives. Enjoy various seasonal prompts; they elicit beautiful material that can be shaped into essays, poems, stories, or articles. After a
communal lunch, you’ll have private time which can be used to collage, work with a piece of writing from the morning, or play with a number of other writing prompts and methods. You’ll take home new ideas, new drafts, and new possibilities.
$97 includes lunch and supplies.
WHERE: South Charlotte area. Details will be provided upon registration.
WHEN: Saturday, September 23rd, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
More WordPlay opportunities here.
Featured Writer Geoff Nunberg
(with thanks to Ben Romine,
who
passed along this great Fresh Air commentary) Geoff Nunberg is the linguist contributor on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Featured
Writing
After Years of Restraint,
a Linguist Says 'Yes!' to the Exclamation Point
by Geoff Nunberg
The only literary work about punctuation I'm aware of is an odd early story by Anton Chekhov called "The Exclamation Mark." After getting into an argument with a colleague about punctuation, a school inspector named Yefim Perekladin asks his wife what an exclamation point is for. She tells him it signifies delight, indignation, joy and rage. He realizes that in 40 years of writing official reports, he has never had the need to express any of
those emotions.
As Perekladin obsesses about the mark, it becomes an apparition that haunts his waking life, mocking him as an unfeeling machine. In desperation, he signs his name in a visitors book and puts three exclamation points after it. All of a sudden, Chekhov writes, "He felt delight and indignation, he was joyful and seethed with rage." Yefim Perekladin, c'est moi! At least, I used to be one of those people who use the exclamation point as sparingly as possible. We'll grudgingly stick one in after an interjection or a sentence like "What a jerk!" but never to punch up an ordinary sentence in an essay or email. We say we're saving them for special occasions, but they never seem to arise.
The written language provides us with a dozen or so punctuation marks to clarify our meaning, but only one that conveys our feelings about what we're saying. Yet the exclamation point gets no love at all. Apple computer forbids its
distributors to use it in their ads. The British school curriculum penalizes students for using it. There's a blog called Excessive Exclamation!! dedicated to documenting its misuse.
It wasn't always so disreputable. Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne used it freely. But by the late 19th century, it had become the staple of lurid novels and the sensational
yellow press, whose printers called it a screamer, a shriek or a bang.
Ever
since then, self-respecting authors have regarded the wanton use of exclamation points as illiterate and slightly vulgar. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that it was like laughing at your own joke.
The mark was banished to the literary
margins….
WordPlay Now! Writing
Prompt This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's
"exclamation."
PROMPT:
Go ahead! Choose a topic you (or one of your characters) can get really excited about, and write about it in any form. (How about a dramatic monologue?) Let those exclamation points rip! You might even find yourself, as I am now, laughing out loud at the brazenness
of breaking this punctuation taboo so blatantly. (Now this is what I call breaking bad!) `
MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. One of her long-held dreams came true in July of 2015 when Garrison Keillor read one of her poems on The Writer's Almanac. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with
intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
|
|
|
