Okay, I admit it; sometimes my grammar isn’t perfect. Oh sorry, did I forget to ask you to sit down before I dropped my bombshell? That’ll heal, don’t worry.
But seriously, I get tired of trying to write right all the time. It takes, like, brain cells and stuff to make sure I edit the hell out of every single solitary sentence I compose. And so while I do try to do my best here on my blog, I don’t always make sure my comments, my emails and (oh God) my texts are the essence of grammatical excellence. In fact when I’m in a hurry, I’ve actually been known to write things like “u” instead of “you” when tapping out a message on my phone. Don’t all gasp at once!
Is it lack of professionalism? Is it laziness? Or is it a bid to preserve the ever-decreasing amount of grey matter I possess due to the many things I have to deal with in any given moment?
What’s your excuse?
This grammatically questionable post has been brought to you in conjunction with Mr. Mark’s Roadshow
Me: I’ll start at the beginning, shall I? Here we go. In April, or maybe even March, I came in with my laptop because the battery was shutting the machine off at 70% power. You took it and you “fixed” it, but the battery was still fucked. So your manager promised me a new battery. Last week–yes, 7 or 8 months later–I finally got my new battery. I’d like to know if you can put it in for me. …oh wait! I can answer that question for you. NO! You can’t put my new battery in because you ordered the wrong one!
Geek Squad Mike: I have no idea which idiot ordered the wrong battery for you: here’s a new laptop, free of charge!
How it actually went:
Geek Squad Mike: How can I help you?
Me: I got the wrong battery.
Geek Squad Mike: What’s your phone number, I’ll look that up for you.
Ten minutes later:
Geek Squad Mike: (who has been joined by Geek Squad Dillon) We can order the new battery for you. I’ll leave you with Dillon: he knows more than I do. He’s the computer genius.
Me: Yes, he’s the computer genius who ordered the wrong battery for me last time.
For some reason, Geek Squad Dillon didn’t think that was funny.
True story.
This true story has been brought to you in conjunction with Mr. Mark:
Welcome to the Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday! Here you will find fun and excitement in blogging excellence all in the comment section… But first, we need writers!
This week’s Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “in-” Find a word that begins with the prefix “in” or use the word itself anywhere in your post. Easy!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
There’s more that one bit of good news in this though. The nine books only cost me $21, and the proceeds went to the Alzheimer’s Society.
But while I was browsing the thousands of books for sale that day, I got to thinking: what if I had my book published and gave away copies at events such as the Alzheimer’s book sale? Wouldn’t that be a neat way not only to get my novel out there, but to give to a worthwhile charity at the same time? Heck, I could even sit there and sign them. But then I got to thinking – does that make the sale suddenly more about me than the cause?
What do you think? Should this even be a tough call?
5. Which would you rather be: a sandwich or a set of false teeth?
6. Which Disney character are you most like?
7. Which colour is the best colour in the world to paint a kitchen?
8. Which sound is the most annoying ever?
9. Which is better: digital or analogue?
10. Which musician would you bring back from the dead, if you could?
As always, a point for every good answer, and a bonus point for your “which” question to me. Funniest answer (decided by me) may be posted as my One-Liner Wednesday. Go!
Friday, Friday, who doesn’t love Friday? Those who have to work weekends, I suppose. Like me. But the good news is it’s time for your Friday Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt! Whoopie! As I sat in a Tim Horton’s the other day, sipping my coffee, I came up with a few ideas for prompts and jotted them down. Therefore, I’m now going through a list. From the top:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “element.” Choose one of the four: air/water/earth/fire or use the word “element” however you wish to define it. Enjoy!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
My manuscript is literally bigger than The Stand! I have proof!
But seriously, wouldn’t you love to be able to say that about your body of work and actually mean it in more than a literal sense? Even if I’m that good, which I suspect that possibly I’m not, (ahem) there’s no chance in hell, or even Castle Rock that I can catch up to the great SK. I didn’t start early enough. In fact, by my calculations I’d have to live to be a hundred and twenty five and seven-eighths years old to write as many books as Stephen King has and will. And honestly, I can’t see myself writing much past my 120th birthday anyway.
Conclusion: I’m destined to spend the rest of my existence wheezing on his literary dust. And enjoying the Castle Rock out of his books.
I’m starting to think writing a novel would have been easier than this NaBloPoMo thing. Writing a post every day, especially when I’m being forced into it, is HARD! Writing a novel when I’m being forced into it, on the other hand, is a piece of cake as long as life doesn’t come along and bite me in the arse like it did during NaNo ’11.
Yep, NaNo ’11 was a doozy. I was going along strong and then suddenly everyone got sick. Alex, my youngest, was in the hospital in Kingston, which was miles away and so I figured I’d sleep there, save the drive home. Only I got woken up at two in the morning to find out my eldest, Fred, was puking up blood. What do you do?
I rushed home as soon as I’d talked to Alex’s doctor the next day–which was almost dinner time–and I don’t even remember what happened after that, ‘coz I got sick. At least I knew Alex was taken care of.
The manuscript that came out of that there NaNo ’11 took me another year to complete, as it turned out. Today I printed out all 627 pages of it–again–so I can give it what I hope is a second-last once-over before it goes out to my beta readers. That should take, oh, a week or so if all goes well.
We have a winner! On Sunday, at the end of my Nano Poblano – Day 9: 10 Random Whos post, I stated that the funniest answer would be featured today for One-Liner Wednesday. Here is the lovely and talented SuzJones’ answer:
5. Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who? Why Grissom of course!
If you don’t know Sue, you should definitely check out her blog. 🙂
Sue’s answer brought back a lot of fond memories. I watched the original CSI religiously back when Grissom was still around. He had some of the best one-liners on TV at the time, so I went to IMDB to look up a good one. However, it seemed all the funniest ones needed the context that they were put in in the show. As I was going through them all I came across one that I remember well; it stuck with me as the mother of two special-needs kids:
Gil Grissom: [to Billy Rattison about how he called Randy Traschel, the man with Down Syndrome that he murdered, a ‘retard’] By the way, the definition of the word retard is to hinder or to hold someone back. I think your life is about to become retarded.
Thanks so much, Sue, for reminding me of the fantastic one-liners that came off CSI!
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
There are mornings when I float in a sea of imagination, of blessed inspiration, where the shadows are in 3D and I even take a picture of them in hopes that the lens will pick up on that which my feeble, caffeine-deprived brain sees as magical.
There are nights–normally attached to those same mornings–when music presents itself in the muddle of my sleep-deprived brain as truly the most penetrating thing on the planet. Those are the nights when the guitar solo at the end of Comfortably Numb can move me to tears.
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