vwl

The reason I quibble is that, in the forest that is Nifty, a striking title causes me to open the story to the first chapter. For example, Leaves and Lunatics or The Log Way are intriguing names of stories. In contrast, if a story were entitled John and Phil, it is unlikely that I would ever bother to open it in the chance that it is an insightful story into some memorable characters' lives. Furthermore, if John and Phil were 7k in size, my stroke-story meter would be going off, but my try-it meter would not. Love on the Rocks is a good title for a song -- but, in my view, not so hot for a story.

I'm breaking one of my rules -- to not recommend a story until it is completed but Love on the Rocks is very enjoyable with most of the plot lines worked out. The author says he is continuing to write, so I think it will be done. My only quibble is the title, which is not up to the quality of the story, and not original enough for me. vwl

I ran into this article from Slate comparing the formal American and British rules on whether to put punctuation marks inside or outside quotation marks. A good summary.

I was going to send you a private note about how much I enjoyed Triptychs, which I just finished. Truly excellent! But I would like to make my approval more public. First, the writing was fresh, original. I would be reading along and suddenly a verb or a noun or an adjective just caused me to halt and wonder at how different yet appropriate a combination of words became. I think of Cole's email note after the first evening with Noah. The one word that told it all. Second, the erotic parts were lively and fun to read. In far too many stories the erotic parts are mechanical, something to fast-forward through and seemingly tacked on to what otherwise may be a good tale. To me, good erotic scenes are one of the most difficult writing tasks. You succeeded. Third, the use of detail was outstanding. Seeing the world through the photographer's eye brought scenes to life, framed them, and made them engrossing. I'm a fan of detail, but it has to be well done. Too many writers add detail without making it interesting. To me, you rank with Rock Lane Cooper in its use. Finally, you brought Trevor to the page, a young man with wonderful flaws, and you paired him with complex and interesting characters, like his mother, like Noah, like Erik. The greatest joy of reading is afterwards: sitting back and savoring the soft caresses left by the memories of the printed word. Well done!

I can't recommend highly enough the Swedish movie Patrik 1.5, available on DVD (and from Netflix). It is well written, acted and plotted. It is not just a good gay-themed movie; it is a good movie.

There are so many good videos in Dan Savage's project. Here are a few that I've found: About a person raised as a Jehovah's Witness here : Dan Savage's and his husband Terry's original video is here And this one on acceptance. There are so many, and I won't be able to watch them all, but these and the hundreds of other videos are sure to save some lives. Please post other ones that you find are particularly poignant.

Starting nicely at this link. Now up to three chapters.

I?ve read that you write, as you put it, like ?a holy fool,? not censoring yourself, and then you edit yourself like ?a ravening pit bull.? I wish that wasn?t my process, but it seems to be. Cutting is always good, you can always cut more. In order to fully imagine the lives, you have to imagine the characters brushing their teeth, but you don?t have to describe them brushing their teeth. ? Wall Street Journal interview of author Marina Endicott, April 2, 2010

Gaydar exists, according to a scientific study. Report is here:

Based on my experience with the several eruptions of Mt. Saint Helens, you may find a thin coat of ash dust on your autormobile in the morning (assuming it's left outside) -- a coating that is thin but definitely noticeable. Also, you should note much prettier sunsets (from Europe) due to the ash.

I think the answer to the debate is in the words of Elam's father: Killing someone should be something that affects you. No matter the reason you did it, it shouldn?t be something trivial, something that?s easy to overlook. That it?s bothering you means you?re a sensitive young man who cares about other people and how you deal with them. In other words, the way that Mason acted was integral to his development as a person.

This may be more than you want to read about it, but... Categories: Uncategorized 39 Comments A Few Thoughts on Robbins v. Lower Merion School District Orin Kerr ? February 18, 2010 10:12 pm Eugene links to the complaint in the school-provided-laptop-with-cameras case, and I wanted to offer a few thoughts on it from a legal standpoint. I?ll assume the school?s statement as to what happened is accurate, and the computer?s camera was turned on and a still photo was taken only when the school believed the laptop had been stolen or was missing. (To be clear, I?m not sure that statements is true, but I need to assume something to get a sense of how the law applies: That seems a reasonable starting point.) My tentative bottom line: The schools violated the Fourth Amendment rights of students when they actually turned the cameras on when the computers were at home. On the other hand, the schools did not violate the federal statutory surveillance laws. 1. The federal Wiretap Act cause of action doesn?t work. The computers allegedly took still images of the student, but the Wiretap Act doesn?t apply to video images. The Wiretap Act applies to bugging audio equipment (?oral communications?), intercepting phone calls (?wire communications?) and intercepting computer communications (?electronic communications.?). But the alleged interception here is of a video image without sound, and the Wiretap Act doesn?t apply. See, e.g., United States v. Koyomejian, 970 F.2d 536, 539 (9th Cir.1992); United States v. Torres, 751 F.2d 875, 880 (7th Cir.1984). 2. As far as I can tell, the Pennsylvania wiretap statute is identical (as relevant here) to the federal Wiretap Act. If I?m right about that, the Pennsylvania wiretap act cause of action doesn?t work either. 3. The Stored Communications Act cause of action is frivolous. Individual laptops are not electronic communication service providers under ECPA. 4. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim doesn?t work, either, even if you can get past the unauthorized access issues, because the civil cause of action under 18 U.S.C. 1030(g) requires you to show loss aggregating at least $5,000. Loss is a defined term under 1030(e)(11) which refers to reasonable economic costs suffered by the intrusion. Also, you can?t aggregate losses for other related intrusions of other students, if there were any, because this isn?t a case brought by the United States Government. See 1030©(4)(A)(i)(I). I don?t see how the plaintiff here suffered $5,000 in economic loss. The complaint makes no mention of any such losses. 5. The Fourth Amendment issues here are interesting. I can?t speak to the Pennsylvania common law cause of action, but at least among the other causes of action, this strikes me as the most serious. Let me break down the issues in two steps: a) This case is brought as a class action, but the Fourth Amendment issues here don?t work as a class action. Any ?search? here didn?t occur until the camera was turned on, which according to the school occurred when the laptop was thought to be lost or stolen. That means no search occurred under the Fourth Amendment for students who had laptops that were not turned on. See United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705 (1984) (?The mere transfer to Karo of a can containing an unmonitored beeper infringed no privacy interest. It conveyed no information that Karo wished to keep private, for it conveyed no information at all. To be sure, it created a potential for an invasion of privacy, but we have never held that potential, as opposed to actual, invasions of privacy constitute searches for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. . . . It is the exploitation of technological advances that implicates the Fourth Amendment, not their mere existence.?). b) Taking the photograph inside the home seems pretty clearly to be a search under Karo. The school might try to justify this under the special needs exception: The school issued the laptop and could search it to investigate misconduct under New Jersey v. TLO. The problem with this argument is that the school didn?t search the laptops: They searched the home where the laptop happen to be present. Is there some other reasonableness framework that can apply in that situation to justify the search of taking the photograph? None come to mind: I would think the government would have to use the probable cause of the computer being taken to get a warrant to justify turning on the camera. So unless I?m just missing something, this was a Fourth Amendment violation for taking the still image of the home without obtaining a warrant. 6. As I said, I?m not sure about the Pennsylvania common law tort claim. I?ll leave that one to the tort lawyers.

When editing after an author uses a run-on sentence separated by a comma, I will change it to a semicolon, figuring that the author wanted the two parts to work in concert. Personally, however, I tend to agree with Pecman that two sentences are usually better than one with a semicolong -- but not always.

"Attracted for each other" may be an American regionalism that I'm not aware of. Most of the time I see "attracted to." There is one regionalism that's wide spread: "XYZ is waiting on someone" where I would say "XYZ is waiting for someone." To me one waits on someone a a restaurant. I couldn't convince the Indiana author for whom I edit to change it, so I'm still Waiting on Godot.

Inquiring minds do, too.

Parking strip -- in the Pacific Northwest.

This is a well-trodden path. First, I agree with Trab that it's a matter of style. You can write the whole thing or you can write it serially. There are two directions on the serial-writing side. There are some who are well organized and have outlined the story, so writing serially probably doesn't differ much from writing it entirely at the outset. On the other side, there are serial-writing authors who may have a sense of direction for their story but allow readers' comments and new thoughts to change its direction. I suspect that a lot of stories that go unfinished are of the latter variety: the author runs out of gas at some point since he has no solid sense of where the story is going. For me, I write holistically, which means that I don't know entirely where everything is going, in what sequence everything occurs or what side characters to develop extensively until I've written the whole thing, so for me, doing a serial story would be a disaster for my readers. Releasing a story serially is different from writing it that way. You may want to release a completed novel in serial portions in order to maximize the announcements that are made and therefore get more publicity for it.

ko

I've struck on a technique that might be of interest to other editors. I'm in the midst of editing a 204-page novel. My time is limited -- I'm not able to spend what's necessary to bring it to New Yorker or Knopf quality. I have time to go through a manuscript only three times. So, here is what I've found works quite well. First readthrough - get acquainted with the story making edits when they are apparent, putting questions into the text for my own checking or for passing on to an author. Second readthrough -- make major detailed edits. Third readthrough -- edit backwards. What I do is start at the last page, checking my edits, then the second to last page, and so forth until the first page. In this way, I don't get wrapped up in the story and overlook things because of the excitement of the story or just following the flow of it. Obviously, what works for one editor won't necessarily fit another's style. I'm just offering my techniques that might fit someone else.

Des, In Windows 7, if you create a Library called TypeMenu, you can add any folders, files, shortcuts to programs that will functionally replicate, I think, what I see as TypeMenu from your screen shot. You won't get the same display, but the functionality will be there. Then simply type TypeMenu in the Search Programs and Files in your Start menu to access your files, folders and programs. Since libraries are virtual, there are no changes to the underlying folders.

I've been using Windows since the dark ages and generally have found the innovations workable if not well done. Windows 7 undoes some of the annoyances of Vista and adds some nice features -- some of which take some getting used to. I guess I'm not sure how TrayMenu differs from the Start menu's Search Programs and Files feature. If I type in CMD.EXE there, for example, the program shows up on the list available. If I type in Best of Nifty and the Net, all the XLS and other instances show up. I can find any program or file using that feature -- and they show up almost instantaneously. As for the new Document option, I don't see a lot of difference between it and the old Windows Explorer - kludgy as it is -- except you can identify any number of folders to appear when you say documents from anywhere on your computer. The Homegroup feature in Windows 7 -- that links all your computers and printers (I have 3 computers in my house and office) -- installed flawlessly. And, 3 legal copies of Windows 7 for $50 each -- the Home Premium Family Pack -- was a good buy.

In today's (11/6) Wall Street Journal, there is a fine piece about how 11 authors find plots and develop their stories. The following shortcut may work for nonsubscribers.

De gustubus non disputandem etc. But. I would have had Dermot go to the Lando household before the Catholicism issue was raised and face all the conflicts in real time, rather than afar from the hospital bed. I never did believe that acceptance of Catholicism was a necessary condition for fostering, so it could have emerged at a later time in the story. And, I think it could have been done without the preaching. My style, however, differs from Dermot's author, so I'm not contending that mine is better -- just that I would have done it differently if confronted with the same story constraints

The story started well, but didn't maintain its quality, in my view. Pecman was prescient about the outcome, and I agreed with his observations at the time. This doesn't mean that a story will be bad, but if the outcome is predictable, something else has to rise to produce the quality of the story -- dialogue, sense of time and place -- and I'm afraid that the opposite happened. The story became predictable, then a bit preachy, and finally I was no longer able to suspend disbelief in Dermot's wrestling with the Catholicism issue and why he appealed to the other members of Lando's family. In short, Dermot started out well but didn't hold up.

Regarding feedback, I think there is a significant difference between feedback from people you trust and respect and the general public, about which you may know little or nothing. Feedback from someone you trust can be helpful -- maybe is likely to be helpful -- especially if you know them to be forthright in their observations. Ultimately, though, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead with the writing. It's the writer's work, and if it works for him or her, so be it. The writer, however, has to realize that communication with the reader is the final objective. Writing in tongues may please the writer, but there may be only one reader. And, from my editing experience, there may be no reader.