I am a Virgo, Year of the Ox, and that’s all you need to know–unless you are writing my horoscope.
Nooooo, I don’t believe in any of that stuff; I was just trying to get your attention.
My husband Mike (Captain, USN Retired) and I live in Gainesville, Virginia where we make daily efforts to keep up with our high tech world, so different from the manual typewriters, tube radios, and one-speed bicycles that we grew up with. The only form of web communication we knew was Charlotte’s Web. (I wonder if Charlotte, too, has gone high tech.)
In my on-and-off writing career, I have made a few dents in writing contests and have published short stories, essays, and nonfiction pieces including two pieces published in Dressage Today magazine. I am a strong believer in distance education, having studied editing, article writing, and flash fiction with outstanding online instructors. I am a long time member of the writing group Writers of Chantilly.
My first novel, A Hard Dry Road, was published in 2003 by Five Star of Waterville, Maine. I’m hoping to publish my next novel electronically with an option for a print version. All the words are in my computer; I just have to convince a publisher that he/she cannot survive without my work.
Likes: family, especially my three grandchildren (with apologies adults), one dog, two cats, one horse,
reading, riding, writing, playing with my iPad
Dislikes: housework
Favorite Books: The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lonesome Dove,
Pride and Prejudice, Pigs in Heaven, David Copperfield,
Huckleberry Finn, The #1 Ladies Detective Agency, Plainsong,
Music: Mozart, Hayden, Vivaldi, Boccherini, Glenn Miller, Tommy
Movies: Lost in Yonkers, The Producers, Brighton Beach Memoirs,
Some Like it Hot, Tea With Mussolini, The Big Kahuna,
Comment
The most shocking thing I learned from reading Mark Twain’s recently published autobiography was that he hated the work of deceased writer Jane Austen. He said, after reading her novel Pride and Prejudice, “I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shinbone.” I can’t help wondering what Jane Austen would have thought about the works of Mark Twain. She was a lady of gentility, so I like to think that she would have been kinder in her criticism.
I imagine Twain’s objection to Miss Austen’s writing stemmed from his view that, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.” Twain got right to his point, nailing exactly the right word, which he makes look easy; I know from experience, however, that it is not at all easy. Austen, on the other hand, wrote in the language of her day and her class, frilly verbosity that must have tried Twain’s spirit.
Criticism of one author by another can be vicious and extreme as equally as it can offer praise and respect. Just look at what Harold Bloom had to say about J. K. Rowling.
How to read 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.
Ouch. If I have critics among the authors of my lifetime, I hope that I never run across any of their nasty comments. I don’t write for other authors or for critics; I write for the pleasure of the reader. One of my essays, which placed well in a magazine contest, is on the first page of my blog. I hope you read it and I hope you had fun.
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