"Electronics, Heal Thyself"

I don’t want to return to the days of typewriters and carbon copies, but relying on today’s electronics can be scary. That’s especially true these days when the pandemic makes it hard for manufacturers to keep up with the demand.

When my daughter asked for a new sewing machine for her birthday, the shelves were empty because the machines had been bought up by people who wanted to use them to make masks. (Caroline did eventually find one and got it a few days later.)

A friend and online critique partner was having trouble with her laptop, but there was nothing available in the stores. She finally managed to snatch up the last remaining battery, and that solved her problem.

So I had nightmares when my printer stopped working on Thursday. Everything was going fine, and then suddenly it wasn’t. The paper feeder made excruciating grinding noises and wouldn’t send anything through. I added more paper and kept clearing jams, but the same thing happened each time. Then I switched to the second paper tray with the same result. I even tried the rear paper feeder, and that didn’t work, either.

The printer is huge because I use it for photos as well as documents, so the thought of lugging it over to Staples to get it fixed—if Staples even fixes printers—was not a happy one.  It is also relatively new, so the alternative of searching what might be empty shelves for a replacement was equally disheartening.

In the end, I decided to give up for the day. I had a tenuous hope that the printer would heal itself when I rebooted it, but I didn’t want to disillusion myself just then, so I turned it off and went to bed.

Although I wasn’t hopeful when I turned it back on Friday morning, I tried printing anyway.

Success!

My number one rule when dealing with electronics? Always try a reboot before taking something in for service or buying a new one.

Because “Physician, heal thyself” works for electronics, too.

"It is I"

This Father’s Day week, I am remembering Daddy by reprinting a blog post from September 8, 2014.

__________

“It is I”

Everything I know about grammar I learned from my father. He was the original grammar nerd.

If I knocked on Daddy’s study door and he asked, “Who is it?” I knew better than to say, “It’s me.” But if I slipped up, he was sure to raise his voice and respond, “It is I.” It wasn’t the contraction he objected to—it was the pronoun. 

I also learned not to start a request with the words, “Can I…” His response was always, “You can, but may you?”

My mother believed in using correct grammar, too, although she didn’t highlight our errors the way Daddy did. I do, however, remember her displeasure with billboards that proclaimed, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” She didn’t approve of smoking, but the use of “like” instead of “as” seemed to bother her even more.

I must have picked up some knowledge in school, too, so the statement at the top of this post isn’t technically accurate. I should probably say, “Most of what I know about grammar I learned from my parents.”

But I stand by the way I said it.

When I was a child, Daddy and Mama frowned on starting sentences with “but,” too. But language is not static, and beginning a sentence with a conjunction is no longer a major sin.

At least not with most audiences. There are still some contexts—mainly academic—where formality is expected. A good writer knows his or her audience and writes for it.

Even in less formal contexts, writers should understand the rules. Many break them, as I did by starting the last paragraph with a sentence fragment. But there are two ways to break the rules. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—only one of them works.

Some writers break the rules because they don’t know what they are. Since rules exist for a purpose, these writers often come across as uneducated. Even worse, the primary reason for grammar rules is to create clarity, so people who ignore them may lose their readers in the morass.

Others know the rules but break them intentionally in order to achieve a certain effect. That sentence fragment is punchier and more in-your-face than if I had said, “Most audiences no longer consider it a major sin to begin a sentence with a conjunction.” And for fiction writers, sentence fragments can speed up the action, especially in a thriller.

So what’s my point? It’s okay to break the grammar rules to achieve a certain effect. But you need to know them before you break them. Otherwise, your reader may not make it through the story or the essay or even the blog post.

Or you may find my father’s ghost standing before you and declaring, “It is I.”

Researching a Murder Mystery

As a lawyer, nothing turns me off faster than a murder mystery or thriller that gets the law wrong—especially if the author is also a lawyer. So when writing my own murder mystery, research is key. But how far do I need to go?

Some information is easy to discover through the Internet or other sources. For example, I learned that a Chicago homicide would be attended by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, not by a coroner, and that most recent court records are online, which allows my detectives to check them from the comfort of their own desks.

Other information is harder to find. When I wanted to know how long it would take to get DNA results from a police lab, the Internet gave me figures ranging from 24 hours to 6 months, and none of them were specific to Chicago or even to Illinois.

If I get something wrong, it isn’t necessarily fatal. After all, John Grisham has a large following even though he has either forgotten or ignored everything he learned in law school. And if I mess up on some of the small things, it won’t be for lack of trying to get them right.

But I’d rather tear up the manuscript than get the big things wrong.

__________

The picture at the top of this page shows a DNA model at the Alden B. Dow Museum of Science & Art at Midland, Michigan. I took the photo in 2015.

My "Citizen Kane" Moment

I’ve been writing a murder mystery, and I am continually reminded of the “Rosebud” incident in the movie Citizen Kane. Everything that appears in the book must have a meaning, but some things can’t be obvious until the end. So how do I insert a crucial bit of information without giving it away? Or, to put my dilemma another way, how do I make an important clue look like it isn’t?

Theoretically, the answer is simple: I can hide it in the text the way the bird in the picture is hidden in the trees. But the execution is more complicated.

In my first draft, I brought up the clue but wrote it so the detectives don’t see how it can be applicable and choose to dismiss it. Even so, I’m worried that it will be too obvious, the way the red on the bird in the first photo makes it easier to pick out.

But if I make it too obscure, my readers will miss it and wonder where it came from when the importance of the clue is revealed. The bird in the second photo blends in so well few of you will find it, and I don’t want to create that kind of frustration in my readers.

How do I find the right balance? I don’t think I’m there yet.

So I’ll keep working on the execution.

Mournng the Lake County Fair

The Lake County Fair has been officially cancelled for this year, ending my five-year string of photography entries. Since I don’t have that outlet, I have decided to display the photos in this blog post. But first, you need to know how the exhibit works.

Under the rules, I’m required to enter in the “Advanced” category (as I’ve done for the past few years), and only one photo can be entered in each section. Color and black-and-white are different sections, however. Also, the photos must all be 8 X 10 or 10 X 8, so that is the proportion (although not the dimensions) that I used here.

The photo at the top of this blog is the Grand Canal in Venice and would have been my color entry for Artistic Effect. The next one would also have been Artistic Effect but in black-and-white. It was taken at Parintins, Brazil while waiting for the tender to take us back to our cruise ship.

The next two photos would have been my two Floral entries. I don’t know what the first flower is, but you can tell that I prefer nature natural to studio perfect. The second is some type of lily.

I don’t have good luck in Human Interest, but I would have tried this one taken on Tobago in the Caribbean.

Then there is Nature-Scenic, which always confuses me. Lake County gives no guidance on the categories other than the name, and I’m never sure if I can use scenic photos that combine nature and other elements (such as buildings or people). Even so, this photo taken from St. Thomas in the Caribbean would have been my color entry in that section.

I’m not good at portraits. I entered that section only once and didn’t get a ribbon, but I like this photo I took near Manaus, Brazil, so I would have entered it. (By the way, I have no idea what the boy is holding.)

Architecture is one of my favorite categories. This year’s entries would have been a Nashville parking garage (taken from my hotel room) and Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

My final entries would have been in Wildlife. The iguana was on St. Thomas in the Caribbean, and I think I saw the geese along the Erie Canal.

Some of these photos may get entered in next year’s fair, but I hope to have additional choices by then.

And since you can’t see these in August, enjoy them now.