The Daily News

Shameless selfie. 

1   Howdy.

2   <crickets>

3   I said, "HOWDY!"

4   That's better.

5   Dayum.

6   Glorious day.

7    The babies are great, although both had screaming attacks after I wrote the following, so all wasn't peaceful, but it became peaceful, after a fashion.

8   So I wrote this all yesterday but transported myself into today so you wouldn't need to time travel, if that makes any sort of sense. God, I've become so mediocre that I may actually get published some day.

9   Moving On, Part One: I  lulled in the sunshine pouring through Josh and Caitlin's sliding door yesterday. It made me sleepy.

10  It went deep into the somnolent afternoon. The chatter of happy babies rolled through the peace.

11   In short, a Tuesday afternoon brought with it the enemy to anyone who tries to write with that situation surrounding them: writer's block.

12  If 100 writers had read that, 90% would laugh me out of the room. Pretty sure. 

13  Writing has so many weapons: journals, listing, reading favorite authors, mapping, clustering, theatrical improve (yes, and comes to mind), reading great poetry: the list is endless. 

14  Writer's block?

15  Don't be silly.

16   Who can possibly get writer's block?

17   

18   (Points thumbs at own chest) This guy.

19   Fortunately for me, I have lots of things within easy reach, things I can use.

20   I wanted to give Stephen King and Amy Tan the night off.

21   I'll allow Steinbeck to rest on his own laurels. 

22   A while ago I introduced you to author Roy Peter Clark. Here is his background, located on the back of his excellent book for writers, Writing Tools: 

         Roy Peter Clark, a writer who teaches and a teacher who
         writes, is vice president and senior scholar of the Poynter
         Institute, on of the most prestigious schools for journalists
         in the world. He has written or edited many books about 
         writing and journalism, and he has spoken about the writer's
         craft on The Oprah Winfrey Show, NPR and Today.

23   The book begins with three pages of praise from such dignitaries as Dave Barry, humorist and good friend of Stephen King, Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down,
Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, Mark Kramer, director of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism, Harvard University, and the list goes on and on.

24  Clark divides his book into four major parts, in this order: NUTS AND BOLTS, SPECIAL EFFECTS, BLUEPRINTS, and USEFUL HABITS. Sorry about the shouting. That's the way it is placed in Clark's book. 

25   I can get myself into a lot of trouble if I break each of those down for you.

26  So buy the book. 

27   God help me, I produced an accidental pun. I'll try not to point it out to you. I'll make it look like those pictures people post on Facebook, the ones that have two cartoons side-by-side and tell you that while they look alike, eight things are different. Remember those in Highlights mags when you would go to Kaiser? They STILL have them. Ask an expert.

28   That being said, I can now play fair, and I get to annoy you the same way those things annoy me. I'm good at them, but they annoy me anyway because I HAVE to figure them out before I make another move. 

29   I like to play fair, and do everything by the book.

30   Have fun figuring the pun out. It won't be easy for some of you, but all the clues are there.

31   Let us return to Clark's book and its layout: he divides the four parts not into chapters, but into tools. There are fifty tools in the book.

32   I can't possibly cover each, but I can zero in on a few here and add more in the coming weeks.

33   I'll zero in on Tool 9, subtitled Let punctuation control pace and space.

34   I will add my own experiences as color commentary.

35   Stop worrying about the pun. I'll reveal it at the end of all of this. Right now I need you to focus.

36  So.

37   Punctuation.

38   Here's my angle: I have had high school sophomores write 300 word essays with no sense of punctuation. WAY more than you could imagine. Some, in fact,who would write the entire essay without using a period until the last word. On my honor, I'm telling you this has happened to me, and it has probably happened to other teachers. And even to former teachers. 

39   Those poor kids must have been terrorized by mutant teachers who more than likely threatened to cut off their fingers if they didn't use a comma in what they felt was the correct place (not all grammarians agree on when and when not to use commas, for the record), or when to use a period.

40   Add to that the punishable-by-law sentence fragment. I find myself guilty of red-penning the non-word "frag" on hundreds, maybe thousands of students' papers over the years.

41   O, the humanity!

42   Why?

43   Well, students need to learn the rules before they break the rules.

44   Does that make any sense?

45   Unfortunately they might be destroyed early along the way. 

46  I eventually taught both. For example, there are so many nuances to comma rules as well as disagreement among the scholarly that I would teach the comma using Grandmaster Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, Fourth Course, any edition (to me, the be-all and end-all grammar book), explain that there are different points of view regarding that, and then throw in my own rule:

47   When in doubt, leave it out.

48   Helene had a boss a few years ago who had majored in English and thought the idea sensational. He never went back. 

49   I love it. So simple. 

50   But what of the students who don't understand punctuation, or how it works?

51   Fear not. I will offer up this brilliant passage from Clark's Chapter 9 (he put the numeral, rather than writing it out, just for the record). Here go:

   Tool 9

Let punctuation control pace and space.

Learn the rules, but realize

you have more options than you think.

   

       Some teach punctuation using technical distinctions, such

       as the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive

       clauses. Not here. I prefer tools, not rules. My preference

       shows no disrespect for the rules of punctuation. They help

       the writer and the reader as long as everybody remembers

       that such rules are arbitrary, determined by consensus, 

       convention, and culture. 

     

          If you check the end of that last sentence, you will notice

        that I used a comma before "and" to end a series. For 

        a quarter century, we at the Poynter Institute have argued

        about that comma. Fans of Strunk and White (that's me!)

        put it in. Thrifty journalists take it out. As an American, I

        spell the word color "color," and I place the comma inside

        the quotation marks. My cheeky English friend spells it 

        "colour", and she leaves that poor little croissant out in the

        cold. 

       

          Most punctuation is required, but some is optional, leaving

        the writer with many choices. My modest goal is to highlight

        those choices, to transform  the formal rules of punctuation

        into useful tools. 

          Punctuation comes from the Latin root punctus, or "point."

        Those funny dots, lines, and squiggles help writers point the

        way. To help readers, we punctuate for two reasons:

          

          1.  To set the pace of reading.

          2.  To divide words, phrases, and ideas into convenient

               groupings. 

        You will punctuate with power and purpose when you

        begin to consider pace and space. 

          

           Think of a long, well-written sentence with no punctuation

         except the period. Such a sentence is a straight road with a 

         stop sign at the end. The period is the stop sign. Now think 

         of a windy road with lots of stop signs. That analogy 

         describes a paragraph with lots of periods, an effect that

         will slow the pace of the story. The writer may desire such

         a pace for strategic reasons: to achieve clarity, convey

         emotion, or  create suspense.

           If a period is a stop sign, then what kind of traffic flow

         is created by other marks? The comma is a speed bump;

         the semi-colon is what a driver-education teacher calls a

         "rolling stop"; the parenthetical expression is a detour; the

         colon is a flashing yellow light that announces something

         important up ahead; the dash a tree branch in the road. 

         

52  I'll stop there. Buy the book. I'm telling you. 

53  Which reminds me. Did you ever catch the pun on 

item 26, above? I played fair, and I even planted a few cues during your journey down and around the road to good punctuation. 

54   Give up?

55   Buy the book. And then do things by the book. 

56   Is there such a thing as an end hook?

57   Only if it rhymes.

58   Gottago. It was fun messing with you.

59   Have a GREAT day.

60   See you again.

61   Peace.

~H~

fin.