Pencil marks

What would you do if this were your assignment?  Would you cry?  Would you turn it over to see the next page?

Maybe not, but I did.  I did, and I was pleasantly surprised to see what it said.

The comments say, “Way to go!” That’s right, Steve Vogelsang used an exclamation point.  “Your best work so far!”  Twice!

If you look closer you will see most of the editing notes are check marks – good job – or very good and really good. 

Regardless of what most of the comments say, it’s daunting to see all that pencil on 438-word story.  The fact of the matter is, though, that as a writer, a professional one to boot, there will always be small changes or big changes or comments that an editor will make to help IMPROVE a writer’s abilities.

As a writer learning that someone will always have something to say about your work or know how to say it better is a hard pill to swallow.  But it’s best to choke it down because an outsider’s opinion can sometimes lead to amazing ideas. 

...continued from Friday

I’m officially a videographer this week.  Well sort of.  For the first time this week, Nicki and I edited a short silent film we shot last week for continuity.  It was totally amazing to put two different images of the same action together and have it tell a story.  I don’t know if any of you reading this blog has done this, but it is a totally amazing feeling to know that you can tell a story with film.

(I wanted to include the silent film here, but it's taking forever and this blog is due at 6.)

Another notch on the old videographer’s belt is recording sound.  Until today I had NEVER recorded sound.  Before last week I didn't even fully comprehend just how important and difficult sound is.  In first year, I filmed and edited a montage but that was just one music track and the continuity assignment was silent.  This morning Nicki, Glenda and I finally took out the sound equipment to record a phone call.  I held the boom mic over Nicki's head as she played  her part, and watched as the audio levels peaked up and down - it's really important.  Next week involves taking all we learnt, shot composition, editing for continuity and sound, and put it all together to create a piece that is officially a video.  


I'm really excited to see how it all LOOKS and SOUNDS.  If you had asked me two years ago if I ever saw myself doing or even liking this I don't if I would have said yes.  This last year has opened my eyes to so many different things I could never have imagined.  

What's the U about?

“Dad, why do we use U in words like colour and neighbour?”

“I don’t know that’s just what we do.  It’s kind of silly actually.”

That’s my dad, spoken like a true Canadian with British heritage – we have no freaking clue.

When you spell words like colour, flavour, honour there is always that little red swiggly line from your old pal spell check letting you know that word is spelt wrong, and if you’re like me you don’t change it.  But do you know why?  Maybe it’s something in our subconscious telling us that we, Canadians, spell these words with a U just to be different.

After a little research, I found that there is no earth shattering reason why we do this.  The British do it this way so we do it this way.  The website I found hints that Americans changed the language as a way of breaking free from the British – big shocker there.  Canadians, on the other hand, continue to use the British spelling as a way of preserving a sense of heritage and tradition.

U isn’t the only thing Americans changed in the English language.  Here are some others that even Canadians adopted:

British	American
aeroplane	airplane
aluminium	aluminum
arse	ass
bogeyman	boogeyman
fillet	filet
moustache	mustache
mum	mom
pyjamas	pajamas
scallywag	scalaway
speciality	specialty
titbit	tidbit