Christine Amsden

There are some who, to varying degrees, suggest eliminating being verbs from your prose. Since being is such a pivotal part of our language, a building block really, why would anyone suggest such a thing?

This is one of those “so-called rules of writing” that I mentioned in a previous article. In other words, there are no rules, there are only actions and consequences.

The consequence of using a being verb is that it is motionless. It can create a sense of standing still, especially when overused. In strong fiction (and in many other types of writing) you want a sense of movement to keep readers turning pages. Moreover, you want flavor and diversity to your language that the overuse of *any* word can squash.

For example:

“The train is on time.”
“The museum is crowded.”

In contrast, you can make these ideas move by putting active verbs in them.

“The train pulled into the station on time.”
“People stood elbow to elbow in the museum.”

The sentences without being verbs in them not only move, but also create a more vivid image.

Of course, sometimes things simply are. In those cases, you can draw unfavorable attention to convoluted sentences attempting to wind their way around being.

For example:

“The couch exudes greenness.”

Ouch!

How much is too much? That is largely a matter of style. I don’t think it is a bad exercise for beginning writers to try, for a little while, to remove as many being verbs as possible. This isn’t because their finished drafts should be free of being, but rather because the exercise challenges you to think of more active and powerful alternatives that can make your writing shine. When you force yourself to think of them, you’ll find that most being verbs can go. Even that green couch doesn’t have to “be” green. You can combine it with another sentence and tell us something interesting about it, such as, “No one had ever cleaned the smelly green couch.”

So strive to make your writing move by not making everything simply be, but don’t drive yourself crazy over it when things simply are.

I’ll just be straight up about this one — I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I never have. The idea that, “This year will be different. This is the year I’ll make a change.” doesn’t seem to be the right attitude for real change. And in fact, the vast majority of New Year’s Resolutions are broken — quickly!

Real change takes effort. Often, real change requires a pivotal event or revelation. Having to remember to write, “2007″ instead of “2006″ in your checkbook is not a pivotal event. It’s not personal. It is merely a convenient way for historians to keep track of things. Growing up, a new school year often meant more to me than a new calendar year.

If you need to make a change, search your soul. Find the motivation within yourself and do it because it needs doing. Start now, because you finally realized how important it was rather than at midnight on January 1, 2007 because it happens to be the start of a new year AND a Monday.

When you do that soul searching and find that pivotal moment of understanding, you won’t want to wait for January 1st. You will know, to the depths of your soul, that you are no longer the person who ______. When you give yourself an extra day or week or month to keep at the old habit, a “good bye” period, then you are still the person who ______. You just have a nagging voice (maybe not even your own) that thinks maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t.

I have little doubt that the New Year’s resolutions that succeed are a result of deep soul-searching and finding that intrinsic motivation. This is how I have lost weight (one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions) — and I have lost quite a bit of it, but never beginning in January.

Going into the new year I am going to continue to try to be the best person I can be, to be kind to people, and to take care of myself and my son. I could use a cleaner house — maybe one day I’ll find the resolve and self-discipline to do that. When I do, it will probably start on a Wednesday in July.

Christmas is so different now that I’m a mom. A lot of people say that Christmas is for kids, and I think they’re wrong. It’s for adults with kids.

Drake is thirteen months old now and I thought he might not be quite old enough to really get into Christmas, but he proved me wrong. He may not have quite understood presents on his birthday, but one month later and he’s tearing into packages (whether they’re his or not) and finding treasures inside.

I spoiled him a little bit. Our house is now full of toys. A couple months ago I didn’t

My sincere apologies for failing to keep this blog up over the past few weeks. First it was birthday and Thanksgiving, and then my son got sick for the first time in his young life. Unfortunately, I was sick at the same time. (No sick time for mommies!) After that, I think I just had trouble getting back into the flow.

Here I am again, though, and I wanted to dedicate a blog entry to my favorite science fiction show of all times — Babylon 5.

For those of you who have not seen it, let me give you an overview. J. Michael Straczynski decided to create a television series with 5 planned seasons, sort of a play in 5 acts with introducing, rising action, climax, and denouement. This plan was slightly messed up by a threatened cancellation in the fourth season, causing them to have to come to a conclusion in a hurry and then undo the conclusion when they got the go ahead for the fifth season. Even so, the overall arc is well planned and well implemented.

Babylon 5 is a space station in neutral territory, primarily funded and run by Earth but playing host to a quarter million humans and aliens at any time. The mission is to help keep the peace, but that all goes to hell pretty quickly.

My favorite part of this series is the characterization. Very rarely do you see a true and real evolution of characters who are neither good nor evil, but real. We all have our foibles and strengths, and it is that complex interplay that makes us who we are, capable of doing monstrous things and tremendous good. My favorite example of this is Londo, the ambassador from Centauri Prime, who begins as a drunken fool, evolves into a well-meaning monster, repents, and then suffers of a terrible fate.

That was just my personal favorite, though. There is a complex universe here with people, relationships, multiple governments, each with their own problems, and aliens who aren’t all bipeds who breathe oxygen. (The main characters are, but I can forgive them that.) :=)

I also really enjoy the believability of the future presented. Far from the human race “evolving” into something pure and perfect, we have basically remained the same — just out in space. We continue to repeat the sins of our past. Wars, crime, the worst kinds of capitalism, plays for power, politicians, and lawyers continue to plague the future in Babylon 5. It may not be peaceful, but it is interesting.

I own all five seasons of Babylon 5 and have watched them all several times. It was my first choice for distraction during the first few weeks of my son’s life when I was planted in a chair with a baby on my breast.

My favorite seasons are 3 and 4, because they are the most action-packed and because they introduce a new character named Marcus who is easy to like. Season 1 is interesting, because the commander of Babylon 5 is season 1 has a destiny that diverges from the rest of the characters. In fact, he is replaced in season 2, but he is not forgotten.

This show is not Star Trek. It is much, much better. I highly recommend it to all science fiction lovers out there.

I just finished reading “Shadow of the Giant” by Orson Scott Card. This is the fourth book in the “Ender’s Shadow” line, which have been following Bean and the other battle school graduates who stayed behind on Earth.

I had hoped that it would be the final book, but it does not seem to have ended just yet. In the previous book, we ended with the abduction of 8 embryos belonging to Bean and Petra. I had expected this book to center around their recovery, but instead the book spent most of its time jumping from character to character, place to place, and even made several jumps forward in time that were difficult to follow.

Mostly, though, I would have loved to have spent more time with each of the pertinent characters, learning more about their motivations and their fates. In particular, I wanted more from Peter. At the end, the story may not have been over but it was over for most of the characters I had grown to know and care for. That, more than anything else, left me with a deep sense of sadness. They were over but nothing was resolved.

Now that I’ve gotten all that out of my system, I still have to stay that Orson Scott Card remains one of my favorite authors and that this story, written in his usual style, contains many of the qualities I have come to know and love. He has created endearing characters, compelling conflict, and insightful futuristic views. He’s already sold me on the sequel, even if I ha hoped there would not be one.

Things are still going along very, very slowly. We still don’t have permanent cover art for the novel (although I like the face on the temporary cover art and hope to keep it), we still don’t have the book released to Fictionwise, and we have no release date for the trade paperback. (Although an unrelated comment by my publisher is causing me to think we’re talking summer or fall of 2007 rather than spring…she said I would receive a proof copy 4 or 5 months before release. So, if I get a proof copy tomorrow — which I doubt — it will be another 4 or 5 months.)

I had to take September 15th off my front page as the tentative release date for the e-book and at the moment, I don’t have a new release date at all (tentative or otherwise).

I am told that a copy editor is brushing off the grammar and spelling errors and that an artist is working on the cover art. I am still confident that there will be an e-book this fall and a trade paperback next year, but I can’t say when.

You will know as soon as I do!