On Writing – Page 2 – The Jake of All Trades

What’s in a So?

iA Writer recently had an update where they allowed for custom style check filters in addition to the cliches, fillers and redundancies filters the app possessed.

This coincided with me reading Dreyer’s English. In the opening chapter Dreyer gives a list of words to stop using for a week.

One of which—so—is one that I knew I used too much.

It was straight forward to add in the words to iA Writer’s pattern list—the only catch being that since I wanted words, and not letter combinations, I had to add spaces before and after.

Otherwise, “so” would mark “personal” since it contained “so”.

Has it helped? That’s to be decided. The intent is not to exclude these words from my prose, poetry, or blog ramblings, but to be more conscious of the construction of those writings.

So when I drop a “so”, it feels fluid, not repetitive.

About those Guidelines

I was reading posts in one of the writer groups I follow on Facebook the other day and several of the writers were lamenting about the restrictions in markets—things like:

No animal cruelty, no child abuse, no vampire/werewolf/zombies, etc. No serial killers.

One writer commented that they still send stories of these kinds to markets despite the restriction, something they bragged had even worked.

The example restrictions above are actually from LampLight, not the thread, and I wanted to talk about them.

I get stories that go against the guidelines all the time. Some are even fantastically written. Amazing zombie stories, horrific vampire ones. I get a lot of what I would consider ‘drama’—stories that are slice of life, and while tragic, lack that which you need to be a horror story.

Some of which I have quite enjoyed reading. I also rejected them.

The thing about the guidelines is that yes, there is some wiggle room in them, their intention has nothing to do with the writer.

Guidelines are about the reader.

LampLight, as other markets, has a certain theme, mood and feel to it. This helps the reader to know what to expect. A market that goes for anything may be convenient for the writer, but will struggle to find an audience.

More how the story isn’t the whole story—I’m not looking for a good story, I’m looking for a good LampLight story.

Which is why as a submitting author it is important to know the market. And, if the only thing you know about the market is the guidelines, then it is even more important that you abide by them.

On Contemplation and the Public Domain

I was reading On Haiku, by Hiroaki Sato this past January (highly recommended!), and in it Sato mentioned an article published in 1923, On the Method of Practicing Concentration and Contemplation translated by Kakuso Okakura, which was the first complete instructions for zazen translated into English.

At the time, it was January 2019, which was different from the previous 20 or so years in an important way—public domain had advanced one year, which meant that works published in 1923 were now public domain.

Well! I went looking for it on a whim and found a scanned copy online and began the process of typing it up…

(then 2019 happened. sigh)

AND then, in December, I pulled it back out and finished typing it up. It’s about 12,000 words, featuring the translation by Kakuso Okakura, and a forward from William Sturgis Bigelow.

So, here it is, in ebook form, the pamphlet. On the Method of Practicing Concentration and Contemplation by Chi Ki, translated by Kakuso Okakura.

ePub – Mobi

On the Method of Practicing Concentration and Contemplation

Chi Ki (Chik I)

A Monk of Shuzenji (Hsiutanszu) Monastery of Tendai (Tient’ai) Moutain

Translated by Kakuso Okakura

with a Prefatory Note by William Sturgis Bigelow

note: For the third-person singular pronoun, the translator used he/him, which would have been the proper style at the time. This has been changed the pronouns to they/them to reflect modern style guides. The preface remains unchanged.