March 9, 2026 · 6:00 am

Successful revisions #writing

I always think that in some ways, books are like machines. They’re comprised of many essential components, and if one element fails, the book won’t work the way the author envisions it.

My writing life.So, what are these parts?

Prose, plot, transitions, pacing, theme, characterization, dialogue, and mechanics (grammar/punctuation).

As an editor, I’ve seen every kind of mistake you can imagine, and I have written some travesties myself. I need my writing group, people with a critical eye who see my work first and give me good advice when I’ve gone astray.

I don’t want to waste my editor’s time, so once I have completed the revisions suggested by my beta readers, I begin a self-edit.

I use Microsoft Word, but most word processing programs have a read-aloud function. I place the cursor where I want to begin and open the Review Tab. Then, I click on Read Aloud and begin reading along with the mechanical voice. Yes, the AI voice can be annoying and doesn’t always pronounce things right, but this first tool shows me a wide variety of places that need rewriting.

screenshot of the read aloud functionI habitually type ‘though’ when I mean ‘through,’ and ‘lighting’ when I mean ‘lightning.’ These are two widely different words but are only one letter apart. Most misspelled words will leap out when you hear them read aloud.

  1. Run-on sentences stand out.
  2. Inadvertent repetitions also stand out.
  3. Hokey phrasing doesn’t sound as good as you thought it was.
  4. You notice where words like “the” or “a” before a noun were skipped.

This process involves a lot of stopping and starting, taking me a week to get through the entire 90,000-word manuscript. At the end, I will have trimmed about 3,000 words.

image of scissorsThe next phase of this process is where I find and correct punctuation and find more places that need improvement. Sometimes I trim away entire sections, riffs on ideas that have already been presented. Often, they are outright repetitions that don’t leap out on the computer screen. (Those are often cut-and-paste errors.)

Open your manuscript. Break it into separate chapters, and make sure each is clearly and consistently labeled. Make certain the chapter numbers are in the proper sequence and that they don’t skip a number. For a work in progress, Baron’s Hollow, I would title the chapter files this way:

  • BH_ch_1
  • BH_ch_2
  • and so on until the end.

Print out the first chapter. Everything looks different printed out, and you will see many things you don’t notice on the computer screen or hear when the AI voice reads it aloud.

  1. Turn to the last page. Cover the page with another sheet of paper, leaving only the last paragraph visible.
  2. Starting with the last paragraph on the last page, begin reading, working your way forward.
  3. Use a yellow highlighter to mark each place that needs correction.
  4. Put the corrected chapter on a recipe stand next to your computer. Open your document and begin making revisions as noted on your hard copy.

Repeat this process with each chapter.

This is the phase where I look for what I think of as code words. I look at words like “went.” In my personal writing habits, “went” is a code word that tells me when a scene ends and transitions to another stage. The characters or their circumstances are undergoing a change. One scene is ending, and another is beginning.

weak versus strong words. We try to move is weak. We move is strong.Clunky phrasing and info dumps are signals that tell me what I intend the scene to be. In the rewrite, I must expand on those ideas and ensure the prose is active. I must cut some of the info and allow the reader to use their imagination.

Let’s look at the word “went.” When I see it, I immediately know someone is going somewhere.

But in many contexts, “went” is a telling word and can lead to passive phrasing.

Passive phrasing does the job with little effort on the author’s part, which is why the first drafts of my work are littered with it. Active phrasing takes more effort because it involves visualizing a scene and showing it to the reader.

I ask myself, “How do they go?” Went can always be shown as a brief, one-sentence scene. James opened the door and strode out.

Confusing passages stand out when you see them printed. Maybe it’s the opposite of an info dump. Maybe the lead-up to the scene wasn’t shown well enough and leaves the reader wondering how such a thing happened.

The most confusing places are often sections where I cut a sentence or paragraph and moved it to a different place. These really stand out if they create a garbled scene.

image of a stop lightHINT: If your eye wants to skip over a section of the printout, STOP. Read that section aloud and discover why your mind wants to skip it. Was it too wordy? Was it muddled? Something made your eye want to skip it and you need to discover why.

By the end of phase two, I will have trimmed about 3,000 more words from my manuscript.

At this point, the manuscript might look finished, but it has only just begun the journey. Now it is as ready as I can make it, and it goes to my editor, Irene, who gives it the final polish.

Context is everything. I am wary of relying on Grammarly or ProWriting Aid for anything other than alerting you to possible comma and spelling malfunctions.

If you don’t know anything about punctuation, don’t feel alone. Most of us don’t when we’re first starting out, but we learn by looking things up and practicing.

If you are looking for a simple guide to commas that will cost you nothing, check out my post, Fundamentals of Grammar: 7 basic rules of punctuation, published here July 7, 2021.

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March 6, 2026 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood by John Singer Sargent 1885

Artist: John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)

Title: Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood

Depicted people: Claude Monet, Alice Hoschedé

Date: 1885

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 54 cm (21.2 in); width: 64.8 cm (25.5 in)

Collection: Tate Britain

 

What I love about this painting:

This is the record of a pleasant summer’s day spent with friends, just relaxing and enjoying life. I feel sure a picnic basket lurks just out of sight, filled with good French food.

John Singer Sargent was a complicated man in so many ways, but his art came first. He was wholly dedicated to his art, and yet he had to earn money. He is most famous for his (sometimes scandalous) portraits of famous people of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, all of which are outstanding and worthy of a closer look.

While his portraits paid the bills, his best work was done when painting scenes of ordinary people going about their daily business. Claude Monet is a legend in our time, but he was just another painter friend, albeit a respected one, in Sargent’s time. Thus, portraying his friend as he worked was absolutely Sargent’s idea of painting for fun.

The influence of the French impressionists on his work is clear, and yet he remained committed to a style of realism that was uniquely his own.

About this painting, via Wikipedia:

Sargent spent much time painting outdoors in the English countryside when not in his studio. On a visit to Monet at Giverny in 1885, Sargent painted one of his most Impressionistic portraits, of Monet at work painting outdoors with his new bride nearby. Sargent is usually not thought of as an Impressionist painter, but he sometimes used impressionistic techniques to great effect. His Claude Monet Painting at the Edge of a Wood is rendered in his own version of the Impressionist style. In the 1880s, he attended the Impressionist exhibitions, and he began to paint outdoors in the plein-air manner after that visit to Monet. Sargent purchased four Monet works for his personal collection during that time. [1]

About the artist via Wikipedia:

About The Artist via Wikipedia:

John Singer Sargent (January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the “leading portrait painter of his generation” for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.

Born in Florence to American parents, he was trained in Paris before moving to London, living most of his life in Europe. He enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter. An early submission to the Paris Salon in the 1880s, his Portrait of Madame X, was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter in Paris, but instead resulted in scandal. During the next year following the scandal, Sargent departed for England where he continued a successful career as a portrait artist.

From the beginning, Sargent’s work is characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality. His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. Art historians generally ignored society artists such as Sargent until the late 20th century.

With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. And it is in some of his late works where one senses Sargent painting most purely for himself. His watercolors were executed with a joyful fluidness. He also painted extensively family, friends, gardens, and fountains. In watercolors, he playfully portrayed his friends and family dressed in Orientalist costume, relaxing in brightly lit landscapes that allowed for a more vivid palette and experimental handling than did his commissions (The Chess Game, 1906). His first major solo exhibit of watercolor works was at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, he exhibited eighty-six watercolors in New York City, eighty-three of which were bought by the Brooklyn Museum. Evan Charteris wrote in 1927:

To live with Sargent’s water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world, ‘the refluent shade’ and ‘the Ambient ardours of the noon.’

Although not generally accorded the critical respect given Winslow Homer, perhaps America’s greatest watercolorist, scholarship has revealed that Sargent was fluent in the entire range of opaque and transparent watercolor technique, including the methods used by Homer. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood by John Singer Sargent, 1885.  P|D 100.  File:Sargent MonetPainting.jpg – Wikipedia. Accessed March 5, 2026.

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “John Singer Sargent,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Singer_Sargent&oldid=1337829485 (accessed March 5, 2026).

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March 2, 2026 · 6:00 am

Microsoft, you are p**sing me off, and other random rants #writing

Look, Microsoft. I have been using your products since 1994. I’ve stuck with you through screens of death, through Windows ME and Vista, and through Windows 8.

I adored Windows 10. I use your product every day, often for six to ten hours at a stretch. I write books and sometimes edit other people’s work. I listen to a terrific playlist while I do that, mostly epic JRPG fantasy game soundtracks. I also use it for gaming.

I’m just gonna lay this out there like it is. With every update, your current version of Windows 11 has become more of a shit show.

On the good side: While I utterly despise the mandatory inclusion of AI (CoPilot) to “assist” my writing, I am glad you allow me to turn it off. YAY for that blessing!  It is the most gawd-awful example of “fixing what ain’t broke” that I have recently encountered. In the default application, it insists on giving unasked-for advice, attempting to rewrite my prose to comply with modern business practices. Thank you for allowing me to shut it off, even though I had to Google the instructions.

Don’t screw that up, please. (Instructions for turning off CoPilot at the bottom of the post.)

Frustrated cartoon monkey at a computer, via Microsoft Word.

courtesy Office360 graphics

And now the negative: since the most recent updates, my audio has been acting up. Even better, I couldn’t connect either of my two (2) computers to my printer! That was a pain, as I like to print out my revised chapters and read them out loud to make sure they say what I intended. I had to pay a tech to come in and fix my printer problem. I don’t want to have to do that for the audio.

I live in fear of updates.

And yes, I have updated all the drivers and also ensured I have the most recent Realtek updates.

It’s still randomly droning and hanging up on certain sounds and words with M’s or N’s, even with the new drivers installed. Sometimes it goes all day with no problems. Other times it’s so bad I have to restart the computer two or three times in one day.

And this occurs on both my desktop AND my laptop.

Why should I have to go through this? The desktop PC is old, purchased in 2020, but this laptop is less than two years old, and if this keeps up, it’s gonna be a boat anchor because the random buzzing and stuttering is making me nuts.

I have no desire to purchase a Mac. My first computer was a Mac, and the office in my last job was equipped with Macs. So, while I have used them before, I prefer a PC.

Besides, my son-in-law works for you. I want to keep him employed!

Fix your product and let me get back to work! Otherwise, I will have to consider jumping ship. Don’t make me go to the dark side. Don’t do it.

And now for the sad news of the week: On the first day of February, I made the mistake of purchasing living plants, a miniature rose, and a potted tulip to brighten the eternal gray of winter in the Pacific Northwest.

I know better than this. Greg was the plant person, not me. Nevertheless, from the moment I brought them home, both Rose and Tulip were important members of the household. Rose, in her lovely pink petals and Tulip in her red were champions, fighting back the Northwest gloom.

Jan Brueghel the Elder - Flowers in a Vase with a Clump of Cyclamen and Precious StonesUnfortunately, both Rose and Tulip have passed away. Their two weeks of life in my neglectful care were meaningful and made a difference during the darkest days of winter.

Whatever it was that finally took them, at least they went into that dark unknown together.

One day, they were sitting in my window, waving to traffic as it passed by, and the next, they lay draped over the edges of their respective pots. They were good plants, beloved by all who met them, and I’m sure they are now in plant heaven.

Truthfully, I prefer houseplants that are dishwasher safe. I usually stop at the Dollar Tree and get the kind that you can put in the top rack every month or so for a good cleaning. I just run the rinse cycle (with the dry cycle turned off). It gives them a good wash and they look like new. I’ve never had a plastic plant die, no matter how I neglected it.

Now on to my next rant. I was recently forced to change health insurance so that my husband could be cared for by the doctor who makes monthly house calls to the Adult Family Care home where he is living. Suddenly, I was faced with the fact that while my husband was able to be cared for well, I could NOT find a doctor in my town that accepted new patients with my insurance.

But HUZZAH! After two months of struggle, searching, and worry that I would have to drive 70 miles north to the Seattle area to find a doctor that accepts new patients with my insurance, I have connected with a doctor who more than suits my needs. I am now on proper blood pressure meds, and hopefully everything will stay smooth sailing.

If Microsoft patches its current problems anytime soon, my blood pressure should return to somewhere near normal.

One can dream.

And finally, as promised above, here is an image showing how to turn off CoPilot in MS Word, as shown by my Google search. Feel free to right-click and save it to your desktop.

You can disable Copilot in Word to remove AI assistance and maintain a distraction-free editing environment. The process differs slightly between Windows and Mac. Windows Open Microsoft Word and click the File tab. Select Options from the sidebar to open the Word Options window. Click Add-ins in the left-hand menu. In the Manage dropdown at the bottom, choose COM Add-ins and click Go. Locate the Copilot add-in (e.g., Microsoft Word Copilot) and uncheck its box. Click OK to confirm. Restart Word to apply the changes.

 

 

 

 

Credits and Attributions:

“IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Jan Brueghel the Elder – Flowers in a Vase with a Clump of Cyclamen and Precious Stones.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jan_Brueghel_the_Elder_-_Flowers_in_a_Vase_with_a_Clump_of_Cyclamen_and_Precious_Stones.jpg&oldid=1168023989 (accessed March 1, 2026).

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February 27, 2026 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A closer look at “The Peasant and the Nest Robber” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder 1568

The_Peasant_and_the_Birdnester_Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_1568Artist: Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569)

Title:  “The Peasant and the Nest Robber”

Date: 1568

Medium: oil on oak wood

Dimensions: 59.3 × 68.3 cm (23.3 × 26.8 in)

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum

What I love about this painting

I first featured this painting in September of 2024. It made me smile then and still does. I still love the sarcastic wit that Pieter Breughel the Elder instilled in it. He was a man with a sharp eye for the humorous and the ability to wield allegory and symbolism like a knife. He cuts to the heart of things, pointing out the hubris and vanities of people from all walks of life.

Most painters at the time painted either religious scenes or portraits for the wealthy. Pieter Brueghel the Elder painted plenty of religious scenes which sold well, but his favorite subjects were the common people of his village. He was earthy and honest in his depictions of village life as he saw it. Brueghel the Elder celebrated the ups and downs of the human condition.

Today, his art is an important source of evidence about the social mores and values governing the life of ordinary people during the 16th-century.

This painting details his favorite subject, human frailty, but he’s taken a different approach, narrowing his usual cast of thousands to just two.

In this case, he is pointing out that people are opportunists. We either have the knowledge and nerve to take what we need or the knowledge and sly desire to point out the failings of others.

Both men in this scene are taking the opportunity to advance themselves. One gains eggs and a good meal, and the other gains a sense of moral superiority.

Neither man feels guilty.

About this painting, via Wikipedia:

This unusual subject apparently illustrates a Netherlandish proverb:

Dije den nest Weet dijen weeten, dijen Roft dij heeten
He who knows where the nest is, has the knowledge, he who robs, has the nest.

The painting presents a moralising contrast between the active, wicked individual and the passive man who is virtuous in spite of adversity (a similar theme appears in his drawing The Beekeepers)] And lastly it could be suggested that the pointing man is making judgement on the robber whilst not aware that he is nearly stepping into the water in front of him.

It has been suggested that, with his knowledge of Italian art, Bruegel intended the peasant’s gesture as a profane parody of the gesture of Leonardo‘s St John. [1]

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder c. 1525–1530 – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genre painting); he was a pioneer in making both types of subject the focus in large paintings.

He was a formative influence on Dutch Golden Age painting and later painting in general in his innovative choices of subject matter, as one of the first generation of artists to grow up when religious subjects had ceased to be the natural subject matter of painting. He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp, where he worked mainly as a prolific designer of prints for the leading publisher of the day. Only towards the end of the decade did he switch to make painting his main medium, and all his famous paintings come from the following period of little more than a decade before his early death, when he was probably in his early forties, and at the height of his powers.

Around 1563, Bruegel moved from Antwerp to Brussels, where he married Mayken Coecke, the daughter of the painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Mayken Verhulst. As registered in the archives of the Cathedral of Antwerp, their deposition for marriage was registered 25 July 1563. The marriage itself was concluded in the Chapel Church, Brussels in 1563.

Pieter the Elder had two sons: Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder (both kept their name as Brueghel). Their grandmother, Mayken Verhulst, trained the sons because “the Elder” died when both were very small children. The older brother, Pieter Brueghel copied his father’s style and compositions with competence and considerable commercial success. Jan was much more original, and very versatile. He was an important figure in the transition to the Baroque style in Flemish Baroque painting and Dutch Golden Age painting in a number of its genres. He was often a collaborator with other leading artists, including with Peter Paul Rubens on many works including the Allegory of Sight.

Other members of the family include Jan van Kessel the Elder (grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder) and Jan van Kessel the Younger. Through David Teniers the Younger, son-in-law of Jan Brueghel the Elder, the family is also related to the whole Teniers family of painters and the Quellinus family of painters and sculptors, through the marriage of Jan-Erasmus Quellinus to Cornelia, daughter of David Teniers the Younger. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

[1] IMAGE and Quote about this picture: Wikipedia contributors, “The Peasant and the Nest Robber,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Peasant_and_the_Nest_Robber&oldid=1265248481 (accessed February 26, 2026).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Pieter Bruegel the Elder,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder&oldid=1340544806 (accessed February 26, 2026).

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February 23, 2026 · 6:00 am

Exploring Depth #writing

We often talk about the story arc and its component parts and features. But to explain depth, we must put all the parts and pieces back together and examine the story as a whole.

A story is like a pond filled with layers and meanings.So, what is depth, exactly? It is the component of the narrative that supports and informs the story’s arc. It is also comprised of layers.

When you look at a pond, you see the surface. It could be calm, or if a storm is brewing, it will be ruffled and moving. But it is deep and conceals many things beneath that calm surface. A narrative also comprises several layers.

Layer One is the surface layer. It is the Literal Layer; the what-you-see-is-what-you-get layer. The components of the story’s surface are:

  • the setting
  • the action
  • the visual/physical experience of the characters as they go about their lives.

When the reader sees something, they recognize it. Trees are trees, a bus is a bus, and we all recognize those aspects of worldbuilding. The surface layer also shows the characters’ actions in real time, so readers immediately feel they know what is going on.

The reader sees it when a figure steps from behind a tree. A gun was drawn and fired. What happened was clear and easy to understand.

Some authors play with the surface layer, choosing realism, surrealism, or a blend of the two.

  • Realism is serious, a depiction of what undisputedly is.
  • Surrealism takes what is real and warps it to convey a subtler meaning.

Layer Two: The layer below the surface is an area of unknown quantity. It is the Inferential Layer. This is the layer where inference and implication come into play, hints and allegations.

We show why the gun is drawn. Clues and hints imply reasons for the characters’ actions. The author offers ideas to explain how the shooter arrives at the point in the story where they squeeze the trigger, and the reader makes assumptions.

Authors drop clues and hints but allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.

In a murder mystery, the path to the moment the trigger was pulled is complicated. Perhaps no one knows exactly what led to it, but the author’s task is to include enough clues, hints, and allegations without an info dump.

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question. Authors insert clues that imply something to the reader, hints that may be red herrings. One meaning is displayed on the surface, but by using hints and clues, we enclose the secrets within the narrative. The message (inference) in the story is conveyed to the reader, but only if they pick up on the clues.

The author has to do their job well because we want the reader to feel as if they have earned the information they are gaining. They must be able to deduce what you imply. A reader can only extrapolate knowledge from the information the author offers them.

Serious readers want this layer to mean something on a level that isn’t obvious. They want to experience that feeling of triumph for having caught the meaning. That surge of endorphins keeps them involved and makes them want more of your work.

This middle layer is, in my opinion, the toughest layer for an author to get a grip on.

Below and sort of intertwined with the middle layer is Layer Three, the Interpretive Layer. This layer will be shallower in Romance novels because the point of the book isn’t a deeper meaning. It’s interpersonal relationships on a surface level. However, there will still be some areas of mystery that aren’t spelled out completely because the interpersonal intrigues are the story.

Books for younger readers might also be less deep on this level because they don’t yet have the real-world experience to understand what is implied.

Layer three is comprised of:

  • Themes
  • Commentary
  • Message
  • Symbolism
  • Archetypes

Symbolism in the matrix is shown by meaningful names and objects in the environment.This layer is sometimes the easiest for me to discuss because we are dealing with finite concepts. Theme is one of my favorite subjects to write about, as is symbolism. It is an aspect of the narrative I haven’t talked about lately, nor have I really discussed conveying messages. Archetype is another facet I haven’t discussed recently, and yet it is a fundamental underpinning of character building.

For the purposes of this post, commentary is the word that describes the expression of opinions or explanations about an event or situation. Perhaps you are writing a narrative that explores current real-world morals and hypocrisies. If so, this is an important aspect of your work.

I am looking forward to gaining a deeper understanding of the subtler, more abstract aspects of writing as I explore narrative depth. As always, when I come across a book or website with good information, I will share it with you.

In the meantime, a good core textbook is “Story” by Robert McKee. If you haven’t already gotten it, you might want to. It can be found second-hand at Amazon.

Another excellent and more affordable textbook for this is “Damn Fine Story” by Chuck Wendig. Chuck delivers his wisdom in pithy, witty, concise packets. If you fear potty-mouth, don’t buy it. However, if you have the courage to be challenged, this is the book for you.

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February 20, 2026 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A second look at “Gathering Wood for Winter” by George Henry Durrie 1855

Title: Gathering Wood for Winter

Artist: George Henry Durrie (1820–1863)

Date: 1855

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 26 in (66 cm); width: 36 in (91.4 cm)

Collection: Private collection

Why I love this painting:

I love the comforting hominess of George Heny Durrie’s works. in fact, I love everything the snobbier critics hate most about his work – it is meant for ordinary people (like me) to enjoy.

I thought about this painting because winter has lingered this year. Long ago when I was holding down two jobs and living through Reaganomics, I lived in a house that was heated with a woodstove. Every year it was a struggle to buy or cut enough wood to last through the winter.

In this painting, Durrie shows us a day in late autumn. His characteristic use of reds and browns juxtaposed against lighter shades of white portrays the stark beauty of late autumn in New England.

The first snow has fallen, and the season is turning to winter. It’s more important than ever to gather as much wood as possible. Fortunately for our wood gatherers, a giant has fallen victim to a storm, snapping off halfway up.

This is not necessarily the end of the tree. Leaves still cling to the branches below the wound and will continue to provide shade and habitat for as long as it can. Someday, it may be cut down, as the fact it broke in half shows that it is nearing the end of its life and may present a hazard to those who walk beneath it.

Regardless of the tree’s future, the farmer and his son are taking advantage of the bounty so close to their home. They will stack it in the woodshed in “cords” and allow it to dry out or “season” before they must burn it, hopefully not before the end of spring.

The more wood they gather now, the warmer they will be when winter’s grip tightens.

And one cord of wood won’t do it. When I was heating my house, it took five to seven cords to make it through a mild winter. And we were not cooking with it, only heating a small house.

A “cord” of wood is a standard measurement of split and stacked logs that measures 4 feet high × 4 feet wide × 8 feet long. How Big is a Cord of Wood? Exact Measurements & Visual Guide 

About the author, via Wikipedia:

George Henry Durrie (June 6, 1820 – October 15, 1863) was an American landscape artist noted especially for his rural winter snow scenes, which became very popular after they were reproduced as lithographic prints by Currier and Ives.

For many years, Durrie made a living primarily as a portrait painter, executing hundreds of commissions. After marriage, he made frequent trips, traveling to New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey,  and Virginia, fulfilling commissions and looking for new ones. His diary reveals that he was an enthusiastic railroad traveler, in the early days of the railroads. Durrie also painted what he called “fancy pieces”, whimsical studies of still lives or stage actors, as well as painting scenes on window-shades and fireplace covers. But portrait painting commissions became scarcer when photography came on the scene, offering a cheaper alternative to painted portraits, and, as his account-book shows, Durrie rarely painted a portrait after 1851.

Durrie’s interest shifted to landscape painting, and while on the road, or at home, made frequent sketches of landscape elements that caught his eye. Around 1844 Durrie began painting water and snow scenes, and took a second place medal at the 1845 New Haven State Fair for two winter landscapes. Although he had some training in portrait work, Durrie was self-taught as a landscape artist. He was undoubtedly influenced both by the American Hudson River School, and also by European artists, by studying exhibitions of their work at the New Haven Statehouse, the Trumbull Gallery, and at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, as well as in New York City. Durrie himself exhibited regularly, both locally, and in New York City at the National Academy of Design and the American Artists’ Union, and his reputation grew. Durrie was especially known for his snow pieces, and would often make copies or near-copies of his most popular pieces, with modifications to order.  The landscapes painted by Durrie offered a more intimate view than the panoramic landscapes painted by the Hudson River School, which was the leading school of American landscape painting. Colin Simkin notes that Durrie’s paintings took in a wide angle, but still “close enough to be within hailing distance” of the people who are always included in his scenes.

Currier and Ives

Durrie’s early landscapes were often of local landmarks, such as East Rock and West Rock, and other local scenes, which were popular with his New Haven clients, and he painted numerous variations of popular subjects. As his portrait commissions declined, Durie concentrated on landscapes. He wanted a wider audience, and he seemed to have a good sense of what would sell. Durrie realized that his paintings would have a wider appeal if he made them as generic New England scenes rather than as identifiable local scenes, retaining, as Sackett said, “a sense of place without specifying where that place was.” The New York City lithographic firm of Currier & Ives knew their audience; the American public wanted nostalgic scenes of rural life, images of the good old days, and Durrie’s New England scenes fit the bill perfectly. Lithographic prints were a very democratic form of art, cheap enough that the humblest home could afford some art to hang on the wall. Durrie had been marketing his paintings in New York City, and Currier and Ives, who had popularized such prints, purchased some of Durrie’s paintings in the late 1850s or early 1860s, and eventually published ten of Durrie’s pictures beginning in 1861. Four prints were published between 1861 and the artist’s death in New Haven in 1863; six additional prints were issued posthumously.

The popularity of Durrie’s snow scenes received an additional boost in the 1930s, when the Traveler’s Insurance Company began issuing calendars featuring Currier and Ives prints. Starting in 1946, the January calendar always featured a Durrie snow scene. Historian Bernard Mergen notes that “84 of the 125 paintings attributed to him are snowscapes, more than enough to make him the most prolific snow scene painter of his time.”

In Durrie’s time, winter landscapes were not popular with most curators and critics, but nevertheless, by the time of his death, Durrie had acquired a national reputation as a snowscape painter. Durrie died in 1863, at age 43, probably from typhoid fever, not long after Currier and Ives began reproducing his paintings as prints.

Durrie was dismissed by critics as a popular artist, an illustrator rather than a fine artist. Although Durrie’s Currier and Ives prints were popular, his name was still relatively unknown. But a revival of interest in Durrie began in the 1920s with the publication in 1929 of Currier and Ives, Printmakers to the American People, by collector Harry T. Peters, Sr., who called Durrie’s prints “among the most valued In the entire gallery [of Currier and Ives prints]”, and says that Durrie was known as the “snowman” of the group. [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Gathering Wood for Winter by George Henry Durrie 1855. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:George Henry Durrie – Gathering Wood for Winter.JPG,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:George_Henry_Durrie_-_Gathering_Wood_for_Winter.JPG&oldid=853995324 (accessed May 1, 2025).

[1]Wikipedia contributors, “George Henry Durrie,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Henry_Durrie&oldid=1282714933 (accessed May 1, 2025).

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February 16, 2026 · 6:00 am

Building strength as a writer #writing

This last week, I edited a paper that my grandson had to submit to his literature class at his college. That experience sparked the realization that many people make it all the way through school without learning even a few of the more common rules for punctuating written English.

"All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath." Quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald.Yet many of these people have stories they are bursting to write. But they are embarrassed to share them. Or perhaps they shared their first attempt with someone who either brushed them off or was harshly critical.

Many authors just out of school know they lack knowledge of punctuation mechanics but feel unworthy and a little traumatized. They don’t know where to get the information they need. If that is your situation, I have compiled a list of 7 easy-to-remember rules of punctuation, which was posted on May 26, 2025.

Feel free to bookmark that post and refer back to it as needed.

I have learned a great deal by reading the Chicago Manual of Style. It’s a behemoth of a book. Just the thought of reading, much less understanding this doorstop, is daunting to a new writer, and the price for the latest hardcover version is steep.

However, if you learn the seven basic rules discussed in my May 26th post, your work will be acceptable to most people. I will add links to several other good, affordable books on craft at the end of this post.

First of all, good writing conveys the most information with no unnecessary words. Bad writing is not a sin, if we understand that many problems can be resolved in the second draft, the stage known as revisions.

Passive phrasing, skipped punctuation, and garbled cut-and-paste issues are all codes for the author. The overuse of modifiers and descriptors are first-draft signals that tell us what we need to rephrase or show more clearly.

For example:

  1. The tree was actually covered in red leaves.

This is a simple, passively phrased sentence, but it is properly punctuated. The sentence begins with a capital letter, as it should, and ends with a period (full stop). However, it is an example of bad writing, the kind of thing we lay down in the first draft when we are just trying to get the whole story down.

It is passive rather than active, and the word “actually” isn’t necessary.

  1. Red leaves covered the tree.

The revision expresses the same idea, using many of the same words. It is active, and by rephrasing it, we conveyed the same idea with fewer words. The author moved the noun and its descriptor (red leaves) to the front of the sentence, followed by the verb (covered) and the subject of the sentence (the tree). The author also removed the words “was” and “in” because they aren’t needed and would have fluffed up the word count.

  • Using too many words to convey an idea leads to run-on sentences. It confuses the reader and makes what could be good scenes uninteresting.

The order in which you place your words changes the tone of the narrative. When I begin revisions, I do a global search for “ly” words. I look at each instance and see how they fit into that context.

I also look for passive phrasing and the various forms of “to be,” such as was, were, and had been. They are needed in some places, but overuse of them weakens the prose.

If a word or phrase weakens the narrative, I change it to a simpler form or remove it and rewrite the sentence.

Many power words begin with hard consonants, such as backlash, beating, beware, etc.I DON’T recommend going through and getting rid of every adjective or adverb, although some gurus will say just that. They forget that words like bare are adjectives, and so is barely. Many descriptors and modifiers are power words.

  • If you take out the power words, you gut your prose.
  • Also, words like every and very are part of larger words, such as everything. Cutting those words via a global search will ruin your manuscript.

Context is everything. Take the time to look at each example of the offending words and change them individually. You have already spent months writing that novel. Why not take a few days to do the job well?

Sentence structure matters. Where you place an adjective relative to the noun they are describing affects a reader’s perception. Adjectives work best when showing us what the point-of-view characters see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. The following sentence is an example I have used before:

Sunlight glared over the ice, a cold fire in the sky that cast no warmth but burned the eyes.

In the above sentence, the essential parts are structured this way: noun – verb (sunlight glared), adjective – noun (cold fire), verb – adjective – noun (cast no warmth), and finally, verb-article-noun (burned the eyes). Lead with the action or noun, follow with a strong modifier, and the sentence conveys what is intended but isn’t weakened by the modifiers.

The above scene could be shown in many ways, but a paragraph’s worth of world-building is pared down to 19 words, three of which are action words.

William Shakespeare understood the beauty and strength that powerful words written with minimal fluff can add to ordinary prose. Consider this line from his play, As You Like It, written in 1599:

It strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. — As You Like It, Wm. Shakespeare, 1599.

Some words that create an atmosphere of anxiety. Agony, apocalypse, Armageddon, assault, backlash, pale, target, terrorize.What brilliant imagery Shakespeare employed in that sentence. He used strong words with powerful meaning: strikes, dead, great, reckoning, and little. Those words have visual impact. They convey emotion, which is what we all hope to do with our work.

As your reward for reading this post, here is the list of my current favorite books on the craft of writing. I suggest getting these in hardback, as it is much easier to find what you need. They can also be found used on Amazon, an option for cash-strapped authors.

To learn the basics:

The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation ($11.99 US for Kindle, $22.11 hardcover). Great reference material at much lower cost than the Chicago Manual of Style, which runs around $55.00 or more.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms: ($5.99 Kindle, $19.99 hardcover). Find the alternatives to crutch words and learn to use them to the best effect.

To learn ways to fine-tune your manuscript:

Activate: a thesaurus of actions & tactics for dynamic genre fiction ($7.99 Kindle, $23.99 paperback). Written by Damon Suede, this is a great primer to help you write lean, descriptive prose.

Damn Fine Story ($15.99 Kindle, $18.99 paperback). Written by Chuck Wendig, this book is filled with information about how stories are constructed to help you write a cohesive narrative.

Examine the 8 forms of the words "to be." Decide if they work in the context you are using them.

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February 13, 2026 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: A Merry Company in an Arbor by Adriaen van de Venne 1615

Artist: Adriaen van de Venne (circa 1589–1662)

Title: A Merry Company in an Arbor

Date    1615

Medium: oil on panel

Dimensions: height: 164 mm (6.45 in); width: 230 mm (9.05 in)

Collection: Getty Center

What I love about this painting:

Good heavens, where should I start? This is now my second favorite Dutch Renaissance painting ever. (Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s Hunters in the Snow is my favorite). Adriaen van de Venne is now in the top five of my favorite artists simply because of his unrepentantly Dutch sense of humor. I want to be Dutch when I grow up!

So, let’s have a look at the story Adriaen is telling us. The action is happening in the left foreground. Everyone loves a good kegger … I mean … picnic in the woods, especially after being cooped up all winter. We get dressed in some nice summer finery and everyone brings food, and the hosts provide the drinks.

Of course, the uncles all get a bit deep into the free beer and suddenly a tree climbing contest is on. Unfortunately, Cousin Dirck loses the battle with gravity, as does Uncle Hans. Aunt Irma barely dodges her plummeting spouse, and Cousin Aart yells at Dirck to get up and stop acting like a fool. Cousin Berthe, Dirk’s new bride, is mortified, as she has only just met her spouse’s extended family and had hoped to make a better impression.

Everyone else pretends nothing happened, business as usual. It’s the way family gatherings are, with noisy well-fed people having a good time.

Other groups picnicking in the forest and meadow pretend not to hear the ruckus, but a few nosy neighbors gawk. The gossip will hit the streets before sundown, but other than that, it’s a fine day for a frolic in the forest, one that the Brueghels would have enjoyed.

Humor aside, this is a wonderful, well-executed painting. Adriaen van de Venne has captured one of the most hilarious family get-togethers ever.

About the artist, vis Wikipedia:

Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne (1589 – 12 November 1662), was a versatile Dutch Golden Age painter of allegories, genre subjects, and portraits, as well as a miniaturist, book illustrator, designer of political satires, and versifier.

Van de Venne was born in Delft. According to Houbraken he learned Latin in Leiden. He learned to paint from the master goldsmith and painter Simon de Valk, and afterwards learned engraving from Jeronimus van Diest, a good painter of grisailles. He then moved to Middelburg in 1614 where he was influenced by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Elder. [1]

To read more about this artist, go to Adriaen van de Venne – Wikipedia.

Credits and Attributions

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Adriaen van de Venne (Dutch – A Merry Company in an Arbor – Google Art Project.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Adriaen_van_de_Venne_(Dutch_-_A_Merry_Company_in_an_Arbor_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg&oldid=1034439061 (accessed February 12, 2026).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Adriaen van de Venne,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adriaen_van_de_Venne&oldid=1330070271 (accessed February 12, 2026).

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February 9, 2026 · 6:00 am

Revisions part 2 – Allegory, Symbolism, and Foreshadowing #writing

Allegory and symbolism are important tools in a writer’s toolbox. They are similar to each other but different and often misunderstood. The difference between them is in how they are presented.

  • An allegory is a narrative, a moral lesson in the form of a story, heavy with symbolism.
  • Symbolism is a literary device that uses one thing (an item, a theme, a visual reference, etc.) throughout the narrative to represent something else or to create an atmosphere and mood.

Using these tools in worldbuilding offers us a way to avoid clumsy info dumps to imply a particular atmosphere, underscoring a theme. We can increase the reader’s awareness of possible danger if that is our desire. It involves placing symbolism into the story’s visual environment.

Symbolism helps create mood and atmosphere with fewer words. When certain objects are part of the world, what the characters see, hear, and smell is subliminal to the reader. But these clues evoke an emotional response in the reader, encouraging them to stay with the story.

Take the classic Gothic novel Wuthering Heights. Interest in Emily Brontë’s work has never been greater, with a new movie based on the novel’s characters and setting.

The movie strays widely from the novel. The novel is a tragedy delving into deeply disturbed personalities more than it is a romance.

It’s not an allegory because it doesn’t explore a moral or symbolic meaning beyond its obvious story. Brontë’s symbolism in her world-building supports and underscores the themes of love, revenge, and social class.

The way Emily Brontë employed atmosphere in Wuthering Heights is stellar. I would love to achieve that level of world-building.

We can find allegories in nearly any written narrative because humans love making connections and often imagine them where none exist. While Wuthering Heights is not considered an allegory in the literary sense, it is heavily symbolic.

Spark Notes says:

The constant emphasis on landscape within the text of Wuthering Heights endows the setting with symbolic importance. This landscape is comprised primarily of moors: wide, wild expanses, high but somewhat soggy, and thus infertile. Moorland cannot be cultivated, and its uniformity makes navigation difficult. It features particularly waterlogged patches in which people could potentially drown. (This possibility is mentioned several times in Wuthering Heights.) Thus, the moors serve very well as symbols of the wild threat posed by nature. As the setting for the beginnings of Catherine and Heathcliff’s bond (the two play on the moors during childhood), the moorland transfers its symbolic associations onto the love affair.

The two large estates within the book create a pocket world of sorts, where little, if anything, lies beyond their existence. Thus, windows both literal and figurative serve to showcase what exists on the other side while still keeping the characters trapped. [1] Wuthering Heights: Symbols | SparkNotes

Symbolism on its own is a powerful tool. We can show more with fewer words. But while a tale may be heavily layered with symbolism, it might not be an allegory.

So, what is an allegory?

The storytelling in The Matrix series of movies is a brilliant example of an allegory. The Matrix was written by The Wachowskis. The narrative is an allegory for Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a depiction of reality and illusion. The movies in the series employ heavy symbolism in both the setting and conversations to drive home the multilayered themes of humankind, machine, fate, and free will.

In The Matrix, reality and illusion are portrayed with layers of symbolism:

  • The names of the characters
  • The words used in conversations
  • The androgynous clothes they wear

Everything on the set or mentioned in conversations underscores those themes, including the lighting. Inside The Matrix, the world is bathed in a green light, as if through a green-tinted lens. In the real world, the lighting is harsher, unfiltered.

Everything that appears or is said onscreen in the movie is symbolic and supports one of the underlying concepts. When Morpheus later asks Neo to choose between a red pill and a blue pill, he essentially offers the choice between fate and free will.

We incorporate symbolism and allegory into the environment during worldbuilding to create mood and atmosphere.

These subliminal impressions affect our (the reader’s) mood and emotions, drawing us deeper into that world. These are separate but entwined forces, and they can create an emotion in the reader, such as a sense of foreboding, which is a subtler form of foreshadowing.

In real life, emotion is the experience of contrast, of transitioning from negative to positive emotional energy, and back again.

In a powerful story, symbolism, allegory, or both exist on the surface and in the subtext. Without the feelings and emotions the writer injects into the story, our characters do a zombie-like shuffle to the end, leaving the reader feeling robbed.

Setting is only a place. It is not atmosphere. Mood, atmosphere, and emotion are part of the inferential layer of a story.

How a setting is shown contributes to the atmosphere. Atmosphere is created as much by odors, scents, ambient sounds, and visuals as by the characters’ moods and emotions. Emily Brontë‘s moors and windows are subliminal background elements, but they are also foreshadowing. They convey information to the reader on a subconscious level, supporting the actions and conversations of her characters.

In my own work, I want to convey mood and atmosphere without resorting to an info dump. But what symbols can I place in the environment of my current work-in-progress to help build suspense? I need to create a list and add it to my outline as I go.

  • Side note: Just because I use a plan doesn’t mean you have to. It’s just how I work.

For me, themes are important, and a powerful theme inspires me to tell a story. A strong theme can offer suggestions and symbols when we imagine the world we are creating. I note these ideas in the outline, so I don’t lose track of them.

  • Another side note: Don’t be surprised if a casual reader doesn’t notice the symbolism you worked so hard on. They won’t see symbolism on a conscious level. However, it will reinforce the mood and atmosphere, keeping them reading.

Dedicated readers love work that holds up on closer examination, enjoying work with layers of depth, work they can read again and again and always find something new in it.

On the surface, the story and the characters who live it out are what make a book great. Deeper down, the allegories and symbolisms embedded in the narrative sink into the reader’s subconscious, stirring thoughts and raising ideas they might not otherwise have considered.

Previous in this series: Revisions, part 1: Shakespeare and the Art of Foreshadowing #writing | Life in the Realm of Fantasy

Credits and Attributions:

[1] Wuthering Heights: Symbols | SparkNotes Copyright ©2026SparkNotes LLC (accessed 08 February 2026). Fair Use.

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February 6, 2026 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: a second look at “Under flowering trees” by Adolf Kaufmann

Adolf_Kaufmann_Under_the_treesjpgArtist: Adolf Kaufmann (1848–1916)

Title: Under flowering trees

Date: before 1916

Medium: oil on canvas

Inscription: signed A. Kaufmann

What I love about this painting:

I first featured this painting in 2023. Adolph Kaufmann was brilliant at depicting the kind of misty rain we often get in spring. Here, he gives us a beautiful spring day with dew clinging to the grass, along with apple and cherry trees in full bloom. The weather is cool and damp with mist rising the way spring mornings often are here in the Pacific Northwest.

Chickens roam the orchard, and two women are digging, breaking the ground for a spring garden.

To the left is a weathered building. Is it a barn? Is it their home? It’s hidden behind the shrubbery so it’s difficult to tell, but it has no window, so I think it may be a barn.

Nothing is romanticized—we see it the way the artist did on that spring day over a century ago.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Adolf Kaufmann (15 May 1848, in Troppau – 25 November 1916, in Vienna) was an Austrian landscape and marine artist.

He was initially self-taught, but completed his studies with the animal painter, Émile van Marcke, in Paris and undertook several study trips, throughout Europe and the Middle East. His residence alternated between Paris, Berlin, Düsseldorf and Munich.

In 1890, he decided to settle in Vienna and opened a studio in the Wieden district. In 1900, together with Carl von Merode [de] and Heinrich Lefler, he opened an “Art School for Ladies”. He continued to visit Paris frequently and, when he painted there, signed his works with the pseudonym “A. Guyot”. Other names he signed with include “A. Papouschek”, “G. Salvi”, “A. Jarptmann”, “R. Neiber”, “J. Rollin” and “M. Bandouch”. Why he did this is unclear, although his choice of signature often reflects stylistic differences.

His landscapes were influenced by the Barbizon school and the style known as “paysage intime,” both of which he was exposed to in France during the 1870s. (The paysage intimate, French for “familiar landscape,” was a style of painting that dealt with simple, simple landscapes and emerged in the mid-19th century. It was the predecessor of the Impressionist style.) [1]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Adolf Kaufmann Unter blühenden Bäumen.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Adolf_Kaufmann_Unter_bl%C3%BChenden_B%C3%A4umen.jpg&oldid=623159308 (accessed February 5, 2026.)

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Adolf Kaufmann,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adolf_Kaufmann&oldid=1094252143 (accessed February 5, 2026).

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