Kirkus Review of Toil Under the Sun

My first novel, Toil Under the Sun, recently received a terrific review from Kirkus. You can find the link to the review below. Because Toil Under the Sun is a self-published book, this review is truly significant. First, Kirkus advertises themselves as "The World's Toughest Book Critics." Second, David Carnoy states the following in an article published on cnet.com titled Self-Publishing a Book: 25 Things You Need to Know: "Because the barrier to entry is so low, the majority of self-published books are pretty bad. If I had to put a number on it, I'd say less than 5 percent are decent and less than 1 percent are really good." And third, I now have independent confirmation that I am not wasting my time on my current book, Nor Things to Come: A Novel of the West. I plan to dive back into Chapter 4 of Part 2 today...right after I replace the shower head in the downstairs bathroom.

Kirkus Review of Toil Under the Sun

A Comical Skit to Teach You About Parts of Speech Whether You Like it or Not

     NARRATOR (a bespectacled college professor dressed in tweed jacket and speaking in a soothing academic voice, each part of speech enters the room when cued): After another contentious disagreement between Verb and Noun concerning an unexpected shift from transitive to intransitive that left Noun perplexed and humiliated, Noun has convened a meeting of all the parts of speech to resolve the matter. As you can see, Noun is already sitting behind an ornately-carved wood table waiting for the parts of speech to arrive at the small windowless room illuminated by candles. (Narrator gestures around the classroom) A shimmering dress flowing across her graceful legs, feisty Verb is ready for action as she strolls to the front row and sits directly across from Noun. Pronoun, dressed in monotonous gray from head to toe and tired of standing in for Noun (and feeling a bit underappreciated), sits behind Verb and stares at the floor. Wearing colorful but clashing bow tie, shirt, pants, and a dapper porkpie hat, Adjective immediately searches for his best friend Noun when he enters the room, and then saves a seat for Adverb because he knows she is usually late. Preposition follows closely behind and upon arrival at one of the folding chairs appears confused: should he sit on it or under it? Conjunction, full of youth and verve, but not particularly interested in the meeting or its agenda, skips into the room and quickly glances around to see who is attending (or not) before snuggling next to Pronoun (who she has always admired). Interjection enters with crashing footsteps and a loud exclamation to announce his arrival, but no one pays him a bit of attention because they’ve all heard it before. Adverb finally appears a few minutes late: she would have made a special effort to arrive on time if Verb or Adjective had called the meeting, but she has never fostered a meaningful relationship with Noun. Shall we listen in as the meeting begins?

NOUN (pounding a varnished wood gavel repeatedly on the top of the wood table): First an announcement: I would like to remind the group that the Articles are attending a jazz festival in the city of New Orleans and do not return until the end of the month. I see that Adverb has finally arrived—late as usual I might add—so let us begin the meeting. Although I asked you all to call me “master” last week, and “Bob” yesterday, please refer to me as “president” today. Better yet, call me “President Bob,” if you don’t mind. Now, the reason that I—President Bob—have called this meeting, is to—

VERB (her voice quivering with anger, interrupts): What right do you have to call any meeting at all. Just because you are the subject of a sentence—and can change your name to Bob, Davenport, toaster, or psychology as you please—doesn’t give you the right to order the rest of us around. I would like to move that you change your name to “blockhead” or “fool,” or better yet, “ignoramus.”

Verb turns and addresses the other parts of speech

And furthermore, I would like to point out that he’s not the boss of us, even if he decides to change his name to “boss.” Who’s willing to support me and second the motion?

The other parts of speech sit quietly and do not respond

Anybody? Doesn’t anyone in the room have the guts to support me on this? Am I the only one who is willing to take action?

CONJUNCTION (raising her slender arm): I would like to point out that Verb could not have made that motion without my help, and…

PRONOUN (standing and waving his arms): I would like to point out that Verb, bless her heart, used me repeatedly without ever mentioning “Bob” or “president.” But as usual, I get no respect for the important role I often play in syntax.

ADJECTIVE (removing the dapper porkpie hat from his exquisite head and using it to gesture): Shut up you silly Pronoun. You don’t even exist unless the wonderful Noun, which I often modify into something truly wonderful, establishes the primary subject and therefore the primary purpose of the sentence. Without the all-important “Bob” there is no “he” whatsoever. And without magnificent me, sentences would become as dull as a lackluster pronoun.

PRONOUN (speaking to Noun but keeping the corner of his eye on Adjective): Adjective always takes your side of the argument no matter what you say and ignores the rest of us. I don’t care what you call yourself. Without me, things would get pretty repetitious around her. Can you imagine? Bob decided to take a walk. On the way Bob met John, and Bob invited John to lunch. As Bob and John continued to the restaurant Bob and John ran into Sally. Bob invited Sally to lunch as well, and Sally accepted. Bob and John and Sally then walked briskly to the restaurant, and when Bob and John and Sally arrived Bob and John and Sally asked the head waiter, whose name was Fred, for a table near the window. Fred directed Bob and John and Sally to a table, and then Fred handed menus to Bob and John and Sally, and after a while Bob and John and Sally ordered lunch.

ADVERB (speaking cautiously because she had never developed a direct working relationship with Noun): I frankly disagree. Although he is often flamboyant, I genuinely appreciate Adjective and truly enjoy chumming around with the remarkably colorful guy. I enjoy hanging around with amazingly supple Verb too, and, not surprisingly, sometimes I even hang around with myself.

NOUN (pounding the gavel on the table again in response to Verb’s earlier motion): Look at the mess you’ve created, Verb! I can’t even start the meeting because of your intemperate outburst! I swear, sometimes it’s impossible to figure you out. You dart around in the past, present, and future. You change your mood from indicative to imperative at the drop of a hat. You shift from transitive to intransitive and then back again whenever you feel like it. Your voice is never the same, sometimes active and sometimes passive. And don’t even get me started on your so-called subjunctive mood. Frankly my dear, working with you is absolutely maddening!

INTERJECTION (finally perking up): Yikes and gadzooks! Did someone say “outburst”? Holy crap!!—that’s my job!!!

PREPOSITION (still trying to find a comfortable position under the chair, and then rising and stepping on top of the chair to speak above the din): This whole discussion is flying over my head. If someone doesn’t get to the point fast, I’m heading through the door, down the stairs, and across the street to that quaint little pub on the boulevard, the one below that charming bed and breakfast on the second floor.

 VERB (the tempo of her words rising): Listen here, President Boob…do you think it’s any fun trying to keep up with you? First you’re singular, then you’re plural, then you’re a collective noun, and then you take a coffee break and turn the whole mess over to Pronoun to avoid any work at all, and I have to conjugate all over again.

NOUN (closing his eyes and shaking his head) The name’s Bob—President Bob—and I expect an immediate apology for calling me President Boob.

VERB (rolling her eyes): Read my lips, President Blob. I will not apologize. I have not apologized. I am not apologizing. I will not be apologizing anytime soon.

ADVERB (clapping her hands and smiling broadly): I sincerely love it when she conjugates.

NOUN (shaking the gavel at Adverb): Adverb, I can’t even remember a single time when you supported me on an issue. You always side with Verb! What is your problem?

CONJUNCTION (surprised and alarmed and speaking to both Noun and Verb): Can’t the two of you just work together and come to some sort of agreement and stop all this fighting? After all, can you really write a decent sentence with only a noun or only a verb? I think both of you are important and that you should stop arguing so that we can all go home and relax and enjoy the evening and get on with life.

Pausing to think before continuing

And if you really want a genuine problem to complain about, try the experience of some writer replacing you with a lowly semi-colon in the middle of a compound sentence and then you’ll know what true rejection feels like, or maybe you won’t, and this conversation will never end.

ADJECTIVE (waving the crisp, clean porkpie hat in the tense air of the stuffy little room): You think that’s bad. How do you think it feels when some thoughtless writer mistakenly uses you to modify a scandalous verb or another glittering adjective? Try that for a mortifying event.

Then turning to Adverb

No intentional offense, my humble friend. You probably feel the same when an insensitive writer uses you to modify a salacious noun, or even a lackluster pronoun.

PRONOUN (he stands, he sniffs, he wipes a tear from his eye): Here we go again. Lackluster pronoun. How come I never get to be the salacious one? Why does everybody always assume that I’m boring? I ask all of you: who ever thinks of me as salacious? Anybody? Any one of you? I would like to be thought of by someone in this room as salacious once in a while. Is this too much for me to expect?

NOUN (attempting to stifle a snigger): I, your president and leader, would be more sympathetic to your plight if you could ever come up with a decent gender-neutral personal pronoun. The other parts of speech and I, your president, have waited for years.

PRONOUN (his sad expression turning to a sneer): I’m working on it, but every time I throw something out for consideration everyone laughs at me. For example, “shim” was not well received by anybody. Neither was “herm.” Frankly, I’m running out of options.

VERB (leaning provocatively against the back of the chair and giggling): Well, you have to admit that both “shim” and “herm” are ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as your earlier attempts. I still remember the unfortunate day you announced “shis.” That surprised everyone, including the Articles. One false keystroke by a writer and who knows what kind of trouble she might get into with the editors.

NOUN (standing and pointing the gavel randomly around the room): Enough of gender-neutral personal pronouns. This meeting is turning into a chaotic event. Will someone please make a legitimate motion so that we can achieve a concrete result?

VERB (also standing and waving her arms): Sure, I don’t mind taking some action since everyone else is unwilling. I retract my earlier motion, since you found it offensive, and move that there is no point to this meeting and that we adjourn posthaste.

ADVERB (aggressively jumping to her feet): I happily second the motion—and what a wonderfully clever use of the adverb “posthaste.” Very few writers have properly appreciated that lovely word in my recent memory.

ADJECTIVE (throwing the now rumpled porkpie hat across the room just below the mottled ceiling in need of a fresh coat of pristine paint): And I third the astonishing motion by exquisite Verb. I can see now that I have made a serious mistake by not getting to know this lovely woman better, an unfortunate occurrence that I intend to rectify.

NOUN (his voice shaking and now pointing the gavel directly at Adjective): You can’t third a motion, Adjective. And stay away from Verb. The two of you have nothing in common. For starters, look at the clothes you wear. Look at that tie. Look at that shirt. Good grief!

INTERJECTION (exclaiming in a slow crescendo): Did someone say good grief! GOOD GRIEF!!!!

CONJUNCTION (dancing and clapping and smiling): I love it when someone uses “and” at the beginning of a sentence. I wish more writers would do that. It gives me chills.

PREPOSITION (crawling out from under the chair again): Can’t we just call an end to this meeting and all head through the door, down the stairs, and across the street to that nice little pub on the boulevard below the bed and breakfast on the second floor? That’s my recommendation.

NOUN (slamming the gavel on the table): Order! Order! Get your butts in those folding chairs immediately. Order!

NARRATOR (the parts of speed argue distantly in the background and follow the narrator’s cues to leave the room): And on it went for another seven minutes, when Preposition, who could not tolerate another moment under the chair, finally took matters into his own hands and headed through the door. And then Conjunction followed, and right behind too. Soon Verb—glad for the opportunity to taunt Noun once again—waved goodbye to Noun with a confrontational flip of her hand and dashed out of the room. Adverb closely followed verb. Adjective ignored the tedious hammering of the ponderous gavel and the chaotic shrieks of Noun and also followed Verb because he wanted to get to know her better (although this is a separate and quite heartrending story of a tragically doomed relationship). Then Interjection yelled several irreverent exclamations, but luckily most of the other parts of speech were out of earshot, and when he had bolted from the room only Noun and Pronoun remained.

Narrator pauses to glance first at Noun and then at Pronoun

But our story is not quite finished yet.

NOUN (slumping into his chair and tossing the gavel onto the table): I give up. There’s no way these unruly parts of speech will ever agree on anything. That’s it. I just give up.

Pronoun, the only one left in the room, stands and raises his hand

Yes Pronoun, what do you want now?

PRONOUN (glances at his shoes for several seconds before looking up at Noun): I’ve been considering something.

NOUN (obviously disillusioned with the collapse of the meeting): Yes, yes…what is it?

PRONOUN (suddenly brightening): What do you think of “heesh”?

THE END

Verbs of Being: To Was, or Not to Was, that Was the Question.

With the exception of dialogue, I strive to minimize “verbs of being” in my writing. You may remember these forms of “to be” from a long-forgotten English class: am, are, is, was, were, been, being, and, of course, be. These slippery verbs express a vague state of being rather than a concrete action. My first awareness of the unfortunate proliferation of these mushy verbs in my writing occurred when a friend (recently graduated with a degree in English composition from a prestigious college in the Pacific Northwest, he knew of such things) pointed out that I had used quite a few of them in the second draft of Toil Under the Sun. He suggested that I explore ways to substitute a few action verbs to increase the “punch” of my writing. At first I scoffed—after he had left the room—but that night I performed a search for the word “was,” and after finding a few thousand of these imprecise little words only half-way through the novel I slumped pathetically in my swivel chair with an expression of horrification spreading across my face. I hastily determined that a search for other verbs of being could prove fatal, and decided instead to rationalized my predicament.  I began by reminding myself that some of the more memorable lines in the great literature of the world rely heavily on verbs of being. Consider the following:

• To be, or not to be, that is the question…. (Shakespeare)
• I think therefore I am. (Descartes)
• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness….. (Dickens)
• It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. (Austin)
• It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (Orwell)
• I am that I am. (God)

Unfortunately, this exercise did not lessen my misery, so I tromped up the stairs to the wall of bookshelves stretched along the top landing and selected a few novels to explore the use of verbs of being by other authors. Within minutes, I easily found these examples:

• Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. (Tom Sawyer, Chapter 2)
• Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man.  (Moby Dick, Chapter 27)
• The weather was unusually warm for the last day of October. We didn’t even need jackets. The wind was growing stronger, and Jem said it might be raining before we got home. There was no moon. (To Kill A Mockingbird, Chapter 28)
• In the morning it was bright, and they were sprinkling the streets of the town, and we all had breakfast in a café. Bayonne is a nice town. It is like a very clean Spanish town and it is on a big river. (The Sun Also Rises, Chapter 10)
• But there were men who were impressed by the simple fact that Roark had built a place which made money for owners who didn’t want to make money; this was more convincing than abstract artistic discussions. And there was the one-tenth who understood.  (The Fountainhead, Part IV, Chapter 1)

Alas,  convincing proof that five celebrated authors had also used verbs of being excessively did nothing to diminish my mounting self-doubt. A day passed, and then another, and on the third day from the initial discovery (maybe it was the fourth…I can’t be sure now), I ended all attempts at rationalization and dedicated myself to work through the entire novel from the first word of the prologue to the last word of the epilogue and to replace every single verb of being with a “punchy” action verb. I began later that night, and, with a song in my heart and music issuing from my lips (see above), got hopelessly stuck on the second word of the first sentence of the novel: I am an old man now, and yet I still think of the dreams that haunted my youth many years ago. I stared at the little “am” until my eyes blurred, then recollected that this particular verb of being was functioning as a linking verb (I = old man), and might prove difficult to replace. After much thought, I decided to let this one stay. After all, look at all of those verbs of being in the sentences above. I successfully revised the following two or three, then when I replaced the next “was” with an action verb the sentence was rendered graceless. I revised the sentence back to its original form and moved on. And so it went. By the time I reached the end of the novel (133,000 words later), I realized that verbs of being were not to be loathed if used sparingly and thoughtfully. This was the lesson then: Prefer action verbs to verbs of being, but not at the expense of clarity and grace. Oh, did I mention that it was a dark and stormy night?

English Grammar: A Desperate Story of Angst

After completing the second revision of my first novel, Toil Under the Sun, I acknowledged (one night during a rainstorm) the possibility of subtle deficiencies in my knowledge of English grammar. At first I tried to convince myself that any shortcomings were likely irrelevant to the successful completion of the novel (a process that would require four additional revisions and three more years), but within days of this agonizing self-awareness I decided to set the novel aside and to award myself a “grammar sabbatical.” Although a year is customary for an academic sabbatical, I did not set a specific time period. Instead, I developed a reading list of books, a process that consumed over two weeks, and then committed to reading all of them with the profoundest comprehension I could muster, even if it required more than a year. Fortunately, because I doubt that I could have sustained my interest in English grammar much longer, I finished the last book six months later. Here is the list of books:

The American Heritage Book of English Usage

The only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need, Susan Thurman

Style – Toward Clarity and Grace, Joseph M. Williams

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss

The Elements of Style, Strunk and White

Woe is I, Patricia T. O’Conner

I recommend them all, although The American Heritage Book of English Usage and Style - Toward Clarity and Grace are not light reading and will require you to ascend to a mental plateau of abnormal dedication. So that you don’t have to read any of them, here is a shortlist of things that I learned during my self-imposed grammar sabbatical:

• Rules of English grammar are often derived directly from Latin, a mostly dead and obscure language once used by an ancient culture that fell into a prolonged period of corruption and abject depravity before a horde of Germanic barbarians called Vandals overran the empire and sacked the capital city in the year 455 and destroyed everything they could get their hands on. The Latin rules of grammar survived.
• If you study English grammar two hours a day for six months, you will have expended 360 hours of effort and the quality of your writing will improve not a whit.
• Always prefer clarity and grace to proper grammar. This is my absolute rule.
• Use adjectives to modify nouns and adverbs to modify verbs or adjectives or other adverbs. If you screw this up, the reader might judge you a fool and stop reading.
• Avoid arguments about grammar during meetings. No one will listen to you anyway.
• Use “control-alt negative sign” to manually insert a proper “em dash” before and after a parenthetical phrase—I prefer no space between the dash and adjacent words—and never allow MS Word to automatically insert that mousy little joke-of-a-dash for you.
• Locate the primary point of each paragraph at the end of each paragraph, not at the beginning as you were constantly told in high school English classes. Your readers will appreciate the improved clarity.
• Do not fear the use of “and” or “but” or similar conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence if it promotes grace and clarity.
• Prefer clear and graceful words to impressive words.
• Strive for writing that is seamlessly transparent to the reader. Never write to impress the reader with your cleverness: you will only create an irritating distraction.
• Prefer action verbs to verbs of being. Instead of “She was upset.” write “Her lips quivered with rage.”
• Prefer active voice to passive voice. Instead of “The ball was hit by John into left field.” write “John smashed the ball to left.”
• Do not admit to your friends or wife or brother-in-law or colleagues or anyone that you are studying English grammar. At first they will question your sanity, but very soon they will begin asking probing questions like, “Sweetheart, would you call this a gerund or a present participle?” and expect you to damn well know the answer.

There you have it. There is probably more to say about English grammar, but I’ll leave it to you to sort out when you find the time.

My first post

I posted the following on Facebook last weekend:

Good morning my friends,

After a two-week hiatus due to a bit of surgery (and subsequent loss of focus), I have found renewed interest in Chapter 20 of Nor Things to Come - A Novel of the West. This chapter continues the exploits of one of the seven primary characters of the story (Priscilla Kimball of Salt Lake City) and takes place in Boise City, Idaho Territory in August 1871. However, after writing over a thousand words effortlessly, my enthusiasm abruptly vanished. I forced myself to continue several times during the last three days, but could not find the words. This morning, as I drank coffee and devoured a waffle, a new idea flashed into my mind—something quite different from the original story outline I had prepared last February—and my enthusiasm abruptly reappeared. I expect to finish the chapter by the end of the weekend. With luck I will commence chapter 21 by Monday evening. Since I have not mentioned this before, here is a list of the primary characters in the novel:

• Gordania Sinclair (Dunnet Head, Scotland)
• Manfred Herman (Des Moines, Iowa)
• Tseng Longwei (Nanjing, China)
• Roshan Kuznetsov (Sitka, Alaska)
• Csongor Toth (Budapest, Hungary)
• Joshua Hotah (half-Sioux, half-English, birthplace unknown)
• Priscilla Kimball (Salt Lake City, Utah Territory)

I trust that all is well,

R. Phillip Ritter

Miraculously, because I never know when I will find the time or energy or inspiration to write, I did complete chapter 20 last Sunday and I did commence chapter 21 last Monday night (although I must confess that two hours of thrashing about produced only the first sentence of chapter 21). Much of my "writing" time during this last week consisted of thinking about chapter 21, which is usually how I work. I wrote another 800 words or so this weekend, and expect to finish the last chapter of Book One of Nor Things to Come by mid-week. I anticipate reaching 112,000 words in Book One, which sets me on a pace of 260,000 to 300,000 words for the entire novel. This pace also indicates completion of the first draft in April 2013.

UPDATE: Due to an unfortunate bout with melanoma, including three surgeries and 9 months of chemotherapy, I did not finish the first draft until March 2014. I did manage to complete a dozen chapters between rounds of chemotherapy, and I plan to finish my final revisions today. I commenced the story outline in February 2010. It has therefore taken me four years and five months to realize the final manuscript. But I'm not done yet. I'm sure the publisher will require more revisions before sending it to the printer. Wish me luck.