The weekend was a lot of fun. . .

. . .and now I am psyched for the ARTHUR auditions at the library tomorrow and Wednesday.  I was sitting at my desk earlier and saw the leather blank book that Christina Fink gave me after A GIRL OF TWO WORLDS.  I think I mentioned it in an earlier blog.  I read a bit of it today and found an interesting section on why I started writing plays back when.  I was reminded that two people who pushed me to write were my daughter Jan and Mike Keville.  Of Jan I wrote, "Last May (of '98, I think) my daughter had a one-act plat that she had written presented at Castleton College in Vermont.  I was really proud of her and admired her courage for presenting her work for public reaction.  I wanted to be that brave, too."

            Of Mike, I wrote, "Mike Keville asked me at a graduation party (that same spring), if I had ever thought of writing a play to be performed by the Motley Players.  Seeing that I had thought of it, I decided Mike's words were sort of an omen. . ."  

           Tomorrow marks the ninth audition for a play I have written.   Thanks Jan and Mike.

    Thanks, too, to Scott for his enjoyment of my blog.  Sometimes, Scott, I think it might be fun to do a class in writing or a workshop at the library, then I think of all the thousands of writing classes I taught over the years, and the, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of pieces of other people's writing that I read, and I thank God for my good fortune of being able to just worry about my own writing for the first time ever.

             I will comment on your love affair with commas, though.  It's best to nip it in the bud.  Of commas, it can be said that "fewer is more."  The traditional way to express that sentiment is "less is more," but that would be grammatically incorrect in this case, because you can count commas.  If you can count an item, use "fewer;" if it has value but can't be easily piled up or arranged and counted, use "less."  (Clever use of the semi-colon inserted in the previous sentence. The ";" is another grossly overused piece of punc.)

              Too many commas can drive a reader crazy and unnecessarily interrupt the flow of your writing.  I'll provide one simple rule for you today with a minimum of educational jargon.

           Interrupters in a sentence, be they at the beginning, middle, or end, should be set off with commas as in, "By the way, that is my cat that you ran over." Or  "That is my cat, by the way, that you ran over." Or  "That is my cat that you ran over, by the way."   I like those examples.  There's something very civilized and British about them.

              Tomorrow, Scott, I will tell you about a comma rule that I recall from the 9th grade.  Or.  Scott, tomorrow, I will tell you about a comma rule that I recall from the 9th grade.  Or.  Tomorrow, I will tell you about a comma rule that I recall from the 9th grade, Scott.

              Actually, it may not be tomorrow.  It may not be tomorrow, actually, but whenever I next blog.

Author's note:  Doesn't the semi-colon with the quotes around it look like someone with his tongue sticking out?