DANGLING PARTICIPLES AND ALL THAT JAZZ

 I went to school during the era of no grammar, which was fine for me because I hated learning definites. I always struggled with exactitudes.

It suits me much better to work within a framework where imagination and creativity are the rules and therefore nothing can really ever be wrong.

Not so with grammar it appears.

For example:

*            Commas have a special place and the frequent use of such means your writing isn’t tight enough.

I am a chronic over-comma-user. I write the way I speak – using a hundred words where twelve would have been necessary. I like to talk.

*            You only use an apostrophe after a word ending in ‘s’ if you would say the ‘s’ out loud. For example:

Rhys’s bike is over there.

But if you were talking about Brett Michaels, You would just say Brett Michaels’ bike is over there.

Who knew?

Lots of people probably, but not anyone who went to school during the 80’s and 90’s.

I learned all this at my workshop with Dan Kaufman, which is on again this Sunday and I’m just as excited about it this time as I was last week.

He is a real profesh. Seventeen years in the biz, eleven of them with the Sydney Morning Herald, and willing to impart his knowledge to the thirty wannabees that filled the room.

He talked of front-loading content, the inverted pyramid, circular structure,

And dangling participles.

I have absolutely no idea what they are but who cares. 
It’s such a fabulous title that that is entirely irrelevant. I never thought grammar could have a sense of humour.

I’ve been trying to bring the phrase up in sentences all week, but not knowing what it means is holding me back somewhat.

I could look it up but, where’s the fun in that?

Once I know what it means, I’ll be forced to acknowledge I’ve been writing with participles dangling incorrectly all my life and that wouldn’t do at all.

Sure, for the most part, knowledge is power. But not in this case.

Knowledge in this instance would just make more work.

THE THREE WISE MEN AND WHY YOU SHOULD ALWAYS KEEP TALKING TO YOUR FAMILY

Thank heavens I haven’t cut off my family. 

This morning I had to do a spot of vocal coaching for a gaggle of girls who have made it through to the second round of auditions for Annie.

The very same Annie I auditioned for and still haven’t heard about, which probably means I didn’t get it, because – let’s face it – they’re not going to call and say;

‘gee Naomi, we’re sorry. You came so close and all, but we decided to go with the shorter, skinnier, younger, who-knows-what-er standing next to you instead.’

Which is a terrible shame, because it would have been so nice to tread the boards again. Particularly with a gig in my homeland, with a baby barely over a year old who wouldn’t even know I was gone, because she’d be sleeping like the perfect child she is.

Unfortunately this perfect child couldn’t come with me to the coachings because she seems to think that everyone she comes across is there for her joy, entertainment and every wish and whim, which is fine most of the time because she usually comes across me, and that’s exactly what I am there to do.

But since Gregory works on Saturday, I was forced to call in the eldest of the three wise men.

The three wise men being my three brothers, though no one asked me if I thought that was an appropriate name for them.

The eldest wise man also comes with a delightful wife, but no children as yet, and I was rather worried Miss Q might halt them in that department entirely.

But like the true performer she is, she charmed them shamelessly and turned the waterworks on only when I was an extra half hour late because every time I go to the eastern suburbs, I come home a new and longer way, this time driving through the city which was so dumb and saw me sit at a set of lights for four rounds before I managed to get through.

Tomorrow I’m going to a course run by Dan Kaufman at the NSW Writer's Centre which I’m so excited about I can hardly stand myself.

Normally, Gregory has Sundays off, so we had it all arranged that he and Miss Q would meet me for lunch in the grounds so I could sip on a cup of coffee and Miss Q could sip on my boob.

Now Gregory has to work tomorrow so we called in the easiest recruit, the one always up for a task, even if it’s a crap one – Miss Q’s grandma, her Nona.

A trained professional, having harvested, grown and nurtured four of her own, this Nona comes with a highly developed need to organise, tidy and fold laundry. 

It's superb.

Although it’s Sunday, so we’ll have to pay her weekend rates I suppose, a bit more than her weekday salary.

Still, I can afford that.

What’s double of nothing?