Symi! (Exclamation mark, why?)
Photos of some more plants in the courtyard, clouds and sun, calmer winds, cool breeze, just another ordinary day for me on Symi.
I spent a lot of Wednesday night watching ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and making notes. I then spent Thursday morning typing them up, a total of over 800 words, but I only need 500 for the assignment, which is about the script of a film. In this case SPR. After the note typing came the sifting and sorting and moving things around so that I had a structure to my piece, and then came some editing. As I pause to write this, I have 640 words. I need to hone it down to 500 or less without losing any of my main points. It’s been a while since I did anything remotely academic, even though this isn’t relay an academic exercise, and, so far I am quite enjoying it. I think. I’ll leave it for now though and come back to it later or tomorrow and see what I have written. Hopefully I will like it.
And talking of films. Is it me or does every film these days have to have someone throw up in it? Even some animated stories have someone doing something nasty with fluids from the head; spitting, hoiking, gobbing, vomiting, you name it they all seem to do it. The number of times I’ve watched a film and seen something like that going on seems to be on the increase. Yes, I know, ‘keep it visceral’ and ‘make it realistic’ and all that, so when someone sees a dead body there’s usually a stomach reaction. But in every single film? Okay, I’ve not seen it in Love Story and a quick up-chuck would be out of place in ‘Women In Love’ (perhaps not), but they are old films. These days it’s everywhere! Even in TV shows!
And I must apologise for the overzealous use of that exclamation mark! Oops, did it again. I hate them and think they should be banned which, as far as I can pick up, means I am close to being in agreement with someone in the British Government. You have to admit, though, that when someone writes Hi! It works and that’s fine, so we won’t outlaw the ! completely. Or when someone shouts, ‘OI! Come over here,’ it makes sense. But what I hate is when people write to you and say things like, How are you! (Should be a question mark.) Or, We’re coming to visit Symi in two months! As if were an announcement of ‘Quick, run for the hills!’ Or even worse, We have now taken delivery of three new kittens!!! (One for each mini-moggy, I guess.) In every novel of, say, 80,000 words, I say that there should be no more than four exclamation marks. They don’t give sentences any more weight, especially if overused. If you want to show surprise or joy, write ‘I am surprised, or joyful.’
I have no idea where that came from, but then I rarely have any idea where these morning posts come from. But still, it’s there now! (Stop it!) (No, really.)
