AutoCrit

Yesterday I briefly mentioned the AutoCrit Editing Software. Here's how that works. You upload a chunk of your manuscript, then run up to 14 reports on it. Reports include: Overused Words, Repeated Phrases, Sentence Length Variation, Repeated Words, Dialogue Tags, First Words, Names and Pronouns, Repeated Phrases Summary, Combination View of Overused & Repeated Words, Cliché Finder, Redundancy Finder, Homonym Highlighter, Readability Suite, and Pacing Monitor.

Here's what AutoCrit found in 4 random pages of manuscript, comparing my writing to word usage averages across "dozens of samples of published fiction":
feel/feeling/felt: 3, 0.1 %EXCEEDED
generic descriptions: 2, 0.1 %EXCEEDED
initial conjunction: 7, 0.5 %EXCEEDED
just/then: 8, 0.4 %EXCEEDED
maybe: 2, 0.1 %EXCEEDED
that: 15, 0.6 %EXCEEDED
was/were: 16, 1.4 %EXCEEDED

I have a little problem with "was." I'm a little too fond of the word, and AutoCrit points out instances for me, since my eyes skip over them. But sometimes it also points out things I've done intentionally, like repeated phrases for effect. Still, this program provides a good place to start looking.

[EDITED TO ADD: When I uploaded an entire chapter, most of these overages disappeared. I think the larger the sample size, the more accurate result.]

Sometimes the Wizard points out things I missed. Sometimes it just reassures me that I caught everything I should have. It's a fresh set of eyes when mine are tired, if nothing else. Perhaps I won't need this crutch after a few more years of practice. But for now? I'm loving it.

Quiz

I am too tired to create original content tonight. (And my internal editor is fried too, even with the support of AutoCrit.)

So, a plug!
I love Brenda Novak's 5th Annual On-line Auction for Diabetes Research. Want a computer? Vacation? Stack of autographed books? Critique of your manuscript? Click on over!

Also, a quiz!
(or two)
I took What Kind of Blogger Are You? and What's Your Blogging Personality?
I got You Are a Pundit Blogger and Your Blogging Type Is Artistic and Passionate, respectively.
Yeah? Apparently not.

You Are a Pundit Blogger!

Your blog is smart, insightful, and always a quality read. You're up on the latest news, and you have an interesting spin on things. Of all the blogging types, you put the most thought and effort into your blog. Truly appreciated by many, surpassed by only a few

What Kind of Blogger Are You?

Your Blogging Type is Artistic and Passionate

You see your blog as the ultimate personal expression - and work hard to make it great. One moment you may be working on a new dramatic design for your blog... And the next, you're passionately writing about your pet causes. Your blog is very important - and you're careful about who you share it with.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

How about you?

I Used To Be an Editorial Ass

Because I'm too busy Christmas shopping to post tonight, I'll highlight one of my favorite editor blogs, written by Moonrat: Editorial Ass: I work in publishing and I like to read things. Herewith: free association on books, nice things I ate, publishing, editing, and other nice things I ate.

And in particular, I'll point you to her recent post suggesting some great books to give as gifts this year - many of which are available in paperback!

In case you're wondering, the Editorial Ass is not a jerk. In fact, she's really very nice. She's also a former (now promoted) Editorial Assistant. Which can be a grueling, thankless, and very poorly paid position.

***

Edited to add a completely unrelated question. What does the term "natural causes" mean when you're talking about a college freshman? (I'm thinking "traditional" first year student, rather than an older student, because I can't imagine anyone else choosing to live in Ruby.)

Perhaps I Just Need a Nap

I'm so tired I think I might die. Not really, but there is a certain appeal to the idea of lying in a quiet, shady, well-tended cemetery for an indeterminate length of time.

Presumably this tiredness stems from the facts that I am chronically sleep-deprived and currently overweight.

As to the latter, I continue to stubbornly refuse to diet but have been exercising. (Which just makes me more tired, but hopefully will begin to help soon.) I do my cross-training machine in the basement while watching "hour long" dramas on DVD. This works well if I can find just the right show. It has to be interesting enough to make me really want to watch it, but not so tough to follow that I can't concentrate on it while huffing and puffing.

And tonight I started alternating/supplementing those workouts with Wii Fit workouts. I love everything about the Wii Fit except for the exercises themselves, which are just so-so. When cardio kickboxing comes out, I'll jump for joy. And kick something that's at least waist-high.

The greatest thing about the Wii Fit is the Body Test thingie, which measures your center of balance, BMI, and body control to determine your Wii Fit Age. It tracks everything in motivational graphs, and I keep my data locked so that my husband can only guess at my weight and Wii Fit Age (currently +5, but as my strength and balance continue to improve by doing the suggested daily exercises, that will come down).

So that's the other great thing. It's not just about cardio, BMI, and weight loss. it's about improving strength, especially core strength, improving posture, gait, flexibility, etc. It's about being healthier. Plus I can do it in my street clothes standing in front of the TV upstairs. What excuses do I have left?

Oh, yeah, right, I'm really really tired.

Time for Dinner - review

This is just a quick follow-up to my earlier post about Time for Dinner.

Verdict: highly recommended! We haven't worked our way through all the dishes, yet, but we've tried most of them (all but the Apple Butter BBQ Pork and Asian Chicken Stir Fry) and everything we've eaten has been very good. Great, even.

Not only is the food wonderful, but I'm finding it far easier to eat in when I can just grab a meal from the freezer. I was afraid I'd be unexcited by the prospect of eating frozen food and would want to eat out. Since all the meals sounded delicious and I was involved with preparing them fresh, this hasn't been a major concern.

Which is not to say that I wouldn't still be happy to go out for chips and salsa every night, though.

Rejecting the (lamest of the) 21st Century

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that someone at the pool asked me if Ellie and Ada were my grandkids. Ah-hem. But what really makes me feel old is when new stuff catches on that I just.don't.get.

As you see, I'm relatively young and hip. I know how to separate words in a sentence with periods for emphasis. I blog and am not afraid of YouTube. I've tried messenger and think it's largely a useless time-suck, but I'm OK with that. (I think much the same thing about the telephone. Your mileages may vary.)

But Leetspeak? LOLCATS? Twitter?

Argh!

Never.

No, really, never. This isn't like blogging where I spent months frustrated that some of my favorite bulletin board posters were spending less and less time on the boards because they were blogging and reading blogs, and then jumping on the bandwagon myself; quitting all discussion boards cold turkey and starting this blog a couple of months later.

(In that case, I was mostly frustrated because I missed the company of some e-friends, as if a face-time friend started hanging around somewhere else instead of our usual spot. After a while, I decided on a change of scenery and ditched The Spot myself. And eventually I started running into several old friends from The Spot around new digs, Le Blogosphérè. Blogging is a very useful medium of communication for busy folks because one can read and write whenever and the posts are more static than in most electronic media (e.g. messenger, Twitter, discussion boards) and more public than email.)

I honestly don't get the appeal of Twitter. I understand what it is and how it's used (especially for businesses) I just.don't.get.it. Two main things: "micro-blogging" isn't my preferred form (to write or read) and also the subscription options. I think we spend far too much time contacting each other remotely anyway (cell phones, emails, texts, etc.) and should be dialing back on that and focusing more where we are in the moment rather than who's on the other end of the damn iPhone.

Egads, I'm a dinosaur!

Second, LOLCATS. Kill me now! First of all, I don't much care for cats. And if I did have a cat, I'd care a heck of a lot more for my own cat than for pictures of other people's cats. (I'm much the same way about my own dog and my own kids.) But I have no problem with people sharing pictures of their cats. Just don't email them to me unless I know you and your cat.

But lolspeak? Nooooooo! How is this cute? Why is this accepted by people who otherwise demonstrate signs of being older than 11? I don't like baby talk for babies, either, and even if I did I wouldn't post it on top of pictures of my (amazingly beautiful and adorable!) girls and submit it all over the internet. Ugh.

Finally, Leetspeak. 1337! Can I sit at your lunch table now? As an adult, I'm quickly irritated (me? never!) with things that smack of exclusivity for the main purpose of, well, just being exclusive and isolating, the whole in vs. out dynamic. It's so very junior high in the 1980's. I sat at that lunch table, and I've left it far behind, thankyouverymuch.

I'll let Wikipedia speak for itself, here:
[Leetspeak] is now also used to mock newbies, or newcomers, on web sites, or in gaming communities.
The term is derived from the word "elite"
often it is seen in situations where the argot characteristics of the system are required, either to exclude newbies or outsiders in general.
Unrelated annoyance: Another common feature of Leet is over-exclamation, where a sentence is postfixed with many exclamation marks.

No, thanks.

Please feel free to step on up in comments and defend yourself and your love of Twitter, lolcats, or l33t.

--n00b

Wii Update

Those of you who read Yeah, But Houdini Didn't Have These Hips via feed might be confused tonight. I've been scanning my "edit posts" page and finding some old "drafts" I thought I'd published months ago. For example, you might have just seen a post come through about Ada learning to walk, which seems so long ago to me that it must have been in a different lifetime, or at least a different year.

Now my younger daughter tells me, "I want down! I walk!" more often than she says, "Up up up!" like she did so often only a few months ago. Ah, Ada. Wasn't I just worried that she'd never be able to separate from me?

Anyway, this post is about my Nintendo Wii, which I confess to not having played in many months. Like, maybe since January or so. I still think it's a great platform, and if I had, say, no children, I'd probably play it more. And if I had a large, uncarpeted or thinner-carpeted area in front of the TV, I'd definitely want WiiFit.

The rest of this post was written on my birthday last September (Paul gave me my present a couple of weeks early).

So far, my favorite game on the Nintendo Wii is Super Paper Mario because, perhaps, I'm about 10 years old when it comes to my gaming preferences. I loved the editorial comment made by one of the Sammer Guys about how brightly colorful games are childish and "next generation" games must be monochromatic. One of my favorite things about this game in particular - and Nintendo in general over other gaming platforms - is the brightly colored palette. The "mature" color scheme of the new Zelda is keeping me from wanting to even begin.

But my favorite things to do with the Wii are playing the with Miis (I've designed my whole family, and will post them here if I can figure out how to do that) and watching other people play Wii Sports. Witness:


This fall I've hosted a couple of Girls Wii Nights, and while we talk much more than we play, they are still fun. I am unashamed at being a nonserious gamer. I always have been, even when I played Quake 2 and Duke Nukem 3D with my guy friends in college.

One of the weirdest things about the Wii is the creepy blue light summons. Even when the unit is off, it flashes a cool blue light to draw your attention if it has something it deems important enough to trouble you for. Kind of . . . intrusive, actually.

2008 me again. I remember being so excited about my Wii, but like it's a story I heard from someone else. That was even longer ago than Ada wanting to be carried rather than running and falling constantly. This is the best argument I have for blogging. How else could I so easily record all this stuff in a way that's easy to tag and search? With my new swiss cheese memory, tagging and searching are just about the only way I "remember" anything.

My Publisher

Well, it got really late and I got really tired and I still have my book club book to finish. (Review coming very soon, like it or not.)

So instead of a real post, I'll just do a plug for a product in which I sadly have no personal stake. Jessica first turned me on to My Publisher Bookmaker, and it's awesome. If you've always wanted to have lovely books of organized photos but hate scrapbooking, this is totally for you. Especially when they have their 2-for-1 sales!