Monday, May 08, 2006

Serials and Scenarios – Comma(on) Rituals - Part !

I propose a charming new ritual – let’s delete Mondays. The extra hours could be turned into Saturday Jr.

Someone who’s really good with legalese or political double talk needs to draft a petition. I’ll sign it.

It should be a ritual to post on Monday, but I’m not quite ready to commit to the requirements of ritual as described below.

Rituals are defined as - A ritual is a formalised, predetermined set of symbolic actions generally performed in a particular environment at a regular, recurring interval. The set of actions that comprise a ritual often include, but are not limited to, such things as recitation, singing, group processions, repetitive dance, manipulation of sacred objects, etc. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rituals

This explains Cheeseheads and half-naked, brightly painted, screaming men at sporting events.

And I’d paint my torso and wear dairy products on my head and dance if we could really and truly delete Mondays.

I’ve asked some writing buddies for their rituals. I’ll post a few over the next few days.

Though I’m not organized enough to have developed rituals, I’d venture a guess that cleaning out my e-mail files before writing would count as a not-so-productive one.

I suppose I should develop a happy comma success dance. I have trouble with commas. It may come from my less than positive experience with snakes, and what does a comma resemble, I ask you. So, pumped full of adrenaline at the sight of a snakelike comma, I often don’t know what to do with them, and I’ll admit I kind of lose it. Either I use commas as liberally as some use a pepper grinder, or completely randomly.

Fortunately, I have gotten better with careful teaching. Michelle, my first line go to ego stomper (technical term – critique partner) tells me my comma cancer might be in remission.

The best comma rule ever, came from Steve. He stated that words beginning with the same letter as the current month all received a comma at the end. I suppose it’s a reward thing -- good prose gets rewarded with happy little snakes. Kind of like stickers in Kindergarten – maybe.

I think Steve may smoke peppercorns, but it was amusing – don’t try this with editors!

Come back tomorrow for Comma(on) Rituals. : )