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Entries For: October 2007
"Trick or Treat"
It’s Halloween again and, once more, I am mystified. 
This is one holiday I just don’t get. All other holidays – from New Year’s to Christmas – have warm, fuzzy connotations. Valentine’s Day is hearts and flowers and love, Easter is about bunnies and new hats, Memorial and Labor Day honor heroes in the military and the labor force, (even Fourth of July tempers its fireworks and implication of martial violence with Mom’s apple pie).
My Battle With the Adverb
I confess, I was addicted. Many beginning writers have a problem with adjectives. This is a universal given. My problem had always been with adverbs. (To refresh: an adjective modifies a noun and an adverb modifies an adjective and a verb) In my early works, if anything could be done, it could be done happily, sadly, smashingly, haltingly, poorly, smartly. No verb in any writing of mine was left without a description, and if one adverb worked well, then two must be twice as good! 
Lessons from My Favorite Actor
I adore Michael Caine. I have been a huge fan since the fabulous epic, “Zulu” (1964), in which he played the toffee-nosed Lt. Gonville Bromhead, so brilliantly (and nasally) delivering the line: “Who told you you could use my men?”
To coincide with the debut of his new movie, “Sleuth,” a remake of the 1972 film in which he shared billing with Laurence Olivier, last Friday’s Los Angeles Times carried an interview with Mr. Caine (October 12, 2007, by Patrick Goldstein). While the actor had many interesting things to say about his life and his career, what jumped off the page for me was his advice to aspiring actors, because it is spot-on for aspiring writers as well.
Words That Are Like Children: seen but not heard.
I was chatting with a friend the other day and he commented on the current halcyon weather. While he went on about the wispy clouds and endless blue sky, I found myself stuck on “halcyon,” and it occurred to me that this is one of those words you always read but rarely hear.
October Light
Believe it or not, Southern California does have seasons, and fall in SoCal is my favorite! Our leaves change and drop to the ground, like everybody else’s, our days grow cool and our nights chilly, but we also have those lovely Santa Ana winds at this time of the year, that sweep down from the northeastern deserts and clear the air so that, as we say, you can see all the way to Catalina.
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