Monday, April 28, 2014

Blogging from #AtoZChallenge - eXclamation points and eXcalibur


This was the first letter I really had to scramble to find a topic. My husband thought I should discuss the use of expletives, but I don't have an opinion there - do what works for you!

I could tell you to put a hyphen in x-ray, but heck, Word will fix that for you.

So, exclamation points it is. I am a naturally upbeat person. I can almost see the exclamation points when I talk (especially about horses and endurance), so I tend to write the same way. My first, horrible attempt at writing a book was full of, in addition to the oft maligned passive voice, exclamation points. I probably deleted hundreds. I still have to delete them from my emails, Facebook and Twitter posts, and even blog posts.

The point (!) is that you probably shouldn't sprinkle too many through your manuscript. And never, ever put more than one at a time. Make sure they're necessary. And when you decide to use one, don't make the mistake of adding "...!" he exclaimed. Or shouted or screeched. Of course you might be able to avoid the exclamation with "he exclaimed." But some people will tell you to avoid all dialogue tags except he said/she said. I don't quite agree with this, especially with MG and YA, but I do strive to choose language so it's obvious the speaker is excited, and if identifying the speaker is necessary, then use a motion.

I hope that's enough of grammar X. I'm done! Truly!! Did you have a hard time with X? Drop me a comment below and leave a link back to your blog and I'll be sure to visit and comment.

My X horse wasn't as hard, but she's still a bit of a stretch. Excalibur is an arab/quarter mare (doesn't seem like a female name right?) who was abandoned at our barn when her owner lost his business. Her original name was Callie. But the boy who bought her from me loved all things King Arthur and decided Excalibur was close enough to Callie.

Well, she attacked the trail with a singular mind of arriving to her destination first, so maybe it fit.

The day I delivered her to her new owners, they asked my husband to trim their other horse's feet. We'd already turned Callie out to her new pasture and focused on the other mare (who had initially told Callie she wasn't welcome.)

Apparently Callie took that lack of welcome to heart and left. She found some barely loose fence wires, stepped and crawled through, then climbed a 300 foot hill. When we noticed, we had to drive the long way around because of a locked gate, but she was gone. This was a huge area with only two houses and grazing cattle over a couple thousand acres.

I went home and grabbed another horse to search for her. No luck. Before we left for the night, we found the cattle tank empty, so left a few buckets of water around. Early the next morning, a neighbor found her with his ATV and brought her back to her new home (with a newly tightened fence) without any evidence of spending the night alone. This time she stayed.

9 comments:

  1. I'm terrible I'm sure I over use exclamation marks. Any way I've given your blog a shout tout from my own letter X today, happy blogging. http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/

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    1. Thanks for the shout out - and nice blog btw!

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  2. Didn't realize horses run away from home too. Glad she was safe. I try to use exclamation marks sparingly because when I do use them, I want to make a statement.Good reminder.
    http://yeakleyjones.blogspot.com/

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    1. They rarely run away leaving other horses behind. But oh boy, if they all get loose and decide to go visiting - it can be a bit of a project to bring them home. On the other hand, I do have a mare (Csavannah) that when she was less than a year old, jumped a fence, left her mom and all her buddies and joined a cow herd. I don't think she'd have come home on her own!

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  3. I love exclamation points! I know I have a tendency to overuse them, but at least where my work is concerned, I do manage to keep them reined in.

    I'm glad you found Callie and that she was no worse for wear!

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    1. Forgot to include the link to my X post: http://melindahagenson.com/2014/04/28/x-is-for-xmas/

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    2. haha - you don't have to - I visit your blog every day!

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  4. Aren't horses strange creatures--the way they turn away a new member of their herd--even if there are two horses in the herd. :-) I grew up riding a big, black horse named Flicka. I know, not very original, but that was her name when we bought her. Good post. It was a nice walk down memory lane. :-)

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    1. A friend of mine had a horse named Flicka. She came with that name from a rescue. She was officially renamed Gazala (because she named all her animals alphabetically and G was next) but we all still called her Flicka.

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