HOO-hah! Good writing went down last night. I formatted the pages of the manuscript so that they're the same size and with about the same margins as a paperback book. I have a 63 page manuscript. And I still have a lot to say. I'm holding off on the 'good' parts, namely those that will be easy to write. It's just stunning to me when I pause to think about it. I'm doing it. I'm writing a book. I am actually writing a book. Not only have I not had to seal myself away in a mountain retreat to do it, but it blends seamlessly into the flow of my other activities.I think it's 'good,' but of course, there's no way of knowing. After I spend all the time writing the thing, some extensive editing will need to happen, involving reading it all over, making sure that there's unity of voice, that all thoughts are followed to their logical conclusions, that unnecessary digressions are deleted, and the like. At this point, as I write, my intended audience is gay men who are involved in S/M. I may broaden that to men and women involved in S/M, although I'll only know if that's possible after I give the complete text a read through.

What will I wear on my book tour?

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Last night I dug up a copy of Joan Didion's essay 'On Self-Respect' to send to a fellow blogger. After reading it, I typed most of it into my journal. As it came up on the screen as a word document, I was aghast to see squiggly green lines in the text. Word's grammar-check function was finding errors with Joan? And it's true. And not just 'artistic license' kind of errors. It seems that Joan Didion doesn't know when to use 'that' and when to use 'which.'

I do. I'm not a stickler for grammar. Language is fluid. Rules follow useage, and not the other way around. Thus, I don't make a distinction between "No one knows better than I" as opposed to "No one knows better than me."

But I take pride in knowing the difference between 'that' and 'which.' "You use 'that' to show 'which,' and 'which' to show 'that' is the mnemonic rule. If the information is not grammatically necessary, but just additional information, you use which. If you're using it to distinguish the subject, you use that. If you can insert the phrase 'by the way' after that or which, and it makes sense, then use 'which.' For example, "The dog that is whining needs to go out." But, "The dog that is whining, which is the friendliest dog I've ever met, needs to go out.

Clear? Go, therefore, and sin no more.

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