According to this I write YA stories

[twopoint]

I usequestails for her computer geniousness. 

After the Singapore Incident, I went a-searching for online document storage because emailing stories and notes to myself (and backing it all up on three separate flash drives, or posting it and locking it here) didn’t fully satisfy my ocd. I discovered some nicely recommended storage sites, but I’ve successfully locked myself down with anti-malware everything and the sites won’t allow me to upload without turning it off, which I cannot do because something might explode.

So I askedquestails and she put up with my ignorance magnanimously (as always) and said, why don’t you just use the document feature on gmail?

Oh.  

I’ve been playing with gmail docs for a couple weeks now and I love it love it love it. I love that I can email stories in and send draft links without attachments to whomever I want (the rest of you might not share in my ease of sharing). It’s clean text that keeps the style definitions so that I can copy and post without having to fiddle with font, unlike Word 07 which is of the devil, notepad takes too much out, etc.  

Curious about word count last night, I searched around to see if there was any difference between Word and gmail and discovered – my writing is easily understood by the average eleven year old and I typically write at the fourth grade level according to the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Tests. Occasionally, rarely, I step up to the fifth grade level. That puts me about even with Reader’s Digest and a little better than our local disaster of a newspaper. 

I’m sure Word offers the same information, but I never go deeper than the word count at the bottom of the screen. I know the tests don’t qualify as ratings, if it did, my fondness for a certain word that begins with f would push me at least into middle school (where I will eternally remain in heart and action). So, I’m going to be more polysyllabic this week. I’m going to keep tellingquestails that she’s magnanimous, because she is.  Andvictoriawiley, who writes shopping lists at the doctorate level, I’m going to tell her that she’s perspicacious, because that’s why I love her, and with her help I will use more semi-colons and develop complex sentence structures and I will finally understand the past perfect tense. I will try, and fail, to stop beginning sentences with And and But. 

So, using Flesch-Kincaid, who is your target audience?

Comments

[two-point.livejournal.com]

There's not many people who can do what you do, you know. There's no way to chart the gay luchador costume situation statistically - and I have a feeling that this is de rigeour (ha! take that! french!) (I think that should actually be de facto, but I'll list them both to up my grade level) de something for questails. My people are going to start following you about and making notes. They're very quiet. (I think I need a semicolon somewhere -- I see that you used one very nicely); and just the other night I was sitting here thinking that I would really like to have a daily writing prompt of pics from abandoned places (I'm not kidding) and then, boom, questails magic, I receive a link to just that. How do you do it? Does it have anything to do with telepathy? If so they my people will take notes and I'll use you as a character sketch.

Even having used the word luchador in the above paragraph I achieved a grade score of a big, whopping 6. Sixth grade. 6th. Maybe I need to think up a new past time. Like knitting.

You do realize that I need to write a kingfisher scene now, complete with frightened red head (unless it's already been done, if so, could you send me the link?)

[questails.livejournal.com]

Hah! I thought. Her people will never find me, they'll never find the door behind the glass that conceals the strange path to my mind! I am the artist, unknowable and inscrutable; mysterious and--

At this point I noticed a quiet scratching sound, punctuating my ridiculous mental diabtribe. I looked around to find a crow with an antique fountain pen, making a list on a bit of fine vellum. His penmanship was exquisite. Toward the bottom, I read the following:

-pretty easy to find
-artist
-inscrutable, in her own opinion anyway
-poor situational awareness; I have been here for fully three-quarters an hour and she's just now noticed me

I glared at the crow over that last one, he ignored me, and set about cataloging the contents of my pencil-box. So, I sketched him while I was on a very boring phone call. Hmmph. So much for my delusions of mystery, I suupose.

I don't think I'm telepathic; I think I just have a muse of .. erm.. probably there's a word for it that I don't know. A muse that brings what you need. I wouldn't have guessed that the ability would extend to gay luchadors. That one is definitely a statistical outlier.

I would be beyond delighted to know what else happens in the scene with the red-haired man and the kingfisher - what I told you is what came to mind, so that's all I know! Tell me, so I can sketch it? It's been nibbling around the edges of my mind all afternoon!

6th grade, OH! Literally, grade, now I get it. Well, I call BS - some of my very favourite books were intended for 6th graders, or thereabouts. Some of my least favourite books grace the reading lists of 11th graders. It's the truth!

[two-point.livejournal.com]

Oh! That would be Edda. He’s cagey, without actually living in a cage, and he’s drawn to pretty, shiny things, like artists who give careful attention to shoulders. He volunteered for the research position when we first started the Questails Project. I’ve found that he responds well to filigreed hair clips, fountain pen nubs, obviously, and wine corks. If you decide to keep him around for a while, and there’s really no way to gently send him packing once he’s decided on an interesting subject, he prefers three fresh, free-feeding dishes of: honey, port wine and beignet powdered sugar – for breakfast – and fresh, seedless cucumbers, figs and peanut M&M’s for lunch/dinner. He also answers to Eddie. In typical crow fashion, he’s a little standoffish-ish at first, but one he settles in he’ll entertain you and your friends with a distinctively crow-ish wit. I will warn you that he likes to nibble earlobes, softly.

Some of my best friends are fourth graders, so as long as I tone down the subject matter, I don't mind writing for them. I as awfully proud of myself last night. I wrote a tenth grade sentence! But it was terrifically boring and I crumpled the page after I finished.

It would be a shiraz-merlot evening in the twopoint household. I just spent two days writing a migraine scene. Do you suffer from migraines? I only get stress headaches, but I do have family members who are out for days with the big ones. I trying to figure out how I can place a kingfisher into the scene. Two birds with one . . .

Which reminds me! Show me the sketch you drew of Edda while he surveyed the contents of your pencil box.

[questails.livejournal.com]

http://dragon.pucemoose.com/edda.jpg

You'll note he's got a wee shiny rock to hold down the corner of the parchment, to keep it from curling as he writes. The weird green smear looks like some strange mossy hieroglyph, which I liked, so I left it; all it really is is a smear from a leaky inkjet cartridge.

Crows are actually a bit tough to draw just from memory, but I'm amused enough with handsome Edda that I kinda want to make a painting out of this. I'd use gold leaf in there somewhere - of course - I'm not above flattery, particularly in exchange for witty crow-songs and earlobe nibbles.

Books for fourth graders are likely to have pictures in them; I vote you keep the subject matter, and add more pictures, because the world needs more beautiful men kissing. Or trying to kill each other. However you like. I love books with pictures in them. <3

It has been a ridiculously long nap evening in the questails abode; how in the hell did I sleep until 11pm?! So much for my half-hour power nap. One glass of tea, then something with a reasonable amount of liquor in it.

I do get migraines (thanks, Mom), but so far - knock on wood - not bad ones. I .. I have no idea how to get from a migraine to an odd-eyed stuffed kingfisher, but it wouldn't be the weirdest thing I'd (thought I'd) seen, lying in the dark, trying to will my head to stop hurting.

[two-point.livejournal.com]

I LOVE HIM!!!!! Please, please make a painting! Please! And make prints so I can have a copy of him. Please!!!! I see Edda having a vast collection of polished rocks to use as paper weights. You even know how he holds his pen (that is how he holds his pen!) and that is his pen! Also, he is left handed, so I now know with certainty that it was Edda at your window. Edda's face, Edda's eyes. *Sigh*

I'm holding my breath to see a painting of him, but this sketch is delightful.

They made me work long hours today and I couldn't get online with my phone and they kept asking questions and they kept telling me to do things, and it was only now that I could sit down with a glass of wine and look at Edda. I love him.