You bit me.

[jackshoegazer]

It's hard to believe that my iconomicon has been around 4.75 years and is watched by 6000 people. I realize that's like twice the number of active LJ users, but I'm okay with that.

Today, I am driving Jacquelyn to Chicago because she's flying to Crete (yes, the island near Greece) for a conference. Right now, we're waiting for her poster to print. Apparently all scientists wait until the last moment. Her advisor is giving a talk which he's writing on the plane.

I am going to try and cut back on the number of contractions I use in my writing. After watching True Grit, listening to the characters talk without them made me realize that while writing sounds better without them, speaking that way is damned right silly.

We went on a movie marathon recently. On top of True Grit, we also went to see The King's Speech which was hilarious and would not surprise me in the least if Colin Firth was up for a Best Actor nod.

Last night, we went to see Darren Aronofsky's latest, Black Swan which was, well, a lot like Aronofsky's other movies – so eerie and visceral that when the credits finally roll, you realize you've been clenching every muscle for two hours and you can not believe the relief you feel. Natalie Portman, holy hell. I've not been a big fan of hers, but I give her a lot of credit for not flinching away from challenging roles.

Poster is done! Bon voyage!

Comments

[decemberthirty.livejournal.com]

I was really interested by the language in True Grit, too. I saw it after spending the past couple of months working on a story in the form of a character's journal from 1898, in which I had to drastically reduce my own contraction use (though I didn't eliminate contractions entirely.) It's an interesting experiment, and harder to do than it seems at first. Some sentence just don't sound right to contemporary ears without contractions--the rhythm feels all wrong. I was impressed by the 100% percent commitment to that writing style in True Grit.

I'd love to hear about how contraction reduction works for you.