“See Dick and Jane Screen” by Danny Bloom and Nina Munteanu

When my journalist friend Danny Bloom told me about the new term he’d invented to describe reading on the computer screen, I had to take it to the next level and here is what came of our collaboration (a new paradigm and a new book for your kids to learn the ABC’s of English (out soon on Amazon.com... LOL!):

See Jane screen. Jane is screening. Jane likes to screen.
See Dick screen. Dick is screening, too. Dick likes to screen.
See Dick and Jane screening. They are screening because they like to screen.
Screen, screen screen!
Screening is fun.
Hey, Mom and Dad, do you want to screen with us?
We are having fun screening.
Screening is so much fun.
We can screen all our books online now. We love to screen.
See Jane screen. Jane is screening. Jane likes to screen.

Facepalming with Jean-Luc Picard...

I freaked myself out, after watching the bleak and thoughtful apocalyptic "Knowing" (by Alex Proyas, director of "I, Robot") the other day--I think it was April 1st too, so that didn't help (I'll post a review of it eventually)--then I experienced a spate of interesting anomalies, including a self-inflicted one, like locking myself out of my office. I think karma was kicking in as I engaged in some very weird conversations with friends and family. Then my friends started to look at me strangely (well, they do that anyway, but they were doing it more). Several of them were doing the "FACEPALM" thing after I'd say something...

What? You don't know about facepalming? You obviously haven't been reading the Urban Dictionary or met Jean-Luc Picard... He is the consumate facepalmer.

Well, let me edify you on this very serious subject. According to Moondog in the Urban Dictionary,

To facepalm is: "the act of dropping one's face/forehead into one's hand. Usually accompanied by a thunk or a cry of "d'oh!"

Seungsation defines facepalm as "the only logical answer to a stupid question or statement." And gives this example:

Guy 1: " Dude, how to I get my Siege Tank into Siege-Mode?"

Guy 2: *facepalm*

The Wiktionary give this definition for facepalm:

to facepalm (third-person singular simple present facepalms, present participle facepalming, simple past and past participle facepalmed):

1) to bring the palm of one’s hand to one’s face as an expression of mixed humor and disbelief or disgust or shame, for example, when one is caught off-guard with a particularly bad pun.
2) To bring one’s face down to one’s cupped hand or hands.

If that doesn't give you a good idea of context check out these keywords that The Urban Dictionary uses for facepalm: headesk, idiot, stupid, plam, retard, lol, lmao, epic fail. Well, that pretty much sums it up for me.

Oh, one last thing. I think facepalming is a sign of intelligence. After all, Jean-Luc does it all the time. And cats are apparently good at it too.

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.

The Novelist: Common Pitfalls of the Beginning Writer—Part 1 (Characters)

Have you ever wondered how an editor decides not to read your cherished tome past the second paragraph of the first page and has pegged you as a beginning writer? This used to really bug me… Well, as a published author and occasional mentor, I do from time to time read manuscripts (please don’t send me any unsolicited ones! This isn’t an invite). Well, I now recognize what these editors do. Most beginning writers commonly do some things that unfortunately identify him/her as a novice; these can work against you when a busy editor (who wants nothing better than an excuse to stop reading) reads your precious work.

So, I’d like to share what I’ve learned over the years (some of the very same comments that have been made of my work, I am sharing back with you).

The Language of Expression

When my parents immigrated to Canada from Paris, France, they each had a different experience when faced with a new white anglo saxon protestant community who spoke English, a language neither spoke well. And, even though my Romanian father was somewhat of a linguist, able to speak at least ten languages (including impeccable French), he was the one who had the most trouble picking up and mastering English. By contrast, my German mother, who could hardly speak French when she lived in Paris, had no problem picking up English and speaking it with hardly an accent. Aside from the obvious language differences (e.g., German is so close to English as a language vs Romanian and the romantic languages), I think one of the reasons that my father had more problems acquiring the English language with the usual ease he picked up Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, etc. was how the language was used. Language is, after all, much more than the spoken word. It is an expression of culture and biology.