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I wrote my murder mystery manuscript in Word. Word had a Canadian Dictionary so I thought great, I will use this instead of UK or American.
Well, that was all fine and dandy but when I went to upload the chapters to Affinity Publisher for formatting, there was no Canadian dictionary! Since all my Word were formatted with the Canadian dictionary, it kept coming up with errors for dictionary in the pre-flight testing and even when I changed it to UK, nope, didn’t matter! Since every single word is under Canadian, there was a constant discrepancy between dictionaries including with find and replace! Total nightmare! I went on line looking to add a Canadian dictionary and that proved more than a challenge than I was up to so I decided to go back to my children’s books and ignore it. I went on forums for suggestions and everything I could find. As one person put it, doesn’t Canada have enough of a population to warrant it’s own dictionary?!? What many folks don’t realize is that Canadian Grammar is like the best of both worlds; some of it like in the UK and some of it is American and ALMOST nothing is French. I remember I bought a new laptop. At the time I didn’t know much about computers and it came with discs to set up the operating system. It asked what language and made it clear, once there, it wasn’t going any where! Well, I thought, ok, it says Canadian English so I might as well use that. Well, I hadn’t noticed the keyboard had French accent marks until I set up the keyboard. Next thing everything was all over the place to accommodate French! Last time I checked the predominant language in Canada was English! Being some one who was taught old-school, how to type, the set up of the keyboard is very important! I ended up getting so frustrated, I gave it to my 12-year-old son! It was supposed to be for school, however it ended up being for games but whatever! From that point on I have been very sensitive about language and English. As a TESOL teacher, I can say not all English is the same and I simply expected a good program such as Affinity Publisher wouldn’t be so ignorant as to not have English Grammar and spelling. Go figure since it has dictionaries for some very obscure languages! I am surprised it doesn't have Latin! So, there is a forum on how to add a dictionary however as the person said, it took over two hours to figure it all out. Sorry, for me it is all blah, blah, blah and I don't have the mental fortitude for it! it really doesn’t help my problem so I figure the only thing I can do is take my book, chapter by chapter and do a spell check under UK dictionary (which is NOT really Canadian Grammar by the way!) and save each chapter again. THEN when I put it in Affinity Publisher, I will have more ability to change words, and find words I want to edit and so on although most of it is going to be done now elsewhere! I have lost count of how many times I have edited that book!!!!
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I have never had a problem with writer’s block. Indeed, I would go to writing workshops and it seemed that is all they talked about! I found I didn’t need to know why others were having problems. I am too easily influenced and I didn’t want THEIR problems to become my problems so I would stop going. Recently I applied for a job and felt it only right I mention I have an online presence even it is a tiny one. While in the running for the job, I found I was curbing what I wrote and my world was getting smaller and smaller so writing was becoming, for the first time, more challenging. Then they did their hiring and I wasn’t accepted so things went back to normal. I will never forget that feeling of needing to curb my thoughts to fit the demands of those around me or what I thought might be not the accepted norm for that particular field. I made a vow to never again allow the thinking of others or what I think they might deem as “acceptable” to interfere with what I wanted to write! I have realized I value freedom above all else. Always have and that includes thinking as well as speech. Perhaps one day I shall have to pull in my views and stop having ideas that are outside the box or opinions, however that day is not today! I have worked with kids who have the label ODD-Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Oddly, I have never had any problem working with these kids. I understand an appreciate where they are coming from and many cases, why they have chosen this path. Nine times out of ten, it is by choice, not genetics. Not saying there isn’t the odd child who has a few wires crossed but, in most cases, when looking into their history, there is usually some factor or factors which has led to their oppositional or defiant behavior. In future, if these children can learn temperance and how to be stubborn in the right direction, I can see them making brilliant contributions to society. Wonderful insights and creations. In all these cases, I can’t help feel there has to be an allowance for non-conformity and give credit where credit is due even if it is not done in the most acceptable ways. I think this can also be applied to writing and writers. Many genres, and many great books were created by folks who were not the norm; who walked to the beat of their own drum and went ahead and produced works of both fiction and nonfiction that were(are) amazing. I hope anyone suffering from writer’s block remembers this. Looks at what conditioning or limitations they are placing on themselves because of outside influences and then can work freely in both thought and words to create what they choose to create and to hell with outside opinions. For some, I know because of the way they were raised, this isn’t always easy, however it doesn’t mean it can’t be done and you can’t be free to write what you want, the way you want! You have as much right to write the way you choose as anyone else and don’t forget that. Have a great day of writing! I now am the proud owner of a Huion Kanvas Pro 13. Normally I don't write about tech, since I am NOT a reviewer. I am going to make an exception in this case because it is so simple and makes my life so much easier.
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June 2024
AuthorArtist, Buddhist, Educator, Traveller, Cabinet Maker, kayaker, etc and now writer! |
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