Please pardon me, while I go off on a tangent.<\/p>\n
I grew up in simpler times. \u00a0When I was learning grammar and parts of speech, there were only two kinds of pronouns, and I\u2019m not talking gender here\u2014I\u2019m talking about subjective pronouns and objective pronouns. \u00a0Subjective pronouns could be the subject of a sentence. \u00a0I am going to the store. \u00a0Objective pronouns could be the object of a verb or a preposition. #1 He gave me a book. #2 Please give it to me.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think anyone teaches about subjects and predicates any more, much less prepositions and objects thereof. \u00a0Hence we now have generations of English speakers who say \u201cMe and Bob went to the store\u201d without any idea that they\u2019re saying it wrong. \u00a0It drives me nuts, but I\u2019ve given up fighting this war.<\/p>\n
The other thing I was taught about pronouns is that the speaker\u2019s pronoun should go after the other person’s, not because of grammar but out of politeness\u2014a grammatical nod to “you go first.” \u00a0In other words, not \u201cMe and him went for a ride,\u201d but \u201cHe and I went for a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
This whole screed in advance of the blog was written by the person my grandson, Colt, calls his Grammar Grandma. \u00a0It came about over night when I was thinking about the title I gave it\u2014Agatha and Me. \u00a0Since it\u2019s not a whole sentence I could just as well have named it Agatha and I, but that seemed presumptuous somehow. \u00a0Agatha and Me works.<\/p>\n
So endeth today\u2019s grammatical temper tantrum.<\/p>\n
Last week it was cold but clear around here. \u00a0This week what\u2019s called a Pineapple Express arrived bringing warmer weather but lots and lots of rain\u2014way too much rain. \u00a0Rivers in the region are at or above flood stage and the weather is nothing but a dreary gray.<\/p>\n
Consequently, I was glad when a little bit of sunshine showed up in my email a moment ago\u2014a notice from my New York editor for Simon and Schuster letting me know that Collateral Damage<\/em> in mass market just hit # 13 on the NYTimes mass market bestseller list. In other words, once again my dead tree readers came through for me.<\/p>\n By the way, a fan in Florida recently sent me a cartoon. \u00a0I\u2019d post it here, but I\u2019d probably run into some kind of copyright issue. \u00a0It\u2019s the photo of a large fallen tree. \u00a0Written on the face of that fallen log are the following words: \u00a0Every time someone reads a book, I know there\u2019s life after death.<\/p>\n I hope that statement makes my DTRs\u2014both hardback and paperback\u2014feel all warm and fuzzy. \u00a0It made me feel that way, too.<\/p>\n But right this minute, what I\u2019m feeling is a tremendous sense of gratitude. \u00a0For the last forty years I\u2019ve been able to work at my dream job, doing the one thing I always wanted to do. \u00a0Seeing a PBS program about Agatha Christie this week, I was struck by what we had in common.<\/p>\n For one thing, growing up as an only child, she made up stories to keep herself company. \u00a0In a family of seven kids, I was more or less an only child, too, because there were four years in either direction between me and both my next older and next younger sibling. \u00a0As someone who was too young to play with the older kids and too old to play with the younger ones, I entertained myself by making up stories.<\/p>\n Once Agatha started writing, she found material in her past that she used to turn into fiction. \u00a0Her time spent working as a pharmacist during World War I taught her everything she needed to know about poisons. \u00a0Once her family\u2019s fortunes came on hard times, she and her mother were forced to exist on the edges of the social circles in which they had once circulated. \u00a0So, Agatha did what outsiders do\u2014she became an observer as opposed to a participant. \u00a0Being a six-foot-tall girl in seventh grade is another way of turning someone into an observer.<\/p>\n Agatha took her personal observations and used them to create her signature drawing room mysteries. \u00a0I\u2019ve used my observations to fill my books with regular people living ordinary lives and yet nonetheless doing extraordinary things. \u00a0She grew up living in English mansions. \u00a0I spent several years of my life living quite happily in, horror of horrors, a mobile home. \u00a0So have some of my characters.<\/p>\n Agatha created long lasting characters like Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot who made her a fortune, yes, but on occasion they also drove her nuts. \u00a0Been there; done that. \u00a0There\u2019s nothing like trying to write a book when the main character suddenly stops speaking to you. \u00a0Agatha eventually became disenchanted with Hercule. \u00a0Beau and I have been together more than forty years, and I still like him.<\/p>\n Writers are recyclers. \u00a0They take their lifetime\u2019s worth of experiences and turn those into stories. \u00a0The eighteen years I spent with my first husband gave me the first hand knowledge I needed in order to create J. P. Beaumont\u2019s very realistic struggle with booze. \u00a0I know from correspondence with readers that the drinking aspect of his character has helped others find their way through similar turmoils. \u00a0And for the record, Agatha wasn\u2019t any luckier at love than I was. \u00a0We both misfired the first time around and did better with husbands number two.<\/p>\n I will never be the kind of Grande Dame of Mystery that Agatha is, but I\u2019m happy to be an Ordinary Joe mystery writer, following in her illustrious footsteps.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a dream I\u2019ve lived in real life \u00a0 for the past forty-plus years, and now it\u2019s time for me to get back to work on OverKill, Ali #17.<\/p>\n After all, if it is to be, it is up to me. It is definitely not up to I.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Please pardon me, while I go off on a tangent. I grew up in simpler times. \u00a0When I was learning grammar and parts of speech, there were only two kinds of pronouns, and I\u2019m not talking gender here\u2014I\u2019m talking about subjective pronouns and objective pronouns. \u00a0Subjective pronouns could be the subject of a sentence. \u00a0I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[81,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants-and-raves","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-Ll","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2936,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935\/revisions\/2936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}