it would have been this weekend May 31st/June 1st overnight that the Oilers won their 3rd Stanley Cup. Last nights game between the Ottawa Senators and the Anaheim Ducks was the first Stanley Cup game to be played in Ottawa since 1927. After the news last night I watched WWE’s “Saturday nights Main Event.” It was on for an hour and a half. Not to bad. On a scale from 1-10 I’d say a 6.5. Coast was pretty good as well on the JFK case. Ian Punnet filling in for Art. Ian’s guest was Saint John Hunt, son of E. Howard Hunt. There has been much speculation that Howard Hunt was one of the three tramps on the steps leading up to the picket fence. Howard Hunt is claimed to be the third tramp on the top of the steps. Anne didn’t come in until 2 am by this time I had that gravel pill in my system and I passed out.

Last night in between the hockey game and the news, I worked on an extensive “about me” page. I’m still trying to get Markus a photograph of me for my web page. Hopefully this afternoon but the web page is starting to take shape.

Today, I’m back to work on F. I want to finish the Prologue. The Prologue is an important story device as it helps set up the story world.

I went and rewrote the prologue and changed the original Character’s last name from O’Shannon to Roy. It’s the French Canadian pronunciation. O’Shannon is to obviously personal so as of version 6 of this novel, I abandoned the last name.

that was a nice bunch. It’s our usual, scrambled eggs, hash browns 3 sausages and toast, oj and coffee. We’ve been eating like that since I moved in with her November 2000. Sometimes we have waffles or pancakes but usually it’s the same breakfast.

Another project I’m trying to do with F is to see how many times I use various words in a concordance fashion. For example take the word and. I’ve used the word “and” in F 2,763 times. The word could: 325 times. Should: 88 times. Would: 192 times. Was: 1,019 times. Had: 360 times. But: 463 times. It: 2,958 times. It’s: 235 times. Which: 23 times, Because 43 times. Maybe: 82. anyway: 25, For: 1,102 times, sure: 105 times. Thing: 489 times. Said: 586 times. Once: 45 times. They: 370 times, that: 776 times. Done: 59 times. Time: 204 times. Get: 392 times, then: 274 times. Us: 1,260 times. We: 1,894 times. What: 530, When: 198 times. Very; 148 times.  Now: 582   Well: 131  I’ll: 182 times.  You: 1,491, Of: 1.083. Can: 729. If: 571 times. Yes: 171. No: 1,719. Just: 217 times, did: 259. On: 4.346 times. Perhaps: 23 times. He: 10,357 times.  She: 536 times   Look: 296, Up: 621 times. there: 403 times. The: 6,418 times. In: 7,157 times. Is: 2.568 times.  The above is just a sampling of the words I’ve been using in F and it’s a bit of an eye opener. It’s an indicator of how week my writing is in the opening draft. Also, it’s not a good indicator because these are not often whole words. For example the word “He” is also embedded in the word “Head” and so on. For the most part the above is an accurate depiction of how week the language is in my rough draft. The total words above is just over 44,000 words. The words are passive, common, and ordinary. Words that can slow the story to a crawl, I don’t want this. This means I’m going to work scene by scene and line by line.

I also have 6 350 “ “ as well spread out over 9640 lines. So there is way to much dialogue. I’m thinking about another project and that is a line by line account of the dialogue. I think this would be an excellent tool. This project is not going to be something done over night. It might take the rest of this month to do. So lets get started.

that was a tough job, that took me over 2 hours to do. I wanted to compile a stats page for F that would list by Chapter and scene how many words, lines and dialogue lines. The template is done. Now all I have to do is to fill in the data. I’m not going to do this for every book I write. But I am going to use one of the authors I like and use their book for a guide. The author isn’t Canadian. The book is about 100k and I have a copy. At the moment over 75% of my story is dialogue and I want to cut as much of it out as possible.

That’s all for now.

e. Jim