Grey, gray days ahead

Many of you know that I grew up in Canada, so I’m subject to some of the idiosyncrasies of a Commonwealth-biased education. After living in the US for 17 years, I’ve adapted to some American spellings. I dropped the ‘u’ in “color” and “flavor” without a shrug or a care. I use the ‘er’ ending on words like “center” and “meter” and now the British spellings look a little odd to me. However, other things I cling to zealously. The last letter in the alphabet will always be “zed” to me, even if I get strange looks when I use it (though I’m not a complete fanatic—the rock group is Zee Zee Top, not Zed Zed Top).

This week I became aware of another Commonwealth legacy. I spell the color that is midway between black and white “grey.” Microsoft Word complains about it, but I’d always considered the two interchangeable. Hadn’t realized until this week that “grey” is a “colour” and “gray” is a “color.” As someone else put it “grEy” is from England and “grAy” is from America. In a discussion on Shocklines, a lot of writers, even American ones, advocated in favo[u]r of the e-spelling, which they considered more elegant. I’ve never thought of it in terms of aesthetics. It’s just the way I naturally tend to spell the word.

Another rainy day here. Not torrential, but sporadic showers and a general overcast climate. We’re about 5″ above average rainfall for the month to date and 7″ for the year to date. In a couple of weeks we’ll probably be in a drought again. That’s the way things go around here.

I finished the first draft of the final chapter of the current section of the novel-in-progress, and then went back and rewrote it almost immediately. I had a notion of a camera POV chapter that captured where all the characters were located at a particular moment to sum things up and foreshadow future events. Originally I decided to write it in present tense for more immediacy. I had second thoughts, though, and sent it all back into the past upon revision. I reserve the right to change my mind again later on, but having just one present tense chapter in the book seemed self-indulgent. I’m closing in on 20,000 words, which gives me about 70 MS pages to show my agent next week.

I received a Canadian ARC of Kamikaze, the next Special X novel from Michael Slade. Jay Clarke and I have become good friends over the past years since we met at WHC in Seattle, and we share a legacy: that of being one generation down from people who fought in World War II. His previous novel and this one explore the tentacles of his father’s experience in the war. I had several uncles who were overseas, including one who was killed shortly after the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong on D-Day. We’ve discussed Hong Kong and the Pacific war via e-mail and over dinner, and since Kamikaze deals with that history, Jay dedicated the book to me and one other person. It was a very touching gesture. I look forward to delving into Kamikaze once I’m finished with The Keeper.