I've just been checking some dyslexic sites and found some new and interesting one since I found out my live long problems with reading and spelling stemmed from dyslexia and wasn't because I was dumb, lazy, stupid and didn't apply myself. So without further ado, here is what I found.
http://www.dyslexia-adults.com how to find out if you are dyslexic.
http://www.dyslexia-college.com/ dyslexics going to college.
http://www.dyslexia-teacher.com/ teachers interested in how to deal with dyslexic students.
http://overcoming-dyslexia.com/Am_I_Dyslexic.html
http://www.3dlearner.com/ this site has some great you tube videos.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Slaughter of a Short Story
Slaughter of a Short Story
By
Ray Shoop
Stark, it lay on my desk, a scant reflection of its former fat and juicy self. It had been my best short story. It had a beginning that brought the reader in; a middle that fleshed out and brought the story to a climax, and an ending that even had what I thought was a clever twist.
When I first turned it in, I thought I would get at least an A or an A+. She handed it back with red ink dripping from it like blood. Then she gave me a new assignment. One I had feared and which I knew would prove difficult. "It's too long." My freelance writing instructor said. "It's too wordy." Cut it dawn to fifteen hundred words."
Right off, I knew this old gal was out of her tree, fifteen hundred words! Why, that would be a skeleton, something less than an outline. However, she was the teacher and I was there to learn. So, I sharpened up my knives, bought a new blade for my hacksaw and polished up my heavy cleaver.
First, using my hacksaw, I hacked away all the colorful but excess characters; the ones I had thrown in for flavor and fill. I left only a protagonist, an antagonist, and a mediator.
Then with my boning knife, I trimmed away all the excess character thought-internalization, leaving only that which was required for reader understanding.
I trimmed off all redundancies too.
Next came an extremely hard and delicate task. With tear filled eyes and using a sharp paring knife, I carefully trimmed and hacked away at my beloved and long labored over description. With bloodied fingers, I gently lay the extricated pieces in ever-growing piles.
When I was finished, I felt spent and not at all pleased with the results' but I had completed the assignment. I had cut, slashed, and trimmed my thirty-two-hundred-word story down to fifteen hundred words. I had turned my juicy T-bone steak into a slim trim fillet mignon.
I turned it in and got a favorable response. The story still needed some trimming and a little seasoning. But I should have no trouble marketing it. I did, and when it was published, I decided I liked fillets better than T-bones.
By
Ray Shoop
Stark, it lay on my desk, a scant reflection of its former fat and juicy self. It had been my best short story. It had a beginning that brought the reader in; a middle that fleshed out and brought the story to a climax, and an ending that even had what I thought was a clever twist.
When I first turned it in, I thought I would get at least an A or an A+. She handed it back with red ink dripping from it like blood. Then she gave me a new assignment. One I had feared and which I knew would prove difficult. "It's too long." My freelance writing instructor said. "It's too wordy." Cut it dawn to fifteen hundred words."
Right off, I knew this old gal was out of her tree, fifteen hundred words! Why, that would be a skeleton, something less than an outline. However, she was the teacher and I was there to learn. So, I sharpened up my knives, bought a new blade for my hacksaw and polished up my heavy cleaver.
First, using my hacksaw, I hacked away all the colorful but excess characters; the ones I had thrown in for flavor and fill. I left only a protagonist, an antagonist, and a mediator.
Then with my boning knife, I trimmed away all the excess character thought-internalization, leaving only that which was required for reader understanding.
I trimmed off all redundancies too.
Next came an extremely hard and delicate task. With tear filled eyes and using a sharp paring knife, I carefully trimmed and hacked away at my beloved and long labored over description. With bloodied fingers, I gently lay the extricated pieces in ever-growing piles.
When I was finished, I felt spent and not at all pleased with the results' but I had completed the assignment. I had cut, slashed, and trimmed my thirty-two-hundred-word story down to fifteen hundred words. I had turned my juicy T-bone steak into a slim trim fillet mignon.
I turned it in and got a favorable response. The story still needed some trimming and a little seasoning. But I should have no trouble marketing it. I did, and when it was published, I decided I liked fillets better than T-bones.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
MY STRUGGLES WITH SPELLING AS A DYSLIXIC
MY STRUGGLES WITH SPELLING
The bold words are ones I had to look up while writing this.
April 28, 2009. Today I struggled with my spell checker for about five minutes to find the word symphony. I know the word when I see it, but I couldn't spell it. I knew it had a "y" in it but I forgot its f sounding ph sound. I couldn't remember if it started with a, S, C, T, or THYN. Finally, I went to the internet to a list of musical terms where I recognized it under words beginning with "s". With this word I couldn't remember the proper pronunciation to clue me in on a proper spelling enough for my spell checker to be of any help.
May 11, 2009. Lost five minutes trying to spell abandoned. Recognizing words and spelling them must come from different areas of the brain. There, I just had a problem spelling, recognizing. Frustrating, a word I could never spell until recently. I have to stop and think, remember it starts with FRU not, FLU, the way I pronounce it.
Here's a sentence that will send a dyslexic up a tree. Does the does get a dose of the medicine too. I don't think I ever had a problem with too, to two, and there, their, or they're. They are all different and I have no problem with attaching the proper meaning to each. Further and farther never gave me a problem which it does with many people who are not dyslexic.
Dyslexia is a many faceted disability; what affects one may or may not affect another. But for a very few words, I see none backward. Somewhere during my life someone told me, I had dyslexia. They said dyslexics see things backward. Although some do, I never did. So whomever that was, I figured they didn't know what they were talking about. I went through life thinking I was dumb, lazy, and stupid; all that's a hard thing to shake free of.
Until the next time, have a great day.
April 28, 2009. Today I struggled with my spell checker for about five minutes to find the word symphony. I know the word when I see it, but I couldn't spell it. I knew it had a "y" in it but I forgot its f sounding ph sound. I couldn't remember if it started with a, S, C, T, or THYN. Finally, I went to the internet to a list of musical terms where I recognized it under words beginning with "s". With this word I couldn't remember the proper pronunciation to clue me in on a proper spelling enough for my spell checker to be of any help.
May 11, 2009. Lost five minutes trying to spell abandoned. Recognizing words and spelling them must come from different areas of the brain. There, I just had a problem spelling, recognizing. Frustrating, a word I could never spell until recently. I have to stop and think, remember it starts with FRU not, FLU, the way I pronounce it.
Here's a sentence that will send a dyslexic up a tree. Does the does get a dose of the medicine too. I don't think I ever had a problem with too, to two, and there, their, or they're. They are all different and I have no problem with attaching the proper meaning to each. Further and farther never gave me a problem which it does with many people who are not dyslexic.
Dyslexia is a many faceted disability; what affects one may or may not affect another. But for a very few words, I see none backward. Somewhere during my life someone told me, I had dyslexia. They said dyslexics see things backward. Although some do, I never did. So whomever that was, I figured they didn't know what they were talking about. I went through life thinking I was dumb, lazy, and stupid; all that's a hard thing to shake free of.
Until the next time, have a great day.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Writing and Dyslexia.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and I shall fear no evil.
Hello to everyone out there in cyber space. I've resisted this blogging thing long enough. My fear of communicating, other than by face to face, and especially by written word, now seems ridicules. I don't actually believe that. To put it more correctly, I feel pressured into doing it. My long fear of writing stems from my affliction with dyslexia, which I wasn't aware of until I was in my late fifties. My terrible grammar, unsightly penmanship and horrific spelling precluded me from writing anything other than simple words in simple sentences.
I feared Instant Messaging so much, that if anyone even mentioned it, I shied away from them. if someone IM'ed me, I logged off, immediately and swore I wasn't IM'ed. Blogging too makes me timid. I've visited some sites, but only for information; I never posted anything. I fear these things almost as much as reading something before a live group.
Now that I'm getting more involved in writing, I feel I must join the masses, retreat from my shell, get with the program or do whatever other cliché it takes to bring myself up to par. So, here I is. I plan to post about my experiences with dyslexia and how it affects my writing. Although, it is open to anything, within reason.
Thank you, have a good day and behave yourselves, if that is possible.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and I shall fear no evil.
Hello to everyone out there in cyber space. I've resisted this blogging thing long enough. My fear of communicating, other than by face to face, and especially by written word, now seems ridicules. I don't actually believe that. To put it more correctly, I feel pressured into doing it. My long fear of writing stems from my affliction with dyslexia, which I wasn't aware of until I was in my late fifties. My terrible grammar, unsightly penmanship and horrific spelling precluded me from writing anything other than simple words in simple sentences.
I feared Instant Messaging so much, that if anyone even mentioned it, I shied away from them. if someone IM'ed me, I logged off, immediately and swore I wasn't IM'ed. Blogging too makes me timid. I've visited some sites, but only for information; I never posted anything. I fear these things almost as much as reading something before a live group.
Now that I'm getting more involved in writing, I feel I must join the masses, retreat from my shell, get with the program or do whatever other cliché it takes to bring myself up to par. So, here I is. I plan to post about my experiences with dyslexia and how it affects my writing. Although, it is open to anything, within reason.
Thank you, have a good day and behave yourselves, if that is possible.
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