Writing Wrongs

June 28, 2006

It�s true. It�s always easier and more fun to play around with someone else�s manuscript than it is to work on your own. So in that spirit, I offer up this for fun:

I need a name for a gated community. The Google search I did left me uninspired and it�s now XYZ in the actual manuscript. (I sometimes tell Andrew I was going to name him Baby Boy XYZ. He doesn�t believe me.) I need something that sounds ungodly pretentious. It�s the only gated community in this town, a rather new addition, on the outskirts, bordered by farmland. As Bethany (in the story) wonders: What are they trying to keep out? Cows, maybe?

So if you�re busy procrastinating, feel free to play. If I use your suggestion, I will gratefully list you in the acknowledgements. Granted, for a book that doesn�t have a publisher, this doesn�t mean a whole lot. It�s the thought that counts.

In other games, last night Andrew and Kyra made a new little friend at the rainbow park. (It used to be the new park, to distinguish it from the �old� park. Then the old park got a facelift and became the new old park, and the other park, the old new park. Then it got confusing and we adopted Kyra�s name for it.)

Andrew�s a good kid; he plays with his sister. If there are boys his age around, he asks if she can be included. He doesn�t have any issues with his street cred. Anyway, the three decided at one point to play duck, duck, gray duck.

Now, when I left the green, green pollen-infested grass of Minnesota for college (in the green, green pollen-infested grass of Wisconsin), I was informed that it is not duck, duck, gray duck but duck, duck, goose. One (obnoxious) individual even went on to suggest that either 1) I was a moron because I had the name wrong, or 2) I came from a state of morons.

Ah, university life. Forget the philosophical discussions until three in the morning. Forget politics. Forget the frat keggers. What really matters is the freaking name of a children�s game.

Why this came up--more than once--while I was at college, I�ll never know. But thanks to Google, I stand vindicated.

I give you:

Gray Duck Central

And

Duck, Duck, Gray Duck on Wikipedia (scroll down)

God, I love the internet.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 1:00 p.m.

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