SignText: Editing Jack and Jill

[Valerie Sutton]

SignWriting List
July 6, 2006

Hello Cherie!
Thank you for this message!

Cherie Wren wrote:
> hmmm... I know I sent a message with the answer to
> that earlier today from work...  another message lost!
>  I think this list software down't like me! ;-(

Ha! Everyone is having the same problem, Cherie, and you are not the  
only one who has messages being lost. I am sorry we didn't get your  
message...but thank you for trying again! I am going to call Valencia  
College to ask them what to do about the List software...I am sorry  
for the inconveniences it is causing you...

Meanwhile your story just makes me soooo happy! We need literature so  
badly...

> I said that I have pretty much a neutral face-- no
> topic or anything... which is to say nothing
> grammatical.  If I was signing it to the preschool
> class I would almost certainly be smiling... so that
> is fine.

OK. Then I will take away the eyebrows but leave the smiling face? I  
will send a new diagram next message... It helps the reader to see a  
face in the beginning...to establish that there is a storyteller who  
is creating an atmosphere and a smile creates a pleasant, child- 
focused atmosphere almost immediately...Linguistically that may not  
be important, but when it comes to publishing the story in a  
children's book or web page, it isn't only grammatically correct, but  
also portraying a feeling...a little like a pleasant voice versus a  
booming frightening voice......putting nothing there becomes totally  
neutral and void of feeling at all...it is monotone...



> I find that I am focusing on a particular
> aspect of writing, I think, so that I leave other
> things out.  I am focused so hard on trying to get the
> hand-stuff written correctly, that I only throw in a
> face when it is required for grammar or is otherwise
> big enough for me to -really- notice when I am
> "feeling/seeing out" (as opposed to sounding out)my
> words.  ::grin::  have to work on that...  Someday
> I'll actually get good at this... I promise!


You are already outstanding, Cherie! I am totally impressed and we  
need everyone's literature very badly. So please don't take any of  
this editing stuff as a criticism...quite the opposite...The editing  
is happening because we want to publish it!

I never forgot when I wrote my first book. I was 22 and in those  
years, life was totally different. No computers...just gally sheets  
of typesetting that we had to read word by word in long  
strips...exhausting...and I had four editors and they criticised it  
heavily...but in the end...it was still my book and but it was a  
better book because people gave me feedback...I guess I got a tough  
skin through that experience and I assume people will edit my work  
too...it is an important part of the process of becoming published...

Val ;-)