The long and the short of it

Exercise 3 in Writing Tool No. 7 asked you to rewrite this passage from "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominique Bauby into a single sentence. Here are the submissions so far:

The original: I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches the home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.

From Lea: I am fading away as my old life—still burning within me—is more and more reduced to the ashes of memory and, slowly but surely, I watch my past recede like an old sailor who watches the home shore gradually disappear.

From Steve G.: While my old life still burns within me, slowly but surely I fade away, my past receding like the sailor watching the home shore gradually disappearing, more and more of my memory reduced to ashes.

From Sarah: My old life still burns within me yet, slowly but surely I am fading away, like a sailor who watches the home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede as more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.

From Denise Lilly: Like the sailor who watches the home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede and fade away slowly, as my old life—still burning within me—is reduced, more and more, to the ashes of memory.

From Sandra: Though my old life still burns within me, I fade away slowly, watching my past recede like the sailor who watches the home shore gradually disappear, more and more of it reduced to the ashes of memory.

From Samantha: I watch my past recede like the sailor watches the home shore gradually disappear, slowly but surely I fade away, my old life still burning within me but more and more of it reduced to the ashes of memory.

From Aleta: I watch my past recede, like the sailor who watches the home shore gradually disappear, as I fade away, slowly but surely, and although my old life still burns within me, more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.

I prefer all of these over the short, choppy original -- but then I don't know the context of the passage in the book. Was there an attempt to mimic some rhythm? Is it consistent with the author's style, tone, voice, etc.?

If I were editing, there would be some of the rewritten sentences I would change to retain the original comparison to the sailor. What is being compared to the sailor in the original? Can you see rewritten sentences where this comparison is changed? Comments welcome.

Regarding the assignments for lost Tuesday

We missed a week because of the snow and that meant no assignments were given out. So here's the update:

Let's concentrate on reading the essays that will be critiqued on Tuesday. I'll have the new assignment for Economical Writing and Writing Tools tomorrow. Read Tool 9, but don't worry about doing any of the exercises -- except for No. 1, which advises you to get a good punctuation guide. I like "Eats, Shoots & Leaves," but I find the punctuation guide in the back of the AP Stylebook is very good as well. Another good one is The New Oxford Guide to Writing.

Samantha returns to an old friend

One summer afternoon, as I perused the stacks of a local bookstore instead of enjoying the season's rare sunshine, I happened across a title I'd never seen before. A title from an author who, over the past 18 years, has been like a good friend I turn to again and again, sometimes after not crossing paths for years. But it is always as if we never parted ways. This gem was John Steinbeck's 1962 "Travels with Charley in Search of America."

At the age of 58, Steinbeck felt he needed to reconnect with his country and set upon a journey following the nation's perimeter.

"I, an American writer, writing about America, was working from memory, and the memory is at best a faulty, warpy reservoir. I had not heard the speech of America, smelled the grass and trees and sewage, seen its hills and water, its color and quality of light.... But more than this, I had not felt the country for twenty-five years. In short, I was writing of something I did not know about, and it seems to me that in a so-called writer this is criminal."

The man had grace and command of the English language! While it chronicles his larger journey, it's also a story of everyday living, insight into his life and mind, and as non-fiction it is a chance to experience his humanity, candor and humor. Listen to him introduce Charley:

"It is some years since I have been alone, nameless, friendless, without any of the safety one gets from family, friends, and accomplices.... It's just a very lonely, helpless feeling at first – a kind of desolate feeling. For this reason I took one companion on my journey – an old french gentlemen poodle known as Charley."

For me, as a new single mother, it imprinted deeply on my spirit. It reminded me that there's a whole big country out there, an entire world, and that we can gather up our supplies and go. As I set my new course and embark on a fresh journey, I am exploring the richness of life beyond the walls I thought were so permanent. And in that, I am discovering the rich texture of living that exists in a full sink of dishes, unfolded laundry, the long two block walk to the grocery store, and golden silence of a good nap.

And that a companion is a true gift.

Nora offers help on time management

When I was in college, my mother gave me a little book on time management for writers called "The Clockwork Muse" by Eviatar Zerubavel. I never read it because I was too busy staying up all night finishing papers, but I recently gave it some long overdue attention.

Zerubavel addresses both the difficulties I faced in college and my current struggle to balance writing and a demanding job. He emphasizes that writers must avoid burnout and make time for their families, professional responsibilities and sleep.

To achieve this balance and complete your projects, Zerubavel argues that you must plan and schedule rigorously and write when your schedule calls for it no matter how uninspired you feel. Of the “inherent tension between routine and spontaneity,” he writes, “Deromanticizing the writing process is … of utmost importance to any writer in the making, and it basically challenges the way we traditionally associate creativity with structurelessness and spontaneity.”

Zerubavel explains how to schedule writing sessions, break work into manageable chunks, revise drafts, create realistic project schedules and keep momentum. While much of his advice applies to shorter pieces, Zerubavel developed this guide for authors of books and other longer works. He recommends finishing the first draft of the entire book before revising individual chapters so you don’t run out of energy mid-book.

Finally, Zerubavel addresses one of my greatest difficulties: My writing never feels “done” because I can always further revise it. “Setting firm deadlines for completion is the single most effective way of ‘closing’ essentially open-ended tasks that lack inherent limits,” he writes. We should set deadlines “even when we are not forced by others (professors, publishers) to do so.”

I expect Zerubavel’s advice will help me relax and enjoy writing more, which we know from Zinsser is essential to writing well.

Heidi looks at how photos affect your writing

I was intrigued by something said about Pacific Northwest Magazine during the class visit by Bob Young and Kathy Triesch Saul. It was along the lines of ‘we don’t do stories that don’t photograph well.’

I started to wonder, how do you approach writing if you know that photos will be telling the same story? Does your approach change if there won’t be photos? Does every story even need photos? Or like Bob and Kathy talked about, there can be a ‘third effect’- the photos tell their own story.

I will admit that I used to only look at the photos in National Geographic. I still browse the photos in a magazine before deciding to buy it. I went right to the photo section in "Indifferent Stars Above" before reading a word. I think this is a sign that photos are an important part of storytelling for me.

If you are interested in how visual stories mesh with written stories, here are a few great links:

Vewd -- storytelling through a visual medium.

Picture of the Day -- stories that need to be told.

Lens -- Photography, video and visual journalism (New York Times).

Camera-works -- The day in photos from The Washington Post.

UW campus closed Tuesday; no class tonight

Here's the announcement on the UW emergency site:

"All three UW campuses have suspended operations and canceled classes for Tuesday. UWEO/UWPCE classes (that's us) also are canceled. Only essential personnel (that's not us) should report in cases of suspended operations.

This means we miss our visit to learn about the UW libraries. Rather than rescheduling that, I want to go right into our critiques next Tuesday night (Nov. 30). Those who are scheduled for critiques that night should attach their projects to messages on the class website so others can download, read and come to class Tuesday with lots to say.

It is unfortunate that we will miss the library visit, but with the visit from Cheryl and the trip to NARA you have been exposed to the research opportunities available to you. Please add to that the UW library system, which is available to you as a student in the non-fiction program. The UW library resources, both online and on the shelves, are vast, and I recommend that you take advantage of them.

I will contact the person who was going to conduct our session and see if she has any alternative ideas for those who want a better introduction to the library system.

Stay warm, stay safe (don't drive) and have a Happy Thanksgiving. See you Tuesday, Nov. 30 at 6:15 p.m. in Denny 206.

Steve G. reports on our visit to NARA

The class visited the National Archives and Records Administration at 6125 Sand Point Way NE on Saturday, November 13. Our host was Carol Buswell, NARA’s Education Specialist. She began by showing Discovery Channel video “National Archives: Democracy Starts Here.”

NARA stores all documents produced by federal government district field offices from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Archives differ from libraries because libraries are selective (archives take everything) and materials are organized by subject (archives are organized by government office).

To locate materials, an archivist helps identify the appropriate office. Then researchers use "finding guides" that index the contents of boxes and folders with varying degrees of detail. They also indicate how many linear feet of shelf space they occupy. To understand how misleading the guides can be, we examined land allotment documents that contained a rich trove of personal history about a Native American farmer.

Access to ancestry.com is free at the NARA facility. To use the research room to examine documents, you can obtain a free research card with a photo ID.

We toured the building – a former airplane repair hangar for the Sand Point Naval base that was supplied by the railroad line now used as the Burke-Gilman trail. A NARA facility was used as the filming site for the final scene in the Indiana Jones movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" showing the Ark of the Covenant being stored. That gives you an idea of what the inside of the Seattle building looks like.

We stepped into a room filled with rows of shelves stretched from wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor. The shelves are filled with boxes two rows deep. The air was cool but not musty smelling. After looking at some old ledgers, we moved from the public archives into the LARGER collection of materials that have not yet been cleared for public access.

From my own experience of archive research, I suggest doing secondary research in library periodicals and books, then identify specific source documents. That will focus your search in the archive. Browsing an archive is interesting but very time consuming.

Shared space now on the UW class site, I hope

Please go to the message board screen on the Catalyst site to see the new shared space.

I have posted Exercise 3 of Writing Tool #7. Looks like you have to download, revise and then repost.

Let's see if it works and if we can use it for the critiques.

Otherwise it will fade away, like a sailor watching shore drift away . . . my past receding . . . all into terrible sentences fragments that need to be joined by your seaworthy hands . . .

Aleta is taking a scientific approach

Here's what Aleta has to say on why she is changing her approach to writing:

I had never compared writing and science until two things happened in our class. First, during a lively brainstorming session about our assignments, I noticed several miscommunications between classmates (myself included), which stemmed from different opinions about bias in stories. Second, I visited NARA on our class tour, where our workshop leader emphasized that we read secondary materials for background and use primary materials to develop opinions.

How do you address bias in your reporting and writing? Can it be ethical for a writer to form an opinion about a story before completing research and interviews? Or, must a writer approach a topic with a blank slate, intent on being unbiased from start to end?

Science, in theory, has balanced these two approaches. The second step of the scientific method (after making observations) is to form a hypothesis. A scientific experiment cannot be designed, performed and analyzed if it is not designed to support or refute a hypothesis. Scientific results are unbiased when data are collected and analyzed without bias, but this does not mean that scientists do not have opinions or that they do not develop their experiments based on hypotheses.

Can a writer approach a story using the scientific method -- Make observations, develop a hypothesis, collect data, analyze results and draw conclusions?

As someone with much more of a scientific rather than a writing background, I have struggled with defining topics to write about for our class assignments. Like many science students, I have tried to skip the “form a hypothesis” step. I brainstormed numerous topics for articles but could never see where the article would lead.

Young scientists are often enthused by a topic (butterflies! DNA! dinosaurs!), but are dismayed at having to develop a hypothesis BEFORE an experiment. Forming a testable hypothesis is a difficult skill that must continually be honed, much like writers must work to focus their stories.

So now, with this new perspective on writing -- one that permits the writer to embrace an opinion and venture forth in search of support or dissent -- I am changing my approach to my final writing assignment, a scientific experiment on its own. Hypothesis: Following the scientific method will provide the structure I need to produce a worthwhile story.

Credit: The illustration comes from the web site of the Mount Gambier High School in South Australia.

Critique schedule is now official

Here is the schedule for critiquing the final projects for this class. Remember that you need to attach your project to a post on the Catalyst message board a week before your critique is taking place. This will give others a chance to read your writing (please do) and give them time to make thoughtful, constructive comments about your work. What you will post will probably be a work in progress. No problem. Let us help you make progress. Post it.

Nov. 30 critiques (post by Nov. 23)
Sarah
David
Steve G.
Amanda
Sandra
Laura
Sturgis (Chapter 1 of his book is posted)

Dec. 7 (Post by Nov. 30)
Nora
Joanne
Viv
Catherine
Denise

Dec. 14 (Post by Dec. 7. Final paper due to me by Dec. 19)
Tobin
Aleta
Samantha
Lea
Steve A.
Linda
Renata
Heidi
Kiera

Steve A. shares good advice from Kilpatrick

I share Steve A.'s feelings about James J. Kilpatrick (right). No matter where Kilpatrick went with politics (and I didn't always go with him), he always wrote well on writing well. Here's Steve:

I miss James J. Kilpatrick. He died on Sunday, August 15, 2010, at age 89. He wrote the weekly, syndicated column "The Writer’s Art." He retired it in February 2009.

I began reading his column almost from its beginning in 1981. It was never the first thing I turned to. I would read the paper section by section and his column would emerge like an old friend imparting wisdom and humor in the midst of government budget crises, scandals, murders, and other bad news.

This link will take you to a few of his 2006 and 2007 columns. There are a few opinion pieces mixed in with the Writer’s Art columns. Kilpatrick wrote conservative opinion pieces before he took up the cause of defending good writing.

His politics are, at times, a bit too right wing for me, and he used to march on the side of the segregationists in the 1950s and 1960s, but he was not afraid to speak it like he saw it. He later apologized for his stance on segregation,and said he had changed his views. In the 1970s, his stance on politics landed him a spot on 60 Minutes’ Point-Counter Point segment defending the conservative view.

But I didn’t pay attention to that side of Kilpatrick. It was his discussions about language that drew me in. I bought his book, "The Writer’s Art," when it first came out in 1984. It’s a book I still turn to, along with Strunk and White, whenever I need clarification on something or to be re-taught a principle.

It’s well thumbed, highlighted, with many marginal notes. In flipping through it just now, I landed on Chapter 5 where he gives a 43-page discourse about “The Things We Ought to Be Doing.” As these are things we’ve been talking about in class, I thought I’d end with his list:

1. We ought to master our tools.
2. We ought to pay more attention to cadence.
3. We ought to pay closer attention to the arrangement of our words and clauses.
4. We ought to keep in mind that words have nuances; words carry connotations, and words that may be appropriate in one context may not be appropriate in another. We ought constantly to search for the right word.
5. We must keep our instrument properly in tune.
6. We ought to remember that life is not entirely serious, and therefore we should pay some attention to humor.
7. We must copy-edit, copy-edit, copy-edit!

Laura gives us "How to Write Less Badly"

I meet a lot of highly educated people who assume that an advanced degree in electrical engineering, chemistry, history, etc. also makes them an expert in writing.

The article, "How to Write Less Badly" from the Chronicle of Higher Education, points out that everyone (including otherwise highly trained and gifted academics) needs to practice writing. It also provides some good tips that I think would help many non-fiction writers.

Laura

You can't always get what you want

Our first blog entry from the class comes from Sturgis, who has a tale to tell from an interview he attempted:

I conducted an interview the other day with one of Prescott College’s 1966 “charter class” to get a sense about what the town (Prescott, Arizona) was like back then and how the townsfolk reacted to having a bunch of hippies suddenly appear in their midst. By the time I got there in 1971, the atmosphere was so poisonous that I cut my long hair after only three days; I just couldn’t stand all the hostility.

So I think I’m on safe ground to seek details about the conflict between the values of this quintessential small Western town and those imported by the students of the new College, most of them from considerably more sophisticated urban centers on the East and West Coasts.

My interview subject however, had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SAY ON THE SUBJECT.

He couldn’t remember anything! His entire college career was lost in an alcoholic haze and he spent at least some of his college years in the strip of seedy cowboy bars on “Whiskey Row” getting along with the locals just fine.

Famously, during a political demonstration on the nearby Courthouse Square by Prescott College students protesting Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, these very same seedy cowboy bars produced an army of incensed patriots who, with the collusion of the local cops, swarmed from The Bird Cage Saloon, the Palace Bar and Matt’s Saloon to beat the living crap out of every long haired young person they could lay their hands on.

My interlocutor had never heard this story. No doubt he was curled around a boilermaker when he looked up to see he was alone in the bar on that infamous day. Rather than wonder where all his new friends had gone, he probably just helped himself to more of those yummy jalapeño peanuts and stole a shot or two from behind the untended bar.

Lesson learned: No interview is a complete failure. I got some new names from him, and I got some good practice asking questions, even if the questions didn’t quite take me where I wanted to go.

A bright forecast for ebooks

Here are a couple of links discussing the future of ebooks. The articles are very optimistic with the first giving this stat:

"Just 7% of online adults who read books read e-books. But that 7% happens to be a very attractive bunch: they read the most books and spend the most money on books."

The second article is in response to a writer who brought up the point that readers "cherish the book. And they believe that this is an artifact that they want in their lives. And some of the technological commentators in this industry just completely miss this point.”

If there's a book in your future plans, these are articles worth reading.

What does 700 words look like?

Someone asked that question in class on Tuesday and I've been thinking about it ever since. Sat deliberating at my computer for quite awhile, in fact, until the notion struck me that I should find some articles that matched that description.

Daily journalism didn't seem the place to look since one would expect those articles to be short. So I turned to one of my favorite essayists, Dr. Johnson. And while this essay is 1,332 words, if you have put off anything in your life lately (surely not an assignment for this class!), you should read what Samuel Johnson (right) has to say about procrastination.

Then I thought about the articles I had linked to from this blog. That Gene Weingarten article mentioning Lady GaGa? 679 words.

An article on knife sharpening in The Seattle Times magazine I linked to last year as a fine example of an informed essay? 679 words.

Turns out my on again, off again favorite magazine, Esquire, has a feature called "A Thousand Words about Our Culture" and this month it is addressing a question that crossed my mind recently: "Why Can't Kanye West Shut the Hell Up?" 1,001 words. Close enough.

And in the political realms I found 702 words on Ben Bernanke and fiscal policy in National Review.

The Nation had 935 words to say about Sarah Palin's new TV show (there was one kind one, I think).

Your thoughts on the Cross proclamation?

Here's what my highlighter found helpful in Chapter 20 of "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser:

Vomit your first draft, then clean it up (that's me, not Zinsser): "Even careful writers use quite a few (cliches) on their first draft. But after that we are given a chance to clean them out. Cliches are one of the things you should keep listening for when you rewrite and read your successive drafts aloud."

Good writing is taught by imitation: "Never hesitate to imitate another writer. Imitation is part of the creative process for anyone learning an art or craft. . . . Find the best writers in the fields that interest you and read their work aloud."

Words that last: "Writing that will endure tends to consist of words that are short and strong; words that sedate are words of three, four and five syllables, mostly of Latin origin, many of them ending in 'ion' and embodying a vague concept. . . . After verbs, plain nouns are your strongest tools; they resonate with emotion."

I'm curious what you thought of the Thanksgiving proclamation given as an example of words that had "weathered the passage of time." It's on pages 236 and 237 of my edition. Did the words of Gov. Wilbur Cross (portrait above) make you want to imitate him? Please comment.

Add another blogger from the class

Viv sent a link to her blog as well some links to advice on blogging for those of you who may want more information before you tackle your own posts.

I've been thinking about what we want in the blog posts here and I'd like to expand it some. Please share information on good writing, advice you have received that has inspired you or links to other information you have found helpful.

But let's also expand that to recommending any non-fiction writing you have admired and why you think it is a good example of thorough research and/or clear writing.

Here are the links to blogging advice that Viv sent:

Blog Usability: Top 10 Weblog Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog
101 Essential Blogging Resources My 50 favorite blogging resources
Using social psychology to motivate contributions to online communities (Contribution required for this one?)

I was reminded to mention Lady GaGa

In class on Tuesday, we touched on the subject of SEO, Search Engine Optimization. That reminded me of a very entertaining column someone had sent me by Gene Weingarten, the very entertaining columnist at The Washington Post.

For me, the column was worth it for the memory of how newspaper journalism worked in my day: "On deadline, drunks with cigars wrote stories that were edited by constipated but knowledgeable people, then printed on paper by enormous machines operated by people with stupid hats and dirty faces."

Besides, this blog needed an excuse to not only mention Lady GaGa but run her picture.

Field trip to NARA this Saturday

Don't forget the field trip to the National Archives and Records Administration this Saturday, Nov. 13, from 9 to 11:30 a.m. We are on their schedule and I have let them know about those of you who are staying into the afternoon to do research.

There is a map and directions to the building on Sand Point Way at the NARA web site. Have a look.

Another blogger among us

Sarah also has a blog and has shared its address. Please have a look at how she faces a problem many of us have this time of year: Too much Halloween candy.

On using quotes

Larry Cheek here, checking in with one additional comment on using direct quotes. The best advice I've ever heard (and used) is this simple axiom:

Paraphrase the fact, quote the emotion.

So if I'm interviewing a mayor who tells me, "I've directed our Planning Department to quantitively analyze the best options for mitigating seismic events," I'm not going to quote that. I'm going to say the mayor wants to figure out how to keep earthquakes from tearing up the city.

If the mayor says (and I hope he does), "Every night I'm awake at 2 a.m. worrying about the next earthquake," I'm absolutely going to use that as a direct quote. It conveys emotion, humanity and intensity, and it adds texture to my story.

Chapter 12 is a good review on interviewing

I mentioned that last night in class and figured I'd better get busy and let you know what I thought was worth highlighting in "Writing About People" in Zinsser's book. So here goes:

First off, a qualification on this passage: "Whatever form of nonfiction you write, it will come alive in proportion to the number of 'quotes' you can weave into it as you go along."

That seems in conflict with what editor Kathy said last night: "People don't always talk directly. They use extra words, etc. If you can say something more clearly than their quote, say it."

This also reminds me of something I heard said by Jacqui Banaszynski, former Seattle Times editor, Pulitzer prize-winning reporter and a great teacher: "Some stories just string quotes together. I find that when I'm using a quote, I'm typing, not writing."

I could accept Zinsser's passage if he had said your work will come alive in proportion to the number of good quotes you can weave in. A great quote can't be beat for lending variety to your article, giving insight to a person or providing you with that perfect walk-off line for your ending.

And Zinsser does qualify his statement later in the chapter when he says, "Quotes are livelier when you break them up, making periodic appearances in your role as guide. You are still the writer -- don't relinquish control."

So now let's talk about where quotes come from, the interview. Like I said, some of this reviews what we have gone over in class. My list of interviewing advice to keep in mind from Zinsser:

"First, decide what person you want to interview . . . To learn the craft of nonfiction you must push yourself out into the real world . . . Choose as your subject someone whose job is so important, or so interesting, or so unusual that the average reader would want to read about that person."

"Never go into an interview without doing whatever homework you can."

"Make a list of likely questions."

"If your interview is on tape you become a listener . . . Be a writer. Write things down."

"When you get home, type out your notes." (Don't wait until you get home to fill in the gaps. As soon as you leave the interview, stop and write down everything you remember. Go through the "memory joggers" you wrote down and write out the information you had hoped would be jogged. Type your notes if it helps you do this "filling out" function. I don't unless I think my scrawls will not be readable to me tomorrow morning.)

"Your ethical duty to the person being interviewed is to present his position accurately . . . After that your duty is to the reader. He or she deserves the tightest package."

"Remember that you can call the person you interviewed. Tell him you want to check a few of the things he said. Get him to rephrase his points until you understand them. Don't become a prisoner of your quotes -- so lulled by how wonderful they sound that you don't stop to analyze them. Never let anything go out into the world that you don't understand."

Finally, Zinsser gives good advice on pages 110 and 111 on where to put the attribution in a quote: "When you use a quotation, start the sentence with it. Don't lead up to it with a vapid phrase saying what the man said. . . . Do it (add the attribution) as soon as you naturally can, so that the reader knows who is talking, but not where the break will destroy the rhythm or the meaning."

So that would be: "When you use a quotation," Zinsser said, "start the sentence with it."

Assignment note: Read chapters 14 and 17 in "Economical Writing," send me your questions for Daniel James Brown, do chapter 6 in "Writing Tools" (Exercises 1 and 2) and keep working on your 700-word assignment due Nov. 16.

The photo with this post came from "Inside Reporting: A practical Guide to the Craft of Journalism" by Tim Harrower. It's a great book that I have used in teaching classes on reporting.

This article explains my funny spellings

A former student sent me this link to an article explaining some of the terms and odd spellings used in journalism, some of which have shown up in my comments on your papers.

I worked for a short time at The Associated Press and learned a kind of shorthand that had no use outside of the office until texting became popular.

This article left out foto for photo, TK for to come (HTK meant the headline would be written later) and CQ.

For years I asked about CQ, which when inserted in copy means the information has been double checked. No one could tell me where it came from or what it meant literally until a student in this class last year told me about the legal term "cadit quaestio," the question fails, meaning the question has been resolved or settled.

that's my xcuse 4 wds unseen b4.