All candles are wicked

I have, with grave concern, noticed yet another hole in English orthography. We have no fewer than three ways to mark a vowel as being the kernel of its own syllable: the diaeresis (¨), which tells us two vowels are pronounced individually and not as a diphthong ("naïve" is thus not pronounced "nave"); and the grave (`) and acute (´) accents, both of which can be used poetically to tell us a vowel is not silent ("learnéd" is a two-syllable word).

What we do not have is a way of saying, "This is just part of the previous syllable—please do not pronounce this vowel." We need an anti-diaeresis, if you will. (I propose the name "imodiuesis", and if you get that barely perceptible joke then my hat is off to you.) It would come in handy, for instance, in the sentence, "All candles are wicked." As it stands now, I am casting unfair aspersions on the character of all candles, and I really shouldn't.

XIII (and a bit)!

I haven't been posting the writing updates, have I? Well, here's one: I'm nearing the end of chapter thirteen now, which is a long letter from one character to another. It's relaxing to write in first person for a change—it's so much easier to justify minor structural digressions and stylistic oddities when you're filtering the words through someone's perceptions. I got to make a subtle metaphor about ink, too, which involved oak galls.

The goal for tonight was to reach page 245, which is just what I did, and what I just did. Since I hit page 200 at the end of 2007, that makes 45 pages in the last ninety days or so. Half a page a day—not the pace I hope to set in general, but respectable, respectable. I still fritter and mope and quail more than I should, but the pages pile up.