A confession: I’ve been a professional writer for more years than I now care to admit, and I still have to pause sometimes and think through some basic rules of punctuation. Since I figure I can’t be alone in this, I decided to bring a few of them together in this post to help us […]
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Writing in Between-Time
Hello! After a four-month hiatus, my blog is back. You might not have noticed the gap, but in case you did—my apologies for the long wait. In a minute, I’ll tell you why it happened and how I might have done things differently, if I’d been just a wee bit more disciplined…but first… I’m proud […]
What I Learned Over Summer Vacation
I’m just back from three weeks of travel in Italy with my family. It was hot, it was touristy, it was expensive. We had a great time. I had planned that I wouldn’t work during this time, and mostly I didn’t. But, as keeps happening, my work found me, and I realized the lessons I […]
Killing the Monsters
On the whole, I don’t believe in synonyms. Such is the magnificent complexity of the English language that only rarely do two words mean exactly the same thing. Even if the dictionary gives two words the same definition, they almost never carry the same connotation, which is what makes using the thesaurus such a treacherous […]
Rule Number One: Throw Out the Rules
Rules are important in writing. Punctuation, spelling, grammar: these things do matter. But (to mangle the proverb) one person’s rule is another person’s straitjacket. Some of the rules we learned in school (if we were lucky enough to be taught any) aren’t rules of grammar, they’re rules of style. As such, they’re subject to debate. […]
What’s on First
It’s happened. You’ve been abducted by space aliens. They march you to their leader, who looks at you menacingly—at least you think that’s what she’s doing, but you’re not sure those are her eyes. Somewhere, a mouth opens and it says, “I’ve heard earthlings have something called a chair. What is a chair, exactly?” Do […]
