I would just like to offer this thought, to those like myself struggling to be published:
‘There’s only one difference between published and unpublished writers and it is this – the first group see their work in print on the shelves of Waterstone’s or Tesco or online at Amazon; the second group are yet to have physical evidence of the hours, weeks, years spent fashioning words into their patterns. You are already a writer.’
Kate Mosse
I’m getting lazy, or something, about working on the revisions. I haven’t touched it for a couple of days now. I find the idea of plugging in the USB drive I keep it on, opening the menu, finding the file, clicking “open” and waiting for Word to open, then trying to scroll down to wherever …
‘Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.’ Mark Twain I spend a great deal of time dissecting and shredding what I write if I don’t think it could actually happen in real life. But the reality is, life often doesn’t make sense. People do stupid things, irrational things, …
‘The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one’s mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can even survive …
A couple more words I see people mixing up all the time: Averse and Adverse While similar in some ways, they are not interchangeable. First, let’s look at averse. According to Merriam-Webster online: Function: adjective Etymology: Latin aversus, past participle of avertere Date: 1597 : having an active feeling of repugnance or distaste —usually used …
“Even though not every book will be right for every reader, the ability to read, speak, think and express ourselves freely are core American values,” said Barbara Jones, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “Protecting one of our most fundamental rights – the freedom to read – means respecting each other’s differences and …
I think I’ve hit the point in my vampire story where I want to bring it to a close. I could easily drag this on, take it off in other directions, but at this point I’m not sure that’s the best course of action. I have other characters that I’d like to introduce, more plot …
Of/Have This is one I’ve started seeing used incorrectly fairly often in print. Confusion around the use of these two in phrases such as ‘should have,’ ‘would have,’ ‘could have,’ no doubt arises from the contracted forms: should’ve would’ve could’ve Now I see in print “I should of” or “We could of” when no doubt …
Somehow I’ve now managed to involve myself in a fourth blog, which is probably not a good idea since I’ve rarely been updating my existing three as it is. However, the fourth is a collaborative blog that was started as a lark with two others just for some fun, comedic writing. It all started when …
I wanted to point out a couple of things that I constantly hear, from people who should know better. Without getting too technical and invoking a lot of grammar jargon like predicate and participial I’ll just briefly mention a few things I hear most often. He/Him, She/Her What I hear is “Him and I talked…” …