From the monthly archives:

January 2010

Weekly Word Count: January 29

January 29, 2010

What Is This?
Following the lead of my mentor, friend, and exemplar, Tami Moore, this is a weekly article to document progress in meeting my writing goals as described here.
 
I set up an Excel spreadsheet to track all my work by category (blog post, copyediting work, creative writing) and item. So all I need to do is [...]

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On Writing: A Small Epiphany

January 26, 2010

For the past year or so, each time we went on a trip—Hawai’i, California, St. Louis, back to Hawai’i over Christmas, and again to California this week—I’ve been carrying two paperbacks with me, fully intending to read them and fill in a huge gap in my science-fiction background. Those books are Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s [...]

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Kinda Sorta AFK

January 24, 2010

 Monday morning, my wife Janet and I are flying from Rapid City to Santa Barbara, Calif., via Salt Lake City. From Santa Barbara, we’re driving north about 90 minutes to Los Osos (just north of San Luis Obispo), where we’ll spend the next two weeks. On Feb. 10, we fly from Santa Barbara to Orlando, [...]

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Weekly Word Count: January 22

January 22, 2010

What Is This?
Following the lead of my mentor, friend, and exemplar, Tami Moore, this is a weekly article to document progress in meeting my writing goals as described here.
 
I set up an Excel spreadsheet to track all my work by category (blog post, copyediting work, creative writing) and item. So all I [...]

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Two-Minute Drill: Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda, and More

January 20, 2010

Wouldn’t writing in English be so much easier if we could just write out words, or combinations of words, the way they sound? Instead of typing out forget about it, I could simply write fuggedaboudit and be done.
Of course, if I’m writing dialogue, I can do such things, if the character’s vernacular is such that [...]

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Passive and Possessive—Pronouns for Pros

January 18, 2010

How about some mad props for the alliterative title? Hopefully, it caught your attention and prompted you to read more. So without further ado….
First, let’s be sure we’re all on the same page with respect to what pronouns are. They are words we substitute for nouns, generally to avoid repeating the nouns each time we [...]

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Weekly Word Count: January 15

January 15, 2010

What Is This?
Following the lead of my mentor, friend, and exemplar, Tami Moore,1 this will be a weekly article to document progress in meeting my writing goals as described here.
I set up an Excel spreadsheet to track all my work by category (blog post, copyediting work, creative writing) and item. So all I need [...]

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Two-Minute Drill: Allude and Elude

January 12, 2010

This post is the first in what I hope will be a series of short (two minutes to read) articles highlighting commonly confused or misused words.
I was reading a blog article yesterday, and the following sentence caught my eye. Then it made me grit my teeth. Fortunately, I have a dentist appointment Thursday for [...]

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Grammar Potpourri: Homophones

January 11, 2010

When I first discussed grammar and punctuation back in mid-September (was it that long ago?), many of you commented about things I hadn’t included. Today, I’m going to address some of those. If there are others I don’t discuss today, rest assured they will be covered Some Day Soon.TM
Before I list some of the more [...]

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Weekly Word Count

January 8, 2010

What Is This?
Following the lead of my mentor, friend, and exemplar, Tami Moore,1 this will be a weekly article to document progress in meeting my writing goals as described here.  I set up an Excel spreadsheet to track all my work by category (blog post, copyediting work, creative writing) and item. So all I [...]

4 comments Read the full article →

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