Weekly Word Count: February 5

February 5, 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 use 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 add up [...]

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Two-Minute Drill: The Comma Splice

February 4, 2010

For some reason, discussion of comma splices is on the upswing lately. I’ve run across it at least three times in recent weeks; most recently, at Copyediting’s Fiddly Rules Podcast #12.1 Because it’s unlikely you visit the same websites (or subscribe to the same blogs) as I do, I thought I’d give a quick lesson [...]

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Saucy Writing Prompt: Dictionary and Pest

February 3, 2010

Each episode of the Saucy Wenches Podcast includes a two-word writing prompt. These prompts are intended to spur creative writing, by using the prompt words in a short story. I’ve never taken part in the writing exercise, although I’m one of the podcast’s most loyal listeners. (I’ve even been a guest!) However, I’ve resolved to [...]

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A Pro and Con View of Language

February 2, 2010

I was talking with a friend on Saturday, and our discussion caused my thoughts to spin off on a totally unrelated tangent (although I eventually brought it back to a point we were discussing). I asked,  “Do you know why I love words so much?”
And suddenly that started me off on a dissertation I had [...]

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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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