How I Got Published

As a writer, I have read a few articles about getting published. Honestly, it sounds like a lot of work. But lots of people do it. Here I share with you the secrets of the few, and give practical advice on how you should get published. 1. Get an agent. I’m not very clear on this. [...]

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Seven Serious Rules of Writing

It’s the end of NaNoWriMo season. Rather than participating, I spent my evenings studying for several reasons 1) I needed to study. 2) I have yet to reach the required word-count on any of my finished stories. Truly, I am a well-educated and efficient author, above the need to actually write anything, but I thought, “What [...]

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Some Thoughts

You cannot write great things by trying to write great things. The only thing to do is bite your tongue, have fun, and get ‘er done. You will never feel ready for work that you dread. You will never do it correctly except in retrospect. The only thing to do is try your hardest. Life [...]

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Shrediting

I am bad at editing. I procrastinate editing  because the process scares me. My editing has four distinct stages. In this post, I demonstrate them by tearing apart the first paragraph of a draft. Waves swept over the boat’s side. Jill clung to the steering wheel’s post, trying desperately to stay on her feet. She had lashed [...]

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Getting Feedback

The way I ask for feedback really depends on what kind of feedback I want. If I have written a piece and need editing, for instance, I must approach someone very differently than if I want to see if my target audience likes my story/report. 1. For both kinds of feedback, the first thing I [...]

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Now a Major Motion Picture! Why We Can’t Make Books into Movies

I am not overly qualified to write about books made into movies. I have both read and seen movies based on the Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, the Princess Bride, Robin Hood, many of Shakespeare’s works–some of them thrice over–and Baroness Orczy’s masterpiece. However, while I have seen movies based [...]

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Writing Stories: The Two Page Rule

Last week my inspiration wrote about the characters she’s creating for her politically charged fantasy story. Since this is her first major story recorded on paper, and I’ve been nagging encouraging and advising her to write for a long time, I’m not a little pleased with the results. However, as always, there are significant barriers to [...]

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Notes on Journaling

Journaling is one of those things at which I am really bad. This past week, however, I brought a notebook on our last biennial family reunion, because if there is one thing I am worse at than journaling, it is remembering specific events and ideas. I did not want to forget a thing. During the course [...]

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Two Words that Need to Die

We all have our favorite words. Take “quark,” for example. That is a very good word. “Torque” and “weasel” are also another good words, as are “banana,” “Ichetucknee,” “facetious,” and “superfluous.” Words like that are fun to say. There are other words, however, which though common in spoken English and perhaps other people’s favorites, make my ears bleed. These words need to die.

The first word is “irregardless.” According to Merriam-Webster, this word has been around since 1912. To give you a bit of context, the Boy Scouts have been around since 1910. This suggests that the word is resilient, like “ain’t”. Coincidentally, in the US South, where “ain’t” enjoys much of its popularity, double negative constructions persist. “I ain’t done nothing wrong.” The intent of this sentence is denial, but technically, it is a confession. “I have not done nothing wrong.” Calvin would like that sentence. Irregardless is also a double negative. The prefix and suffix mean the same thing. “ir-” means “not, without; in, into,” and “-less” means “without.” So “irregardless” is “without without regard.” I am not sure what that means, strictly speaking. What it does mean, more generally, is that the populace does not have a handle on their Latin roots and is adding chaos to American English. Hey, What is English if not chaotic?

The second word is “disrespecting,” as in, “Stop disrespecting me!” I recently discovered (to my horror) that “disrespect” is, in fact, a proper verb, but I had heard it in so often in the much more questionable “disrespecting” that it had begun to sound wrong, as words, like shady characters, do when you look too hard at them. Take the word “pant.” Pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant, pant! “Disrespecting” takes “shady” to an entirely new level. If “pant” is shady, then “disrespecting” is mafia. In the first place, I do not like the word “disrespect,” but I suppose it is necessary if one would rather say “He disrespects me!” than “He has no respect for me!” “Disrespecting” has no excuse. It is just as easy, and much cleaner, to say “not respecting.” One could argue that this phrase portrays a lack of action rather than an action. So does “disrespecting.” So really, what we need is a simple verb for “being saucy” or “sticking one’s tongue out,” a useful word like “defenestrating.” “Stop disrespecting” commits the sin of the double negative. “Stop not respecting me!” could be more vehemently expressed as “Respect me!”

That’s my view on the matter. “Irregardless” and “disrespecting”, even “disrespect” to a certain extent, are painful and elongated and should never have been created, much like this post; but I would like to use it to congratulate Chrs the skilled grammar-nazi on her engagement to Pheonix, a Watterson fan. Congrats Chrs and Pheonix. Congrats Calvin and Hobbes.

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How to Avoid Common Errors in Fantasy Fiction

It is just painful for me to read certain writing errors. Although I rarely encounter them when I read old classics, these errors are common in many books on sale now, and in the work of many new writers, my early work included. I explain my irritation here, in the hopes that the following problems [...]

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