Copyblogger and BlueGlass have created this awesome infographic with some common grammar mistakes, and how to avoid them. Enjoy!
My children’s book, Runaway Smile, is mercifully free of grammar goofs. Don’t believe me? Read it for free and find out for yourself!
Go fast
Never slow down
Sleep when you are dead
Rest is for the weak
Adages we take too far
As we toil away our years
Mental health days mocked
Are you a wimp
Or are you merely lazy?
Never if you are well
And have pushed yourself too far
God forbid you recover strength
Weekends bring little solace
Errands and chores
Sleeping in a luxury
An illusion of catching up
Exhaustion will return
When you wake to the alarm once more
I am told this is life
No choice but to move ahead
Guilt is my gift for rest
When do I get to sleep?
Will I ever get to truly rest?
Or will I simply break?
A few things here:
One is that I’m doing another poll for the character name because people threw a few more names into the ring after the fact. Some of them sound good, so I’m pitting them against yesterday’s winner. Seems only fair and I’m really hoping to start writing the first story in April or at least do a preliminary event list.
Speaking of April . . . I have no idea. This is in regards to a few people asking when the next book is coming out. I’ve said March/April, but always add a ‘hopefully’ in there because I still need to finish editing and get the cover art. Let’s be honest here. If you’ve been following me long enough to see a book debut then you know I’m cursed with delays and avoid definite release dates until I have most of what I need. This makes hyping a big problem. So if anybody has a tip on how to hype a book without a release date then I’m all ears.
So I’ll get the next Legends of Windemere book out as soon as I can and give a week of Hype. I might try doing more after the release though. This brings me to a final question:
When would be the best time to do a Twubs chat?
This is a live chat on Twitter that allows people to interact with me. I did it once as all of my characters, which got a person or two. Then I tried again as myself and got a few more. I’m thinking of doing a few of these to cover as many time zones/schedules as I can, but I’m hoping to get an idea of best times. Not sure of any other method to do interaction like this beyond a webcam one, but that involves my face being seen.
To read this informative article by Author Jemima Pett, click on her photo or the link below:
http://jemimapett.com/blog/2015/03/09/on-being-your-own-accountant/
It is awesome to be different. It’s genetics. Our DNA makes us all unique, that is what God wanted. Acceptance is a big word but it’s really easy to do. Why would God place us all on the earth to be the same, I don’t want to be like everyone else. Why do some accept people in books and movies like Harry Potter, people who aren’t real but I’m real and some don’t accept me? I do awesome things.
I’m a great friend. I’m a gamer, love all things science, and creating new theories. I’m proud to be a quirky nerd.
We all have special powers. Others aren’t any better than mine, unless they can fly or shoot lasers from their eyes, that’d be cool. My mom and dad’s special…
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After reading Shadow People, Book 1, and African Me & Satellite TV, I decided to contact author/blogger Jo Robinson, and see if she would consent to an interview by email. To my delight, she not only agreed, but candidly answered all my questions. (Two of the questions were quoted in an earlier post where I reviewed African Me & Satellite TV.) Here is our complete interview for you to enjoy.
Q: African Me and Satellite TV is quite a departure from your science fiction work, Shadow People. It’s quite an amazing story and, clearly, one that is deeply felt. Is there something in your personal past that made you write about this subject matter? Is there something of yourself in your main character, Suzette?
A: Definitely. I grew up in apartheid South Africa. I was born in Port Elizabeth but lived in Johannesburg from the…
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Today is the sixth day of Traci Sanders’ It’s Reining Men Tour. I am over there pontificating about the six things a writer should know. These were learned by me through the efficient and time-honored tradition of Trial & Error. (Tongue in cheek) Visit if you can
Traci has authored a number of books, but her first foray into fiction for adults is When Darkness Breaks
Local news anchor, Amber Woods, seemed to have it all – a thriving career, two beautiful children, and a doting husband named Drake. Life was perfect…until her world was turned upside down in one fateful night. While the incident causes Amber to renew her priorities; unable to deal with what happened, Drake begins sinking into a deep depression laced with infidelity and alcohol.
Hoping a change of scenery will salvage her quickly deteriorating marriage, Amber agrees that a move to New York may…
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First a big thanks for Sally Ember, L. Marie, and M.T. McGuire for hosting me on Wednesday. The one for Sally was a joint post with Nicholas Rossis too, so click on these links for a look. Those were a lot of fun and hit on a day where I was feeling like a garbage truck ran me over. Feeling better now . . . at least physically.
Mentally is another story since this was a chaotic week. Repeatedly hitting the ground running every morning, feeling sick one day, snow day after that, and just all around stress. Some personal issues are looming, which I’m not going to go into here. Yet it still plays into the fact that I end the week exhausted and depressed. So I guess I’m still teetering over a blue place that I can slip into with ease. Bad sales, crazy rankings, arguing people, negativity, uncertainty of next book release, feeling like a failure, not knowing who to trust, blah, blah, blah. It’s taking a toll on me that I’m trying hard not to let seep into my writing.
As far as the writing goes, I about 4.5 chapters done. I’ll finish that other one over the weekend if I’m lucky. Kind of left some characters falling over a waterfall and I think I repeated a joke of ‘it’s always a damn waterfall!’ Though I think I want to make it a running gag. I still feel anxious when I get into writing and it takes a bit of unbroken time to get into the flow. The action and banter parts are still natural, but I find myself second guessing the serious parts. Doubt is not an author’s friend. On the plus side, the alpha reader on ‘The Mercenary Prince’ is enjoying it. So I’m hoping to get through another 4-5 chapters this week. A lot of them are 4 sections instead of 3, so I’ll probably hit the low end of the scale.
I’m getting a new author photo tomorrow, so fingers crossed that it comes out good. I don’t smile in pictures. As a few friends have mentioned, I lack the ability to smile on command. Either I’m genuinely happy or I’m trying not to look like a serial killer, mope, or asleep. Still aiming for the black and white to counter the face. Thank you to my best friend for the nice clothes too. Connected to this, I can’t do any other advertising sign ups because I want to use the new pic. Not that anything I’ve done for the last 2 months seem to be working. I get attention, but not many sales and I’m nearly pulling my hair out at this point. Really need that next book to be released, but even that won’t do much because of it being a long series.
That brings me to my other project, which I might start writing during my son’s April Break. Only at night, but it’s a short story/novella at about 30-70 pages. A friend pointed me toward a site where I can find a cover artist, so this project could turn up on Amazon in July. Depends on the other releases. This is the fantasy adventure pulp fiction thing and the title is:
Ichabod Jones & the City of Beasts
(Apparently someone made a comic with this character name in 2011. I wrote the name down in 2006, but that’s just a coincidence that I can’t prove since I don’t date my notes. So this project might take longer or die since the name was a big piece of it. I need something equally catchy that sticks in the mind. Ichabod Jones simply popped out while I was goofing off. Maybe I just need to change the first name.)
I came up with the name years ago and I’ve had this guy repeatedly transform in roles and stories. It’s a catchy name to me, so I think he’ll work here. Just repeated adventures and the reader can go in any order. I’ll be looking over my Conan novel to see how the structure and length went. Still, we’ll see what happens. As long as the next book goes live on time, I can jump on this early. Though I might do it anyway even if I’m stuck in a holding pattern.
So the goals of the week?
