Oh, you grammar Nazis, you...

I'm one. I admit it. I'm even proud of it.

(Yeah, I taught English for ten years.)

I hate it when people misuse punctuation. Misspelled words--the classic affect vs. effect, for example, or confidant instead of confident, and the ever-present confusion of it's and its--make my teeth ache. My nerve endings cringe when I read sentences like, "If I would've seen it..."

And don't get me started on the new-generation text-type spellings of UR and THX and GR8. Hoo-hah, great time savers, those. What do people do with the thousands of hours saved by typing UR instead of you're, I wonder?

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

Found this via Janet Reid's blog this morning--thank you, Janet!

Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coates shares tweets on storyteller wisdom at io9.com. Truly, *must* read.

On selecting your editor

A while back, I posted something on editors, about how important it is for us writers to get one. The truly wondrous EJ Wesley asked a key question in the comments that day that I've delayed enough in answering.

Yes, we agree editors are the cat's pajamas. The bee's knees. The last Coke in the Sahara. The first daffodil of spring. The last cigarette in the party (at 3 AM). And we all want one. Desperately.

But, EJ asks, how do we choose one?

Now, I'm no expert. I never worked with an editor until three months ago. What I am is extremely lucky.

If you're looking for an editor, even just beginning to think about finding one, or maybe have given up on the whole thing because you got scammed (or heard of someone who knows someone who did), let me try and help.

What are you looking for? A panacea to turn your "great idea" into a marketable novel? A grammar fiend to help you fix the "small" details of verb tense consistency or dangling modifiers? Someone who can cut away those extra words in your 312K manuscript?

Indie vs. Traditional Publishing Bullies & Anne R. Allen

Anne R. Allen has a MAGNIFICENT post up on her blog: Indie or Traditional Publishing? Don't Take Sides: Take Your Time. It is a MUST read for writers everywhere--she puts all the squealing and jabbing and screaming into clear perspective. Please. Go read it now.

A to Z: Querying

Apparently, "querying" used as a verb ("I'm going to start querying agents soon" or "I've queried fifteen agents so far") is a uniquely American term--or perhaps just uniquely used in writer circles. A British friend of mine had no clue what I meant when I used it.

Then again, he's not a writer :)

Crafting Wickedly Effective Prose: SFWC

One of the sessions at the San Francisco Writers' Conference that I found not just ultra useful but super entertaining was Constance Hale's "Crafting Wickedly Effective Prose". Visit her site for more resources (seriously, writer heaven) and info on her book Sin and Syntax, whose tagline is--taah-daah--How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose.

Connie turned out to be one of those wonderful people that do great in front of a crowd. She came across as natural and funny without seeming to try, and the content she shared was not just interesting and relevant, but also practical and hands-on.

Here are my notes on Connie's session. I hope you find them useful, if not as entertaining and alive as the session itself. Should have recorded her :)

Letter to Apollo

Apollo, you're a genius. I don't mean just because of your typing skills--impressive, dawg!--or even because of your amazing mastery of English--and you're not even a full-grown "dawg", but a puppy. Cute as all-out, too. These things contribute, sure, but--Apollo, the real pearl of wisdom was that tidbit you overheard from Scott Eagan, about clutter in stories yesterday. When you got to the part about--okay, let me copy-paste here so there's no misunderstanding:

'[...] the story simply becomes too cluttered and messy (kind of like our family room after I've been playing). And [...] After all of that playing and that mess, someone has to put it all away again (and it ain't me). With stories, those final chapters are now an issue of "putting it all away"[.]'

When I read this, I had to wonder if Scott's hacked into my computer and been supervising my "revising" (i.e., clutter clean-up) for the last two weeks.

You chose to share this at the exact right time for me, Apollo. Don't you just loooove synergy? You're probably too young to know what that is. Well, this is it. You randomly overheard something, randomly chose to share it (among all the other things you might have overheard), and I (ok, not so randomly) read the post exactly--exactly--when I needed to hear this most.

Yep, synergy.

And now, Apollo honeybunch, I'm off to clear away some more clutter. I've decided to become ruthless in my clutter-clearing. Because you know something? Scott's right. He always is.