“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville As the only female in my undergrad speech class, I comfortably delivered the speeches required by the professor’s syllabus. Comfortable that is until we received a new assignment, a five to seven minute demonstration speech using props, pictures, or …
Category: Grammar
Sep 24
Overcoming Passive-Aggressive Writing
The feedback I received on my first submission to my friends in the Deadwood Writers group included many comments about my use of passive voice. Make that many, many, MANY comments. After I highlighted every instance of the verb ‘to be,’ my pages lit up in yellow. If I owned a color printer at the …
Jul 16
Perfect Endings Belong to the Quotation Mark
Picky Penny said, “I’m studying The Chicago Manual of Style.” Misplaced Mark replied, “I hope I never have to read that”. Penny is attracted to Mark because of his gifted story-telling. He’s prolific with his ideas. Mark thinks Penny is really cute, and he likes that she always seems to know how to spell words …
May 24
I Pledge Allegiance to the Flow
When did you first know that you were a writer? I can trace it back to saying the Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school. Whenever we got to the line “one Nation under God” I thought it sounded awkward. Now mind you, I had no knowledge of the political forces and controversies surrounding the words …
May 18
Lights, Camera, Action: Verb!
I had one of those ah-ha!, slap-your-head-with-the-palm-of-your-hand-*duh* moments recently. This time, that moment was about writing. An article I read discussed ways to improve your writing. In your first draft, the most important thing is to get the words down in whatever perfect or jumbled form you can. The revision stage is where you get …