When I was in high school I took a creative writing class. We were taught there were always to be two spaces after a period. I have noticed that is no longer the case, My blog site even adjusts my two spaces down to one. When did the rules change?
For a few years, I’ve had a really great idea for a children’s book. It was one of those ideas that wouldn’t leave me alone. It kept me awake at night, just begging me to write it. So although I wasn’t a children’s writer, I knew this idea was too good to ignore…
I’m not very popular at the “home office” right now. I told all the kids and Richard that, when we move to Florida, we are NOT moving all that food from the pantry. We are eating it before we leave. That also means no pizza delivery. Each night since then has been “fend for yourself night” at dinnertime and the pantry has gotten so depleted that we actually needed to go to the store yesterday…
Letters will return next week.
When a fellow writer first encouraged me to apply for a grant from our state sponsored arts council to fund a trip to a writer’s conference, I thought she was nuts. But when she told me that she’d used artist grant funds to finance two different trips to out-of-state conferences already, I started paying attention, and asking questions…
In Googling myself today, I ran across a website called download-free-ebooks.net and I see that all 10 of my books are available for free as a PDF file to anyone who wants to download them. Is this legal? This strikes me as piracy. Do I have any recourse? Should I even worry about it?
Typos happen. I make every effort to prevent them, but I can’t change the fact that I am human, making me imperfect and prone to the occasional (however seldom) typo. Cringe.
My first advice is to avoid typos whenever you can. Proof everything you write and then proof it one more time. Be diligent and meticulous in the battle. I try to be.
Despite my best efforts, however, sometimes typos creep into my copy. A well-intentioned “then” typed as “than” is left undetected by spell check as well as my ever eager eyes and a typo is born.
An error in the body of an article or column is never good news. I can only think of one thing more disastrous: a typo in a query. Can you imagine?
With a boy as adventurous and energetic as Mason, who will be 5 years old this month, it was only a matter of time before his never ending bouncing and running led to a BIG boo boo…
After reading the entries for each contest, we can see how difficult it is to come up with a unique plot when working with an assigned topic. But, inevitably, a few writers do manage to successfully break away from the pack.
So, step out into the sunshine and have a conversation with an outdoor food vendor…
Ang,
Oh my gosh! If your pending move leaves you no time to write, just give us more “World’s Worst Book Proposals”. They are truly the funniest things I’ve ever read. It’s hard to believe people actually “right” that way, but…
Thanks for the giggles.
Jacquie McTaggart
From the Teacher’s Desk
If They Don’t Learn the Way You Teach…Teach the Way They Learn
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Hi Angela,
Needed a pick-me-up this morning, so I read several installments of the Worst Book Proposals – thank you so much! And, thank you for all your hard work. You are much appreciated by us “starving (thank God for peanut butter and jelly) writers”.
Diana
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Those are very hard to read and remind me of the quality of writing that I sometimes see on Facebook. I promptly removed that one person that wrote worse than your worst proposals as a friend. I cannot read their stuff and expect to still be able to write myself. Writing is like singing, but there is no American Idol to weed out the writers that cannot write.
George Arnold Hall
https://www.georgearnoldhall.ca
twitter: @georgeahall
Business: George Arnold Hall’s Pen and Pencil
Author/Editor/Publisher/Game Concept Designer/Web Developer/Analyst/Programmer
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Series: Immortals of Scar (more info at georgearnoldhall.ca)
