Romance Is in the Air

I don’t know what happened this month. Maybe Mercury was in retrograde or Pluto was eclipsing into Uranus, but I totally forgot to do one of my favorite things: check out my Susan Miller horoscope on the first of the month. 

So I just checked it out, and guess what I found out: tomorrow is one of my most romantic days of the month. Tomorrow! I have so little time to prepare. Where did I put that Courvoisier? Where are those Barry White albums?

Well, I am no astrologer, but I can predict a day that has romantic potential for all of you: Jan 11, 2014. 

On January 11 of next year, I will be giving a grammar workshop for the Orange County Chapter Romance Writers of America. One thing I will be discussing is why grammar is important to literary agents, literary agents’ grammar pet peeves, and the most common grammar errors they encounter. 

In preparation, I have been contacting agents and collecting data, and since many of you are writers, I thought one particular pet peeve might interest you. One agent said that it “drives her nuts” when writers use “as per your request.”

The correct form is “per your request.” You can also use “as you requested.”

Oh, and I read all of your horoscopes, and they all said you will be attending a romance grammar workshop on January 11, 2014.

See you then!

Ghosts, Not Grammar

Author and blog friend James Garcia Jr., whom many of you know from his Dance on Fire blog, has written a paranormal romance, Seeing Ghosts. It’s tentatively set for a June 5 release. 

So basically that means I have to wait almost a month to find out exactly what a paranormal romance is. The more I think about it, the more I like it. If such a thing actually exists and I can tap into it, I am pretty sure it means I could have a romance with the ghost of young Paul Newman or Marlon Brando. Does it count as cheating if it’s with a ghost? I don’t think so. 

And I could start a dating website called eHarMOANy.com. Get it? Because ghosts moan.Fine, I'll work on the name.

Based upon the cover art shown above, James' book seems pretty sexy.

And the blurb sounds intriguing too:

Paul Herrera finds himself bequeathed a mysterious old house near the California central coast by a deceased aunt he never knew. The woman who shows it to him is the spitting image of his wife, taken from him three years before in a senseless car accident which also took his unborn son. While he deals with the ghosts of a past he cannot let go, there are new ghosts Paul must deal with - alone for the week in the expansive two-storey house that he will soon discover holds many secrets. Eventually, he will see that he is surrounded by ghosts as he struggles to hold onto the only thing that he has left in this world - his sanity.

So no grammar lesson today, ladies and gentlemen. I just wanted to let you know about James’ newest book.

Oh, and who would you have your paranormal romance with?

Pubic Policy 101

As much as I treasure clear, concise, correct writing, I have to admit that I also cherish a good error. One of my favorites was a typo made by a student who was quite stubborn about her writing. She must have received all A’s in high school, and she made it clear that she felt that my class had nothing to offer her. I was so happy when she wrote” t-shits” instead of “t-shirts” throughout her essay. Maybe she could have used a little lesson on proofreading. 

Another favorite error was made by a student who sent me an email requesting a letter of recommendation. I could tell how much time and effort she put into making the email grammatically correct, but the last sentence said, “Thank you for overlooking this.” I didn’t overlook it; I wrote her a lovely recommendation.

My absolute favorite was when one of my students wrote an entire essay about “pubic" policy instead of “public" policy. It was awesome because he did it EVERY time, and I like the idea of coming up with a pubic policy. Mine would be very liberal.

And I think I found another typo today while reading the news. I read that General Patraeus, after having an affair with his biographer, is going to try to rehab his image by teaching “a course on public policy at City University of New York.”

That's supposed to be "pubic" policy, right?

A Voice

I am pretty snobby, so sometimes I refuse to admit that I watch anything on TV that hasn’t earned critical acclaim. In other words, I am one of those people who says, “I was at my friend’s house the other night and SHE was watching The Bachelor …” Then, I will proceed to talk about how crazy I think Vienna is.

But I am just going to come out and unabashedly say that I love The Voice. The auditions are full of suspense, I have a crush on all the judges, and the contestants have these amazing voices. I, on the other hand, have a terrible voice. 

But I do have a voice. And many of you have never heard it. I am not talking about my singing voice, just my regular talking voice. If you do, perchance, want to hear it, click here and listen to my interview on Brad Reed’s Inside Creative Writing podcast.

Brad is a great interviewer, and we talked about all sorts of fun stuff like why grammar can be intimidating to writers and how grammar can enhance creativity--oh, and we even talked about the em-dash.

Dropping the Ball

When I was in high school, I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world: my dad told me that I could paint my room whatever color I wanted. I think I chose a powder blue and black combination. As soon I started painting, I had a realization: This is a lot of work. I don’t want to do this anymore. Daaaaaaaad! 

I kind of had the same experience with Grammar Madness. I got two posts in and realized that to keep it up I was going to have to post more than I normally do, and, as it turns out, I can be quite blog lazy. 

When I quit after two posts, the question mark had beaten the exclamation point and the colon, but if I had had my way, the colon would have won the whole thing. There’s so much promise held in those two little vertical dots. 

I know that most people think a colon simply goes before a list. And, of course, a colon can go before a list, but it can’t go before just any old list. There has to be a complete sentence before the list. 

There are many things I have started and not finished: painting my room, Grammar Madness, and James Joyce’s Ulysses. 

Vs.

I never finished painting my room, Grammar Madness, and James Joyce’s Ulysses.

But the colon does more than introduce lists. It’s like a drum roll. When I see it, I know that something is coming.

I have great news: 

(Oooh! What is it? What is it? I know I am about to find out because there’s a colon.)

I have great news: the sixth season of Mad Men started on Sunday.

Or how about this one:

I heard something funny about Jon Hamm, the star of Mad Men:

(What is it? What is it? I love him!)

I heard something funny about Jon Hamm, the star of Mad Men: his bulge was so distracting to his co-stars, he was asked to start wearing underwear.

(Unfortunately, he's covering it in the picture above.)

So that’s why I love the colon (and Jon Hamm) so much. 

What’s your favorite punctuation mark?