Mad Genius Club

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I like a good ellipsis . . . but perhaps a 167 of them in a work that is (so far) sixteen thousand words long is a bit much . . .

And then there’s commas, 759.
Periods. 1315.
Semicolons; 2? Only Two?
Em dash—26.
Paragraphs. 708.
Double paragraphs for blank line. 36.
Scene breaks *** 12.
Chapters. 10.

Without these little nuisances all our beautiful words would just run together into an unintelligible wall of words. We need breaks, but where do you put them? Read more

Details at Eleven

or, A Crash Course in Public Relations

I started this post wondering if I would, in fact, finish it. Because we live in a world of mass communication and everyone has had to interact with journalists of varying stripes, right? So, who needs advice on dealing with the media?

Then I realized that I had gotten most of my information from classes taken as an adult, one sponsored by New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission and the other sponsored by the Connecticut Tax Collectors Association, along with a smattering of hints that I picked up on the fly by reading blog posts on unrelated subjects. I went to public school; most of my education was snatched at random from unrelated subjects, so I’m used to that method of learning. But not everyone’s mind works that way, so I started thinking, maybe there is a need for all of this information, and a need for it all in one place.

(Okay, I confess: I’m also writing this post to fix the material in my mind so I can pass a test on it in two weeks)
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Write What Scares You

In real life I’m a weirdly wired person, one of those who, in the time of hunter gatherers would have been called “sabertooth lunch.”  By which I mean I run towards that which scares me.  (This almost killed me a couple of times.  But it might have saved my life another couple of times.  So on the whole it’s neutral.)

In writing OTOH I’m the greatest wuss that ever lived.  Oh, not about writing death and blood and violence.  I can do those, though I’m just learning to write them well.  About writing emotion.

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It’s a Twofer!

Or, you gave me the power! MuahahaHA*gasp*HAAAA!!1
For the inaugural installation of Noob Notes, I’d first like to make it clear that I very much fall into the audience for this. I’m still a noob when it comes to writing and publishing. I don’t know what I’m doing, and this entire series is part of my ongoing effort to not know what I’m doing a little less. Kinda like how shrinks become shrinks so they can fix themselves. I want to fix myself as a writer.

Also in this opener, I’ll be looking at openings. So, an opening opener! (Don’t try to wiggle out of this: you were warned.) In the Art of War-
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