I have a friend who learned late in life that he was dyslexic. Because anything that ever happens anywhere in the world is somehow about me, this made me realize that I had been judging this person’s intelligence pretty unfairly. We keep up with each other via Facebook, and I recently noticed a huge change in his status updates. When I asked him about it, he said that he’d learned how to use Spellcheck on FB. Of course, there are still the occasional homonyms and such that slip through, but it’s apparently made a real difference for him. Anyway, I [Read more…]

Ooh, “failures in efficiency” sounds just like “failure’s inefficiency.” How cool is that, fellow Word-Nerds? I used to read a lot of blogs, but I just don’t seem to have the time, energy, or attention span to keep up with any of them lately. In my defense, I am running a business, sustaining a marriage, keeping a house, raising a child, and growing an entire human being in my body, so if anyone is personally offended that I don’t keep up on his or her blog…he or she is totally a selfish loser. I do find myself with the occasional [Read more…]

Warning: What follows is basically a personal rant about a particular client. I’ve chosen to share it here because I think many of you will identify all too well. This blog is supposed to be funny, though, so please feel totally free to laugh at me for being such a door mat. Have you ever noticed how the absolutely bat-spit crazy clients seem to come out of the woodwork just when you need it the least? These are the folks who don’t actually know what they want until you happen to hit the magic combination and they say, “Yes! That’s [Read more…]

Oh.  My.  Gosh. So, I think I mentioned that I’ve been doing articles on a lot of crazy topics lately.  One of them was plagiarism.  As I was looking around the web, I found this:  Want to Buy an Essay about Plagiarism? Seriously.  It’s a web site where you can buy essays to turn in to your teacher and pass off as your own.  And you can buy essays about why plagiarism is wrong.  The absolutely, totally, 100% best part?  They’re horribly written.  Like, you’d pay your money and still flunk your essay for not being able to write.  Here’s [Read more…]

So, I just accidentally found a new blog that I think you all are going to like.  I’m a little loathe to send you over there, because I think that Kiersten White is approximately five thousand times funnier than I am.  But I’m a generous soul.  And I can’t keep a secret.  (That’s totally not true, by the way.  I’m a great secret-keeper.)  See, I told you she was funnier.  I can’t even fake my own shortcomings for a joke. Anyway, you should check out Kiersten Writes.  I was going to tell you to start with this post detailing the [Read more…]

Hey, do you know any good jokes for writers? I’ve been looking around, kind of trying to compile some good ones. So far, this is my favorite (found on so many sites that I don’t know who to credit): A screenwriter comes home to a burned down house. His sobbing and slightly-singed wife is standing outside. “What happened, honey?” the man asks. “Oh, John, it was terrible,” she weeps. “I was cooking, the phone rang. It was your agent. Because I was on the phone, I didn’t notice the stove was on fire. It went up in second. Everything is [Read more…]

I’ve been having a really hard time with motivation lately. I’d like to blame the weeks and weeks of dreary weather (seriously, this is EASTERN Washington, not Seattle), or the move to the new office (still nothing on the walls), or the bun in the oven (did I mention yet that it’s a girl?), but I don’t know that any of those things gets full blame. So, this week has been about avoiding procrastination and just getting things done. You know what’s a great/terrible way to procrastinate/not procrastinate? Write a poem about procrastinating for your blog. It’s kind of like [Read more…]

I’ll admit that I judge people by they way they write.  I try not to, but it’s really hard for some reason.  I make assumptions about people based on spelling and punctuation.  I cringe when I read Facebook updates that misuse homonyms, use apostrophes to pluralize, or simply forgo punctuation altogether.  Of course, we all make typos from time to time.  I’m definitely guilty of it, and I am aware that I’m probably being judged, too. Typos may not seem like any big deal, but it turns out that there are some that have actually changed the world.  From an [Read more…]