Adverbs and Adjectives are NOT Your Friends

Okay, maybe they are friends, but let’s agree to classify them as the kind of friends you invite to your house and after a half-hour spend the rest of the night hatching different plans to get them to leave. Seriously. Too many writers, particularly when starting out, think that the more they sprinkle their prose […]

 

Thank You. It’s Not Just For Breakfast Anymore.

Have you thanked a soldier lately? Yes? Yeah, most of us have fallen into an appropriate habit of doing that (whereas we should have been doing it all along). I thanked a Sheriff’s Deputy the other day for his service. I realized as I was talking to him (after having called the police for the […]

 

The Power Of (The “N”) Word(s)

My wife and I were recently watching Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Whether or not you are a huge sports fan, it is a tremendous show because of the serious world issues, questions, etc. it addresses, albeit from a sporting angle. One of the stories had to do with the fairly recent usage, umbrage, and […]

 

Post-Turkey, Black Friday, Gobble-Gobble-to-Write-Better Blog

I intended to blog on Thanksgiving—any excuse in the eye of the blog storm, where there are NO POSTS—but when my Dallas Cowboys finally pulled their collective heads out of the Devil’s…I mean, primo narcissist, Jerry Jones’ arsehole, and started putting away the lowly Raiders, I became too involved with watching that and stuffing my […]

BookBub: Indie Savior Or Donald Trump In Sheep’s Clothing?

A while ago (over a year) a writer friend turned me on to an advertising site that was not cheap, but had an extraordinarily large email list of readers in myriad genres. In other words, a bit of the Fountain of Find-the-Readers into which to bathe one’s books and come out the other side better-known […]

 

America’s Team: The Dallas Cowboys

I wrote a blog a few days ago about (in large part) God. I wrote about the cage match between us. I worried and fretted because I don’t blog about religion and because (particularly on the Internet) there are a LOT of people who just itch to find anyone who dares utter the word, much […]

 

Come On Over And Conversate A Little

I read a very interesting post yesterday (“interesting” being defined as “for anyone with enough of a geek/time combination to find a full-length blog on word meanings an enjoyable way to spend a few minutes. It’s called 10 Words That You’ve Probably Been Misusing and it was written by Tyler Vendetti. Now before I get […]

 

Why American Companies Are Rapidly Failing

I’ve been in a conundrum for several months now. Most of you know I left my “day job” of twenty-three years to pursue writing full-time, not because I was already making enough money from sales to live but rather because the hours of marketing and branding and promoting and responding and making book covers and […]

 

Social Networks Don’t WORK. Do they?

On July 22, 2013, in FACEBOOK, Opinion, Social Media, Spamming, The Internet, Twitter, by rsguthrie

So I hear these questions all the time (blogs asking their readers, friends asking me, my own self asking its internal self) “Does _______ (social network) really do anything for me? I’ve had my opinions for a while, yet I’ve held back. Today I broke one of my own CARDINAL rules. Never spam. Never, ever, […]

 

I Admit It: I’m An Abuser. Of Semicolons

On June 17, 2013, in Grammar Police, Opinion, Proofreading, The Semicolon, Tools, Writing Tips, by rsguthrie

Actually only by the strictness of grammatical standards. I’m not a contrarion just because I want people to think I’m cool. When I write, it’s not a decision process—its art. I do what comes naturally to me. That doesn’t mean everyone is going to get it (or like it) but it’s not to be different; […]