Grammar Police Undercover: Pet Peeves At The Donut Shop

I’ve admitted it before: I love words, and, conversely, it causes me physical discomfort (and even agitation) when simple grammatical phrases are misused, abused, and generally disrespected by the very professionals who are (ostensibly) supposed to treat them kindly. One of the more popular commercials that aired for the Super Bowl this year was notable […]

 

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 […]

 

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 […]

 

Captcha or Made In China; I Can’t Decide Which Is Worse

If you’ve ever left a comment on any blog, store website, fan page, or any other Internet site, you’ve likely screamed in agony at Captcha. It is the program that requires you to enter “the two words” before the website can determine if you are or are not a bot. (For those of you new […]

 

Even The Mighty Smaug Had A Weak Underbelly

My magnum opus received a rejection today, not for publication, but rather, that it was not qualified for a review by any “reviewers” on the website “The New Podler Review of Books: Small Press and self-published books worth reading”. Now I don’t remember ever submitting a review request to this site, although it’s possible. I […]

 

Will Television Really Rot My Brain?

On April 24, 2013, in Opinion, Poor Writing, Rant, Soap Box, Television, Television Writing, by rsguthrie

I have always been a little addicted to television (which is like saying you’re a little pregnant, I know). The irony is that I grew up with crappy television and in my young adulthood, as much as the box still lured me into its glowing beam, I did formulate an opinion that watching the boob […]

 

Death to the Novel TOC (not to be confused with Housewives of the OC)

On November 1, 2012, in Amazon Tomfoolery, ANDRE THE GIANT, Opinion, Rant, Soap Box, by rsguthrie

I actually started a blog on this subject yesterday, was pulled away, and never got back to finishing it. Then this morning I had an email/ticket from Amazon in my inbox because a reader complained that my FICTION book does not have a Table of Contents (referred to more lovingly in the writing community as […]

 

How To Handle A Rare Reviewer (Or: How Many Stars DOES Your Book Deserve?)

Today, Dear Readers, is Saturday the 14th. You know what that means, right? Yesterday was Friday the 13th! I never said anything about it in my blog yesterday (or in my bog which is what I typed first, having only finished a sip of my first morning coffee—I suppose to say something like that in […]

 

Are You A Word Snob? Don’t Be; It’ll Ruin Your Writing (And Make You A Douche)

On July 3, 2012, in Humor, Indie Authors, Opinion, Rant, Soap Box, Writing Tips, by rsguthrie

I used to sign up for the “Word of the Day” type emails (of which I would read a couple each month and trash the rest). I also used to work the vocabulary test in Reader’s Digest to find out what kind of wordsmith I was. Truth is, I am a writer, so words DO […]

 

Back Pain Sucks (or, Despite my Back, I’m Back) – Dedicated to Caleb

Wow. We had a wallop of a storm here a week ago and I tried to pretend I still had a little of the twenty year-old Herculean in me, running through the wind, downpour, and driving hail to save our basement from flooding. Oh, did I mention I was carrying a 27 foot extension ladder […]