What You Need To Know To Create A Work of Art — Before you put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, or whatever medium you’re using, you need to ask yourself some difficult questions. The Myth Of Fame and Glory “Why am I doing this?” If it’s for fame and glory, think again. Chances are very unlikely that you’re going to be the next John Grisham, Stephen King…

Today’s Dirty Word Is … — No, I’m not referring to an obscenity or cuss word. Today’s dirty little four-letter word is Like. As in … “It’s like … ya know?” Of course we have all heard teenagers over-using this word, peppering their speech with it constantly. Unfortunately, teenagers are not the only ones guilty of…

Your Writing May Be The Only Impression You Get To Make — As a professional writer and part-owner of a small marketing business, I often get resumés from people looking to work both with me and for me. The reason I decided to write this article is the direct result of a resumé I received a few days ago. The resumé in…

Or Are Your Ideas Fermenting Like a Fine Wine? — Before you begin pouring over all those articles telling you how to banish writer’s block, you have to make sure that it actually is writer’s block that you’re suffering from. If it isn’t writer’s block — and it might not be — attempting to wrangle the ideas out of your…

Restoring Order To Your Words — I’ve never been one to dangle my participles (at least not in public, anyway). Until I sat down to write this article, I didn’t realize that a dangling participle is what it was called. So really, I knew what a dangling participle was in practice, but didn’t know that was…

What It Is and How To Use It — An ellipsis is also known as “dot dot dot.” It is not to be confused with the word “eclipse” which occurs when two heavenly bodies line up in the sky, such as a lunar eclipse. It should also not be confused with an ellipse, which is an oval geometric shape. …

Proper Use of the Comma — Or should I say, comma crazy? One of the most frequent punctuation errors is over-use of the comma. Other punctuation is easier to use because the rules are easier to define and understand. The comma, however, can be a bit of an enigma. Here are some simple rules to help…

All About Similes and Metaphors — Similes and metaphors are two ways to enrich your descriptive text by making comparisons. It’s easy to say, “The sunset was orange with little streaks of purple and yellow and it was really pretty.” However, it’s also boring and gives no context to how a character feels about the person…

How Melissa McBride Inspired Me To Embrace The Gray — It all began when I was 16. My mother - my personal fashion guru - said: “I wonder what you’d look like as a redhead.” Once we found out, I was hooked. One dye job and I was suddenly older, more mature and on the threshold of womanhood. I felt…