Category: Language (Page 3 of 8)

Confessions of an Author: Grammar

October 23, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

Confession #1: I don’t always use proper grammar.

When someone asks me how I’m doing, I’m just as likely to say “I’m good” as “I’m well.” Saying “I’m well” sounds funny, and frankly, a bit pretentious. I don’t need to flaunt the fact that I know the grammatical way to answer the question is “I’m well.” I’m an author, not a snob. Besides, my brain’s default answer is “I’m good” and idle chitchat hardly warrants more than a default answer.

There are lots of other instances when I don’t speak proper grammar as well. In fact, I probably speak improperly as often as I do properly. It takes way too long to formulate a well-constructed sentence; if I had to speak grammatically correct all the time, I’d never end up contributing to the conversation.

I also text/tweet (okay, I don’t actually tweet, but if I did…)/post on Facebook/casually e-mail with incorrect grammar and even crazy text speak. (Don’t all gasp at once!)

Why don’t I use proper grammar? You might think it’s because I don’t want to intimidate others with my superior grammar knowledge. The truth is just because I’m an author (and admittedly an editor), doesn’t mean I even know proper grammar. “Who” or “whom,” “lying” or “laying.” I don’t know! And when I do need to know, I look it up.

Not to mention the fact that if I did keep my grammarian hat on all the time, I’d probably go crazy. Have you seen some of the terrible grammar there is out there in the world? It’s astonishing!

So the next time you are talking to an author or reading a nonprofessional e-mail from an author friend of yours, don’t assume everything they offer will be grammatically perfect. Authors are people too, and we can’t be expected to always know the grammatically correct thing to say (or write). That’s what we have editors for!

Author-extraordinaire Katie L. Carroll has been disproving (and sometimes confirming) the myths of legends of being an author since 2012.

The Guests Get Creative Again!

July 18, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve been remiss not to share the wonderful magnetic poetry that has been languishing on my refrigerator for awhile now. Such creativity needs to be shared with the world. As always, I kept the spaces in between the different magnets and I’ve decided to show line breaks with a slash (or is it a backslash..I always forget the difference).

gray man give s life like dark dream s do burn (as long as it doesn’t burn when you urinate, you’re fine)
good light / some easy / look (I couldn’t tell if the look was actually part of this poem, but it felt like the right closer for this particular piece…forgive me if I’ve overstepped my bounds a mere purveyor of poetry)
genius obsess es / inspiration play s / hard work succe ed s (the ed was cleverly placed over the ss in success)
bake me a beautiful (I love how this one is almost like a fill-in-the-blank…bake me a beautiful cake, a beautiful world, a beautiful life)
chance create s a spark of light / visible between rain and snow fall / never to be experience d after (yes, I know that moment)
blue sky / fruit trick / naked will (that will just had to ruin the party by getting naked)
always another step bird fight (can’t thosestep birds just get along)

Now it’s your turn. Here’s a selection of words from the fridge. What can you make with it?

WIP Wednesday

March 14, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

Ummm..it’s the second Wednesday of the month…and this is my first blog post of the month…sigh…where does the time go?

FINALLY finished my latest round of edits on Elixir Bound. Over the years I have gotten much better at revising, but I still wouldn’t say I like doing it. I love the thrill of a new idea, letting it marinate in my brain, the tendrils growing into a plot and characters. Furtive moments of writing snippets in my notebook because I just can’t help but get these thoughts on paper. The possibilities are wide open, no disappointment that the words fall short of the image in my mind.

Revision is a slow slog though the vomit of words that made it to the manuscript, have been pored over a million times, and still don’t quite meet expectations. If I have to transform another HAD, WAS, THAT into more interesting language, I might just (oh, JUST is another one of those words I’m trying to cut out!) throw my computer through the kitchen slider.

Wait, what am I talking about? I’ve been waiting years to work with an editor on my manuscript to whip it into publishable shape. In that case, I LOVE revising. Too bad I can’t stop thinking about that new story…the one I haven’t even officially started writing yet. I look forward to the day I am sick of that story!

Magnificent Magnetic Poetry

February 18, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

The poetry has been building up on my fridge. And the poets have really outdone themselves with this round of magnetic verse. Here’s the latest musings:

squirrel breeze

        dream freeze
                 conscious can
                         gray man (nice rhyming scheme and use of spacing here…I have no idea what it all means, but I sometimes wonder if that’s not the hallmark of good poetry…me not understanding it!)

the devil relax ed with a cold drink after a long night of trick er y (I wonder what the devil’s drink of choice is…wouldn’t it be funny if it was an appletini?)
explore a prostitute s body with random electric fruit s (yikes!)
howl that beautiful morning torso noise (this person must have had beans the night before)
dream s create inspiration between cold shadow s and silent thought s (I wish my dreams did this…mostly they leave me feeling a bit puzzled)
live for more than a memory (very deep, very wise)
spark muse speak music green woman green woman (the use of repetition here indicates the author has a great understanding of literary techniques…or an unhealthy obsession with the Green Giant’s girlfriend!)
imagine a friend and she will come a live (kind of cool, but also kind of scary)
emotion s bleed the heart wrench the mind expose our soul and leave us naked (my favorite of the bunch, no explanation needed!)

The Hubby came up with the idea of hiding some of the overused words. “Prostitute,” “Pickle,” “Explore,” “Naked,” “Skeleton” come to mind (and pretty much anything else that can be manipulated into a dirty phrase). Although as we can see from the above lines, those words still offer thought-provoking options. “Prostitute” still should go…not much you can do with that word that isn’t dirty!

WIP Wednesday

February 8, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve got quite a few works-in-progress, so I’m instituting a new column about a WIP on the second Wednesday of each month.

Why Wednesday? Because it begins with the same letter as WIP, and you all know how us writers love our alliteration. Why the second one of the month? Because that’s when my critique group meets, so it’s easy to keep track of. Why once a month? Because it’s a good way to make sure I have at least one post a month (which lately is about all I’m managing to do!).

My soon-to-be published novel (oh, it’s so satisfying to write that) Elixir Bound is up first. A buddy of mine from my aforementioned critique group share a Wordle of his WIP, which inspired me to create one of my own. I used the entire manuscript of Elixir and Worlde spit back this image.

That big, orange word “Katora” that dominates a huge chunk of the Wordle is the main character’s name. I think that’s fitting, especially for a YA book, because so much of the preteen/teen experience is focused on the me and discovering who you are as a person.

Many of the other large words are also character names, which I guess means my story really is about the characters. Or I just need to stop using their names so darn much! Another interesting thing I noticed is that there are quite a few body parts listed (“Lips” and “mouth” anyone! You know there’s going to be kissing in the book!). Some of my other favorite words: “Elixir,” “family,” “power,” “breath,” “fire.”

I’d love to see what kind of Wordles you all come up with!