Monthly Archives: July 2018

Here are two works that drive writers crazy: maddenly vs. maddeningly. Maddeningly means extremely annoying or exasperating, as in The traffic in downtown Los Angeles was maddeningly slow. Maddenly is not a word. It likely appears in manuscripts because the writer is mishearing the word, which is easy to do in this case. The situation is confounded (infuriatingly so) because madden, meaning toContinue reading “What on Earth? Maddenly vs. maddeningly”

Follow the links to great writing prompts about these topics:• Get ideas from you head onto paper • Revisit an old favorite • Go people watching ______________ My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services.Continue reading “Three Great Writing Prompts”

“I don’t believe any real artists have ever been non-political. They may have been insensitive to this particular plight or insensitive to that, but they were political, because that’s what an artist is – a politician.” – Toni Morrison “The finder of his theme will be at no loss for words.” – J.V. Cunningham “Many people can andContinue reading “Five Great Quotations about Theme”

Most of us know what an ebook is – it’s text structured like a paper book that is presented to us digitally, similar to the way that a web page appears in that the text appears on a screen. From there, though, an understanding of the terminology and of how an ebook works or is presented typically takesContinue reading “Four main ways exist to present your ebook”

Here’s an old grammar controversy that’s easy to deconstruct. The older you are, the more likely your junior high school teacher pounded into you that ground breaking and ground-breaking were the correct spellings when referring to the start of a construction project. These days, however, groundbreaking is far more prevalent, and both Merriam-Webster and Oxford Dictionaries consider it the correctContinue reading “Groundbreaking vs. ground breaking vs. ground-breaking”

Science fiction stories typically arise from a novum, a scientifically plausible concept that is a “reality” in the tale. The novum might be an mechanical device like robot servants, artificial intelligence, or faster-than-light spacecraft; it also can be a hypothetical idea such as “The Earth is a scientific experiment run by aliens to determine the meaning ofContinue reading “5 Sci-Fi Writing Prompts Based on Novums”

“Writing it seemed to have higher quality than not writing it, that was all.” – Robert M. Pirsig “We write to rekindle the inner spirit.” – Lailah Gifty Akita “We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.” – Kelly Marcel & Sue Smith “A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensationContinue reading “Five Great Quotations about Why We Write”

Man vs. natureYour aging protagonists begins to suffer from a medical condition that usually only occurs in old age. As he enters a new chapter of his life, he develops deep bonds with new friends who come together solely because they share the same medical condition. How do they mutually address the laws of nature asContinue reading “Four Writing Prompts: Aging”

There appear to be a set of language rules that to most people simply sound wrong when you use the right word. Who and whom is chief among them, as few people, despite the efforts of their seventh grade language arts teacher, know when to use which one. Lay and lie and their various forms are another pair of such words. For the record, lay/laid/laying meansContinue reading “Write around them: resting my case on lay vs. lie”

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” – George Moore “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou “Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t fell I should be doing something else.” – Gloria Steinem “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, likeContinue reading “Five Great Quotations about Passion for Writing”