Columns by six of diamonds, by newest first

  • The grammar corner: Homophones by six of diamonds
    Homo-what? Homophones. A homophone is a word that sounds like another word, but its meaning and sometimes its spelling are different. Since they sound alike, people often confuse one word with its homophone. "Their", "there" and "they're" are all homophones for each other. They sound the same, but each has a different meaning.
  • The grammar corner: "Then vs. Than" by six of diamonds
    Need some grammar help? Well, if I've read for you before then you'll know that you're likely to get it from me, along with a long laundry list of your grammatical sins! But, seriously, we all have our weaknesses and I really want to help make your stories better! It is easier to learn grammar a bit at a time, so, today we're going to review "then" versus "than"...
  • On writing and being a writer, dealing with fear and rejection by six of diamonds
    I never want to crush a young writer, someone did that to me when I was really young and I never wrote any of my stories down until this year.

    I failed every writing class I signed up for in college because I'd do the work and then chicken out on sharing it--even in an anonymous review!

    I've struggled with even writing academic papers and in reporting because a college professor took a red marker to every sentence of my paper on The Heart of Darkness and pointed out every misused apostrophe, dangling past participle and spliced sentence. She viscously scribbled and marked every place where I could have written more objectively, but instead I shared the emotions I felt.