Darlene's Digest

Image via Wikipedia An Occupational Hazard You know you've been a writer too long when you see a newspaper article lead that says "...autumn brings a bevy of new style guides" and your first thought is, "Wow! Someone's giving CMS and Strunk and White a run for the money?" You know you're a writer and the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet when your eye scans down the article and you wonder what Lucky magazine's "The Lucky Guide to Mastering Any Style" and Isaac Mizrahi have to do with writing. Does Isaac favor serial commas? Is Lucky a fan of the possessive "s" with an apostrophe at the end, or an apostrophe "s"? I didn't find this article on style guides helpful at all. I'm sticking with Strunk and White and the Complete Transitive Vampire.

Image via Wikipedia Darlene Down Under I was featured in an article on pirates in the Australian Romance Reader. You can find out more at the link, here.

Why is it on some days I catch oodles of typos, while on others they just zip by below my radar? It is a mystery to me.

Image via Wikipedia One of my beta readers left a message on my phone this morning saying she's "flying through" A Sea Change and enjoying it very much. Woo woo! That's what I love to hear!

What do you do after you write "The End"? I like to clean off my desk. It's an attractive antique table, but once I start in on a book, I don't see it again until I finish the manuscript. Here's what my desk looked like during revisions of A Sea Change : I started the clean up by putting my books away. Some of the reference books hadn't gone back on the shelf in a year, so it was good to say goodbye to them, even if they were only moving a few feet away. I took the opportunity to dust my office bookshelves, even giving Pirate Barbie and Ken a swipe of the duster. You can see them in this shot. Notice that in my universe, Barbie wears the captain's hat: My desk is a leather topped antique, so I wiped the top down with Neet's Foot oil, giving it a chance to really soak in and rehydrate the leather. My muse was on hand, sending theta waves of cleanliness and creativity in my direction as s he supervised. Finally, it was done. I polished the wood wi...

What? It's October already? Seems like September just got here! Oh well, at least I'm almost done with these edits.