Wix's Life Lessons for 8th Graders

As the school year winds down (and my oldest child graduates from high school!), I wanted to share a cool list made by my daughter and her classmates. For the past two years, they've been in a special advanced program for English and social studies (nicknamed "Acad," short for Academy), and this year they had the same teacher for both classes.

This teacher (nicknamed "Wix") combined the two subjects. For example, when he taught about the Civil Rights era, the class followed that unit by reading and discussing literature about race issues. He integrated both subjects seamlessly, and as a result, the students learned more in his class than any other in their lifetimes.

Wix taught my daughter how to be a critical thinker. Wix challenged her in ways few junior high kids ever are. He made her grow and stretch and do more than she thought she could.

Wix is retiring, so this is his last set of students ever. As a going-away gift, my daughter had her classmates share favorite Wix-isms, things he'd taught them. Even in a public school setting, he managed to teach them values.

My daughter typed up the Wix lessons and framed them as a parting gift from their class. Some are clearly inside jokes that I'll have to learn about sometime. Some are silly, funny, or painfully true ("I want to hug you, but I can't"). And still others are profound lessons.

Here's to another great year of school gone, a great summer ahead, and to taking the lessons we've learned with us. Thanks to Mr. Wix and so many other great teachers out there.

All We Need to Know We Learned from Wix

Forgive one another | To keep a cow from exploding, stab it | For whatever reasons . . . | Alcohol is the stuff to drink for those of you it hurts to think | Ask questions | Don’t wake up hibernating bats | I’m telling you straight up |The world isn’t black and white | There are two kinds of people in the world | There is no such thing as a stupid question | Knowledge is not the same thing as information | Pay one extra payment on your house yearly | Appreciate real beauty | Bugs are part of any healthy diet | Palm trees can be dangerous | All knowledge is equal | Read your scriptures | I love you | There is always more than one way to spell a word | Dingbat is a language | Not all chocolate is equal | Are you ready? | Everyone is a child of God; treat them that way | You cannot worry about the speck in your neighbor’s eye when you have a beam in your own | Honor your parents . . . even if they are Republicans | I want to hug you, but I can’t. | Always hug Noah | Everyone can win in the end | Reality is a misconception fostered by the imaginary need to feel important | Failure is good | Remember the Rondas in your life | What’s the point of education if I can’t force you to be miserable? | I’m not reading too fast; you’re listening too slow | The basis on which you judge others will be the basis on which you will be judged by God | Never talk to someone in English if they are listening in Dingbat | Love cannot be explained in words | Don’t judge head hunters | Beauty is in the eye of the beholder | You can always lie yourself through college | Sometimes education can get in the way of your learning | One day the girls will notice you |You don’t want your last memory to be Wix giving you mouth-to-mouth | Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana | Only follow the rules that don’t matter | That which is essential in life is invisible to the eye | The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has its limits | Some people are harder to love than others, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love them anyway | Step out of your bubble | We have reached a bizarre moment in life | Love your neighbor | Stand up for yourself | Being gifted is a gift, not a curse | Take risks | A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets a chance to put its pants on | I love you.

From Your 2012–2013 Wix Kids

We love and will miss you

10 Years and a Great Conference

Every spring for ten years now, I've been at the LDStorymakers Writers Conference, which began as a tiny event (47 attendees) in a tiny venue (a small rented theater) and which has turned into a powerhouse conference that has to be capped. This year we had 450 attendees and a waiting list. I served on the committee for something like seven years, and one year I even co-chaired it with Heather Moore. It grows and improves each year, and it's a huge undertaking. (Next year, the conference is moving to a larger venue to accommodate up to 600, I believe.)

To catch up, I've blogged about the conference several times: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

For five of those ten years, I've attended the Whitney Awards gala, two as a committee member and three times as a finalist (one of those years, I won—still one of the highlights of my career).

I look forward to the conference for many reasons. I enjoy teaching about something I'm passionate about. I love listening to other writers and learning at their feet. I love rubbing shoulders with both aspiring and highly successful writers. It's exciting to see writers grow and progress in their careers.

But as I said on Facebook the other day, it's also where, in some ways, I find my people. Because face it: writers are a weird bunch, and only fellow writers really get it.

Even when the conference is close to home, I make a point of staying at the hotel, because putting the Mom hat on and taking it off several times a day is not only exhausting for me, but difficult on the kids. They have a much easier time when they know that Mom's leaving on Thursday and coming home Saturday night (or whatever the situation is).

This year I shared a room with Heather B. Moore and Sarah M. Eden. As fun as the conference is, it's also exhausting. One night we all lay in bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling in silence. We were all wiped. That's when Sarah said, "This is the lamest slumber party ever." And it was, but we were happy about it!

This year was particularly awesome for several reasons.

One fun part was our critique group going out to dinner together (minus two members). (I'll do a post soon to explain the butter churns on our matching shirts.)

Left to right: J. Scott Savage, Michele Paige Holmes, Annette Lyon, Sarah M. .Eden, Heather B. Moore.
(Not pictured: Robison Wells and Lu Ann Staheli)

Another was hanging out with my dear friend and accountability partner, Luisa. (How did we not get a picture together?) She lives far away, so although we keep in almost daily contact, we don't see each other very often. Even at conferences, it's often waves in the hall with promises to find a time to connect. And then we never do. This year we found time in advance and penciled it in, and it happened!

The Whitney gala was a delight. Having an excuse to dress up is always fun.

With Romance Finalist Krista Jensen

Seeing friends and colleagues is great too. And even though I didn't win (and was quite sure I wouldn't; Paige was up against some awesome books), I had a great time. This year I was part of the losers cheesecake pictures, which Janette Rallison invented.

A bunch of us finalists who didn't win, acting all upset. (Janette's face cracks me up!)

I even got to meet Ka Hancock, whose book I fell in love with. Can't wait to read what she publishes next!

With Ka Hancock, author of the finalist Dancing on Broken Glass. (READ IT.)

But the highest point of the whole weekend was our keynote speaker, Anne Perry. Friday evening she gave her keynote address, and Saturday morning she taught a 2-hour master class (which I luckily signed up for before it filled up).

Her keynote address was nothing short of inspired. I could have listened to her all night (and not just because of her lyrical voice and British accent). Her words touched my heart in a sacred place, in a way no one else has ever done. Anne Perry is  a fellow Latter-day Saint and a master writer, and she drew on both of those things in her address. I was near tears the entire time. It's an experience I'll never forget. She changed me.

Saturday's class was a pure delight; she was not only witty and entertaining but deeply wise. She taught a lot of things that I knew already on some level, but that she reiterated in a way that had me nodding, reminded on a higher level about why certain things are important in writing and how crucial it is to keep working. (Truth be told, it was also nice to hear that even Anne Perry must revise and revise and revise.)

At one point on Friday, I saw her eating a meal alone at a table. I knew her seatmates would arrive shortly; she was at a table reserved for them. I wanted to go up and say hello, to tell her how I admired her as a person, how I love her work and her voice, and how reading her books has inspired me to raise the bar on my own work.

On one hand, I told myself that she's human, and that she would welcome a friendly hello. On the other, a voice screamed in my head that She's Anne Perry! You can't do that! So I chickened out. I regret that now and probably always will.

I doubt she'll ever read this, and I may never have another opportunity to tell her what her work and her words this year mean to me, but I'll never forget this conference or the influence she had on me and hundreds of others.

WNW: An Excellent Issue. Single & Double Plurals.

I was first introduced to Mignon Fogerty (Grammar Girl) because of this grammar issue. She appeared on  Oprah to settle a viewer's complaint. (If you don't listen to the Grammar Girl podcast, subscribe already!)

Oprah and her best friend, Gayle, had gone on a road trip across the United States, and camera crews followed them. The result was several episodes of something they called "Oprah and Gayle's Road Trip."

A viewer wrote in saying that the title was incorrect; Oprah's name also needed a possessive, like so: "Oprah's and Gayle's Road Trip." She ended her note by saying she was an English teacher and therefore knew this stuff.

The viewer was brought on to tell her side, and then Oprah brought on Mignon to reveal the truth. Did the show get it right or wrong?

The show, not surprisingly, got it right. I doubt Oprah would have embarrassed her staff by bringing on a grammar expert to publicly point out a mistake.

But why was the title correct? Is there a time where making both names possessive would be correct?

First, yes, there are times when making both names possessive is correct. And there are times when it's not. It all depends on whether the ownership is joint or separate.

Let's set Oprah and Gayle aside and look at another example. Either of these sentences could be correct:
Jane and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.
Jane’s and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

Which you choose depends on context. We need more information about the bikes before we can make the call.

If Jane and Sally have a sporting goods store they own together, and in it, they have several bikes, then we have joint possession, and we need only one apostrophe. In that case, the first example is correct, because Jane and Sally are acting as a group of ownership. Together, they own the bikes. So:
Jane and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

But if Jane and Sally simply own different bikes (Jane’s is purple, and Sally’s is blue), we’re dealing with separate possession, so each girl needs her own apostrophe to show her ownership of her bike.
Jane’s and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

Another example: Let’s take Tom and Joey, who are brothers. Let's talk about their parents. Because the parents belong jointly to both boys, we don’t need to make both of their names possessive. We use a single possessive to show joint ownership:
Tom and Joey’s parents go on dates every weekend.

But what if Tom and Joey are buddies rather than brothers? What if both sets of their parents happen to be friends who hang out in a larger group together on weekends? Then the whole situation changes. Now we’re talking about Tom’s parents, and we’re also talking about Joey’s parents: four different people, not two. Now we need to make both boys' names possessive.
Tom’s and Joey’s parents go to the movies every weekend.

One way to remember this is by substituting the noun (bikes, parents) for an opinion. If two people share the same opinion, then group their names together as a joint possessive:
        Tom and Joey’s political views sparked controversy.

If Tom and Joey don’t agree on politics—let’s say Tom is a Democrat and Joey is a Republican—then both names need an apostrophe, because we have separate views:
        Tom’s and Joey’s political arguments sparked controversy at school.

Or you can always remember the Oprah viewer who was wrong. Oprah and Gayle took their trip together. It was their joint trip. Therefore, the title of those episodes needed only one apostrophe. If they’d gone on separate trips, we’d need two.


If you're from my generation, you can just think of a favorite movie to get this one right. Bill and Ted had a shared adventure. Therefore, their movie is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.



This topic and many more are new to the second edition of my grammar book. It's got more than double the word count of the original, with tons of new entries and many expanded ones to address more commonly asked questions I get. We're putting the final touches on it now.

Watch for it in May!

Cover Real and More

Three announcements today, all of which I'm excited about!

First off, this Saturday (April 6) I will be signing books for the first time in six months. I'll be at the University Village Deseret Book in Orem during Ladies Night from 6 to 8 PM, signing copies of Coming Home. Signing with me is good friend and awesome novelist Sarah M. Eden. Please come!

Second, yesterday I was notified that I won Utah's Best of State medal for 2013 in Literary Arts for Fiction. I'm thrilled! Long-time readers will recognize the award, because I received it way back in 2007. To get it again, after writing totally different works, means a lot to me.

And finally, my expansion and major update to my grammar book is almost done! It'll be up for sale in both electronic and hard copy in time for the LDStorymakers conference, which is the first week of May. The word count is more than twice the original, with dozens of brand new entries and lots of expanded ones. The comma section alone is much longer, something readers have been asking for.

So: In celebration of being a month out from its release (and hey, to celebrate my award!), here's the brand new cover for the 2nd edition of There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd!

I Found My Writing Home

Publishing this post scares me, because the subject is so personal. I'm going ahead with it anyway with the hope that I can get across my meaning. Deep breath.

From my first attempt at writing in second grade, I began my journey making up fantasy stories. Many long-time readers will know that those early plots were largely inspired by Beverly Cleary and her mouse Ralph, resulting in several stories involving rodents.

Even in high school, when I co-wrote an entire novel with a friend, it was a re-telling of a fairy tale (this was waaaay before doing that was cool or commonplace).

The first novel I tried my hand at by myself as an adult: also a fantasy.

So it came as a surprise to me when I began getting ideas for books with a specifically Mormon angle to them. Of course, those ideas turned into the books that got published.

I did two contemporary novels that you could call romance, and I generally do, but I've never been entirely happy with that label. Not because I don't like romance; I absolutely do, as evidenced by THIS and THIS and the fact that we're doing more of Timeless Romance Anthologies and having a ball with it. Not to mention that I went on to do historical LDS novels, and every single one of them has a romantic element.

But those first two books especially had something else in them too, something I couldn't put my finger on, but which made me hesitant to classify them strictly as romances.

So there was Lost Without You, and then At the Water's Edge (although they were written in the opposite order). Then came the four historicals: House on the Hill, At the Journey's End, Spires of Stone, and Tower of Strength. Each of my historicals, with the exception of Spires, which is a romantic comedy in spite of the serious-looking cover, had that same "other" quality.

Then I was told not to write any more historicals. And I wondered what in the world I'd do next. I'd already started researching my next one, and I had to set it aside and find something else to write about.

Enter my childhood friend Chris and her husband's deployment, which in a roundabout way led to me deciding that I had to write about what it's like to be home with a soldier gone and in the line of fire. In categorizing that book, romance never entered my mind, because, well, it's totally not. Band of Sisters is clearly women's fiction.

Some people think romance and women's fiction are the same thing, but they're not. Not even remotely. Women's fiction doesn't have a love story as the primary arc, and it deals with issues and conflicts that wouldn't normally appear in a romance. I loved writing that book, and it even took the Whitney Award in its category that year.

Yet I still thought that one day, I'd return to my fantasy roots and write books for kids. That feeling was strengthened by the fact that here in Utah, we have more successful writers of youth fiction than probably any other state in the nation. Tons of New York Times bestsellers, a Newbery honoree, and more. Youth writers here are rock stars. It's the market and genre that are most respected in these parts, likely because Utah has a lot of kids, families are serious about literacy, and we tend to like clean books, which often means youth fiction. Take this piece in the news, for example. (In case you don't click over: a launch party for Brandon Mull with Tyler Whitesides, Richard Paul Evans, Chad Morris, and Christopher Paolini. NOT KIDDING.)

Then I had a good chunk of my critique group also writing youth fiction, and this one and this one have had significant success with it (young adult and middle grade, respectively) on the national stage.

Yet I also loved mysteries, and I had a bunch of cool ideas for some. I loved romance, and could see myself writing that. I loved historicals, and would be happy doing more. And so on. What on earth should I focus on?!

My publisher couldn't/wouldn't give me direction on what they wanted next besides no more historicals even after I handed over a list of ideas and asked which they'd be most interested in.

I floundered like a boat without a rudder. I had a total and utter writer identity crisis that lasted two and a half miserable years.

The go-to advice for this kind of situation is to write the kind of book you like to read. Problem: I read all kinds of books, and I enjoy just about every genre. So that suggestion was no help.

Then one year for NaNoWriMo, I decided to write something totally wacky and weird and fun to shake myself out of the awful funk I was in. I drafted 50,000 words of a futuristic, science fiction-type young adult story. And it was a lot of fun. But contrary to my hopes going in, the experience didn't make my future writing path any clearer. (And no, that book will never see the light of day.)

Yet I knew I needed a clear path, something to sink my teeth into and identify as my own. I needed a map to plan my writing future.

I ended up deciding to write the sequel to Band of Sisters even though I had no assurance that my publisher would take it. They did (yay!), and Coming Home was released in January.

During the last year or so, a few things happened to cement my writer identity. One was researching and writing Coming Home. Another was being part of The Newport Ladies Book Club series with my novel Paige and the forthcoming Ilana. 

And then during the 2012 LTUE conference, Luisa and I went out to dinner to brainstorm. She knew of my identity crisis and suggested we hash it out over food. I brought along a notebook with ideas that included young adult fantasy, historical, romance, and everything in between. We picked a story with a really cool premise, and by the time we paid our tabs, we had a rough plot sketched out.

In writing that book, which I'll begin major revisions on soon, I finally came to realize that this was the genre I belonged in. It was women's fiction. And women's fiction is my home.

I realized that my first two books were women's fiction in disguise. That was the element I could never quite wrap up tidily in the romance bow. Women's issues popped up in my historicals too.

While I was thrilled to finally latch on to my writer identity, it came with a price. Remember, I live in the land where writers of youth fiction are rock stars and are most respected by colleagues. Even my own daughter recently asked if I could please write a cool book like the fantasy we were reading together, and it broke my heart to say that I'm writing for grown-ups.

Then there are those packed, celebrity-style launch parties like the one I linked to above. It seems that most writer events for fans tends to lean more toward youth fiction as well. There was one a few years ago that included my friend Janette Rallison (who writes YA), and at the same event was Scott Westerfeld and Stephenie Meyer, among others. Really.

I've had to come to terms with the side of my ego that would like acclaim. The reality is that if I become very successful with women's fiction, it will be with limitations. In some ways, I'd like my youngest to look at me like her hero, but that can't happen if I'm not writing kids' fantasy books. Which I'm not.

Plus, youth fiction has a crossover readership from kids to grandparents, while women's fiction is read almost entirely by, well, adult women. So the numbers are different: simply put, the sales potential for youth fiction is much greater. Unless someone waves a magic wand and I become the next Jodi Piccoult, I won't be getting rich writing women's fiction. (I wouldn't mind becoming the next Kristen Hannah, though... Seriously. Her interview in Writer's Digest pretty much blew my socks off and confirmed my writer identity.)

While I'm not greedy, I am a professional, and I do rely on the money I make through my writing. Making a conscious choice to essentially limit my potential income was hard.

I also had to choose to basically walk away from earning the respect of certain peers who almost look at youth fiction as the one and only true market. Would I like my ego to be stroked a bit? Sure. Could I write youth fiction? Sure. I love the genre, and I've developed  the chops over the gazillion years I've been writing to do it.

But when push comes to shove, I believe that I'm supposed to be writing women's fiction now. When I look at my list of story and research ideas, it's all women's fiction now.

I've wondered why, and why now. Why didn't I figure this out 18 years ago when I first started submitting? There may be several reasons, but I think a major one is the fact that while youth fiction isn't any easier to write than grown-up fiction (they're both hard to do well, and anyone who tells you differently is lying), in order to write good women's fiction, I simply had to be older. I had to experience more, see more of the world, encounter more situations, gain more maturity. On the other side, I've already been an adolescent. As long as I can write well and tap into that part of my brain, I could write youth fiction.

But I couldn't have written good women's fiction at 21, because back then I was barely a woman.

A bit of irony: Turns out that the old piece of advice was right after all. While I do read all kinds of books and love almost all genres, if I had to list my top books of all time, most of them are, yep, women's fiction.

WNW: Hypercorrection

On our last Word Nerd Wednesday, we talked about how Utahns say mountain and how some people over overboard in trying to be "right" (note the sneer quotes) by pronouncing the T. When my friend Jordan McCollum, who is as big a word nerd as I am (only more qualified, because she's got a degree in linguistics), commented in that post about hypercorrection, I knew I wanted her to elaborate on the topic and share it with my readers.

Don't know what hypercorrection is? Don't think you're guilty of it? Maybe, maybe not. It's worth knowing about. Read on!

Hypercorrection: If talking like this is wrong, I don't want to be right 

Guest post by Jordan McCollum 

Have you ever drifted out of your lane while driving? I know I have. The natural tendency is to quickly correct your course by pulling the wheel back the opposite way. But sometimes, a drifting driver jerks the wheel back in the right direction too much. The over-correction succeeds, but the vehicle shoots into the wrong lane or the car rolls.

The same thing happens in language. (Okay, with fewer fatalities.) Most people want to speak "correctly." But did you know there might be such a thing as "too right"? I'm sure we've all had an English teacher or other "friend" who corrects casual speech with prescriptivist usage and pronunciation.

Fortunately, sometimes, those friends are so right, they're wrong. (But not dead. Whew!)

Hypercorrection

Hypercorrection is the linguistic term for being "too right." Usually, hypercorrection comes about because the speaker knows the "rules" of the language, in pronunciation, usage, or grammar, but applies them in more situations than they should (hence clip at right).

Hypercorrection is a very common phenomenon. In fact, it's part of learning a language, too. If you've ever heard a small child suddenly start saying "goed" instead of "went," it's a form of hypercorrection. They're learning that you form the past tense by adding the -ed sound, and applying it in situations where you actually don't follow that rule.

Hypercorrection in pronunciation

A couple weeks ago, Annette blogged about how people pronounce "mountain." People see the T and believe that they pronounce it like you'd say a T in isolation, or at the beginning of a word. However, the American pronunciation of "mountain" uses a glottal stop instead of a "tuh" (and those are just two of the six ways T is pronounced in English words!).

Mountain isn't the only word that uses a glottal stop for a T. Most speakers of American English, in natural speech, will pronounce the first T in important as a glottal stop. (It shows up all over the place in lots of other varieties of English too, so no knocking on Americans.)

However, some American English speakers see the "T" and think the "correct" pronunciation must feature a hard "tuh" sound like you'd hear from a T at the beginning of a word (or in British English). But T is virtually never pronounced as "tuh" in the middle of a word in American English—we rely on four of the other "allophones" of T in the middle of words, and the glottal stop is just as valid a rendition of T as the "tuh."  So when you stick a "tuh" in the middle of "important," you start to sound a little . . . well, self-importuhant.

Phonologically speaking, this pronunciation is unnatural in all varieties of English (because in British English there's no 'r' there).

Another great example of hypercorrection is found in this clip from My Fair Lady, where Professor Higgins is trying to teach Eliza Doolittle to stop her dropping her H's at the beginning of words:



The "hever" is exactly the same principle—applying a correct rule (add an 'h' to the beginning of words that you pronounce as starting with a vowel) to an incorrect situation (a word that really does start with a vowel). Funnily enough, this same principle has changed the pronunciation of the name of the letter "h" in some varieties of English to "haitch." This is also influenced by the perception of h-dropping accents like Cockney as lower in prestige.

Another place I see this is when actors who speak a variety of British English get an American role. In many accents of British English, an R at the end of the syllable isn't pronounced, but in most varieties of American English, it is. So sometimes an actorrr tries a little too harrrd to stick those R's in therrre, verging on another popular dialect, Pirate English. Yarrr. (But yay for trying!)

Hypercorrection in grammar

The same principle applies to grammar (maybe even more so). For example, most speakers of English are taught from a young age that you shouldn't say "me" in subject position: Never "me and you went to the store." (Don't you just cringe?!) Always "You and I gave her the gift." But when we move the "me" into another position in a sentence, things get a little trickier: "She gave the gift back to you and I."

If you're not cringing again, here's a hint: it's "me" there. She gave the gift back to me / She gave the gift back to you and me. (Or if you're really having trouble, "She gave the gift back to us"!)

Eventually, some people try so hard to speak "correctly" that they end up talking like this:

For our one year anniversary, my girlfriend caused myself to go to a Yankees game, with whomever amongst our friends can go. But, the Weather Channel just changed their forecast and the skies are grey, so we might go with the girl that lives next door to see the movie, "Iron Man 2".

I—just—I—oh, where to begin?

We all want to talk correctly. But keep in mind that hypercorrection isn't "extra right." It's actually wrong.

What do you think? What are your favorite examples of hypercorrection? How do you see good grammar principles go bad?

Photo credits: wrecked car—Niels Heidenreich; pirate—Kate Haskell

An award-winning author, Jordan McCollum blogs about writing craft and the writing life at JordanMcCollum.com. She holds a degree in American Studies and Linguistics from Brigham Young University and now makes her home in Utah with her husband and three children. Catch up with her writing links, word nerdiness and crazy life on Twitter, @JordanMcCollum.

WNW: Utahns and "Mountain"

Today we have another edition of Word Nerd Wednesday inspired by where I live: Utah.

That, and the idea of judging people based on their accents. But we'll get to that part in a minute.

Many people love poking fun at the Utah accent, as if it's somehow inferior and unique to their own speech. I did a post some time ago about how, in words with a long A followed by an L, the A is often changed into a short E, so sale sounds like sell, and whale sounds like well.

I had a lot of readers telling me that this was a only Utah thing. (Actually, it's not. It happens in a lot of places. But I digress.)

As I've mentioned here before, everyone has an accent (yes, you, too). Standard English pronunciation doesn't exist in nature. Actors often work at developing what we think is "correct" American English. And they work hard at it.

Another interesting tidbit is that national news stations, for some reason I don't know, have a lot of big-name anchors who hail from the Midwest, so many Americans hear that accent and view it as the standard. This is why people from Ohio and thereabouts often swear that they have no accent! (But oh, they do. They do!)

I recently found this report on a study done at Brigham Young University, not surprisingly, addressing a common pronunciation seen here in Utah: the mysterious dropping of the T in words like mountain and the city name Layton.

It's become such a joke that I regularly see newscasters going overboard in pronouncing the T. "As you can see, the inversion has made it hard to see the . . . moun-Tains."

They almost pause before the T and then accentuate it so the word comes out totally unnatural sounding. But I'm sure they do that because hoity-toity viewers have written in, saying that come on, please don't fall for the  lower-class Utah accent! Speak correctly! Use the T!

But the study found that most Americans drop the T.

I know; you're thinking that Utahns say mountain differently than you do! Maybe. The key is that Utahns drop the T in a different way than the the rest of the country.

Here comes the mini lesson. I promise it'll be brief and easy.

When we speak, air vibrates our vocal chords. When the air is cut off, the sounds stops. Simple, yes? Sometimes as we speak, we purposely block the air for a split second.

For example, think of casual conversation when you use a sound to say no: "Nu-uh."

Say it aloud. Do you hear how your voice stops between the vowel sounds? It's more like Nu. Uh. When we stop the air (and hence, the sound) during speech, it's called a glottal stop.

When Utahns drop the T in mountain, there's a glottal stop in place of the T, followed by the air (and sound) continuing through the mouth.

What do other Americans do? They drop the very same T. Here's the difference: After the glottal stop that cuts the very same T, they release the air through their noses, creating a softer sound than releasing it through the mouth.

So contrary to the belief of some people, the ones who love snickering over the Utah accent, the majority of Americans don't actually use the full T sound in words like mountain. It's not just Utahns who drop that T.

Instead, Utahns release the same glottal stop through their mouths instead of their noses.

Listen to the difference yourself:
Through the mouth (Utahn)
Through the nose (other areas)

Please note that neither way of saying mountain is more or less correct, and that both drop the T, just in different ways.

It's amazing to me how such a small thing can stir up such scorn and debate, especially when every single area of the country has these kinds of quirks.

My purpose for bringing up issues like this is in the hope that we'll be more understanding and less critical of one another, less judgmental over something as simple as the way another person uses a single word.

I personally know a woman who has an accent in English because it is her second language, although she knows it better than most native speakers. When she first came to the States, some people on first meeting her thought she had to be dumb because she had a strong accent.

The reality: She had an advanced education that included something like half a dozen languages. By the time she was eighteen, her education was the equivalent of an associates degree.

In later years, as her accent softened (and, I believe, as the country softened in its attitudes), people started to see her intelligence, and some people assumed she must have a Ph.D. or two in her pocket. They were finally listening to her words, not her accent.

It's safe to say that the idea of judging someone based solely on their speech hits close to home, because that woman is my mother. And I can guarantee that no matter what her accent is like, she's smarter than many of us!

(Love you, Mom!)

The "Danger" of Copying

(Plus lots of news. But first the copying part.)

I've been going to the same medical clinic for our family's needs for over 18 years, so the staff know us pretty well. Our doctor and his long-time nurse especially have followed our family from the time I was expecting my first child, through all my subsequent pregnancies, kids' bouts with RSV and croup, and so much more.

As a result, Dr. S and Nurse T have followed my writing career from almost the beginning, when I liked to write and tried to get publish, along the bumpy road of lots of rejections to finally being accepted, and today they always ask what's coming out next and when.

The last time we saw Nurse T, she asked something different that has stuck with me, and I realized it's a question many readers may have, so I thought it worth addressing in a post here.

Paraphrasing her, she asked, "Isn't it hard to find new things to write about so you're not copying other writers?" She added that it's probably hard to ever read much, because of the fear of copying someone else's style or story.

Is reading a danger for writers? And is it hard to find new ideas? The short answer: No and no.

The longer one: Writers by their nature tend to be curious people. We see a news report about a natural disaster and picture the victims or even put ourselves into the situation and wonder how we'd deal with it. We hear about a horrible crime and wonder what made the criminal do it, and what the victim was thinking. We get story and character ideas from places like songs, newspaper advice columns, and old cemeteries (check, check, and check on each of those for me).

So no, writers generally don't worry too much about being totally original. We're always seeing the world in new and interesting ways, and almost by definition, our perspective is original. On the other side, there's the old saying that there are no new stories, just new ways of telling them. That is what a good writer tries to go after: telling a story, familiar or not, in a new, fresh way. Think of how many great fairy tale re-tellings there are today. Take that number and multiply it by all the writers and stories out there.

The real meat of the issue is this: Nurse T was wrong in assuming that reading will cause a writer to be unoriginal, because the exact opposite is true.

Turns out that writers who don't read much are the ones who end up writing the same old hackneyed plots that have been done to death. I've seen such writers pump out book after book, not realizing that not only are their books cliche, but they're basically writing the same book over and over again. They write cliched characters and worlds and conflicts.

These writers are missing out on an amazing universe of creativity that's out there for the taking. It's almost as if the universe has layers of cool fiction, and we all tap into it on some level, and that the deeper you go, the broader the options become. So the more you open your mind to literature, the deeper into those layers you travel, and the broader your potential scope for story fodder. Stay in the shallow areas, and you've been where every other writer has waded at some point: in the totally unoriginal, cliched mass of washed-up stories.

I've also seen how reading a lot can teach a writer what has been done before, and that means both what's been done well, and what's been done poorly. A young fantasy writer unfamiliar with the tropes of the genre is far more likely to do a veiled copy of Tolkein (trolls and dwarves and elves!) than someone who's been reading a wide range of fantasy for years.

It may sound counter intuitive, but the more literature you read, the more you fill your mind and imagination with images and ideas, and therefore the more likely your brain is to come up with brand new possibilities to throw together.

It's like taking apart several cool Lego creations and then dumping the pieces into a bag, shaking them up, and then removing the blocks one at a time to make something new. Sure, the blocks all came from other sources, but your creation is totally different and fresh.

So to answer Nurse T (I didn't give her this long of an answer at the time; I swear), I don't worry about copying other writers. Not at all. I worry about plateauing in my skill, about not out-doing myself with my next work. I worry about not staying fresh, about not reading enough, especially of the really good stuff out there, because I know good literature will get into my subconscious and make me a better writer.

Even when I read a book with my writer/edit hat on, it's a fantastic thing. I can read a powerful scene and analyze it: Why is this scene so effective? How did the author create that effect? What can I learn?

Did you read a book that knocked your socks off? Can you figure out why it knocked your socks off?

I remember my good friend Heather Moore saying that every time she reads Anne Perry, she notices an improvement in the quality of her own descriptions. I don't know too many writers who are so keenly aware of the effects of their reading, but whether you notice them or not, the effects are there.

Even reading bad books can be useful, so long as you use them as lessons to learn why a book isn't good, what the writer did wrong. And so long as bad books are the minority of what you read.

The fact is, writing is part talent, part art, and part science. Plus a bit of luck thrown into the mix. It's not some ethereal, unknowable thing (although I admit that it feels magical at times).

To be a better writer, I believe you must do two things, neither of which are ethereal and unknowable:

• Read often and broadly. 
• Write often.

I could add a lot of other things to the list: study the craft, attend writers conferences, find a critique group and other trusted readers. And all of those are important; all of those things can help immensely. But those two things--reading and writing--are the ones everything else hangs on. They are the cornerstones your writing house is built on.

As Stephen King has said, if you don't have time to read, you don't have time to be a good writer. 

I'd add that if you do have time to read a lot, then as long as you're also writing a lot, you're on your way to being a better writer. Not the kind that copies or create cliches. 

Finally, some housekeeping (read: lots of news!):

Timeless Romance Anthologies

I'm part of Timeless Romance Anthologies, along with Heather Moore and Sarah Eden. Three or four times a year, we'll be putting out novellas with sweet (meaning clean) romance novellas as e-books. We hand pick three other writers for each collection. The result is that for under four dollars, you get a book the size of a regular novel with six great stories.

The Winter Collection went live last fall (filled with great historical romances set in the winter), and the Spring  Vacation Collection (featuring contemporary romances all with a spring vacation theme) debuts on February 1st. It's been a blast to be part of the anthologies. The first one got rave reviews, and we look forward to putting out more of them. Watch for Spring Vacation Collection in a couple of weeks, and then the Summer Wedding Collection a few months after that.

To keep up to date with the anthologies, be sure to like our Facebook page.

New Release: Coming Home

The long-awaited sequel to Band of Sisters is finally out! Titled Band of Sisters: Coming Home, the book picks up about five months after the first book ended, when the deployment is over and the men come home. A good friend of mine, a military wife herself, said that I could have written a whole trilogy about re-entry, and when I did the research, she was right. (But this is the last book!) 

Note that if you haven't read the first book, you can read this one without being totally confused. I purposely reintroduced the wives, particularly because it's been almost three years between books, so even readers who know the first one may not remember all of the wives clearly. Plus, there's a handy reference page at the front, where the wives are listed by age with their husbands' and children's names. If you read Coming Home first, you will learn much of how the first book ended. Not a crisis, by any means. You really can start with this one. 

I don't know of any plans to put the first book into another printing, but Band of Sisters is available as an e-book, for about $5 below the print version. 

Newport News

The Newport Ladies Book Club is moving forward with the second set of books coming out this year. The only title that has a firm release date so far is Shannon, by Josi S. Kilpack, which will hit shelves in May. My contribution, Ilana, has officially been accepted, as has Heather's Ruby. Julie Wright's Tori should be official soon, and shortly after than we should have the release dates lined up. One book may be released earlier than Shannon; we don't know for sure yet. To keep up with the series, be sure to check the Newport blog (link below) or like the series Facebook page.

A 9th Newport Book!

We plan to do a final reunion book after all eight novels are out, a volume where all eight book club ladies come together so readers can find out what happened to them. I know a lot of readers want to know about Paige's future; I can't wait to tell you all!

Along the same lines, The Deseret News recently interviewed the Newport Ladies authors and published a feature article about the series in both their print and online editions. Be sure to read the blog post Heather did about the experience as well as the actual article. 

Best of 2012

In the rush of holiday madness, some years I forget to make my yearly roundup of favorites, inspired by Luisa's annual list. (Go read hers if nothing else than for the too-cute picture of her daughter ringing in new year.)


Top Books by Genre
Science Fiction: The Lost Gate, by Orson Scott Card
Paranormal: Dispirited, by Luisa Perkins

Mystery:
Acceptable Loss, by Anne Perry. (Wow. Just, wow.)
(Also: Didn't read much in this genre in 2012, but Anne Perry deserves a mention no matter what. Can't wait to hear her speak at the LDStorymakers conference in May!)

Young Adult:
Feedback, by Robison Wells (Even though I really read in in 2011, pre-publication)
After Hello, by Lisa Mangum
With a Name Like Love, by Tess Hilmo

Women's Fiction:
Handle with Care, by Jodi Piccoult (Didn't like the last chapter.)
Home Again, by Kristen Hannah
He's Gone, by Deb Caletti (An ARC. The book won't come out until May 2013. Look for it!)
Night on Moon Hill, by Tanya Parker Mills

Romance:
My Lucky Stars, by Michele Paige Holmes
Lady Outlaw, by Stacy Henrie

Non-Fiction:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
(Read this for the second set of Newport Ladies books. Fascinating.)

Top Movies
Dark Knight Rises
I downed a giant Diet Coke at the beginning and really had to go, but the movie wouldn't let me. That's saying something.

Skyfall 
I've seen my share of Bond movies, although I'm not a die-hard fan. This movie, to me, was everything a Bond movie should be, with the addition of stellar writing and character arcs.

Les Miserables
Totally lived up to the hype. I never expected Anne Hathaway to pull out such a gut-wrenching, real performance. I would have liked "Stars" to be about 5X more powerful, though, especially coming from an actor who has been nominated for 3 Oscars and owns a statue. That said, great movie. Can't remember the last time I cried this much in a theater.

Men in Black 3
Didn't expect this to be nearly as good as it was, following on the heels of a crappy MIB2. Delighted by the surprise of an awesome movie. They returned to their roots from the first one. So funny, and this one has heart, too.

Top Family Moments
Son getting his license, freeing up the mom taxi a bit.
Daughter (child #2) getting her permit, marking the beginning of training another driver.
Summer school to get ahead on credits for 2 kids.
Husband undergoing gastric bypass surgery. (Just a slight change in family life!)
Son embarking on his senior year, including final ACT testing, college applications, the school play, and more.
Daughter (Kid 2) becoming section leader in high-school band.
Daughter (Kid 3) testing (and passing!) to be on pointe in ballet and taking her dancing skills crazy high.
Daughter (Kid 2) opening her own piano studio and teaching students.
Youngest (Kid 4) Becoming a gymnast, entering team-level, and developing more muscles than is right for a 10-year-old. (She can beat any boy in her class at an arm wrestle, easy. I have to try to beat her.)
Watching Kid 3 work her tail off to overcome some major challenges as well as compete her heart out with her dance team.
Kid 4 counting down the days (literally, on a paper chain) until her best bud cousin Scott gets home from his mission (tonight!).

Top Career Moments
After a bit of publishing drought, having 2 novels come out within months of each other. (Okay, one hit shelves after the new year, but they're still only 5 months apart!)

Becoming part of Timeless Romance Anthologies, beginning with the Winter Collection. (The Spring Vacation Collection will be up for sale in about a month.)

Editing for some great clients and writers, including crit group friend, J. Scott Savage, with his next Farworld book.

Speaking at several conferences, including the League of Utah Writers Round-up, a goal of mine for about
15 years.

Watching Paige climb the bestseller list on Deseret Book's website, and then stay in the top 20 for months. (Also: writing Ilana, my next volume in The Newport Ladies Book Club.)

Top Personal Moments
After having a bunch of hair fall out, deciding to chop off my long (then stringy) hair. It hasn't been this short since infancy. A fun and long-overdue change. (And my hair is no longer falling out.)

Lost more weight from the freaky weight gain.

Made some minor progress in headache relief. Hoping for more improvement in 2013.

Had a great time teaching the 12-year-old Beehives at church and going to girls camp with my 2 older girls.

Got back into knitting more, my personal de-stresser.

Attended my 20-year high-school reunion. Time warp!

Exercised more than I had in years, and even ran a lot, something I never thought I'd do. However, I still say I hate running. But I love having run.

WNW: Christmas Edition #2

After doing a Holiday Edition (please read that one before addressing your Christmas cards and gifts!) and a Christmas Edition (read that one before thinking someone is sacrilegious for using "Xmas") for Word Nerd Wednesday (I like both of those!), I thought it appropriate to do another post before Christmas.

Once again, I'm going back to my linguistics roots with two of my favorite linguists, Dad and Dr. Oaks.

Christmas carols, and I'd bet, songs in general, have a way of retaining archaic terms and phrases. I'm going to talk about two specific carols, both of which I remember for their word nerdy qualities.

"The 12 Days of Christmas"
When my sisters and I were young, we'd make up versions of this song to go with other holidays: Easter or Halloween or maybe another theme altogether.

The song itself is rather odd, though: who gives presents of milk maids and several types of birds? The five golden rings make sense. The pipers piping, not so much.

I imagine there's some cool history to the song itself, but today we're looking at one word in the song, one that's been tweaked into something that makes even less sense than giving lords a leaping to your beloved.

On the fourth day of Christmas, what was given to "my true love"?

I'd be you'd answer that it was four calling birds, right? And just about every recording and written transcript of the song would agree.

Except that what the heck is a calling bird?

My child self imagined a bird that could talk back, maybe like the Mocking Jay in the Hunger Games series.

Turns out that calling bird isn't the original term. It's coaly bird. As in, a coal-colored. As in, a black bird.

Why a loved one would give black birds is a mystery right up there with the geese a laying, but at least a coal-colored bird is something identifiable, whereas a calling bird is not. (Thanks to Dad for this one!)

"Silent Night"
One day in my grammar and usage class in college (somewhere around Christmas of 1994 . . . ahem, yes I'm that old), Dr. Oaks asked if we completely understood the words in "Silent Night."

At first we all sort of stared at him with an "um, duh" look. Until he went line by line.

Silent night, holy night,

Okay, yeah. We got that.

All is calm, all is bright 

Easy. Next, please.

Round yon virgin

Wait, what? The other lines so far were clear statements or descriptions. What exactly is a "round yon virgin"?

It was a weird brain teaser for a second there as we pictured maybe Mary's roundness before giving birth or . . . whatever.

That's when Dr. Oaks pointed out that if we look at the punctuation, rather than the spot where everyone pauses to take a big breath, the full sentence makes sense. Which meant backing up a line:

All is calm, all is bright round yon virgin, mother and child.

Do you see the full meaning? That round yon virgin isn't a statement like the previous parts?

Maybe my class was the only group who hadn't really clued in, but it wasn't until then that I really got that the song said (in modern terms) that everything was calm and bright in the vicinity of Mary and her baby. (It helps to note that round is short for around, so it's a preposition, not an adjective).

Trouble is, carolers rarely sing the line in one breath, but rather as two separate thoughts, so the meaning is often lost with the lines broken up the way Dr. Oaks first read them to us.

Whenever I sing "Silent Night" now, I make a point of mentally carrying the music from bright to round without a breath so that at least I can picture the full meaning of the song, which is far more beautiful that I'd realized.

Remembering that day in class helps me think on that silent night and what it meant for all of us.

(Note: See Grammar Girl for a great post about more archaic grammar in carols.)

WNW: A Twitchy Mistake: "Let Alone"

Some time ago, two friends (Sarah M. Eden and TJ Bronley), brought up a grammatical pet peeve they shared: the misuse of "let alone."

It was one of those things that I hadn't noticed too much . . . until someone pointed it out. Turns out that yep, people do use this one wrong, and with somewhat alarming frequency.

Here's how you use "let alone": 
"Let alone" ups the stakes. Generally, the speaker/writer is referring to two things, one much bigger/worse/awful/awesome than the other.

Rules of thumb: 
(1) The smaller "less wow" item is first.
(2) The item with the biggest "wow" factor is mentioned second, after "let alone."

And that is where people make the mistake: by putting "let alone" next to the lesser item.


Example #1 (courtesy TJ)
Incorrect: 
Five-year-old Timmy asked for a pet, but we aren't getting a pony, let a lone a dog.

Here, the sentence implies that a pony is a common pet, while a dog (a DOG!) is something totally out of the realm of possibility, a ridiculous idea.

Correct: 
Five-year-old Timmy asked for a pet, but we aren't getting a dog [lesser pet!], let a lone a pony [the WOW pet!].


Example #2 (courtesy Sarah)
Incorrect: 
I've never been to London, let alone  Salt Lake City.

For most of my readers (likely Utahns) and even those throughout the U.S. and the world, Salt Lake City is by far the lesser "wow" of the two cities. For starters, SLC, as an actual settled city (not counting Native Americans who may have lived in the area) doesn't even have 200 years of history yet, while London has hundreds and hundreds of years' worth.

Correct:
I've never been to Salt Lake City [the lesser city, assuming you're big about history, art, literature, etc.], let alone London [the holy grail for writers and English major nerds like me, ergo the WOW city to visit].

***

As with many of my Word Nerd Wednesday posts, this issue probably a lot of readers wondering how anyone could get that wrong. Good!

For those few people who didn't know the correct way of using "let alone," now you can go forth and use it properly over Thanksgiving dinner, knowing that the word nerd at your table won't choke on a turkey bone.

My Secret Weapon: Or, Writing Isn't So Solitary Anymore

Today's post has a partner. Luisa Perkins and I are blogging about the same thing today (surely with individual perspectives and insights). After reading my post, be sure to hop over to her blog. The link is here and again at the bottom of the post.

Picture of me with Luisa Perkins 

at the Whitney Awards gala, May 2012

First off, I'm stating the obvious: Writing is a solitary pursuit.

You do it alone. It's just you and the computer. If you're lucky, you have a critique group, you attend conferences, and have other chances to rub shoulders with fellow writers, all things to help to keep you going.

But when push comes to shove, it's the whole BIC, HOK—butt in chair, hands on keyboard—that gets words onto the page and, eventually a whole book written. Or revised. Or submitted. And so on.

As my regular readers know, I've been at this writing gig for a really long time. But I still fight my old enemy, Resistance, which can show up in any form to keep me from getting my work done, whether it's puttering around online or getting caught up in the daily drama of life or whatever else (that "other else" often being, at its core, "I'm actually scared to work on that"), somehow, POOF! my time to write is eaten up, and I don't know where it went.

Resistance is sneaky that way, and I have to battle it, consciously, every day. But that's hard to do alone. And writing is a solitary pursuit, right?

This is where my newest and best weapon against Resistance comes in: For the last year and a half (I think? I've lost track), I've had a system with a dear friend and fellow writer, Luisa Perkins. We're accountability partners, and we help each other keep moving, break through blocks, and prioritize our lives. (And yes, that includes family time.)

Here's the basic gist of what we do: 
Each day (or the night before), we email our goals. The lists often include basic stuff like exercise and doing laundry, and then go into specific, measurable writing goals (such as "Edit 30 pages of X" or "Complete chapter ten of Y).

With my list sent to Luisa, she knows my goals. The luxury of slacking off isn't an option. Suddenly writing (and being a mom and cleaning house) aren't so solitary.

And here's why: Throughout the day, we send texts whenever we've accomplished something. My phone goes off a lot, and my kids have reached the point where they just assume a text is from Luisa when they hear it. Even though they've never met her, she's a real part of their lives.

Examples of texts:
-Dishwasher running. Load of laundry started.
-Read scriptures
-10 pages edited
-Blog post written
-Revised 2 chapters
-Exercised
-Grocery list made
-Showered

(Yes, we even report showing, getting dressed, and putting on makeup. Some days, even those things are an accomplishment. Any stay-at-home mom can relate to that, I'm sure.)

Some results of our partnership, which began largely as an experiment: 

(1) I get far more done when I know someone else is expecting me to report back.

(2) I make better goals for myself. So instead of saying, "I need to finish drafting this book," I've learned to break down big jobs into smaller pieces, taking them one day at a time. So today I'll draft chapter fifteen. That's doable. It isn't nearly as scary.

(3) I've learned new methods of working and fighting Resistance. Every writer has his or her own bag of tricks. Mine has expanded as I discover Luisa's ways of battling it out. One of my favorite ways is her chapter/chore method. She recently blogged about that here. (She also wrote a brilliant post about Resistance. Read that here.)

(4) I've developed new methods of battling Resistance. One of mine is taking a writing task that seems totally daunting and setting a timer for 20 minutes. Certainly I can survive working on anything for that long, right? So I do. More often than not, those 20 minutes turn into 30 or 40 or even 60. Sometimes it really is just 20, and that's okay. Either way, I've made progress on something that would have gathered dust. I kicked Resistance in the teeth!

(5) When Resistance/fatigue/depression/anxiety/stress kick in (and they do), I know that Luisa is only a text away. I can complain to her about my headache or the latest problem that dropped from the sky, and she's always there with a compassionate and loving ear. Her replies give me strength. They may be text-length, but they buoy me up. I've been known to cry after reading her texts, suddenly able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

(6) The tiniest of celebrations is often enough to keep my inner writer going. Often, after I send off a text with my latest to-do item check off, I'll get a reply with something short like, "You're awesome!" or a simple, "Yay!" It's like I have my own cheering section. Most of the time, no one else is around to see, let alone acknowledge, what I've done, especially when most of my battles are on computer files and are therefore pretty much invisible to everyone else.

(7) I find myself doing more things that are important for my personal well-being and that of my family's, including making home-cooked meals, keeping the house cleaner, exercising regularly, and reading my scriptures daily. (That said, don't drop in expecting to see a Martha Stewart house . . .)

(8) Writing is no longer a solitary pursuit. Every week day, Luisa is right beside me, keeping me going, from hundreds of miles away.

The entire time we've been doing this, we've lived far apart. I'm in Utah, and when we began, Luisa lived in New York, on the east coast. Last summer, her family moved to the west coast, so she's technically a bit closer to me now, but for all practical purposes, she's as far away as ever.

Fortunately, distance simply doesn't matter. We have a simple piece of technology that links us.

I still cling to my critique group; they're my source of weekly sanity. They keep me writing to deadlines, and they keep me striving to constantly improve my work. (And they're great to simply hang out with, some of my best friends ever.)

My ten shades of awesome accountability partner is one very big piece of my writer's arsenal in helping me get the job done . . . and not doing it alone. I stay motivated. I produce. I'm happier. I'm more me. I'm more there for my family. It's been a wonderful thing.

Having an accountability partner has become such a part of my life that when my phone beeps, my kids assume it's a text from Luisa. If they're playing a game on my phone and I tell them I need to send a text to Luisa, they know they have to relinquish it right away. They've never met Luisa, but they probably know her better than they do many of my friends, because she's such a big part of their mom's life.

Accountability partners may not be for everyone, but I know that Luisa and I have both benefited from the arrangement, so we thought that sharing the idea with others could be helpful.

I got lucky in finding mine. Luisa and I have been friends since 2007 (there's a fun story behind that involving knitting), and we sort of fell into it one step at a time. If you hope to find an accountability partner, my best advice would be to find someone you're already friends with. If you've attended writing conferences and the like, you probably have writing friends. I'd definitely partner with a fellow writer, because your goals will more closely line up, and you'll understand each other's needs, desires, and feelings so much better.

Find Luisa's post about accountability partners on her Novembrance blog.

WNW: The Influence of a Madman

If you've frequented my blog for any significant period, you know that I adore and rely on the Oxford English Dictionary (known as the OED). An entire blog label is devoted to my references to the beloved OED (including this post!). I turned to my most beloved dictionary a lot when writing my historical novels. (Was "cookie" used in the 1880s?) Many friends ask me to check the OED for similar reasons. (Among them, J. Scott Savage, author of The Fourth Nephite books, to be sure he's got the 1830s lingo right.)

And, of course, right here, Word Nerd Wednesday mentions the OED with relative frequency.

This post will have two parts:
(1) What is the OED anyway? (What makes it different from any other English dictionary out there?) (I've covered this briefly in past posts, but it's been a long while.) (Yes, I know that multiple sets of parentheses is atypical.)

and

(2) What does a madman have to do with the OED?

What Is the OED, Anyway?
In 1857, Professor James Murray began one of the most ambitious linguistic projects of all time. His goal: to create a dictionary that went beyond definitions to recording the first instance of each word used in print. His dictionary would show the change and evolution of the language.

Understandably, the project took years and years. An entry in the OED lists quotations from multiple sources, so you can see when a word was used, fell out of use, and came back. How the meaning has changed over time, and so on.

During my university days at Brigham Young University, I often walked past a copy in the library. It sat atop a waist-high bookcase, which the blue volumes covered in two full rows with somewhere around 30 volumes. (In that edition. It's longer now.) The OED is constantly being updated, as new words constantly enter the language (today more than ever).

My dad owns the shrunken-down version of the OED. It's only two volumes long, but each page has four complete, miniaturized pages. And no kidding, the set comes with a magnifying glass because even someone with 20/20 vision would go cross-eyed trying to read that puppy.

I own a CD version of the OED from about 10 years ago. I got it for my birthday one year and use it regularly.



What does a madman have to do with the OED?
While working on his dictionary, Professor Murray sent out calls for help in looking for early printed instances of specific words. This wasn't a one-man task. Even with help, completing the dictionary would take decades. And this was way more than a century before computers. Many people sent in slips of paper with quotes and sources.

But one man came to Murray's aid more than any other, somehow managing to find the time search for words hours on end, constantly, eventually submitting over ten thousand quotes, including many obscure words Murray wrote to him about, specifically assigning him to look for.

What Murray didn't know was why this man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had so much time on his hands: He was an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane. A murderer.

You can read the true story, which reads like a novel, in a book I love: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, by Simon Winchester.

I read it years ago, marked it up, and still count it as one of the most fascinating non-fiction works I've ever read.


Oh, and if you're on Twitter, be sure to follow @OEDonline for fun word nerdiness throughout your day!

A Release, An Event, & A Giveaway

All I can say about the last little while is holy busy, Batman!

(I may be channeling a lot of Batman lately, as my husband and I went to see Dark Knight Rises over the weekend . . .)

I swear, someone has a demented time turner and has put my life on fast forward. (How in the world have I reached the point where my son has to look at college and scholarship applications? Impossible, I tell you!)

This post is to help keep my readers in the loop on the fun (and not Mom's freaking out again) stuff going on in the writing arena of my life.

Introducing Timeless Romance Anthologies
I feel so fortunate to be part of this awesome project! Heather B. Moore, Sarah M. Eden, and I have begun something uber cool: anthologies of Romance stories. Each volume will have SIX stories focused on a specific theme, and we'll hand pick three other writers to contribute to each volume, and you can expect three anthologies a year.

The first volume, what we're calling our "Winter Collection," is full of historical Romance stories that take place, yep, in the winter. (See? It's up in time for the holidays! Awesome stocking-stuffer! *cough-cough*)

(Also: Isn't the cover so pretty?!)

Our guest writers this time: Heidi Ashworth, Joyce DiPastena, and Donna Hatch.

The historical stories span the medieval period all the way to 1901 New York City, and each one is a great read. (It was no accident that we picked Heidi, Joyce, and Donna; we know they'd come up with something wonderful!)

The e-book anthology is up for purchase TODAY! Get it on Kindle HERE or in other e-book formats on  Smashwords HERE, for the whopping price (haha!) of $3.99.


ATHENA Launch: A Month Early in ONE Store Only
Join me, Julie Wright, and Heather,  author of the fourth Newport Ladies book Athena, this Saturday at the Fort Union Deseret Book during their Ladies Night event from 6-8PM.

This is the only store that will have Athena available for sale until it hits stores officially in November. So come get it before anyone else! There will be giveaways, other authors and artists, and food. Come!


ATHENA Spread-the-Word Contest
Help us let others know about Saturday's book signing, especially that long-anticipated Athena will be available for Fort Union customers!

Tweet about it, Facebook it, mention it on Google +, blog about it . . . and have a shot at entering one of several awesome prizes.

For details, visit THIS POST on the Newport Ladies blog.

While you're there, check out the awesome review (link in the sidebar) that Paige got from The Deseret News!

Joyce DiPastena is holding a giveaways right now in honor of the anthology's release.

Phew. I think I covered all the big stuff for this week!

In the meantime, go download the anthology, curl up with a cup of cocoa, and enjoy six awesome stories!

Fun with Punctuation. Really.

Those little black marks we use in our sentences are remarkably powerful. A slight change or deletion to a sentence, and suddenly we have a totally different meaning.

Here are two of my favorite examples in action.

#1. I see this one around Facebook a lot, so you may have seen it: 

Version 1: Let's eat Grandpa!
Version 2: Let's eat, Grandpa!
"Punctuation saves lives."

(All thanks to a little comma!)

#2. I first saw this one in college thanks to a professor. Like the first example, neither is incorrect from a technical standpoint, but each has a totally different meaning that relies entirely on punctuation.

Version 1: Woman, without her man, is nothing.
Our professor wrote that on the board, to the angry gasps (and possibly hisses) of the women in the class (and to the chortles of the guys).

Version 2: Woman: without her, man is nothing.
Now the women were laughing. And the guys just grunted and shifted uncomfortably. 

So why am I bringing up punctuation, something usually reserved for Word Nerd Wednesday? For one reason:

Today is the 9th Annual National Punctuation Day!

According to the official website, the holiday, among other things, "reminds America that a semicolon is not a surgical procedure."

(Hahahaa! The only thing better than a semicolon is a semicolon joke. I know, right?!)

Each year, the folks at National Punctuation Day host a short writing challenge, one that requires entries to use thirteen different punctuation marks in the span one paragraph, which can consist of only 3 sentences. (Yes, you can use the same mark more than once, but you must use all thirteen.)

I love the idea of this challenge, because, among other things, you must know how all of the punctuation marks actually work (or you're forced into finding out!).

Here's this year's contest, taken from the official site:

Vote for your favorite Presidential Punctuation Mark in one, highly punctuated paragraph!

The rules: Write one paragraph with a maximum of three sentences using the following 13 punctuation marks to explain which should be “presidential,” and why: apostrophe, brackets, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, exclamation point, hyphen, parentheses, period, question mark, quotation mark, and semicolon. You may use a punctuation mark more than once, and there is no word limit. Multiple entries are permitted.

In short, persuade us that your favorite punctuation mark should be the official punctuation mark of the President of the United States.

While the holiday is a time to play around with punctuation, I hope it also brings some attention to the little marks that can seemingly clutter up our sentences.

If more people understood how a well-punctuated sentence can make their message come across smoothly and easily for the reader, I think more people would learn proper punctuation.

They'd also realize that punctuation rules aren't limiting; rather, the rules open up far greater possibilities for communication than you would have without them.

The contest is open until the Sunday, September 30. For details about how to submit, what prizes you're competing for, and more, visit the National Punctuation Day site.

And then bake up some punctuation mark treats. Just think: three cupcakes in a row for ellipses. A jelly roll cake plus a cookie for an exclamation point. Bread dough shaped and baked into a question mark. The possibilities are endless! I may have to come up with a punctuation mark-themed dessert or side dish tonight!

On My Own—From the Archives

SO much has happened and is happening that I'm trying frantically to catch up, and that includes keeping my blog updated. I hope to return to Word Nerd Wednesday next week.

One thing happening is that my oldest daughter has been playing music from Les Miserables. She particularly enjoys playing "On My Own."

It's beautiful, but I admit that hearing it also makes me giggle. The experience described below is why. It originally appeared here on my blog in October 2007.

(This same daughter, if anyone in my area is interested, is beginning to teach piano lessons. She's a beautiful musician, and she's great with kids.)

On My Own, Or on YouTube

As I’ve mentioned before, I went to high school with a bunch of thespians. These are people who took acting and made it a lifestyle. Their favorite party games were acting games. (Ever played "In the Manner of the Adverb"?) Their favorite pastimes were viewing or participating in plays—or listening to Broadway soundtracks.

With their insane music ability, it was a snap to stand around a piano while one (take your pick; it could be any one of half a dozen of them) sight read music and the rest sang along in perfect harmony. (Except me. "Give Annette the melody" was their sympathetic mantra.) Their competitions weren’t of the football variety, but rather Region Drama.

Being part of this group was particularly interesting for me, as I lived in a tight shell of shyness. These people exploded that shell off my person—which was a good thing in many ways, if uncomfortable at times. It stretched me.

Because of them, I auditioned for and performed in three community youth theater productions. It was because of them I started taking voice lessons and tried out for (and sang in) the school choir. It was because of them I found my interest in ballroom dance (which, in turn, led to meeting my husband).

It was also because of them that I ended up playing the temptress/blackmailer Desaray Cahoon one wintry night.

Four of the gang were on a double date and decided to make a soap opera video. They spent much of the evening writing out the script. Then they called the rest of our group over to film the thing. (Essentially crashing their date, but hey—we were all buds, and it was fun.)

The script began with one of the love interests getting smacked on the head by a rival, sending her into a coma. I’m fuzzy on the rest of the story—it made more sense on paper than it did on tape—but there was also a mute girl cured by the pure love of her teacher, including a delightful montage between them after they discover their love. They frolicked in the snow in Em’s backyard.

And then there was the blackmailing scheme of which Desaray (moi) was a part.

But the scene that had us all in stitches was when Em—the one who loved the mute girl's teacher (so we had a triangle; he was in love with the mute instead of her . . . the whole thing was dreadfully soapy)—sang a tearful rendition of “On My Own” from Les Miserables.

To fully appreciate this, you have to understand Em. She’s a consummate actress. In high school she played about every leading role possible. She won the award as the best actor of her graduating class. She went on to get a BA and an MA in theater. So yeah, the girl could (and can) act.

[2012 update: She's gone on to appear in a film many of my readers have surely seen. In the Joseph Smith movie, she's Mary Fielding, Hyrum's wife.]

Em can be very intense in her performances, especially her dramatic ones. Which is what made her hysterical to watch when she would take humorous material and turn it serious.

To this day, I crack up whenever I think of her dramatic interpretation of the song, “Oklahoma.” I can still hear the emotion and intensity in her voice when she’d declare, “And the waving wheat can sure smell sweet.” She had us hyperventilating.

Take that passion, add a cup of melodrama, and throw “On My Own” at her.

During the taping, one of the pianists in the group (did I mention these friends were also ridiculously talented musically?) played the music while she sang the song with the passion no Eponine has ever expressed.

I don’t know how she kept a straight face; the rest of us were rolling on the floor trying not to laugh out loud and ruin the shot.

Afterward, we had a scream watching the soap opera—then we all declared it should be burned, because someone really could blackmail us with such embarrassing stuff.

To my knowledge, it never was destroyed. In fact, I’ve met people (friends of friends) who say they’ve seen it. Um . . . yikes?

So I’m a bit scared that some day it’ll make its way onto YouTube or something. (This was way before YouTube.)

Fast forward many years:

When I wrote the book that became Lost Without You, I dropped in an inside joke that only those friends would catch. Some of them reportedly snorted with laughter when they came to it.

It was when the voice teacher in the book is first introduced.

Her name is Desaray Cahoon.