Author Carolyn LeComte to hold interview

Author's activities are always welcome additions to note in our blog.

Author Carolyn LeComte, DARK PARADISE, will be on an all-day chat in the Yahoo group Long and Short Reviews starting 9:00 a.m. on Wed., Nov. 11. People should join the group at least the day before, and indicate they want email notifications of the discussions, as the chat will be done through emails. (They can change this preference later if they'd like.)

Print Galleys are up, one more time

Print Galleys are back up for Joan L. Cannon's MAIDEN RUN, Jeanine Malarsky's MAGGIE'S MIRAGE, and Elena Bowman your latest corrections for GENESIS should be back up by the end of today.

The following submissions went out to the Book Selection Committee this week:
ROSE AND THE RING
A DOOR OPENS
THIEF OF HOPE
DOING DEAD MAN'S TIME
A GRANDFATHER'S GIFT

That means we should have answers on those within a couple of weeks. If you are the author of a title on that list, keep an eye on your e-mail.

Cheers!

Plurals and Possessives-Writing Tip

Like most professional publishers in the US we use the CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE. Sometimes it's hard for me, after years as a reporter on a daily newspaper using AP/UPI, to remember that Nouns ending in s, still get an apostrophe S to show possession. In the newspapers and in most English 101 classes that we all took in school, they just get an S and an apostrophe. But according to CHICAGO Only PLURAL possessives get the noun and apostrophe without the ending S. When they are plural, but not possesive, nouns ending in S get an added -es on the end.

Therefore the following sentence is correct, however inconsistent it may look.

The Graveses came to dinner at Thomas's parents' house.

Almost every publisher has its own list of exceptions to the CHICAGO rules, and if those guidelines are available on line, it's helpful for you to look at them and make sure your manuscript complies with their guidelines, before submitting it for publication, because even though editors and publishers realize that rulebooks differ, they also know that if they see "Graves' came to dinner at Thomas' parents house" in your manuscript they will have to go in and fix three mistakes.

And how do I know this? Because I've made every writing mistake there is to make at least once.

Am still playing catch up on Summer titles

Beaucoup apologies for all the delays. For those of you still waiting-- Jeanine Malarsky, Tonya Ramagos, and Joan L. Cannon -- you should be hearing from me soon. The new pain meds leave me either asleep or "addled." But I try to work a little every day and hope to get caught back up soon.

Everyone in the medical establishment assures me this situation is "temporary" and I will get "adjusted" to the new meds soon. I sure hope so.

arline

Zero is nothing--A numbers Rule writing tip

Long lines of zeros are confusing to the eye. Stylebooks vary on usage of numbers. Strunk & White says "Spell numbers out to 99," but AP/UPI NEWS style says "Spell numbers out to nine." We follow the CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE, with a few changes to accommodate some of the computer programs among our distributors.

CHICAGO says to spell out numbers to 99 and use the numerical thereafter. Measurements should always be given as numericals, especially measurements of time, distance, and money. And long lines of zeros should be avoided to escape that Eye confusion mentioned above.

Therefore it shouldn't be $5,000,000.00 But $5 million dollars--and yes the "dollars" is usually included just for clarity's sake.

It should be five o'clock in the afternoon, unless a digital clock is used, and then it's 5 p.m. not 5:00 PM. Zeros again.

CHICAGO does say to use caps for the AM and PM abbreviations, but caps have a way of disappearing from text for at least one of our distributors, so we go with AP News style there and use a.m. and p.m.

Well, back to work for me on Elena Bowman's GENESIS. Thanks again, Elena, for having sharp eyes!

Hope y'all have a good day.

November New books are up

At last! Sorry it took me so long to get them posted. I have been a little under the weather again, but am back to normal now.

Congratulations to new ebook authors Jack Adler BITTER SHIELDS , Charles Wilson THE REMORA, David Yates TRAVELER, and Sondra Wilson LIFE AS A VIP (VISUALLY IMPAIRED PERSON), whose e-books went on sale November 1, and to Bliss Addison BATTLE OF WILLS, Anna Dynowski FULL HOUSE, and Elena Dorothy Bowman GENESIS: SARAH'S LANDING IV, whose print books went press this month!

Y'all are great!

arline chase
publisher

Common Writing Mistakes

We all have little things that trip us up, even when we usually know better if we stop to think about it. With me, it's "its and it's". Here are a few of the most common mistakes we see:

1. It’s vs. Its

This is a common mistake. It’s also easily avoided by thinking through what you’re trying to say.

“It’s” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.” “Its” is a possessive pronoun, (easy to mistake, as most possessives DO get apostrophes -- just not this one. Here’s an easy rule of thumb—repeat your sentence out loud saying “it is” instead. If that sounds goofy, “its” is likely the correct choice.

2. Your vs. You’re

This one drives me nuts, and it’s become extremely common, even among writers with good skills othewise.

“Your” is a possessive pronoun, as in “your car," "your computer” or “your book.” “You’re” is a contraction for “you are,” as in “you’re screwing up your writing by using your when you really mean you are.”

3. There vs. Their

This one seems to trip up everyone occasionally, often as a pure typo. Make sure to watch for it when you proofread.

“There” is used many ways, including as a reference to a place (“let’s go there”) or as a pronoun (“there is no hope”). “Their” is a plural possessive pronoun used when something belongs to more than one someon, as in “their bags” or “their opinions.” Always do the “that’s ours!” test—are you talking about more than one person and something that they possess? If so, “their” will get you there.

4. Affect vs. Effect

To this day I have to pause and mentally sort this one out in order to get it right. As with any of the other common mistakes people make when writing, it’s taking that moment to get it right that makes the difference.

“Affect” is a verb, as in “Your ability to communicate clearly will affect your income immensely.” “Effect” is a noun, as in “The effect of a parent’s low income on a child’s future is well documented.” By thinking in terms of “the cause producing the effect,” you can usually sort out which is which, because you can’t stick a “the” in front of a verb. While some people do use “effect” as a verb (“a strategy to effect a settlement”), they are usually lawyers, and you should therefore ignore them if you want to write like a human.

5. The Dangling Participle

Now I can dangle a participle with the best of them and once had a woman lying in a barn with a broken hip. My dear hubby (who was proofing for me) saw that, laughed and said, "Must've been the roof!"