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Ask versus Request
When did that happen? Am I the only one who thinks it’s odd? How did a very solid verb seemingly suddenly become a noun? And why? Especially when we’ve always had a perfectly fine noun for that very thing. I’m talking about two words: ask and request. Being the kind of person that I am,…
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The Re-release of Millie
I finally finished fixing the errors in “Millie’s Adventures in Time.” This time around, I had the help of my sister, Debbie Todd, who made note of all the typos, wrong words, and grammatical errors that she noticed. She then sent them to me in an email and I implemented 95% of them. In some…
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If You can Afford It
Here’s my advice. If you can afford it, absolutely go with a professional proofreading service. Also, seriously consider having your novel professionally edited. Most people advise that you have your manuscript edited first. Typically, editors have the power to change just about anything up to eliminating whole paragraphs. Ultimately, the final product is more readable…
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Bonfire’s Mom Writes
The Maddie in the title of my blog is our dog. But we also have a cat named Bonfire. He came with that name. We couldn’t seem to change it. We tried. But nothing else would stick. We got him in late November of 2012 shortly after we had to put our previous cat, Winnie,…
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I’m Annoyed
There are a lot of things that annoy me. Honestly, I’d like to think of myself as a tolerant person. But the truth probably lies somewhere between those two statements. Maybe, sadly, a little closer to the first one. Yes, police brutality is a problem. Yes, it’s been a problem for a long time. Yes…
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Weird Words, Part 11
Nincompoop Even though the word “nincompoop” is considered to be colloquial, it’s claimed that it has a very learned past. One account reports that it stems from non compos mentis, which is Latin for “not of right mind.” It’s claimed that it was once actually a legal term. The idea of a lawyer using that…
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Soliciting an Editorial Review
Every now and then, Google offers up an article that is really relevant to my needs. For the most part, though, they offer bits about celebrities with whom I am not even familiar, or sports news. And of course there is the constant barrage of Covid-19 based articles. But the other night, there was an…
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Pure Delight
We used to feed all the birds. We had thistle seed for the finches. We put out mixed seed for the various songbirds. We were sure to have plenty of black sunflower seeds on hand. And we scattered unsalted, roasted peanuts in the shell for the scrub jays. We tried a suet feeder for a…
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Side Effects
Side benefits, actually. My steel-toed work boots have seen a lot of use lately. My husband’s place of employment still has not reopened. We don’t know if they will. The company was in some legal trouble before the pandemic and since it’s a medical office, reopening poses a few more challenges than it might for,…
Maddie's Mom Writes 