Interesting Agent Stats

Here is a link to Nathan Bransford's post yesterday. He is a well-known and very successful agent who always has an outstanding blog I like to follow. I found his post as well as many of the comments and questions insightful, so I thought I would make you aware of it if you were not already. I was especially encouraged by the fact that about 30% of his queries are potentially publishable (of course, some with more work than others). So keep writing!

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Top Eight Things I Love About Writing

http://www.123rf.com/ Why do writers write? It's certainly not for the money. The major success stories are all we hear about, but they are actually so rare as to be laughable. So why do writers write? I think the answers are individual for each writer, but similar across many writers. In honor of Valentine's Day, here are the top eight (8) reasons why I write: 1. The creative process. I love when I have a new idea in my head and I get excited about it. I love to express those stories and put them on the paper for someone else to enjoy. The mental process of figuring out how to make a story work is fascinating and exciting. 2. The escape. When I write, I get to create the world and events. It allows me to be in control of how good (or bad) things are. It rejuvenates me to face my own reality again. Writing is one of my outlets of stress relief; I can always make things worse for my character than whatever is going on in my life. Whether directly

Grammar Pet Peeves

So I have this textbook for one of my classes (drier than dry), and it has adopted a "style" of punctuation that absolutely drives me nuts. Now, in the great grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter, especially since it is consistent throughout. But it just irks me, and since I have no where else to really complain, I'm going to spout off here. Then hopefully I'll be able to get over it and ignore it for the rest of the semester. This book has decided to put its initial quotation marks as single rather than double marks. So a direct quote would be, 'This is a direct quote.' Or 'This is a "quote within a quote."' Annoying. Especially since this is actually a collection of scholarly English essays. Come on, people. Hasn't anyone heard of MLA? Another grammatical pet peeve - bad signs. If you are going to expose something to the public (like on a marquee, flier, etc.), please for heaven's sake, make sure it's correct

K12 Teaching in 2020

Today I drove home from work with my rock music blasting at higher decibels than, I'm sure, was healthy. But I needed a heavy beat loud enough to feel it vibrate in my chest. I'm not a drinker, but if I were, today would be a three-glasses-of-wine day. And there's no specific reason. Except that I'm only a month into the school year, and I'm already exhausted. And I'm not alone. All you parents out there who are concerned about the style, quality, amount or any other qualifier of education your child is receiving this year, I can guarantee you that an entire team of teachers, administrators, and support staff is just as worried. We're doing our damnedest to meet your (and our!) expectations. Right now, I'm barely keeping my head above the water line. I am the kind of personality who plans things out. I visualize my dive into the deep end, consider all possible complications, and then perform a smooth breaststroke from one side to the next before any of t

The Write Slice: Write or Wrong

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