Grammar Police: Ellipses...again

A few weeks back, the Sheriff tackled the long debated question of the ellipse (you know, those little dots ... in writing) :-)

Well, I have reason to believe the yours truly and Grammar Girl were wrong (GASP!)

Nothing is written in stone...yet...but I wanted to give you heads up on the matter. No worries, dear peeps, the Sheriff is on the case and will get the write answer soon!

Until then, do with ellipses what you choose (well, almost what you choose) and wait for the Sheriff to return with a final verdict! AHA!

~JD 

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest is underway. Just yesterday, Amazon announced the Quarterfinalist.

If you're unfamiliar with the contest, here's a quick recap:

First Round: 5,000 entries in two different categories "general fiction" or "Ya".
Those entries are slimmed down to 1,000 in each category from just  300 word pitch!

Second Round: 1,000 entries in each category are slimmed down to 250 from scores you receive from a 5,000 word excerpt.

And that's were we are now.

I wanted to take this moment to congratulate some fellow bloggers who have made it to this round (it's quiet an accomplishment!)

So, congrats to:

Hart Johnson
Roland Yeomans
Theresa Milstein
Oh, and ME!

All four of us have entries in the YA category.

If you want to take a look-see and learn more about the contest, read Quarterfinalist entries, or just poke around, check out the Amazon ABNA website.  (Don't look for JD's name on the list, though--I used a pen).

Congrats to all 250 YA finalists (and the 250 general fiction finalists). Only 35 more days and we'll see who makes it the next round!

~JD

ELEMENTAL by Emily White--trailer debut!

Elemental, Emily White’s taut YA sci-fi thriller debut (Spencer Hill Press, May 2012) confronts many of our greatest fears… darkness, loneliness and the power within each of us to become either the hero or villain in the plotline of our life. Ella, who has been held prisoner aboard a starship since she was a young child, must discover whether she will be the prophesied Destructor… or if she will, instead, be destroyed.

Here is her brand new, shiny trailer! Enjoy!


~JD

When Dogs Clash & Screw Up Your Day (or week for that matter)

My week has been crazy. Literally.

Besides the normal everyday stuff (you know . . . work, the offspring, the offspring's horse, the offspring's swimming, and, uh, life) THIS made my week. In a bad way.

What happens when a 30lb Heinz 57 puppy collides with a 5lb 10 year old Pomeranian:



There I was, ready to go pick up the offspring from swimming on Wednesday and take her to the swimming dinner . . . when I hear the terrible screech from my baby in the yard! I look out and the offspring's mutt is attacking, er, playing with my baby. But somethings wrong! Bacca has his little paw in the air. I rush out and bend over him. His paw is gushing with blood! (I. Hate. Blood.) Frantic phone call to the vet. Frantic phone call to the hubs (who dared put me on hold!). Frantic dashing in the house. Apply pressure. STOP the bleeding somehow and not loose a finger (Bacca bites, peeps. Even good dogs have tempers.)

And *sigh* a dewclaw mishap and one little red cast later. My baby.

Thank goodness today is the day before SPRING BREAK!!!!!! Time for a rest (so I'll be gone next week, peeps!).

Enjoy the weather and the time off if you've got some!

~JD 

Is there a REAL Importance for Social Media?

If you're a writer, you know you've been told:

"You must have a platform!"

"You must have an online presence!"

"You must do loads of social networking!"

Hmph . . .

You know what this leads to? Confusion. Web overload. A gazillion passwords for a gazillion different social apps. AND Massive time sucking.

But hey, you get to meet great people, develop good relationships, develop your brand, hopefully get a fan base, and get your name OUT THERE.

As a writer myself, I understand the importance of LEARNING from social media. Learning about grammar, plotting, grammar, writing, grammar, how to query, grammar, stalking agents, and mostly importantly, grammar. So I am ALL for writers using social to learn their craft. After that, I'm on the fence.

Here's why: agents can't even agree if a writer needs an online presence. Scott Eagan and Mary Kole say no. Jill Kemerer (writer) did a post on several agents who say yes. And Alan Rinzler  did a post on what you really need to know about a new author platform.

There's tons of information out there about it. And I think the answer lies in the writer. Think about it. Stephanie Meyer didn't blog or do anything crazy when Twilight went bat-crap crazy. Stephen King? Nope. Nora Roberts? Nope. J.K. Rowling? Nope. Sure, they might have Twitter and Facebook fan pages NOW ... but they didn't. Their FB pages and Twitter accounts didn't make them famous (their writing did that!). And you better believe that none of them have blogged.

But then there are writers who have used social media to work for them. A couple good examples would be Tahereh Mafi and Roni Loren. They blogged until their fingers bled and developed their brand like nobodies business.

So where do you fit into to the social media madness? Like I said, I'm still on the fence. Don't get me wrong, as a soon-to-be-published author, I've got every account you could possibly imagine. Am I using them to my full potential? Not yet. I WILL use them, though. But for me, it's going to be a matter of what works for ME.

Now, what works for you? How do you feel about the social media madness?

~JD

Grammar Police: Ellipses ...

Today it's time for the Sheriff to tackle ELLIPSES! They are those little dots (. . .) you find in books, emails, news stories, etc. No matter where there are words . . . there are ellipses. *giggle* See what I did there? ;-)

Back to business!

Ellipses are one of the most commonly MISUSED things when writing. I used them incorrectly when I first started writing. Not only are there specific instances you need to use them, there is also a specific WAY to use them.

First, why we use them:

1. To show that we are omitting something.
   
Example:
"I want to go to the store tomorrow; Macys is having a sale; there's this new pair of shoes I must have!"

With the ellipses: "I want to go to the store . . . there's a new pair of shoes I must have!"

OR: "Twilight has been the most successful movie of 2012--but I hated it."
 With ellipses: "Twilight has been the most successful movie of 2012 . . ."

Hmm . . . do you see the difference in the second example? By omitting something and adding ellipsis, I've actually changed what the writer was trying to say. Interesting . . .

Other reasons to use ellipses include: showing time has passed, showing a list is finished, and the most used reason--the speaker has trailed off in the middle of a sentence or left something unsaid.

NOW, the formatting. And this is serious, peeps. Mainly because I see this wrong All. The. Time. And if it weren't for my good ol' friend Sarah Fine, I would have never learned this. She wanted to get to the bottom of the ellipse dilemma, therefore making me an expert. LoL.

Formatting is simple: 

--Ellipses use THREE dots. Not two, not four, and please NOT five. Three dots.

--There needs to be a space BEFORE and AFTER the set of dots.

--Now this last rule is debatable (for some). But Grammar Girl says this is correct, and who am I to argue?
So, lastly, put a space in between each of the dots, too.

End the end, your sentence will look like this:

I think . . . wait . . . did you say there was a man-eating dog in the backyard?

Word(space)dot(space)dot(space)dot(space)word

Got it? Good! Now go tackle the world and fill it full of ellipses! Oh, wait . . . don't do that. Using too many it a bad, bad thing. ;-)

~JD