From My Castle to Yours

[CastleLyons]

Hi, everybody!

I'm new here. Well, not entirely new. I've been lurking for awhile and finally decided to climb aboard. Enjoyed everyone's postings in all the different categories. You all sound like a great group!

About me: Been married a long time, but I'll not say how long cuz that will give away my age.

I'm an aspiring author. Technically, I'm already an author because I've had a lot of stuff published in the church curriculum realm, and also feature articles in newspapers. Still working on getting my first fantasy novel published, though.

I've been working as a copyeditor for the last fifteen years or so, so if any of you have any questions along those lines, I'll be happy to help out if I can! In fact, the next thing I'm going to do is post a response on the ellipses conversation. I'm going to give you a neat trick that I'm sure you'll appreciate. I know, the ellipses conversation is so "last month"! Better late than never. Now, if I can only find that particular thread....

[Divides the Waters]

Welcome! It will be great to have a professional copyeditor on board! I'm always excited to learn of Christians writing fantasy. (I also see you're in Missouri, which is next door to my old stomping grounds in Manhattan, KS.) Now, on to the ellipses thread, because that's a question I've had myself....

[CastleLyons]

Hey, Divides, thanks for the welcome. I have to say, I've particularly enjoyed the contributions you've made to this forum. Seems like you and I hold a lot of similar viewpoints. Kudos to you for your work with CRS. I'm a YEC myself, and a charter member of AIG's new museum. As a writer/editor of children's church curriculum, I've written an entire unit on creation, all with a fun Australian theme. It's called "Outback Adventure: Lessons on Creation and the Flood," and is part of our Young Explorers line for grade schoolers.

Speaking of creation, I'd like to resurrect the thread about languages. Maybe I'll get to that later today.

[Jeff Gerke]

Welcome CastleLyons!

Jeff

[rwley]

Welcome to the Anomoly, CastleLyons. It's always good to have another expert around to share their wisdom and experience.

Robi

[happydancer4]

Hi CastleLyons!!

I've been a copyeditor for about the same time as you. My writing has improved because of seeing so many of the wrong or simply poor choices people make when they aren't consciously working at it.

I've also had some things published: articles in a travel mag with which I did my internship (years ago), but it didnt' involve any actual travel; items in a Christian singles' newletter that I also compiled and edited for a while where I used to live.



Oh no! Ellipses ..... (ha ha) I edit one blog writer who abuses them badly. It's awful. He uses them in place of periods. Ug! He also abuses question marks and exclamation points; for example, he puts five of them at the end of his sentence.

Nice to meet you!

[CastleLyons]

Nice to meet you too! I must say, I LOVE your avatar. Makes me smile every time I see it. No, it makes me chuckle.

What??? Five exclamation points?!?!?! I say never use five when six will do better!!!!!! Yes, I know what you mean. I tried breaking my boss's habit of using two or three of them, but he never did learn. That was my old boss. My new boss learns from what I tell him.

Re ellipses... I had a job proofreading for a writer similar to the one you describe. She was so used to using ellipses all the time in her chats (like there was a going-out-of-business sale on them) that she wanted to keep using them the same way in a book she was going to self-publish. I tried to explain to her what their purpose was, but she was adamant. It was her book and she was going to use punctuation however she felt like.

No wonder she couldn't hang onto a relationship with a real publisher.

OK, I'm curious... what kind of dancing do you do?

[happydancer4]

"No wonder she couldn't hang onto a relationship with a real publisher."

Some people forget that writing is a form of communication and assume that the reader will, "get what I'm saying." I wonder if she ever published anything. I like your phrase, "She was so used to using ellipses all the time in her chats (like there was a going-out-of-business sale on them)." It made me laugh.

The guy I was speaking of using ellipses for dramatic pauses, enhanced by the wonderfully excessive abuse of exclamation points and question marks.

Dancing? I do mostly oriental/belly dance. It's very good work for the torso muscles. I took ballet in highschool, ballroom in college, and now I do a little Latin on an exercise DVD, too.

[Spokane Flyboy]

I blame RPGs for the excessive use of ellipses. Games like Final Fantasy had dialogue chocked full of them.