Delusions

Here's how my new book starts:

As I get off the bus, it dropped me off at a park. I found myself at the middle of the park. 

Yeah, I realize that's only two sentences. But is that really how you want to start your book? Here's a peek at how much better it gets:

I proceeded into the kitchen, to say hello to my wife. She gives me smooch and hug. I take it and smile, and then hug her lovingly back. I turn her around & hold her from behind & pull her hair back. I start kissing her neck & she starts to giggle. My right hand caressing her butt as my left makes its way to her “love-box”

Past tense, present tense, and progressive tense. Ampersands. Missing words. All of these things are even more offensive than the term "love-box."

Also, I learned this from the questionnaire:

I am told, I have trouble with commas.

Yes. Yes, you do.

This book is going to be a best-seller. It's also going to be a soon-to-be movie. And it's written on pages that are six inches wide with one-inch margins on each side.

This has to be a joke.

This week's top ten most frequently searched words according to Merriam-Webster.com:

1. bigot
2. fascism
3. butt
4. sex
5. culture
6. empathy
7. pedantic
8. irony
9. topography
10. socialism

I guess that's one way around it

It was literally like the wind had been knocked out of her.

By definition, it cannot be literally like anything. It can be literally something or like something, but not both.

I can't figure out if this is better or worse than simply using literally. On one hand, the author clearly understands that this is a figure of speech; the wind has not actually been knocked out of her. On the other hand, it's profoundly stupid.

Either way, it literally makes me sad.

Myriad

Hey, guess what. You can all go back to using the word myriad as a noun. Some people recently decided that it was not a noun but an adjective, meaning you could only say something like:

The new year presented myriad opportunities.

But a quick look into the etiology of the word informs us that, in fact, the word was actually a noun first. So go ahead. Say a myriad of opportunities if you want. Turns out that we're all right. So just this once...

Emphasis

There seems to be a lot of confusion over the best way to emphasize words or phrases.

Don't you LOVE this song?

Don't you love this song?

Don't you love this song?

Don't you love this song?

Don't you looooove this song?

Don't you love this song?!

Or occasionally you get someone who just can't contain themselves and tries to combine them all:

Don't you LOOOOVE this song?!

Needless to say, that's overkill.

Here's the thing about emphasis, though. Sometimes it's so obvious you don't even need to point it out. For example, the word love is sort of emphatic already. You don't just like the song or think it's OK; you love it. So technically, I would probably change the sentence to this:

Don't you love this song?

Yes, it's that simple, friends.

However, I understand that sometimes you are just soooo excited that you NEED to emphasize something in your writing. So let's make this easy and consistent.

Use italics.

That's it. Don't use all caps. That's a colloquial way of screaming. Don't use bold or underline. Don't use extra punctuation, and don't add extra letters.

Just use italics.

Thank you.

It's too early for this

On page three of my new book I'd already hit a "little did he know."

Later, on page five, I learned about someone's "gyrating package."

Great. Just great.

Maroon or whatever

Hi, everyone. Here's a friendly spelling lesson.

Burgundy is a darkish reddish color.

Burgandy is the incorrect spelling of this word.