I Am Too Tired to Bring the Two Dishes to the Cookout…

Now that is a mouthful! This is also one of those spelling errors that makes me want to scratch my eyes out every time I see it.

Two. It is a number. That is it. Nothing more, and nothing less. It is Two. Not one, or three.

The Number Two Image

Too means in addition to, or also. “We will go too.” “I want to see it too.” If more than one person is involved, you can likely use “too”, and not make me scratch my eyes out. Think many people. Or think just overwhelmed. Too tired, too stressed, too busy. It is too much.

To is nothing more than a preposition that sets up a sentence. It can be before a noun, or a verb. “I want to go to Chicago.” I want to dance.” “I want to not ever see the words to, too, and two misused in public.”

People Always Ask Me…

…at least twice a week.

Why I read, edit, and review books, but I do not write.

I actually do write. I write a lot. I have stacks of stories, some spilling over into sequels. I have fiction, and I have personal stories that I know would fly off the shelves. But I cannot share those. Not yet.

I like reading stories because it is my escape. My chance to go somewhere else other than my crazy 50-hour-work-week-three-girls-still-at-home-no-one-knows-how-to-do-chores life 🙂

I like editing because I have always had a love for the English language (as ridiculous as it is, and it is ridiculous), and I want to share what I know with new authors so they can be the best writer possible.

I have met so many amazing writers, and am glad that I am able to share in their success, even if it is behind the scenes. I have new friends, and I have read stories that I may not have otherwise found.

Nothing beats a good story!

From a Buick 8 – Stephen King

Yes, this is what I was finishing up yesterday. I am not positive on the number, but this has to be at least the 8th time I have read this story. I still pulls me in now the same way it did when I first read it.

From a Buick 8 cover image

I consider this “classic” Stephen King. We tend to hear that a lot, and say it often. We compare stories we read now to the first stories Mr. King wrote. We even try to find the timeline of his “drunk” writing, and his “sober” writing. We want him to explain to us how he dare to write something we did not like.

Have I read stories he wrote that I did not like? Absolutely. But it does not mean it is time to put the pen down and do something else. I read a story that he wrote that literally made me cry, it was romantic and horror all at once. I cannot remember the name of the book, and I do not own it. I just remember a man being in love with a younger woman and she was killed in the end…

From a Buick 8 is intense, supernatural, and all about family and friends. A young man is struggling with the death of his father, and it seems like no one can give him the answers he needs. The answers that will allow him to accept what happened, and move on with his life.

No spoilers here, as usual, but we are talking about a car that showed up out of nowhere, with a driver that disappeared, and became the unfortunate property of Pennsylvania State Police Troop D.

It spit out horrors, and tried to pull them each in. And friendships lasted, friends died, and life moved on, with or without answers that one young man so desperately needed.

If you have read this story, I would love to hear what you thought of it!

I Would Like My Dessert, in the Desert

I am unsure why this spelling error is so difficult, but it is one of the most common that I have seen.

I wish I had a quick cheat to remember which one is which (Maybe you do?) but I really don’t.

Desert is a noun, and a verb. You can desert someone (verb), or you can leave a person in the desert (noun).

Dessert is just something sweet that we all wish we could eat in excess and never pay the consequences.

Lot 28 (A Lucky Marks Mystery) – G.W. Pomichter

Although this is not the first book in the Lucky Marks Mystery series, it is the first one I have read. (I now have the “first” book in my possession, and will be starting it soon!)

Lucky Cover Image

Lucky Marks is your classic detective: smart, funny, and a devil-may-care attitude. Lucky finds himself working for a film studio where he is responsible for looking for the skeletons in the actors and actresses closets before the journalists find them. While working there, he gets put on the trail of a director who seems to be a little too interested in his younger actresses. Under-age and no-way-legal actresses, that is.

It does not take long for a dead body to appear on set, and then it gets even more interesting. With a studio full of actors and actresses who could all be suspects, it is time for Lucky to put his skills to the test and find the guilty person, before anyone else gets killed.

Lot 28 Cover Image

Go Set A Watchman – Harper Lee

I want to tell you I loved it; but I can’t. I am not ready to tell you I hated it, either. I tried my best to ignore all of the spoilers and media-hype as I was reading this story, and I think I was fairly successful.

photo courtesy of http://pastemagazine.com
photo courtesy of http://pastemagazine.com

But; life goes on as it always goes on, and I was well beyond distracted with work, daughters, school-things, editing, and oh, yeah: I have not been feeling well for 6+ days now.

So, I will absolutely cut Ms. Harper Lee some slack here. But I do feel that even in my most focused state of mind, I would have found this a bit difficult to read.

When I first started it, it was like a breath of fresh air: someone who wrote because they had to, and it all came natural and nothing sounded forced. But then the point-of-view was changing faster than my teenage daughters change their clothes, or minds, or attitudes; truth-be-told.

At this point I am looking forward to hearing what you thought of it. One passage that I absolutely have to share:

‘Why doesn’t their flesh creep? How can they devoutly believe everything they hear in church and then say the things they do and listen to the things they hear without throwing up? I thought I was a Christian but I’m not. I’m something else and I don’t know what. Everything I have ever taken for right or wrong these people have taught me – these same, these very people. So it’s me, it’s not them. Something has happened to me.’ (Ms. Jean Louise Finch, pg 167, Go Set a Watchman).

Did you love it, or did you hate it?

Go Set a Watchman: Chapter One – Harper Lee

Am I the only one anxiously waiting for this new book to come out on Tuesday? It has been a long time since I waited for a book release. Like Harry-Potter-midnight-lines long time.

The Guardian has published the first chapter to this new story, and you can read it here: Go Set a Watchman Chapter One.  (If my link will not work for you, like it is not working for me, copy and paste this: http://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2015/jul/10/go-set-a-watchman-read-the-first-chapter )

photo courtesy of http://pastemagazine.com
photo courtesy of http://pastemagazine.com

There is a major spoiler, or update from To Kill a Mockingbird, right from the start of this story. So if you do not want to know what that is until you have the book-in-hand, avoid anything online related to this story.

Hoping your Saturday is full of good weather, good memories, and great stories!

In The Unlikely Event – Judy Blume

014

I think it has been about 20 years since I have read a book by Judy Blume. As always, she did not disappoint. I will be honest and say it took a few chapters before I really began having a vested interest in the characters and plot, but once I got to that point, it was difficult to put it down.

This is a fictional story, with the main action of the story revolving around real events that happened in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where Mrs. Blume grew up. There were 3 airplane crashes within a span of 58 days during the 1951-1952 school year, and Judy was an 8th grade student at the junior high school when these crashes took place.

She easily pulls together a story that spans 35 years, and many characters are introduced that play a significant role from beginning to end. The main characters are Miri, Henry, Natalie, Mason, Rusty, Irene, and Corinne, just to mention a few. Okay; just to mention several.

There is drama, suspense, romance, fighting, and all of the struggles that boys and girls go through as they become adults. No spoilers as usual, but it is definitely a story worth investing a few days of reading on.

Have you read it already? Let me know what you thought!

Punctuation Overload? Or: Maybe Not? Okay; Slightly.

Have you read a story with more punctuation in it than actual words? I myself am guilty of abusing the very basic comma. You have likely noticed me doing this in my posts. Every. Single. One. I like using periods to emphasize how I am feeling as well.

You see what I did there, right? Oh; I did it again, just now.

Okay. Sorry. I am really done now.

But as I have watched, and continue to watch, my 4 daughters go through school, it is beyond obvious that the emphasis on basic grammar and language structure is nowhere near what I stressed about. They do not even have to read the books that my 3 siblings and I had to read. I am positive none of my girls have any idea what “The Scarlet Letter” is.

So I am about to unleash some random Proper-English-Etiquette-If-You-Care-To-Use-It posts.

I am pretty sure we are all going to have fun with this one 🙂