Why Squirrels Are Better Than People

I haven’t been blogging lately. I’d love to say it’s because I’m so busy, but that’s not entirely true. Yes, I’m busy. But I’m also in a bit of a writing slump – known as “hell” in some writing circles. As a recovering Catholic, I am still plagued with pointless flutters of guilt from time to time, so I decided that I should write SOMETHING for my blog, even if it was off-topic.

It was at that point that I realized that this blog doesn’t have a topic, so I thought I’d talk about that a bit.

I do not have ADD, ADHD, or any other string of letters, but I do have a deep-seated love of the random. When I have what my colleagues in the publishing house call a “squirrel moment,” it isn’t because I’m easily distracted. It’s because there are so many wonderful random ideas and thoughts and nuggets of inspiration out there, and I just can’t stand to ignore them when they pass by. A phantom of an idea can become a whole story arc before you know what hit you. If you see an elephant walking down Main Street, you can turn back to what you were doing, or you can stop for a moment and have the experience. That moment then becomes a story you can share with your friends. If you never allow yourself to be distracted – if your attention never wavers from the task at hand – how many stories will you have to share? How many experiences will you have missed? Before you know it, you’ll be old and crotchety and won’t have any stories to tell or memories to cherish. That would suck.

So that’s why I’m not going to turn this into an educational blog on the art of writing. There are a ton of people out there much better equipped than me to do that. I’ll stick with the rambling randomness. It works for me.

Anyway… people are annoying. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. My nearest and dearest often observe that I have never really been a big fan of the human race as a species in general. I would like to explain why that is.

Humans have opposable thumbs, are self-aware, can dream, can create art and music, and place value in things beyond the basic necessities of life. We sing and dance; we dream of worlds far different from our own and bring them to life for others to enjoy; we have a concept of eternity and the universe. My cats are pretty awesome, but I doubt they’re going to contemplate anything more complex than their food-and-nap routine any time soon.

We are so fortunate – we can experience our lives in a way no other species can. And this is why people make me so stone-cold crazy.

Why are we arguing about religion? I’ve heard people laugh about how Doctor Who always seems to encounter aliens in London, England. Obviously, that is because it is a British television show. Little British children might continue to hide behind their sofas because of an alien invasion happening in Boise, Idaho, but people tend to relate more readily to stories surrounding what they know – their home turf. It’s now been well-established that the earth is a microscopic speck in the staggering scope of the universe. Assuming that the “one true God” only came to our speck and only delivered the “one true faith” to a select number of people living on that speck is sort of like believing that romantic comedies predominantly take place in New York City because only people who live there have embarrassing dating experiences. In other words, that’s just silly.

Why are we arguing about marriage equality? We’re specks on a speck. Our galaxy is a speck. Are we really prepared to persecute an entire group of people who just want to spend their lives together based upon something a bunch of old dudes wrote? A) The Bible was written by men. B) Those men were attempting to interpret the Word of God – they weren’t taking dictation. C) Men often get things wrong. D) Moses didn’t stop for directions, either.

Why do we worry so much about our outward image? I live in Ohio. If I see one more suburban kid trying to look “gangsta,” I may choke. My husband is from Santa Ana, California. If we had the means, I’d rent a big bus and start shipping these little wanna-be-bads down there. We could leave them on a street corner at 1:00 a.m. and see how gangsta they really are. And don’t even get me started on the ladies I tend to refer to as “hoochies.” Don’t tell me you’re looking for a man to love and respect you when you’re dressed like you charge by the hour. And trust me – heterosexual men know you have breasts, even if you don’t shove them in their faces. I see all sorts of people throughout the day, and I always wonder what they’re trying to prove. Be yourself, not an image you picked out from a catalog. If you learned to embrace your true self, then you wouldn’t have to depend on other people to discover your worth – you’d already know it.

We build houses that are many times larger than what we need. We buy cars that could seat ten but never do. We happily destroy our planet and its natural resources because heaven forbid that we be inconvenienced. We even elect politicians that we KNOW are crooked, materialistic, egomaniacal asshats because they promise to protect our completely destructive and irresponsible way of life.

Humans have created opera, sculpture, and film. People like Michelangelo, Mozart, and Shakespeare showed the incredible beauty that humans are capable of creating. Even the advances in medical science are astounding – when people take their knowledge and build it, reaching out for more answers in response to a need in the world, it is an amazing thing to witness.

But then we also developed guns, bombs, and poison gasses. We took the words of wise men and turned them into religions, but then used those religions as a vehicle for hatred.

I don’t know who invented Lycra and polyester, but anyone involved even peripherally should hang their heads in shame.

The moral of the story is (yes, I do have a point) that I dislike people because of the choices they make. They put having a fancy car before helping to feed the poor. They use their imagination to find new ways to kill rather than new ways to communicate. They constantly devalue themselves and others, and they are determined to continue to be ignorant. As I said to my friend yesterday, the mom in me wants to sit them all down and give them a stern talking to before sending them to their rooms to think about what they’ve done. But since no one would listen to me even if I did, my only consolation is that I can still retreat to a world of my own imagining, in which people learn to overcome the fears that hold them back from being truly great.

Ooh, look! Squirrel!

My Children's World

I haven’t been blogging recently because of deadlines, but I read an article today that I thought was worth chewing over. It is entitled, The Curse of Chief Wahoo.

To begin: 

BACKGROUND POINT #1:  Anyone who has bothered reading my blog will already have figured out that I am a U.S. citizen of European decent. In other words, I’m so white, I’m practically transparent. My own diversity comes from the sheer quantity of different countries to which I can trace my lineage (I will spare you the enumeration). My children, on the other hand, have a lot more on their genetic plate, so to speak. In addition to the European Caucasia-palooza that I have passed on to them, they also have Mexican, Nicaraguan, and Native American bloodlines.

BACKGROUND POINT #2:  I currently live in Cleveland, Ohio, where baseball is a favorite sport and where the local team is the Cleveland Indians. The team’s logo is Chief Wahoo.

So that’s the background.

I am the first to admit that I didn’t always understand why Native Americans bothered to protest Chief Wahoo every year on Opening Day. I honestly didn't think it was a big deal. But then, when I was younger, I did not differentiate between races or creeds. I had never been taught that there were any differences between people based on the color of their skin or their cultural heritage. 

I was wrong. There ARE differences. The most glaring difference is that as an educated, middle-class white girl, I had no appreciation for what it felt like to be on the receiving end of another person's prejudice.

I never had to worry about being discriminated against when I was growing up. It was the 1970s and, while women were certainly still fighting for equal treatment, my own mother was a successful professional. Whatever the reality was for the rest of the nation, in my house, my gender was not a limiting factor. 

I was raised in the religion that was most dominant in my neighborhood. Even in my extended family, everyone was one version of Christian or another, so the concept of religious persecution was completely foreign to me.

Further, my family was financially comfy without being wealthy, so while I played with friends from both poorer and richer backgrounds, there was nothing to prompt me to notice one way or another.

In other words, my ignorance on the subject of discrimination stemmed directly from my ignorance of prejudice itself.

Of course, as I grew older, my innocence got banged up a bit and I eventually realized that there were some whack-jobs out there who really did think that skin color or gender or sexuality or religion were perfectly legitimate reasons to judge, hate, and even kill another person. I was completely flummoxed by this, and honestly still am.

Here’s what happened:

First, I befriended a girl in grammar school who was picked on mercilessly. She came from a particularly poor background, and our spoiled suburban classmates constantly tormented her for her lack of designer clothing and general polish.

Then, a boy in my class told me I was stupid because I was a girl. I must say that my reaction was not particularly mature, but he did eventually get off the floor and stop crying. Two words: saddle shoes.

Next, my teenage years brought me my first close friendships with people from non-Christian backgrounds. This marked the first time that my assumptions about religion were really challenged, but it was generally a very kind and gentle process, if occasionally a bit awkward.

I went on to college and eventually brought home a cute Hispanic boy to meet my parents. He was sweet and played guitar and sang me love songs in Spanish and was everything I hadn’t known I had been looking for, so I married him. 

Not long after we brought home our first baby from the hospital, I had one of those defining moments when everything shifts. After observing a group of Hispanic men walk past, an acquaintance of mine turned to me and said, “I hate Mexicans.”

Blink. Blink. What?

Excuse me - that’s MY CHILD you just spewed blind hatred at!

So back to Chief Wahoo.

It’s just a baseball team logo. Does it matter enough to make a fuss over? 

In the article, Marjorie Villafane, a Sioux, is quoted as saying: "I'm here so my grandchildren can be proud of their heritage. People act like we're trying to take their baseball away from them, but we're not. It's just, why do they have to turn us into Chief Wahoo?"

Here’s what I have to say about this: 

It absolutely matters.

Chief Wahoo is a logo. It is a marketing gimmick. It is used for entertainment purposes. It could be replaced.

My children are unique and wonderful. They are human beings who have the innate right to feel proud of their heritage. They are individuals who deserve to have their bloodlines treated with the same respect as any others. They ABSOLUTELY deserve not to be judged negatively for the color of their skin or their cultural heritage. And what my children deserve is what all children deserve – the chance to grow up and learn about your family background and feel proud of where you come from.

As pretty much the entire planet has realized by now, there are MANY, MANY, MANY things wrong with prevailing attitudes in the United States. One of those things is the sad truth that a cartoon created to promote a group of overpaid men in tights who hit balls with wooden sticks is seen as more important than an entire population of indigenous people who only want to see their children walk tall. And that makes so little sense that I can’t even begin to reason it out.

I'm sad that I have to raise my children in a world in which they will be valued less than a baseball mascot. All I can do to fight that, however, is to raise my boys to change the world and hope that my children's world will someday be a better place.

Momma says I'm more important than baseball.

More of a Project Pony than a Plot Bunny

So I have gotten nothing accomplished recently. This is very frustrating for me, since I had planned to have taken over at least a portion of the world by now.

Since my world domination plans need to be readjusted, I thought I’d take a few minutes to write another blog post.

The reason I am so behind schedule is simple. If David Tennant had had the decency to be a lousy Doctor Who, then I wouldn’t have gotten sucked in to watching the last six seasons on Netflix. My children then got sucked in themselves because they’re nosy little things who always have to know what I’m watching; in the interest of family togetherness, I was practically forced to watch all six seasons all over again with them at their insistence. Then we started watching the classic series from my childhood. My youngest son has named Tom Baker the “Disco Doctor,” and my teenager is completely appalled at what passed for special effects back in the day.

We all loved Christopher Eccleston, of course, but it was David Tennant who really captured my boys’ hearts. Of course, he compounded this sin by being charming in interviews, witty on British television programs, and having the audacity to continue acting in other roles in a generally talented and engaging manner. So, David, if you’re out there – my schedule is shot to hell, and it is entirely your fault. Hang your head in shame.

One of the programs Mr. Tennant did as part of his evil campaign to turn my calendar into an absolute mess was called “Who Do You Think You Are?” His bit was “So You Think I’m Scottish?” This program interested me for several reasons, the first being that I dearly love a good story, and generally you get a good story if you dig into your family background as he was doing. It was also an excellent way to teach my boys a bit about their own heritage and give them a sense that they are here today because of the countless choices and challenges in their ancestors’ lives.

What grabbed my interest in particular when watching this program was the idea that what we consider “history” really happened to people and that events like the Clearances in Scotland, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and countless other significant points in time that we study at school directly impacted who we were destined to become. For example, had my own ancestors not been religious dissenters, they would not have hopped on the Mayflower. Who would I have been then? Well, that's easy - I would never have existed, since the intermarriage between other nationalities that has gone on in my family tree since we set foot on Plymouth Rock would never have happened. In fact, I have so many different nationalities in my background that my children tend to refer to my side of the family as simply “European.” At any rate, when you look back at a specific person from your family tree and learn about who they were and what their life was like, it brings their humanity into sharp relief, and you begin to see them as a fully three-dimensional human being, which in turn gives you unexpected insight into the person you are.

So I was thinking about this in terms of my writing and the creation of fully-actualized characters. I do become impatient with books that give the protagonists one central idea that motivates and informs all of their decisions and actions throughout the story; to me, that seems to be over-simplifying how people work. If writers could “discover” their characters in much the same way we learn about our ancestors through research and legwork, I think that it would make for much more dramatic and believable characterizations. I know that all writers work differently, and so I can only speak for myself. Generally, I will get a plot idea and develop it in my head before creating characters to fill the various necessary roles within the story. But what would happen if I constructed the person before I constructed the plot? How would that impact the finished book?

One of my cousins has suggested that I should write the story of our family, particularly that of our grandparents. I have shied away from tackling this project in the past because I really could not figure out how to even begin, but now that rascally David Tennant has given me an idea. As my fellow novelists know, an idea is a very, very dangerous thing in an imaginative mind. I have some other pieces that are currently in progress and must be completed, but once those are taken care of, I am considering tackling a new project based on the idea of a story driven entirely by history rather than characters bending to the will of the plot. I think this might make for an interesting string of blog entries as well. Guess we’ll have to wait and see! If it results in anything worth publishing, I’ll have to dedicate it to Mr. Tennant.

That little troublemaker.

The Voices are Talking Again

One of the most irritating pieces of advice I have received on writing is that I need to “find my voice.” No one has ever come up with a satisfactory explanation of what that phrase really means, and yet it’s absolutely true. So I’ve decided to blather about it for a bit.

I think it’s a pretty well-established fact that an author is most successful when writing within the genre that he or she most enjoys reading. This is an easy idea to grasp; you like gory murder mysteries, you should write gory murder mysteries. Simple.

And then someone slaps you upside the head with the whole “find your voice” speech, which simultaneously seeks to help your development as a writer and also throws a gigantic, amorphous roadblock in your path. (If you’ve never had this experience, yay for you. A lot of us have, though, so you’ll just have to trust me on this.)

Something I have in common with a lot of authors out there is that I enjoy reading books from different genres, so beyond narrowing down the sort of book I should write, that indicator doesn’t help me much. Even when you have picked out a particular genre, that still doesn’t give any indication of the sort of voice you’re going to use. Will you be funny? Dry? Bitter? Clinical? Flowery? Passionate? Sarcastic? Even when told in the third person, a book takes on a certain voice that sets the tone for both the story itself as well as how events will be presented to and received by the reader. I could tell you the story of Red Riding Hood, for example, in a way that was humorous or in a way that was darkly suspenseful. The voice of the story has a huge impact on the success of a novel, and finding the voice that works best for you is crucial.

I write romances that tend to incorporate paranormal or mystery themes, but I have written a fin de siècle novel that is deadly serious and uses tons of really big words, as well. It was fun to write, but I don’t think I could do novel after novel in that voice. I just don’t take myself seriously enough. I have also written a more “traditional” romance along the lines of a mainstream Harlequin, but I got bored by the end and slapped a marriage proposal on it and called it finished. And therein lay the clues to my “true” voice.

My current work-in-progress is an absolutely crazy, anything-goes romance that relies heavily on humor, sarcasm, and wit. It’s not any easier to write than my other novels were, but it does feel more natural. I enjoy knowing that the insane ideas or quirky bits of dialogue that pop into my head can actually be incorporated into the story, for one thing. For another, it is much more in keeping with my personality. What makes me (or any other writer) able to produce new stories, ideas, and characters is my unique point of view. What I see when I watch people interact or how I react when something happens around me is completely different from how another person would.

So what do you do when someone tells you to find your voice? Go to the local Voices-R-Us superstore and pick out one that looks pretty? Often, there’s nothing to help you except trial-and-error, which is my least favorite way to learn things. The error part really sucks.

How did find my voice?

One day, some unfortunate soul had made the mistake of asking me how I was. I love this question, because to my mind, this is an invitation to tell a story. As I launched merrily into an extremely tongue-in-cheek account of my trip to the grocery store and how I believe that the incident with the kiwi fruit was a clear indicator that ninja squirrels were out to get me, I realized that humor was the way to go.

I went home and gave it a try. I liked it. And the rest is history.

Which is not to say that my other voices (in a strictly non-multiple-personality sense) have been kicked to the curb – or kerb, if you’re in Great Britain. I’ve still got those other voices inside me, but they’ll be special little treats for when I need a break from the serious task of snark production.

In the interests of marketability, one probably should stop and consider that an author needs to build up a readership. That readership might get a tad cheesed off if the author has some sort of psychotic break and writes a novel in a completely different voice. So if you want to explore more than one voice, and your options are rather extreme in their differences (as mine are), I will just remind you that there are these wonderful things called pen names that can help you organize your different writing “personalities.” Think of it as The Three Faces of Eve, except with editors. And less makeup. And you probably won’t win an Oscar, but hey, you never know!

And really – it’s 2012. With Internet and e-books and a thriving indie writer community, the publishing world is your oyster... or we’re careening toward Armageddon (though we’ve still got a few months left, I’m told). If you want to write each book in a completely different voice, why not go for it?

Write what you enjoy.

The Real Life of a Freelance Author

So a lot of my friends and family (and random people on the street) have told me they envy me because I get to work from home. I get to write all day – just spend countless carefree hours imagining different people and places and bringing those dreams to life. Yes, I get to spend oodles of quality time with my children, be my own boss, and slack off whenever I damn well please. A life of personal fulfillment and freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want.

Yeah, about that…

Here’s the reality. Today I woke up at 6:00 a.m. (ish), pried my teenager out of bed, threw clothes at the teenager, peeled 2^nd grader off the floor (don’t ask), threw clothes at the 2^nd grader, made coffee, made lunches, kissed hubs and teenager goodbye, threw clothes at myself, fed 2^nd grader and cats breakfast, entered missing advancement information into Scout online advancement system, tallied awards needed, created spreadsheet for Pinewood Derby kit distribution, checked my email, and dropped off 2^nd grader at school. AND THEN I drove downtown to the Scout Shop, spent half an hour registering new Scouts, picking up Pinewood Derby kits, and pulling the various awards that the online advancement system said I needed. AND THEN I drove to the Cub Scout pack’s bank to make a deposit. AND THEN I drove home, drafted a contract, emailed various Scout leaders and parents with questions and clarifications, emailed all Scout leaders about meeting agenda items, discussed leadership continuity with the Cubmaster, and discussed contract matters with a publishing house. AND THEN I picked up the teenager, ordered trophies for Pinewood Derby, sent my zillionth text to my committee, came home, did homework with the 2^nd grader, waded through all the awards I’d purchased and divided them by den and Scout, texted missing awards for my husband to pick up on his way home, ordered a pizza, and fed the cats.

In a few minutes, I’ll have to inhale some food, change into my leader uniform, and run to the Scout meeting.

See any writing in there? No? Hmm…

Oh, thank heaven the pizza just showed up!

The Merits of Subtlety

I fretted over posting this for some time because I don’t want to inadvertently offend anyone, but I think there are points worth making here. However, I would like to begin with a little disclaimer that this is truly based on an amalgamation of some of the books I’ve read recently and is in no way a pointed attack on any particular author. None of these comments are inspired by a specific book or writing style, and I sincerely hope that my comments will be taken in the spirit in which they were intended. As I mention in this post, I myself am guilty of all of the missteps I’ve outlined, so I am throwing rocks at my own glass house by sharing this. 

So here goes. Gulp.

***

As I have begun wading into the pool of self-publishing, I have been doing a lot of reading to gauge the sort of sharks I’ll be swimming with. After all, we all benefit from sharing our experiences and learning from each other. Self-publishers do have a central weakness: the lack of a professional editor. Yes, we have access to paid services, but in many ways these do not provide the hyper-critical laser beam focus that a publishing house’s editorial staff would provide. Certainly, a paid service will make sure you don’t mix up “accept” and “except” or “past” and “passed,” but their job is not to tell you that your plot is clichéd or that your main character would benefit from a frontal lobotomy. This opens the door to a host of common problems in self-published novels, and these problems do tend to impact the success of independent authors as a whole, although nowhere near to the same extent they once did.

The majority of my reading has been romance novels incorporating a mystery, a paranormal slant, or both, so my comments are definitely directed primarily to those genres. As a compulsive reader, it takes a lot for me to walk away from a book without finishing it. I mean, I read cereal boxes. For entertainment. Including the list of ingredients. If a novel is too painful for me to finish, this is a really bad sign. Unfortunately, the frequency with which I have done this has increased dramatically since I began specifically reading self-published books.

In my recent reading, one overwhelming detail that I have noticed is that writers often fall into the trap of heavy-handed narratives, practically beating their readers over the head with their characters’ emotions. This error is further compounded by over-used devices like the wisdom-spouting stranger, the psychological profile from a close friend/family member/bartender, and the grand romantic gesture. I’ve committed all these sins myself. So how do we recognize the pitfalls so we don’t fall in? 

Know your enemy!

***

Since I don’t want to quote anyone in particular and then have them come after me with torches and pitchforks, I shall create over-the-top faux examples of each common boo-boo.

1) The “Strong” Heroine Who Cries

Example:

“My grandfather died twenty years ago,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears. They quickly spilled over as I continued, “He was killed in a freak Zamboni accident during an earthquake right after I lost my parents to freedom fighters from North Dakota. I miss him so much every day, but I know he would have wanted me to go on. So I have continued to pursue my dream of becoming the first macramé artist in space in honor of him and everything he taught me.”

“Flexis, you are the strongest woman I’ve ever met,” Stud said, gripping my arms in hands that shook with repressed emotion.

Commentary:

A character’s back story can be sad without tears, and if you want inner strength and fortitude in your heroine, having her cry over her misfortunes is not the way to achieve it. This is especially true when the past misfortune happened so long ago that any normal person would be able to at least relate the story without tearing up. Also, strong female characters do not cry every time they receive bad or even confusing news. She never knew her family secret? Okay, have her be concerned, muddled, upset, impatient, or questioning… but don’t have her blub about it like an infant and then turn around and call her strong.

2) The Amateur Shrink/Dr. Phil Wannabe

Example:

“He won’t let anyone get close to him ever since his cat died in Afghanistan. And then when our mom joined the circus train, it just reinforced his lack of faith in relationships. But a good woman would make him see the light,” Dirk’s sister said, spastically winking as she nudged me repeatedly with her elbow.

Commentary:

If someone starts talking to me like this, they’re usually drunk.

3) The Flouncer

Example:

I couldn’t believe my eyes. There he was, tossing a salad in my kitchen as if he had the right! It was a clear message to me that he would never take me as seriously as Suzanna, who would have been able to master the fine art of salad preparation. And to make his point with salad, knowing as he did that my own mother was killed while standing at a salad bar! How had I ever thought I could love this man? Furious, I turned on my heel and stormed out of the apartment, getting in my car and driving away in a cloud of dust. If I never saw him again, it would be too soon.

Commentary:

The overreaction doesn’t make this moment more dramatic – it just makes the heroine sound like a freaking lunatic. When the man (inevitably) goes after her to apologize for his salad insensitivity, I always want to smack him for not recognizing a blessing when he sees one. I wouldn’t wish that kind of a relationship on anyone. Also, if you want your readers to take a romantic relationship seriously, please don’t use the old “had they just communicated with each other” device to bring tension. Judging someone you supposedly love without talking to them and giving them a chance to respond really doesn’t sound like love. It sounds like high school.

4) The Egotistical Wallflower

Example:

I was shocked that he even looked at me twice. There was nothing special about me. My glossy, chestnut hair fell in long waves down my back, my skin had the delicate translucence of a Spring rose, and my eyes were a cold fire of gold and green. And yet Ethan had called me beautiful. It didn’t make sense. What was he seeing that I didn’t?

Commentary:

First of all, ever since Twilight became popular, the number of romantic heroines whose skin is described as “translucent” has reached truly ridiculous proportions. I get the lure of pale skin in a vampire novel, I do – but for the love of all that’s good in the world, PLEASE invest in a thesaurus. Second, if your heroine has a poor self-image, low self-esteem, or a lack of self-confidence, that’s fine – just try to make her not sound like she’s trying to hump her own leg while protesting that she’s ugly. If you want to show that she’s really beautiful and can’t see it, that’s why God made things like other characters and dialog. Just saying.

***

I could go on and on, but I’ve exceeded my rant quota for the day, so I’ll wrap this up. 

Think about the books you love: the ones that capture your imagination; make your heart go pitty-pat; or bring tears to your eyes. Think about the scenes that touch you most, and I can guarantee you that they all have one thing in common. Subtlety. Just a word or a phrase that hints at the underlying emotion or internal struggle. That’s all that’s needed. No long-winded explanations that make it impossible for the reader to feel any suspense or tension. Write what engages you – which isn’t the images running around in your head as you read. Look at the actual passages you respond to as opposed to the mental pictures you’ve painted, and hopefully you’ll see what I mean. 

And if not, I’ll be up late, watching for torchlight reflecting off your pitchforks.

Mini-Rant #1

Dear Indie Authors:

Please stop posting poorly written summaries when e-publishing your books. Every time I see a blurb written with poor grammar, I want to hunt you down and slap you silly with overcooked linguine. If you expect consumers to take a chance on your book, you might want to start off by giving them the impression that you have, in fact, mastered the English language.

Sincerely,

Me