Grammar Nerd Anatomy

From Grammarly (home of the Grammarly grammar checker) comes this helpful infographic:

Anatomy of a Grammar Nerd Infographic
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A Historic Day for Marriage Equality


Here's the lede from today's Supreme Court ruling:


And here's the happy result:


This is one of those weeks the history books will spend entire chapters on.

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The Martian

Today's XKCD captures it perfectly:


And the rollover text is priceless: 
 "I have never seen a work of fiction so perfectly capture the out-of-nowhere shock of discovering that you've just bricked something important because you didn't pay enough attention to a loose wire."
Yes, this. Exactly this. If you haven't read "The Martian", you should. It's a gearhead's triumph dream.

And I'm SO excited about the movie!



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"Beyond the Sea of Storms" - an interview with Larry Kollar

Larry Kollar is a writer and friend of mine from Georgia. Not only does he write some great fantasy, having had wonderful success with his Accidental Sorcerers series, but along with P.J. Kaiser and myself, he's one of the three guiding lights of Tuesday Serial, a site that curates and promotes serial fiction. Larry's got a new book out (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YBDHQKE) and I'm happy to give him an opportunity to introduce it to you and to talk about his writing.

"Tell us about your book."

Beyond the Sea of Storms is the sixth Accidental Sorcerers story. Chronologically, it picks up shortly after Book 5, Lost in Nightwalk. By now, our heroes have been away from home for almost two years, and it's starting to wear on Sura. Mik, meanwhile, has issues stemming from the debacle in Nightwalk and his near-death. The presence of the Deep Forest, the ancient home of the Unfallen, has a calming effect on Mik… but when Sura hatches a plan to walk through it to get back home, they find the Forest has other plans!

"Do you have a specific writing style?"
Yes, it's one that all the writing advice sites say is w0RnG. I tend to edit as I write. After a few attempts at breaking the habit, I gave up and rolled with it. It does make for less rewriting and lighter editing, so I get the time back one way or the other. My first drafts still suck, but they suck less.

"Name one entity that you feel supported you, aside from family members. A writer's community? A social network? A mentor?"

I don't think I would be where I am now without the #FridayFlash community on Twitter. I met so many of my best Twitter friends, and a lot of my writer friends, that way.

"Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?"
You mean besides getting time to write? I may be a little too prone to letting inspiration drive me. It's so easy to get distracted these days, and if I'm not feeling the writing vibe, I'm not going to get many words down that day.

"Who designed the cover art?"

As always, Angela Kulig. She's done a wonderful job of finding the right artwork for each book, and they do a great job of connecting the books together.

"Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?"

The most important thing I learned is that I'm still prone to procrastination. I should have been doing this a month ago, getting all the things done, but I didn't. Now I'm behind the eight-ball once again on the next thing. :-P

"Your doctors inform you that you have developed a life-threatening allergy to ketchup (any and all brands), and can never have it again. Not on fries, not on burgers, not at all. How do you feel?"
Wife has a similar allergy to shellfish, so I know what that's like second-hand. I'd probably be OK with BBQ sauce—if not the red stuff, the yellow mustard-based stuff that's popular in South Carolina. I don't much live for ketchup, although I would have to start remembering to tell the guys behind the fast-food counters about it… that would be the hard part.

"What's next for Larry Kollar?"
Several things! First, we're working on getting the Accidental Sorcerers series into print. I'm bundling the books in threes for the paperback release to get them up to a reasonable size. I've got conversion scripts to transform the eBooks into typesetter markup, and a set of expert fonts to use. There's some hand-fiddling to do, but they're going to look tons better than something dumped straight out of Word.

After that, it's Book 7. I'm about 15% of the way done, but don't yet have a title. I'm also drafting up the third part of my serial Blink, and getting ready to post it on writeon.amazon.com.

Thanks for giving me a soapbox!



Larry Kollar lives in north Georgia, surrounded by kudzu, trees, and in-laws. His day job involves writing user manuals—some of which may have been fiction, but not by intent. He has had short fictional works published in the Hogglepot Journal, the Were-Traveler, and the anthology Best of Friday Flash, Vol. 2. Longer works include his first novel, White Pickups, and the popular Accidental Sorcerers series.


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