Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 31

Lost Comrade by Josh Stallings

 Q: What’s your position on ending a sentence with a preposition, grammar others might be afraid of? What non-grammatical writing styles do you firmly support?

A: To prove myself a serious writer I started to google “preposition” but I stopped myself, I guess I’d rather be seen as under educated than be a liar. When I was coming up several writers and a few reviewers asked me how I learned to break grammatical rules so cleanly. It made me embarrassed so I’d go flippant, “breaking grammatical rul...

The very pineapple of politeness, by Catriona

What’s your position on ending asentence with a preposition, grammar others might be afraid of? Whatnon-grammatical writing styles do you firmly support?

These people would never!
And so I don't when I write them

Picture the scene: an overtired child hears her mummy (US "mommy"  - this isn't a scene from a horror film) coming upstairs. The child is hoping Mummy has brought the storybook she wants and not that other one the child can't stand. (Granny has terrible taste in books.) Mummy comes into ...

SVO and Tinsel

 

SVO and Tinsel

What’s your position on ending asentence with a preposition, grammar others might be afraid of? Whatnon-grammatical writing styles do you firmly support?

We’re talking about one of the “Rules” today and, likeGroucho Marx as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff in Horse Feathers, ‘Whatever it is, I’m against it.’

 

In my mind, Rules imply obedience, and conformity, and ‘I’magainst it.’

 

When I think of rules applied to language, I think ofgrammar. When I ...

Minding or Bending Rules

 Q: What’s your position on ending a sentence with a preposition,  grammar others might be afraid of? What non-grammatical writing styles do you firmly support?

 

-       from Susan

 

As a former writer of academically-oriented texts (not a scholar), I worked in the language that represented literate administrations, their presidents, and higher ed institutions in general. The language had to have a certain tone, cadence, and rhythm. Frequently, I was tasked with making the case for something that m...

Too Impatient to Listen - by Harini Nagendra

If you listen to audio versions of books, do you also read them? Why or why not? Or do you never listen and, if not, why not?

Harini here– responding to this week's question, but filling this in a day late, as we’ve had a major power and internet outagehere in Bangalore. Climate change, everyone - it's been raining, and our infrastructure is not equipped to deal with this level of stress. I just read a fascinating - and scary - piece in The Atlantic about how heat is going to stress cities beca...

Tell Me a Story from James W. Ziskin

 If you listen to audio versions of books, do you also read them? Why or why not? Or do you never listen and, if not, why not?

I love audiobooks. I listen to them every chance I get. There’s something of a group activity feel to it. Maybe audiobooks remind me of my mother reading to me when I was a child. Or maybe I’m just a slow, lazy reader. Whatever the reason, I like to be read to in the car or at home after a long day of work.
Often, when writer friends ask me to read their books for a possib...

Listen up good

If you listen to audio versions of books, do you also read them? Why or why not? Or do you never listen and, if not, why not?

by Dietrich

I enjoy kicking back and reading a book, it’s a quiet reward at the end of a day. Then there are times when I’d rather hear an audiobook, like while I’m engaged in doing some simple task that could use some spicing up. Perhaps reading a book engages my imagination more, allowing me to paint the scenes in my mind rather than having someone else describe what’s...

Hello? Hello? Can You Hear Me?

 

Terry here with our question of the week:If you listen to audio versions of books, do you also read them? Why or why not? Or do you never listen and, if not, why not?
 I can’t say I’ve never listened to audiobooks. I have. At least three that I remember. Two of them were books by Bill Bryson that I’d already read, and one was Blind Faith, by Leslie Budewitz (writing as Alicia Beckman) that I read last year when I had to make an 11-hour round-trip drive.
I thoroughly enjoyed all three. 
 Why have...

Getting Into Audiobooks

If you listen to audio versions of books, do you also read them? Why or why not? Or do you never listen and, if not, why not?

Brenda

True confession. I have never listened to an audiobook all the way through. Not even my own.

Nearly all of my books have been made into audiobooks by a couple of publishers and I have links to all of them ... somewhere. I also had a hand in producing two audiobooks from my latest series - Blind Date and When Last Seen. For these two books, I listened to every chapter ...

One Perfect Moment In A Writers Life, by Josh Stallings

Q: What single moment of being a published writer has been the most memorable?

A: Not a single moment, but kaleidoscopic moments spent with fellow writers, reviewers, agents and readers. Moments I’d never have had if not for being published.

At a signing for my memoir a woman stepped up speaking softly through tears, “You told my story. Facts are different, but the feelings… The feelings, they’re mine.” 

Crossing the Mississippi river on a ferry, rain drizzling down listening to my wife Erika...