Annette Lyon's Blog, page 31

WNW: Capping Titles

I'll get into the crux of today's topic in a second.
Before that, I have to restate something I posted more than a year ago, before a lot of my readers found me . . . and became intimidated about commenting on my blog or FB status.
To quote myself in part:
There is no need for bloggy/writing/conversational paranoia.

I get a lot of, "I'm not an English major, and I don't know grammar. You'll totally freak out reading my blog . . ."

But here's the thing: I won't. And I don't.

When I say that certain...

Kristina, I'm Playing

Kristina P posted a Glamor Shots photo of herself and invited her readers to post really awesome (read: laughable) pictures of ourselves from the same era.

I never did Glamor Shots (darn it!), but I did do a buddy picture with all three of us wearing the classic (cliche?) denim shirt and sporting the big, permed hair (with matching bows the size of rodents, no less).
Here I am around 1992. (Pardon the blur. It's a photo of a color photocopy. Lame, I know.)


Sheryl, in the middle, is the friend...

A Cool Article and Play Dough Pictures

I found an online article today about Agatha Christie. It was fascinating to learn how totally disorganized and chaotic her writing method was and how often, even she didn't know who the murderer was at first.
My favorite part is near the end and is something that could be put into neon lights for all writers, referring to how some unpublished short stories didn't really sound like her because she hadn't had time to rework them before her death:
She understood that in order to sound like...

The Changing Face of LDS Fiction

Last week a Deseret News reporters interviewed me about Band of Sisters and the Flat Daddy Project. I've done several interviews recently, but this particular reporter asked something no one had yet. (I'll link over when the piece runs.)
Her question, and my answer to it, have kept me thinking ever since. She'd read the book before the interview (a rare and rather pleasant occurrence), so she had a better idea of what to ask.
Among the questions I'd been asked already:Are the wives in the book...

Writing Journey: Pronunciation Guides

Up today: Answering a question L. T. Eliot (also known as Lexicon Luvr) posed some time ago:
[Writers creating pronunciation guides for audio recordings:] is a new phenomenon to me, and I've only ever heard it mentioned once. How long has that been going on?
I can't speak for other writers and their experiences with their publishers, of course, so what comes below is based on my experience.
For my first five books, Covenant released an audio version on either cassettes or CDs (in one case...

WNW: Reflexives!!!

Thought that maybe if I put lots of exclamation points in the title, that reflexives would sound exciting!
Did it work? :-)
Lara from Overstuffed brought up a funky English quirk with reflexive pronouns. I tried to dig around and ferret out the reason for the quirk, to no avail. So instead of explaining the history of the quirk, we'll just discuss it!
Before we get to the quirk:
What the heck are we talking about?
Reflexive pronouns are ones where an action is being performed on the subject by

LIST Day!

Hail? Really, Mother Nature? On April 5th? Grrrr. Got my Whitney ballot turned in over the weekend! Can't wait to see the award results. (Also: Readers, be sure to nominate your favorite LDS-authored books of 2010 for next year's awards!)The TwHistory re-enactment of the Mormon Pioneer Trek is LIVE! Check out the media buzz it's already getting on KSL and the Deseret News !To follow the trek, go to THIS PAGE on Twitter and follow all of the historical figures listed there. There's a Twitter...

Mom Rocked the House, Yo

Friday I had the opportunity to speak at our local junior high, where they've done an annual writers conference for about ten years now. Only students invited to the conference by their English teachers get to attend (and skip out of the first half of their school day).
The conference was in the media center, so I expected 30ish students. The room was packed with kids; I'd guess well over a hundred attended.
I spoke first, using a nifty Power Point that my son helped me design. I gave my...

WNW: Colons, Commas, Parentheses, Oh, my!

Can you believe it? Word Nerd Wednesday is BACK!
After an unscheduled hiatus . . . ahem . . .
First, a link over to my Good Things Utah interview that aired live this morning.
CLICK HERE to watch my tongue go so fast that it's surprising that smoke isn't coming out of my mouth! (Oh, and to see an actual Flat Daddy of a currently deployed solider.)
Today we're tackling several questions Rebecca recently asked in a comment:
#1: Where do I put the comma, before the parentheses or after? Simple...

Yes, I'm Alive, & Other News

Holy unplanned blog break, Batman!
Life has swirled out of control the last while, and my poor blog (and blog reading) has suffered. I hope to be back on the bloggy bandwagon with my regular schedule soon.
(No guarantees, however . . .)
Okay, Now for Some BIG NEWS!
I'm on the Radio!If you're in Utah, tonight (that's Monday, March 29th) at 10:00 pm, tune in to FM 100.3.
Rebecca Cressman will be hosting me and my friend Chris. We'll talk about Band of Sisters, supporting military families...