On Writing: Meet the Author

On Writing: Meet One of our Authors

Jean Oathout

Jean Oathout

Jean Oathout writes from her heart. Her first recently released book, SO YOU PLAN TO MARRY A MAN, is as much a personal testimony of what she’s learned from God as a book of helps for wives and gals desiring to be married one day.

Jean was born in Tacoma Park, MA, in 1937. Her father died when Jean was six, her mother remarrying when Jean was eleven years old and moving the family to New York State.

In 1955, Jean married an Air Force man and had three sons. However, the marriage failed. Jean later remarried and had one more son. Her new husband relocated the family in Vermont in 1983, where they “homesteaded,” growing most of their food and living without electricity for most of seventeen years.

Unfortunately for Jean, the second marriage also had its problems, both she and her husband “having issues.” Jean found it hard to be a submissive wife and wanted to leave. However, at the Lord’s prompting, she stayed and learned how to deal with life according to the way her husband wished. Through these difficult years, Jean started to journal, putting her writings in poetic form with the thought that some day she would share them with other women.

Finally in 1999, Jean had to leave her married life and seek inward healing that only God could provide. Over the years, she’s come to realize that she needed to forgive and go on with her life. She has fellowship with a body of believers in a local church and has many friends in the Madrid, NY, community. She is presently working on two more poetic devotionals that are scheduled for publication with Lighthouse Publishing from the Carolinas.

It’s Jean’s desire that her efforts glorify the Lord and help women look to Him for guidance in their married lives. Her next book, WHEN A WOMAN MARRIES A MAN, will share more wisdom Jean had learned to find God’s help and peace in the trials of everyday life. Her third book, TO RAISE A CHILD CAN BE JOY, is an encouragement to parents who desire to rear their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

 Happy writing and if you’d like to be featured on this blog, please contact me at: marshahubler@wildblue.net

Marsha

Meet the Author: Linda Bonney Olin

On Writing: Meet One of our Authors

Linda Bonney Olin

Author Linda Bonney Olin

Linda Bonney Olin has had a variety of creative interests since experimenting with poetry and drawing as a kid. She completed a degree in psychology at Cornell University, where she met her husband, Bill. They purchased a dairy farm in upstate New York and started a family. Then an inherited Kodak Retina IV camera hooked Linda on photography. She snapped award-winning images while juggling the farm bookkeeping, outside professional employment, and rearing two children. She no longer exhibits her photos, but she enjoys using them in projects like the cover of her recently published Kindle book, Songs for the Lord.

Linda delights in crafting word images too, especially ones that convey a message of eternal significance. She doesn’t focus on one particular genre of writing. Instead, she focuses on daily direction from the Holy Spirit. This has led her along a frequently confusing, but never dull or unrewarding, path.

One example of her creative partnership with the Holy Spirit is her season as a songwriter. Songs for the Lord is the resulting collection of hymns and Christian songs. Thanks to her “Holy Ghostwriter,” all twenty-four pieces have original melodies as well as lyrics, in spite of Linda’s lack of musical training.

A certified lay speaker in the United Methodist Church, Linda has written and presented Christian dramas, poems, devotions, songs, Bible studies, and sermons–even a standup comedy routine. Ten of the humorous scripts she wrote for her son, Jeff, and his puppet pal are featured in her current nonfiction book project, Personal Puppet Ministry with Jeff and Clyde. She also has a mystery/romance novel in progress.

Linda has been published in The Secret Place; UtmostChristianWriters.com; ChristianBibleStudies.com; Who Knew—Catskill Literary Journal; and other periodicals. She is scheduled to lead a focus group on electronic publishing at the 2012 Montrose Christian Writers Conference.

Way to go, Linda! You’ve certainly made your mark in several genres of the publishing world. Thanks for sharing a little bit about yourself for our group’s enjoyment and information.

Next time, we’ll visit with Jean Oathout, the author of SO YOU PLAN TO MARRY A MAN.

Happy writing!

Marsha

www.marshahubler.com

On Writing: Author Friends

On Writing: Let’s Visit Some Author Friends

Author Kathy Bellows

Kathy and Phil Bellows

 

The first post about one of our fellow writers reviews Mrs. Kathy Bellows, a close friend and widow, who has quite a story to tell.

She was born and raised in Towanda, PA. After marrying Phil Bellows in 1970, they moved to Snyder County and settled in Middleburg, PA.

They reared three children, but in 1996, their only son, Matthew and his fiance were killed in a car accident at the age of 21 and now reside in Heaven. Kathy’s two daughters are married and live close by. Kathy has five grandchildren with a sixth on its way.

Kathy and her family started attending Kreamer Bible Baptist Church in 1976 where she continues to serve the Lord today. She substitutes as a teacher of first through fourth grade Sunday school children, teaches Junior Church once a month, and helps in the nursery.

Her professional career involves working as an LPN for 20 years. Her hobbies are scrapbooking and reading.

In January 2009, Kathy’s husband was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer—Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia. He was very ill at the time of his diagnosis and had to undergo extensive treatment. The physician didn’t know if Phil would make it through the first treatment; thus Kathy and her family were called to Phil’s bedside before treatment began. Although the treatments caused Phil to have severe pain, the family rejoiced in June of that same year as they learned the cancer was in remission. The Lord saw fit to allow him to not only make it through the treatments but also to go into remission.

Within less than four months, Phil’s cancer returned. He continued to battle it and even had a bone marrow transplant. However, six months after a miraculous cure, God called Phil home to be with Him. 

Kathy felt inspired to share with others how our loving God faithfully walked beside her and her husband during the deepest trial of their lives. She recently published an excellent journal, GOD NEVER FAILS, which documents how God sustained the family and gave them the courage to face another day.

If you have any friends or loved ones battling cancer, Kathy and I encourage you to purchase her booklet for those folks. We believe it will be an encouragement to their hearts as they trust in God to see them through the trial.

Kathy's Testimony of Her Husband's & Her Walk through Cancer

To order this inexpensive book that will be a blessing to your heart or anyone that is facing the trial of cancer, go to:

 kbellows60@yahoo.com

www.sorrowtovictory.wordpress.com

www.amazon.com

While I’m posting blogs about our Writers of Any Genre members, please consider being interviewed and having your gorgeous picture and your work posted on my blog. I’d be happy to feature you here in one of my upcoming AUTHOR FRIENDS blogs. If I have enough requests, I’ll post once a week for awhile instead of every two weeks.

Happy writing!

Marsha

www.marshahubler.com

 

 

 

Grammar & Punctuation: Perky Parentheses & Bold Brackets

On Writing: Let’s Talk Grammar and Punctuation for a While

 

(Post Number Eleven)

 

Perky Parentheses and Bold Brackets

 

  

Perky Parentheses

 

If you’re like me with your writing, you sometimes might be confused concerning when to use parentheses. Should you use em dashes instead? Or how about commas?

 

Let’s first define “parentheses” so we understand what in the world these little smiley face lines are used for.

 

Definition One:  “Parentheses usually set off material that is less closely related to the rest of the sentence than that enclosed in em dashes or commas.” (The CMOS, 15^th edition, The University of Chicago Press, 2003, p. 265)

 

Instead of going in to detailed descriptions of how to use the parentheses, I’m going to list some examples for you:

 

Example One:  The judge decided that all the dogs (collies, etc.) in that division were worthy of a blue ribbon.

 

Example Two: The championship soccer game that the Stallions won (under difficult conditions of freezing rain) was a thriller.

 

Example Three: The Book of John (see chapter 3) mentions Jesus as God’s Son and Savior who came to save us from our sin.

 

 Definition Two: “Parentheses are used to enclose glosses of unfamiliar terms or translations of foreign terms—or, if the term is given in English, to enclose the original word.” (The CMOS, 15^th edition, The University of Chicago Press, 2003, p 266)

 

Example One:  Downloading “Dropbox” (a free program on the web that allows you to transfer files from one computer to the other instantly without a flash drive) is a godsend for writers.

 

Example Two:  In my Amish fiction book, I used the word “boppli” (baby) many times.

 

Example Three: The word for mother (mamm) in my Amish books occurs dozens of times.

 

In the CMOS, a few more examples of complicated uses for parentheses are listed, which most of us writers would not need to know. So for simplicity’s sake, we’ll stop with the perky parentheses plug here and move on to the bold brackets.

 

 Bold Brackets

 

 To use brackets, or “square brackets,” properly, all you need to remember is that they are used to enclose words that are inserted by a second author inside a first author’s original work. 

 

What? Say again?

 

You would use brackets if you inserted your own words in material from the following types of already printed material: quoted matter, reprints, anthologies, editorial interpolations, explanations, translations of foreign words, or corrections. Allow me give you some examples cited in the CMOS, 15^th edition:

 

Example One: “They [the free-silver Democrats] asserted that the ratio could be maintained.”

 

Example Two: “Many CF [cystic fibrosis] patients have been helped by the new therapy.”

 

Example Three: Satire, Jebb tells us, “is the only [form] that has a continuous development.”

 

Example Four:  “The differences between society [Gesellschaft] and community [Gemeinde] will now be analyzed.”

 

I believe the only other use of brackets that we might need to know is when they are used within a set of parentheses. Here is an example; take notice where the period is at the end:

 

Example:  (For further explanation see Strunk and White’s Element of Style [1979] and Webster’s Dictionary [1984].)

 

I hope I haven’t totally confused you with this parentheses/bracket blog. These two little punctuation tips might not be of use to us every day, but once in a while, we do need to know how to use them effectively, so perhaps these tidbits today will refine your writing style a little more as you write your way to that next published piece.

 

Next time, I’m going to post a Q&A blog about one of our Writers of Any Genre members. If you’d like to be interviewed and have your gorgeous picture posted on my blog too, please let me know. I’d be absolutely thrilled beyond description to feature you on my Writers’ Tips blog.

 

Happy writing!

 

Marsha

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grammar and Punctuation: The Quirky Quotation Marks

On Writing: Let’s Talk Grammar and Punctuation for a While

(Post Number Ten)

“The Quirky Quotation Marks”

“What can I say about quotation marks?” Marsha says.  ”If you are a fiction writer, you need to master the technique of using quotation marks. However, over the last few years, many publishing companies of nonfiction works have asked authors to incorporate ‘fiction’ techniques in their manuscript. That entails using quotation marks, mostly in dialogue, correctly.”

Of the many times I’ve seen quotation marks used incorrectly, the following example is the most misuse I’ve noticed:

Bad Example: Bert yelled to his son Raymond in the back yard, “Throw the ball, son”.

Folks tend to want to put that period AFTER the quotation marks at the end, but it is incorrect. The proper usage is as such:

Good Example One: Bert yelled to his son Raymond in the back yard, “Throw the ball, son.”

The same goes for the use of quotation marks with question marks and exclamation points:

Good Example Two: After lunch Eva asked her friend Bonnie, “Would you like to go shopping?”

Good Example Three:  When Bobby saw his puppy fall off the sofa, he yelled, “Watch out, Scruffy!”

Another frequent abuse of quotation marks occurs in a series when words that need the marks are listed. The following example shows how the list should be correctly written:

Good Example Four:  Last year, our writers’ conference featured workshops entitled “Write an Irresistible Query,” “Kiddie Lit for Toddlers,” and “It’s Time for an Agent.”

But what about double quotes in the same sentence? You might be thinking, How do I write them?  Well, here’s how the CMOS says to use double quotes:

Good Example Five:  Barney said to his cousin Elmo, “You must have heard cousin Heathcliffe say, ‘We’re going to the shore on Friday.’ ” (Note the period, the single quote, a space, and a double quote.)

I’m sure it is no surprise to you that there are exceptions to using quotation marks with other punctuation marks. The English language is one big exception, if you ask me!

Anyway, here are some examples of when the quotation marks go INSIDE the ending punctuation mark:

Example One:  Harry subscribed to “The Pennsylvania Magazine”; he loves the pictures. (A work that needs quotes around its title)

Example Two:  The sergeant asked Private Botting to state his “name and serial number”; he forgot his serial number and got in big trouble. (A phrase that is a direct quote)

Example Three:  Which of Shakespeare’s characters said, “All the world’s a stage”? (A question asked with a quoted statement within it)

Example Four: Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3).  (The period follows the Bible reference.)

Example Five:  I can’t believe Pauline said, “I’m leaving tomorrow at five in the morning”! (The exclamatory statement was made by “I” not “Pauline.” Therefore, the exclamation point comes AFTER Pauline’s quote.)

Example Six:  How can teachers motivate students to learn who constantly say, “I hate school”? (The entire sentence is a question; therefore the question mark comes AFTER the quotation mark at the end.)

There are other uses of quotation marks and exceptions, but I’m thinking this blog is enough to confuse even the best writers in the land. If you have doubts, go online to the CMOS and check out your quotation mark question firsthand.

Next time we’ll look at perky parentheses and bold brackets, which will just about wrap up our series of blogs offering punctuation advice for writers. Then we’ll move on to another venue in the fascinating world of writing and publishing.

Happy writing!

Marsha

Grammar and Punctuation: The Excitable Exclamation Point!

On Writing: Let’s Talk Grammar and Punctuation for a While

(Post Number Nine)

The Excitable Exclamation Point!

Today we’re looking at a “quicky” punctuation mark because its uses are quite limited.

Most writers agree that the exclamation point is not in much danger of being used incorrectly. But I would venture to say that its greatest misuse is OVERUSE!!! (Case in point: Never use more than one exclamation point consecutively, no matter how emphatic or dramatic you’re trying to be!!! The second and third exclamation points in a row actually negate the effect or mood you’re trying to portray, so take it easy. Use just one!)

So, when do we use the exclamation point and how often? Well, the obvious use of the exclamation point is to inflect fear, panic, surprise, irony, pain, anger, or a command. To use more than one every several pages of your writing is also OVERUSE! So watch that excitable little mark well! (I’ve already used nine in this blog [ho hum]; are you getting the point?)

Since this mark’s use is limited, we’ll just cite some popular examples for this little guy:

Example One (Fear): “Watch out,” Susie cried. “The tiger got out of his cage!” (Note that the exclamation point is inside the quotation marks.)

Example Two (Panic):  Mabel forgot to turn off the stove, and the house is burning down!

Example Three (Surprise): I can’t believe I just won that car!

Example Four (Irony): Bill boarded one plane and his wife boarded another!

Example Five (Pain):  Ow!

Example Six (Anger): “Stop kicking the door!” Jane screamed to the top of her lungs at Herman.

Example Seven (A command): Stand up and shut up!

Let’s mention one more example, which is perfectly legal, even though many “English pros” might call it into question, since it IS a question:

Example Eight (At the end of a question that is essentially an exclamation):

A.  How could Barry possibly have lifted that!

B.  “When will you ever learn!” Carrie’s anger with her puppy was obvious.

So there you have the eight most common uses of the exclamation point. Use it sparingly and wisely, and your writing will have an extra spark that will impress even the editors!

Next time we’ll have a look at quirky quotation marks. These can be quite confusing, especially when you have a quote within a quote, so until next time happy writing!

Marsha

Grammar and Punctuation: The Itinerant Italics

On Writing: Let’s Talk Grammar and Punctuation for a While

(Post Number Eight)

The Itinerant Italics

Are you a writer who used italics frequently? Or perhaps you’re not quite sure when to use this little punctuation perk? Such was the case with me until I did a little research and study to make sure I was using italics correctly.

I’m sure you’ll agree that the most common way to use italics is mostly in fiction when using Direct Internal Discourse.

What in the world is Direct Internal Discourse?

Oh, that’s the “formal” fancy term for expressing someone’s inner thoughts. This is the most frequent use of italics. So let’s look at some examples of that plus some examples of other uses for italics:

Direct Internal Discourse

Example One:  Bill looked at Susie and thought, Now’s the time to ask her to marry me.

Example Two:   That’s just the sweater I want!  Marge asked the clerk, “How much is that pullover cardigan?”

Exception: Do NOT italicize an inner thought that is indirect or paraphrased.

Example: Steve had been telling himself not to buy that car for the last week.

 Citing Sources

Although the AP Stylebook says to put all “composition” titles in quotation marks except the Bible and reference books, the CMOS prefers using italics for large titles:

Example One:  Gone With the Wind is one of the most powerful movies ever made.

Example Two:  One of my favorite books is The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans.

Example Three:  Have you subscribed to the Reader’s Digest again this year?

Exception: Smaller components of such works, such as articles, chapter titles,

song titles, poem titles, and episodes should be in quotation marks.

Example: Barry read an amazing article about chipmunks entitled “The Nuts’ Best Friend” in this month’s Pennsylvania Magazine.

Animal Noises, Sounds, Ringing Phones, Etc.

In fiction, words that depict sounds other than dialogue are written in italics:

Example One:   Woof! Woof! Barney, Pete’s dog, barked his head off!

Example Two:   S-q-u-e-a-k …. “Who’s there?” Angie screamed.

Example Three:  R-i-n-g …. Philip hurried to the front door, hoping he’d see Angie.

Foreign Words and Phrases

Unless you’re writing about Russian spies or Amish Ordnungs, this italics rule might mean little to you. However, whenever quoting foreign words or phrases, use italics. In the case of using the foreign words in fiction, they are usually italicized the first time as an introduction but are not italicized throughout the novel.

Example One:  Henrietta’s German mother taught her to say ich liebe dich, (I love you), which helped Henrietta express her true feelings.

Example Two: In her Amish Ordnung, Ruth was the only alt maedel over twenty-five years who wasn’t married yet. 

Italics for Emphasis

Often, in trying to express emphasis, writers will mistakenly use quotation marks instead of italics in a sentence. However, the italics is the proper way to go to express emphasis in a sentence:

Example One:  Fritz made a very conscious effort to go on a diet this time.

Example Two:  “Are you really going to drive toFlorida by yourself?” Harry asked Bob.

Quoting a Word or Phrase

This use of the italics is probably most used in nonfiction. When citing words or discussing phrases, italicize the word or phrase in discussion:

Example One:  The use of the word salvation in many of our traditional hymns has a powerful message.

Example Two:  The shed blood of Jesus is one of the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith.

So, there you have the most common uses of the italics. Take a look at your own writings, see if you can incorporate a few italics here and there, and give your manuscript a little extra spice. As long as italics are not overused, this little punctuation perk can add some life to your work. So go for it.

Next time we’ll look at the exclamation point! This little jot and tittle is probably one of the most misused punctuation marks in the English language!

Happy writing!

Marsha