Blogger: Wendy Lawton
I think it’s time for a group gripe session. Let’s get it off our chests.
Gripe #1: My first gripe is that my blog always follows Janet’s blog day and she tends to blog about really important things– things that require a lot of research and make us think. It’s a hard act to follow. So as I felt like griping about it, I thought to myself, “Self, why not invite everyone to gripe? We can just commiserate with each other.”
Gripe #2: This is ICRS pre-week. I’m going nuts trying to get everything done in spite of the fact that we started in earnest over three weeks ago. (Have I been bikeshedding?) Besides, all my clothes look tired. And I think my suitcase is too small. And our flight leaves at 6:45 in the morning, two hours from my house. *whine*
Gripe #3: I just saw another business sign go up in a neighboring town for Bobs Car Repair. Can someone please find out why no one can use an apostrophe correctly? They either stick them in a word as some kind of separator or else they omit them when the word is a possessive. I think there’s a good potential business opportunity here— an Apostrophe Coach.
Gripe #4: I’m still looking for that stunt memoir about a family willing to take a year-long challenge to refrain from complaining. Yep. No griping for a whole year. (Is that hypocritical?)
Gripe #5: I’m tired of bloggers and Facebookers who take controversial stands just to try to get a ruckus going. I guess I have outrage fatigue. Come on. . . can’t we all just get along?
Gripe #6: I’m not really good at griping all by myself. (I usually need my cohort, Janet, alongside to whip up a good gripe duet.) So let’s use our community here to continue the gripe session. All in fun, of course.
What is your pet peeve these days? Do you have a grammar gripe you’d like to share? How about an agent gripe you’d like to discuss? Our goal is to get it off our chest and end with a big collective smile.
TWEETABLE:
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Well, OK. If I hear the expression “jaw-dropping” one more time, BAD things are going to happen. Bad things that will make your jaw drop.
* Iraq is not Eye-rack. An eyerack is where zombies can pick out that boutique ‘look’, eh?
* Who came up with the expression “to love on”, anyway? Is it a kind of Love-lite, for Christians afraid of storge, philia, and agape?
* And let’s give it up for a law that makes the use of the phrase “Let’s give it up for…” a criminal offense punishable by having Simon Cowell assigned as one’s permanent life coach.
The use of “eh?” in the “Iraq” gripe does NOT imply that there are zombies in Canada; they’re technically dead, and therefore not covered by the national health plan. They generally emigrate to the Jersey shore, and find their metier in bad reality shows.
Why do people pick on New Jersey? It’s a lovely state. At least the corner where I live, the part just off the Appalachian Trail, where we have bears and mountains. Griping about New Jersey is best done by her residents who know the pain of the outrageous property taxes and the fact that the tolls are all collected as you leave the state (last one out, turn off the lights).
Lived there for a bit, actually. Hackensack.
Ohhh, we have zombies, eh.
Some are in our Senate.
Yep my mind is so blown now I am a danger to society.
You’re in good company, Peter. So, they claimed, was Jesus.
You just made me laugh out loud, Andrew. Especially your thoughts on eye racks for zombies. 😉
I second your gripes, Andrew– especially “love on.” ewww.
“Love on” drives me crazy. So does, “It hurts my heart.” “My mother’s heart ached for him.” Where is your mother in this story? Now, when I read books my mind automatically translates ” my heart” to “me”. Better yet, I delete the entire sentence fragment. 🙂
Amen to you’re Gripe #3, Wendy. Your right!
I keep wondering if everyone was absent on the day they taught apostrophe.
Its a good hypothesis… 😉
Ha! #5 for sure, especially in recent days. It’s disheartening to say the least.
Ok, here’s one – the glassed-over look that happens when people ask what you do and you respond, “I’m a writer.” And they kind of stand there a minute … “Oh. Well. That must be … fun. Interesting?”
I think it’s got to be the most played down profession on the planet. Unless you’re in the industry, there seems to be very little concept of exactly what it takes to write a book, (or several) manage by some miracle to get it published, and come out the other side unscathed. And I could go down a whole ‘nother road here and gripe about everything going on in publishing right now and the indie vs. traditional tug of war … but I won’t. Instead, I’ll simply echo your sentiments, Wendy, “Can’t we all just get along?”
Thanks for letting us gripe! 🙂
Yes, that response is up there with “Ohhhhhhh, you’re a bingo caller?”
Not as bad as the response, “Can you write my story? Everyone tells me I read like a book.”
Why do people always have to bring sweets to work? It’s like they know I’m weak and they’re waiting to see how long I can hold off until I crumble. Because I do crumble. Always.
We’re luring you into joining us in our bad behavior. No one wants to get flabby thighs alone.
Apparently Sarah, because after my gripe I found an entire container of chocolate chip cookies sitting in the break-room. Sigh. 🙂
I’d rather have flabby thighs than flabby writing that jiggles and flops around, taking readers nowhere. Nasty! LOL.
I think the Beatles wrote a song about office baking…
“Alllllll we are saaaaaaying,is give sweets a chance.”
lol Well I just might need to ‘imagine there’s no cookies, ignore the fresh baked pie…’
When I eat too many cookies, I twist and shout into my jeans.
Like a cookie? 😉
You caught me, Jenni! 😉
I don’t know, Melinda. As someone who works solo, if someone snuck a pan of cookies in my break room, I’d be delighted. (Oops. They don’t give agents break rooms.) 🙂
What is is about appliances? When one breaks they all decide to have a break-down party (not to be confused with break-dance party) and give up their last at the same time. The microwave was replaced last month, they dryer yesterday, and now the washer is acting up. . .
A grammar gripe? When in the world will comma rules become written in cement? 🙂
Have fun at ICRS, Wendy!
Amen, sistah, on the comma rules. Long live the Oxford comma! 🙂
I <3 properly used commas!
I know, about the appliances. A few Christmasssessess ago, we lost the washer, the microwave and????? MY HAIR DRYER!!!
And I bet the hair dryer was the hardest to deal with in the moment . . . wasn’t it? 😉
Jeanne, I second the motion re: comma rules. 🙂
Yes on the appliances! My brand new house is almost ten years old and we are hearing little groans from a number of appliances– all the exact same age. I guess it is balanced by my washer and dryer which are still beautiful and going strong more than forty years after we bought them.
Yes, Wendy. We replaced all our appliances when we moved back into our house in Colorado . . . seven years ago. Two have been replaced, with the washer probably being next. Sigh. I hope the dishwasher and oven have greater longevity, or our pocketbook is going to be empty. 🙂
1. Turning books into movies is not a terrible thing. It might just inspire some people who see the movies to – oh maybe – read the book. There are exceptions of course because there are some movie adaptations for books that never should have been books to begin with. But that’s a whole other Gripe.
2. (Related somewhat to the above Gripe #5) The fact that no one can express the smallest opinion anymore without 300 or so different groups of people being outraged and claim they have been offended. Come on people. Lighten up. Be mature enough to agree to disagree.
3. Auto-correct. No elaboration needed.
The one book to movie name change I totally approved of was The Last of the Mohicans.
From Natty Bumpoo to Hawkeye? I am SO totally okay with that.
Yes! We all need to lighten up in our reactions to other people (and deepen down in our relationship with the Lord.)
And double yes on autocorrect.
Haha, Wendy, I LOVE your posts! I wait all week for them. But don’t tell Janet 😉
1) Can someone please explain to me why scientists can clone a sheep, send people to the moon, and transplant organs, yet are unable to make a cough syrup that tastes anything other than utterly revolting? You’d think that would be a manageable assignment.
2) I am also interested in finding out why my new batch of chickens despise their chicken coop so. They insist on roosting in the open, which means that when a thunderstorm rolls in at 4am, which is apparently the only time thunderstorms roll in, I find myself scrambling around the poultry yard like a crazy person retrieving soggy pullets and stuffing them into the coop.
Laura, I’ve had to herd chickens, but never at 4 in the morning during a thunderstorm. Wow!
Our young pullets are currently cooped in their coop. Otherwise they’ll be the entree for our resident raccoons and foxes.
My husband is a scientist, like, for real, and he cannot, **CAN**NOT** comprehend that chocolate is a 3 meal a day/eat whenever/wherever compound.
All that science, gone to waste.
He could at least be using those science smarts to design a chocolate that makes you skinnier when you eat it! I’m pretty sure that would be Nobel material.
I know, right? Dude has lost his focus.
Laura, thanks for the laugh! These are hilarious.
Laura’s comment plays right into my gripe: Wendy gets more comments than I do. *pouts*
I think I’d leave the chickens to their foolishness instead of risking lightning in the middle of the night.
And thank you for your sweet comments about my blog posts. Happily, at Books & Such, we are all best friends and each of us celebrates the others’ strengths. We do tease each other senseless, however. I can’t wait till this weekend when we’ll all be together at ICRS in Orlando. Look for 5-way selfies to come.
Blessings on your travels, Wendy! Would love to see you ladies in action at ICRS.
I second what Jenni said!
I’m with you, Laura. I love Wendy’s posts. I love yours as well, Janet. They fulfill different needs. My life has been so crazy lately, I haven’t been able to comment very often (and here I am late for the conversation–again) but I always look forward to reading the blogs.
My prayers are with you, Wendy, as you prepare for IRCS.
Blessings!
Thanks, Christine.
What is it with people wanting me to TALK to them?!? I’m doing stuff here. We can talk when I’m ready to talk. And I’ll expect YOU to be ready then and only then. Until that time, silence and tiptoeing please.
Curmudgeons unite!
I just want to hear back about my latest ms. Then again, I don’t want any more “no” answers. . . so maybe I don’t? I think I’ll just go edit something.
I hear you. I’m not that far from the days when I was submitting to forget this.
My gripe: That there’s not time enough to take care of pre-clients or writers submitting to us. We all HATE this but no one has invented a way around it.
First off – Wendy, I really enjoy your posts!
Secondly, nothing to gripe about today. Feeling blessed.
(however I would love to open my inbox and see a couple of requests for fulls)
Wouldn’t that make your day? Of course, then it’s just wait some more, right?
How I wish the market would speed up– that people would suddenly morph into voracious readers.
New gripe: I read that last year more than 50% of Americans did not read one book.
Come on! Do you really expect us to rant about agents? Is this another way to help weed out book proposals?
After reading this blog and the comments that followed, I’m having too much fun to gripe. Only one comes to mind, and it is built on something you said. Facebook is a SOCIAL media. If you wouldn’t say it to your friend sitting next to you, don’t post it there.
“If you wouldn’t say it to your friend sitting next to you, don’t post it there.”
Amen! My sweet mother used to say, “Don’t ever write anything you wouldn’t want posted to a bulletin board.” That was from the days we passed notes in class instead of FB posts or text messages. Still good advice, right?
I’m laughing too hard to come up with a gripe.
Okay, here are two (not so hard after all). People who talk during movies, and people who keep glancing at their smartphones when we’re supposed to be having a heart-to-heart.
Oh, Jenny, you would hate my house! My husband and I watch everything with subtitles so we can indulge our movie-talking addiction yet still understand everything that’s going on.
Oh, yes. The phone tether. Makes me crazy. It is the ultimate rudeness. If one needs to check their phone for some pressing reason why not say, “Will you excuse me for a moment? My grandfather is in the hospital and I need to see if there has been an update.” Then check and put the phone away.
First one? People who think that the minute they cross the border into Canada, that they’ll need a parka. It cracks 100 here, people, and even hotter. Oh, and that we all love hockey and speak a second language. 😉 No se porque…
Is that 100 celsius or centigrade?
Kelvin.
Duh.
OK, thanks!
Jennifer, I lived in Canada for the first 22 years of my life. While I enjoy living in the States now and tourists are a bad representation of the population at large, AMEN. As a teen I worked in a tourist town near the border and actually had someone try to convince me (completely earnestly, I might add) that they were still in America. To this day I’ve wondered what they thought the customs booth was. Maybe some sort of more intense toll booth?
I *may* have messed with a few tourist heads when I worked at the 1986 World’s Fair in Vancouver.
But it was SO EASY.
“Can we use Canadian money at Expo?”
“Umm, yes.”
“Not Expo money?”
“Nnnnn….you can get Expo Money at the Cuban Pavilion.”
“Thank you…are there real Cubans there?”
“Uruguayans. The Cubans are all at the Russian Pavilion.”
I’m only repeating what I heard OTHER people say…when I was 23 and a brat.
I’ll bet you could write a whole book about how clueless Yanks are about our northern neighbor.
Ohhhh, yes. Yes I could.
My absolute favourite is how often people think we’re all Mounties who live in igloos and eat dried salmon washed down with maple syrup.
I have been asked if: we can actually phone a number outside of Canada.
If we have real money, not just the coloured stuff.
If we’re a real country.
If we still have a Queen.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And, yes.
BUT, I have met Canadians who are entirely clueless about other provinces, so fear not…as much.
* People should read more
* People should buy more books
* People should buy more NEW books
* People should buy more new books in bookstores
* People should buy more of MY new books
* People should pre-order books my books that are not yet published
* People should pre-order my books that are not yet written
Amen to your books AND my books and everyone else’s books!
I’ll bet you could write a whole book about how clueless Yanks are about our northern neighbor.
I love the humor, but I also see your point. We worry and wonder as we watch the Christian publishing ship sink, but not enough of us are out there buying books. NEW BOOKS from a bookstore, as you said. Hard to keep an industry alive if no one’s buying!
And why do people feel it’s OK to make me justify my Christian faith, when no one would ask Stephen Hawking to defend his atheism? (Not that I’m comparing myself with Hawking. He’s an astrophysicist; I’m an engineer, and besides, he’s British.)
Amen again, Andrew!
Of course you can just put a mysterious look on your face and say that you prefer not to talk about your faith since it’s filled with secrets and . . . well, it’s too powerful for most people.
Good point…most folks don’t know the simple arithmetic…3 nails + 1 cross = 4given
Sometimes people ask you to defend the faith because they are really hoping it might be true but are afraid to ask the question openly. A missionary friend who started out atheist was very aggressive about hostile questions as he got closer to admitting it was all true.
The Bible tells us to rejoice under opposition. Opposition is much more likely to turn into faith than apathy. When someone questions me, I say bring it on after I pray for the Holy Spirit to guide me words.
I’m sure your defenses are making eternal differences.
I just finished the book I was reading, and there isn’t a sequel. Furthermore, the movie version is rotten. I’m locked out of seventeenth century England again!
That happened to me recently, too. The book left too many unanswered questions. The author may be planning a second book but I wish it was available NOW!
Yes, and when sequels do come out it’s inevitably been so long I’ve forgotten all the important stuff from the previous book, meaning I have to spend valuable reading time going through it again. There are too many books in the world for that kind of nonsense!
A question – serious one – what do you think of ‘prequels’? Like the concept? Hate it? Depends?
And what about those thoughtless authors (like Nicholas Monsarrat) who DIE before finishing a sequel??? How RUDE. (He wrote “The Master Mariner”…and the sequel is in fragmentary form, but was published as an academic exercise by a researcher.)
I like prequels. If I really enjoy an author’s work and the characters they’ve created, I want to hear more about them.
And yes, dying before you finish a series is rude 😉 You should at least have the rest of it outlined so someone else can finish it for you, or your readers can get SOME closure in knowing what would have happened to your characters!
I do not like prequels. For the record. I’ve moved on with the character and hate to go back to the time before they have changed and grown.
I second this gripe!
I’m with you R. J. I usually go to Amazon (don’t tell) and see what other readers of that book are reading.
I love binge reading (waiting until there are a stack of books in the series and reading through them nonstop) because, like Laura, a year between books is too long to stay engaged. But, of course, the quality books I like to read can’t be written quickly. I guess it’s a good problem.
A literary gripe: “He poured over the document.” Really? ‘Cause that’s kind of gross. (It’s “pored.”)
A shopping gripe: Indifferent baggers. I don’t get riled by much, but this type of carelessness aggravates me. On a rare occasion, I’ll say something, but usually I move my cart out of the way and rearrange things.
Can’t think of anything else, though, so life must be pretty good! Fun post, Wendy.
Reminds me of a story (from Reader’s Digest) about a fire at a university library. A professor walked up to a fireman and said, “Poring over some old books, eh?” The fireman turned the hose on him.
Now I’ll always have that image when I see “pour” used incorrectly. It makes me laugh so thanks!
I came across this beauty today: “I have an offal time . . .” I’m torn between annoyance and hilarity.
Oh my word.
I adore this one!
We could collect these gripe-worthy wrong word uses. Like baited breath.
I’ll second the shopping peeve. Especially clothes shopping. I don’t buy a lot of new clothes, and it galls me to fork out money only to see the clerk ball up(and practically knot) my clothes before stuffing it into the bag. So I can take them out of the bag at home and they already look as if they were worn on a cross-country bus ride. Grrr.
When a “judge” leaves a comment on your contest manuscript that challenges your YEARS of research (books, articles and discussions with actual, oxygen breathing humans) on the grounds that they…
wait for it…
….it’s SO good…
…watched Westerns and, like, read them too.
Cue hysterical laughter and email rants to your agent and your crit peeps.
Yes, but John Wayne NEVER lied! A whole culture could go down the drain if we’d allow that thought…and then, whence the Marlboro Man?
* And how does your work compare to the authority of Mel Brooks, with his landmark, Toynbee-esque “Blazing Saddles”?
*What’s a peep? I keep thinking of a rather sickening Easter candy, but it occurs to me that you might mean something else.
That’s the comment that allows you the exercise of eye rolling.
Some folks just can’t seem to help being big hat-no cattle. Ya just gotta laugh about it sometimes.
But not to their faces. Hurts your witness to them. But I can’t picture you not being gracious to your critics, so no problemo.
This is hilarious. How can I gripe after reading it, Wendy?
You go, girl!
It’s easy. there are so many things to gripe about. Like a website that is wonky on the very day we are trying to gripe. (Our web genius is on it.)
To blog or not to blog? That is the question, and everyone has a different answer.
Thank you for the smile today, Wendy. 🙂
And, Meghan, it changes daily just as our interaction with social media changes. Can I give you yet another opinion? Blog if you have something new to add to the conversation. If you can connect with your readership with something they can’t miss. Don’t blog to connect to other writers (your competition, so to speak). Blog if you can create a stunningly unique “entertainment channel” like Ann Voskamp or Pioneer Woman of The Worst Missionary.
Thank you, Wendy. Your opinion is unique, and I appreciate it.
Wendy, gripe #4 made me smile. I wonder what my family would say if I brought up the idea at dinner tonight…? I don’t have any gripes about agents—if anything, I’ve grown to admire and respect the graciousness and generosity of this hardworking group of professionals. But I do have a gripe about my slow progress in learning how to use Scrivener. Just when I think I’m getting it, I lose it (in more ways than one). I’m determined to beat this challenge. I love the idea of a virtual cork board etc.
Blessings ~ Wendy Mac ❀
I suggested to Janet that we try a complaining fast and she laughed until she snorted. (Well, practically. If you can picture Janet snorting you have a better imagination than me.) She believes if we don’t share our gripes with each other we will internalize them and get sick or weird.
I still think it would make a fascinating stunt memoir about what happens when we play the Pollyanna Glad Game, so to speak.
I never know when to use close or closely, tight or tightly … and the like.
He held her … etc
he held her,
she held he,
I don’t WANT to see them
start a fa-mi-lyyy
Apologies to Barney
for ripping off his rhyme
but we don’t need to read about them
“making time”.
Or? “He left a welt on her neck the size of a plump strawberry.”
“And in she shape of his lips that looked like bees had attacked him as he tied his silk cravat.”
Bad show, that, bees attacking his just as he was tying the cravat. Not cricket; they may be insects, but there ARE standards of courtesy,
Confession: I am always having to look up those kinds of questions. Editor I am not. Like less and fewer, farther and further, etc.
People who don’t know what a quahog is.
People who have never had an Awful Awful.
Being unable to buy coffee ice cream for over 40 years.
I love reading on the Kindle App because if I found Quahog in a book I’d place my finger on the word and up would pop the definition. Love it. And no, I don’t know what a quahog is but, wait. . . yes, now I know and I even saw a picture of one.
I actually know what a quahog is.
I actually just read an article last night about a 507 year old quahog!
I just wanted to be disciplined and buy my favorite Skinny Pop Popcorn for the trip, BUT my store remodeled and no longer has room for the black pepper variety. Seriously? I think everyone loves black pepper popcorn. I know! Right?
Ummmmmm. Yeahhhhh. About the black pepper…
That’s my gripe with my favorite yogurt. I love Dannon Light peach yogurt but my story no longer carries it to make room for all the Greek yogurt (yuck!)
(Arms folded with sad puppy face)
Well, why is there so much back and forth from different literary agents about “how to submit a query letter? And, and, (sniffles) Why does having an agent seem so important, yet seem so impossible?… Why, why, why?…(sniffles with pouty mouth)
The query letter issue– take it with a grain of salt. We all try to say what we like to see but just let your query letter feature your strengths and try to answer every question we might ask. (In the fall, three of our Books & Such agents are going to be doing a webinar on pitching. More info to come later.)
And about agents. . . it’s supply and demand. The publishing slots are shrinking so there are few places to place books. A limited number of agents fighting over even more limited slots. And an ever burgeoning number of excellent writers. Think of a funnel. If we could just get more people reading. That’s the key to growing this industry.
I just asked a question on Facebook yesterday about pet peeves. Kept me laughing all day long. Here’s one my friend shared, “People who think plurals require an apostrophe, and people who use the word “unconscious” when they really mean “sub-conscious” (as in “He said that unconsciously.”) If one is unconscious, one cannot speak.” 🙂
There’s something about commiserating with others that brings a spring to the step.
Pet Peeve short list:
1. People who clip their fingernails in public.
2. Drivers in the right lane who don’t need to turn right, yet block other people from doing so.
Irregardless of that, I pacificly told people not to cut their nails in church. Siriusly.
Oh goodness, don’t get us started, Jenni, on California drivers.
I was taught to drive in the right hand lane, except to pass. Forty-seven years later I still do so. It’s the rules of the road.
Sinner.
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Actually, so funny. Following Janet is hilarious. On the use the apostrophe, you will be gratified/pacified to know that I have seen the word “I’s” correctly using the apostrophe, as in, “Wendy and I’s heads are going to explode.”
I love everybody.
Bill
And we are blessed by your love here on blogland. May I never see I’s in another sentence. It makes my eyeballs bleed.
1. LibRary not Libary. Is it that people cannot spell or cannot read?
2. If I don’t agree with a person, then I’m less intelligent, less spiritual, or less educated than he or she is. I may be less of all three, but that seldom has anything to do with why I disagree. Sometimes, I just like to disagree! 🙂
Hear, hear!
My gripe is that I never get this blog’s posts until nearly noon Pacific time. Any way to fix that?
Me too, Janet!
Always get this long after everyone else has commented and flown the coop. And now I’m off to noon lap swim.
My Tuesday blog goes live at one in the morning each week. (Each agent sets the time for their blog to go up– it’s usually right around midnight.) I don’t know why subscribers don’t get the nudge that much later.
Hey, the guys down at Bobs Car Repair just have bad haircuts. No apostrophe needed.
Hmm. I’ll have to swing by and see if it looks like Beatles circa 1964.
Wendy, you may gripe about following Janet’s blog day however I’m sure Rachelle gripes about following your blog day.
My biggest gripe is that there is too much stuff (I am being polite using this word) on the Web that isn’t worth reading but it show up when I am doing a search on the Web. It can take a while to find the “gem” that I am looking for.
That’s the problem with no gatekeepers. It’s also the plus. We should have technique classes in how to quickly scan and settle with research.
That lap swim is from noon to one pm. Wishing for early morning with no sun.
But with our recent temps, it must feel wonderful!
Gripe: I’m already tired of 100+ degree days and having to save gray water to keep my garden alive.
My gripes:
The demise of local book stores with more than best sellers.
Hot Houston days where we are getring the rain that should be on the west coast. Wish I could send so e to you, Wendy.
Here’s a phrase I’m tired of hearing, “Wrap my head around, wrap my mind around, wrap my brain around…” We can’t physically wrap our head or our mind around ANYTHING so why is it used so often??
Also, a friend of mine constantly says, “You’re loving your parents well.” (My mom has dementia and I help out when I can). We either love or we don’t. How do you love someone not-well? That phrase doesn’t make sense to me!
Thanks for the light-hearted gripe session Wendy!
Ahhh. You are a literalist.
I love the comment “you are loving your parents well.” I see love as an act–as a decision– much more than some airy feeling. To those of us who have loved dementia sufferers, that comments makes me like you all the more, Gayla.
My biggest gripe is Christmas Wreaths, dead and wilted, still hanging on front doors in June. It drives me nuts.
Can I add Christmas lights? If they are left up all year they are not going to work the following Christmas.
Oh my gosh! I’m so thankful for this post because I finally have a sounding board for today’s pet peeve.
This morning I decided that I am officially tired of the term “open concept.” My mom enjoys watching HGTV, so at some point each day I overhear someone talking about wanting one. “Yeah, 3,000 square feet and five bedrooms is okay, but I’m looking for more of an open concept.” Why not just call it what it is: “I prefer the look where as soon as a guests walk through the door they see the mess in my kitchen and the kids’ homework all over the dining room table”? (Notice my correct use of an apostrophe.)
Another totally random gripe: Why don’t the rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization apply to texting? Is it really that hard?
Thank you, Wendy. I feel so much better now. It’s nice to have a place where I can be heard and understood. My family just thinks I’m weird.
I’m impressed with your carefully nuanced use of the apostrophe. Apostrophe use is not an open concept. 🙂
BTW, we’re excited at your signing the contract for your next book.
I thought you’d like the apostrophe :). And thank you! I’m excited too! I feel incredibly blessed.
What a lot of introverts don’t think about as they are drawn into the open concept floor-plan, is that THEY WILL NEVER HAVE COMPLETE PRIVACY. They will hear the TV, radio and conversation every time they sit down in the living room to relax with a book. No more peace. Note my clever avoidance of apostrophes. 🙂
Sorry! I have to add one more gripe–well, one more for today anyway. 🙂
People who follow you on Twitter long enough for you to follow them back and then they unfollow you! Do they really think you’re going to continue to follow them after they unfollow you? Not!
Thanks for the opportunity, Wendy!
Interesting, Sylvia. I’m no longer a big Twitter user but I scratched my head at this one. Who has enough time to do this? I can just see the to-do list. “Check everyone friended yesterday. Unfollow all those who already followed.”
Crazy!
Rachelle’s on vacation. I’m the blogger tomorrow.
You all come back tomorrow and you’ll see why I’m envying Wendy all these comments today!
I read the blog early every morning by checking on https://www.booksandsuch.com/blog, because it doesn’t appear in my email box until later either!
I agree with the Pacific Time gripe. But, oh well.
My Gripe: I get annoyed when I receive email sales/solicitations for writing products that are marketed on Sundays. I dislike doing writing business on Sunday and I especially feel annoyed when Christians are trying to sell me something on Sunday too. Even on Father’s Day there were products being pushed. No thanks, I don’t want to go there on the Lord’s Day (I ignore them). Does this bother anyone besides me?
I have two gripes:
1. Why can I recognise the errors of a bad novel (and the brilliance of a good novel) but can’t see the flaws in my own novels? It’s more frustrating because I’m getting rejections on fulls with kind and specific notes from agents for flaws I really should know better than to commit.
2. Why is it such a frustrating process to get my daughter into a good high school? The local schools terrify me.
interesting article. thank
thanks
image is interesting