A-ha!

When Your Keyboard Doesn't Obey Your Fingers

We've all had it happen-- we're busily typing away, committing our thoughts to print, clickety-clackety, when suddenly...our word processor: usually MS WORD, starts throwing in green and red underlining.

"That's a spelling error," the computer is whining. "That's a grammar error," it so nicely points out.

Today, we aren't going to get into the finer points of what good grammar is, nor how to spell cinnamon or aluminum-- spell check can help you with your confusion over tongue-twisters and there will be posts in the future to talk about grammar-- but we do want to offer some solutions to battling the computer when it insists you've made an error...and you don't think you have.

We have several books ( don't see our book list? You have good eyes; we haven't developed it yet!) to recommend, and one particular website that we think you will find very useful: Common Errors in English.

Professor Paul Brians of Washington State University has developed a marvelous website full of all the common errors in usage...not grammar that we all make as we happily click along on our keyboards, or typewriters, as some writers still like to do things the 'old fashioned' way. As he explains in the introduction to his errors page,

What is an error in English?
The concept of language errors is a fuzzy one. I’ll leave to linguists the technical definitions. Here we’re concerned only with deviations from the standard use of English as judged by sophisticated users such as professional writers, editors, teachers, and literate executives and personnel officers. The aim of this site is to help you avoid low grades, lost employment opportunities, lost business, and titters of amusement at the way you write or speak.

Professor Brian has rescued this writer from many a faux pas...and has also been willing to exchange emails to answer a question not included in his writings on the site. We at WMEBooks.com hope you will visit this site and add it to your favorites...since we are certain it will come in handy as you commit your thoughts and ideas to paper.

A Gathering-place for Authors and their Ideas

Again, a warm Welcome! to everyone. And we do mean everyone, since we believe the adage that everyone has at least one BOOK in them.

Yes, that includes you. Remember that book idea that's been germinating in your head for ... what, years now? This blog is meant to help anyone with the desire to take that idea and nurture it into the book you've always dreamed of writing.

Along the way, we'll all learn from each other. Our successes and challenges will provide guideposts to smooth the way for the next author.

A-ha! Authors helping authors.

Which reminds me, where are my manners? Introductions are in order.

We're Yvonne, Tom, and Maryanne, the ones who'll be writing the main posts. That was Yvonne writing yesterday. This is Tom writing today. And you'll hear from Maryanne tomorrow.

Confused? Well, don't worry. It's like we've just met and been introduced in a group. It may take a couple of visits for us all to get comfortable. Think of this blog as a virtual gathering place, like it's the watercooler or coffee area at WME Books, where you can stop by and get to know us. As you do, we're going to share our experiences with our own writing and encourage our authors to do the same. We hope you'll join in, too, with comments and maybe a guest post?

We're writers and bloggers ouselves. Yvonne is well known for her Lip-Sticking blog focused on marketing to women online. Tom's is called Knowledge Aforethought and he writes about "collecting and connecting the dots" (i.e. knowledge management and information design). Maryanne recently launched her own blog, Maryanne's Blog: Powdering Our Noses.

Together we all work to help others join the "bloggersation" (Maryanne's word) with our Business Blogging Boot Camp seminars and the supporting Business Blogging Boot Camp blog.

There, that gives you a start on who we are. What we want to share here are books ... and the ideas that fill them ... whether they've been written yet or not ... by us, or one of our authors, or you.

Please join us.