I have found the answers to many of my questions; some are still left unanswered. Homonyms are one of those fascinating subjects, which, when researched, can immerse me in the mysteries of American English for hours.

Homonyms, such as, their or there, buy, by, or bye, and hundreds more, are often misused. Have you ever misused one? If you have, you’re not alone! I have 30 years professional experience using the American English language, and I still get some homonyms confused. And, don’t count on the spell check feature of your software, because these words are spelled correctly! As I tell my ESL (English as a Second Language) students, when in doubt, look it up.

A quick perusal of the printed and online lexicons of the language yields these broad definitions of homonyms: Homonyms and homophones are one of two or more words that have the same sound and often the same spelling but differ in meaning (for example, to, too, two).

Confusion often reigns (note: not rains), however, about the difference between homonyms and homophones. Whenever I need the definitive answer to something, I go to the experts: The Linguist List (http://linguistlist.org).

In answer to the question: What is a homonym? The Linguist List refers us to SIL International, which provides a Glossary of Linguistic Terms (at http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOflinguisticTerms/WhatIsAHomonym.htm). This glossary defines a homonym as “a word that has the same pronunciation as another. Homonyms differ from each other in:

• meaning
• origin, and
• usually spelling.”

However, the SIL glossary states that homonyms are also known, as, you guessed it, homophones! And, are “loosely” called homographs, which are words with the same spelling but different in meaning.

Let’s look at some examples they give:

• Words with the same pronunciation but different in meaning:
  • bore and boar (wait, what about boor?)
  • two and too
• Homographs:
  • bow: to bend
  • bow: a decorative knot

So, what about homophones? According to the glossary, a homophone is “a group of two or more letters representing the same speech sound, or a homonym.”

Let’s look at the examples they give:

• Letters with the same speech sound:
  • c in city
  • s in song
• Homonyms:
  • two and too

Hence, some homophones are also homonyms. Whereas homonyms focus on the meaning, origin, and, usually, spelling differences for the same sound, homophones focus on the letter differences with the same speech sound, and, homographs focus on the different meanings for the same spelling! It’s easy to see why native speakers of American English get confused about the trio, let alone those brave people who are trying to learn English as another language!

I find that when I am trying to make sense of the American English language, a table helps:

I hope that helps. Either way, enjoy learning about homonyms. It’s fun for anyone trying to get their pause paws on and clause claws into these pesky purls pearls and pares pears pairs!

Sue

To be simply fearless means to have built your spiritual foundation on something solid. This foundation does not have any flaws in it that might eventually lead to cracks.

Fear is one of those flaws. Like pebbles that mix in with the concrete and then are encased in its hard embrace, fear permeates your spiritual foundation. Eventually, tiny cracks appear at the pebble’s location; without great care and attention to remove these tiny cracks, they will become large spider veins throughout your foundation, eventually causing it to crumble.

So if you have a fear like a pebble stuck in your base, simply remove it, carefully.

Unfortunately, removing fear from your life is not always that simple. Remember the goal is to be simply fearless. Getting to that state of mind is not all that simple.

You can go around it, or at least try to do so; you can accept it as part of your life and live with it; or, you can go through it.

If you try to avoid or go around the fear it will only get stronger. If you try to live with it, it will control you, reshaping you into an imitation of its own ugly form.

But if you go through the fear, light is shining on the other side to reward you!

I love the imagery those words bring to mind—bright, comforting, safe light just outside the end of that dark tunnel of fear, waiting for me to finally emerge, holding fine gifts I have only dreamed of having: peace of mind, complete relaxation, financial security, love.

As a writer, I have made a commitment in my life to be simply fearless. Fear paralyzes your writer’s muse, your creativity, your passion. I was reading a discussion on one of the online writers’ groups about the fear of submitting a proposal to an editor and being rejected only to discover later that the editor actually used your idea and assigned it to another writer. Writers in that discussion agreed that it does happen and you can’t do anything about it except convince the editor that you are the only writer who can make that book or article or essay come to life so that you, and only you, get the assignment.

… continued in Simply Single.

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

Writing feels impossible sometimes, especially if you’re trying to write a book or flesh out a query for a fantastic new idea that occurred to you overnight. It seems that writer’s block will never move out of the way.

But if you study St. Francis’s words, you can see the old adage “Do it for just 15 minutes” come to the surface. In other words, if you’re stuck in your writing, choose a task from your mundane to do list and work on it for just 15 minutes. Set a timer if you must to make sure you stick with that 15-minute guideline. Then when the buzzer sounds, switch over to your writing task, again setting that time for just 15 minutes. Your writing will flow out easily from your creative mind because you have “warmed it up” with your 15 minutes of doing what’s necessary. Now you’re doing what’s possible–writing. Keep practicing this routine every day, and next, before you know it, you’ll be accomplishing what you previously thought was “the impossible”: finishing your book, completing and sending the query on that great new idea… achieving your dreams of being a writer.

Happy Writing!

Sue

Although they are mostly fluent in speaking English, they need to improve their English writing skills. That’s why they were placed in my class. They have been writing paragraphs all semester, polishing their skills so that they write at least three passing paragraphs. They’ve nearly achieved this goal as a class. At the end of the semester, we are going to enjoy food from everyone’s native culture and discuss tips and tools to help them continue to improve their writing.

That’s the thing about writing — whether in your native language or another language. You must keep writing every day. If you don’t use it, you will definitely lose it.

So how can you incorporate writing in your very busy daily life? Here are some ways I listed to discuss with my students:

• Buy a daily writer’s book, such as The Writer’s Book of Days. These books are great because they give you a writing prompt for every day of the year. Some of the prompts are sentences you are supposed to finish, topics, or questions to answer. You are supposed to write for 15 minutes nonstop. I used to do this daily writing practice every day. I haven’t done so in a while and I can tell in my writing! When I was writing from my book of days every day, my writing on my day job and in my freelance work improved and I sold more pieces! The lesson here is to write every day and these books are great tools to help you do just that.
• Write morning pages before you get out of bed. Julia Cameron talks about these in her bestseller, The Artist’s Way, another excellent book for all writers to read by the way.
• Read one book about writing at least every month (I think it’s best to read two writing books a month, but let’s start with just one). Right now, I’m reading Sol Stein’s How to Grow a Novel.
• Read at least one novel a month for pleasure. And, while you’re enjoying the story, pay attention to how the author writes it. In fact, you could read the novel the first time for pleasure and then go back and re-read the novel to study the author’s technique and the general techniques for fiction writing. I know of one now-famous author who started writing fiction by doing this practice. It helped her see the geneeral format for the genre she was interested in writing. She then went on to write and publish many bestsellers.
• Of  course, we cannot forget about writing in our journal every day. Journal entries are different than morning pages and the book of days writing practice. Journaling is for our eyes only; it is more personal. When we journal, we don’t worry about grammar or style; we just write and write and write. It’s the time we gift our creative muse to just “let it all hang out.” Journaling is very important to honing our writing skills and assuring our creative muse that we will pay attention to her and we are serious about being writers.

That’s all for now. I’ll add more after my students and I have our discussion in a few weeks.

Happy Writing!

Sue

One of the elements that many fiction writers struggle with is the art of writing good dialogue in their stories. Recently, I returned to a classic, and favorite of mine, Stein on Writing by Sol Stein, to brush up on my fiction techniques.

In Chapter 11 of his book, published in 1999 by St. Martin’s Press (ISBN 0-312-25421-0), Stein talks about the secrets of good dialogue. Here are some golden nuggets from this chapter:

• Dialogue…is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.
• Learning the new language of dialogue is as complex as learning any new language.
• Dialogue is always in immediate scene, which is one reason readers relish it.
• Confrontational dialogue… is immediate, creating a visual image of the speakers as it shoots adrenaline into our bloodstream.
• Dialogue… is indirect. The key word to understanding the nature of dialogue is that the best dialogue is oblique.
• Characters don’t need to make speeches at each other.
• We’re not only characterizing, we’re building a story… . A reader’s emotions can be sparked with few words. That’s the power of dialogue.
• Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts. Count for what? To characterize, to move the story along to have an impact on the reader’s emotions.
• What the reader gets from your fiction is the meaning of words. And most important, the emotion that meaning generates.
• … what counts is not what is said but the effect of what is meant.
• … the best way to judge dialogue read aloud is to read it in a monotone without expression. The words have to do the job.

Stein has many more wonderful suggestions and tips for improving the dialogue in your fiction. I strongly suggest you read Stein on Writing and, when you’re finished with it, read another Stein classic, How to Grow a Novel.

Happy Writing!

Coach Sue

Wow! That felt great! Not because his words stroked my ego — but because I heard him say that I made a difference in his world. That’s what really matters — that’s what it is all about — that’s why I’m here in this world: To Make A Difference in the Lives of Others.

No matter what you do in your daily world, I am sure that you, too, make a difference. Think about it and  when you have come up with a few ways your life has helped others’ lives, give thanks that you were given that opportunity to help and to see how what you do matters.

Earlier this week, I received a package from a friend. She had sent me clips of her articles that have been published. A few years ago, I encouraged her to start writing. As her writing coach, I helped her see the unique gift that God had blessed her with and how, through her writing, she could help others who suffer with a chronic illness, just as she does. Her book, The Many Faces of The Wolf, is featured on my blog under Publications. I was thrilled to read my friend’s published articles. And, again, I was humbled by the note she wrote me: “These writings occurred because you encouraged me and believed in a skill (gift) I did not know that God had given me.”

Tonight, I am so grateful for the student  I saw today and for the friend whose package I received this week.  You see, I’ve been thinking I should stop teaching, writing, and coaching new writers, and return to full-time work in the corporate world. Finances are tight, as they are for most people these days, and that corporate salary, once obtained, could make a difference in our monthly budget.

But that difference pales in comparison to the difference I seem to be making through The Writer’s Cottage. That’s all I need to know to make my decision to stick with the vision for The Writer’s Cottage that God gave to me on that river bank nearly 10 years ago on June 2, 2000.

And for that vision and all that has occurred since then, I truly have an Attitude of Gratitude.

I wish you many wonderful hours and days and weeks and months and years of making a difference in this world in whatever you do.

~~Sue

My husband asked me to write about that. I responded, “I can’t do that; it’s not my experience, it’s his. Tell your soldier friend to start his own blog and write his story.”

That’s what writing is all about – you have to write about what you know. Only you can tell your experience with your passion for the subject. Only you really know what it is or was like to go through what you lived.

Let me give you another example. My 21-year-old son was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (known for short as Lupus SLE) when he was just 14 years old. What followed his diagnosis was five nightmare years of treatment, surgeries and too many nights in the emergency room or the hospital wondering if he would live to see the morning.

I can write about how it felt to be my teen son’s mother and caregiver. I can write about the toll that caregiving took on my body, my psyche, my soul. But, I cannot write about the experience from the perspective of the person whose body was being ravaged by this insidious and wicked disease. Only my son can write that story because that’s his story.

Both stories have value; both stories will help different groups of people. Both stories must be told.

That’s what I believe, very strongly: you must tell your story. If you don’t, no one else will. And if your story is not told, the world loses because your story happened so that you could share it and through its telling, help many others who need to read what it was like for you to live that story so they can make it through their own story with the faith, courage, and strength that they gain from reading what you wrote.

So go tell your story with all your passion and soul. The world is waiting.

First, multiple authors resulting in multiple writing styles can send multiple messages to your prospect. Make sure you have an editor review the entire document before sending it to your prospect. The editor should be someone other than one of the content writers. This guideline ensures that the editor is an objective party and one who has not seen the content so much that they miss crucial inconsistencies.

Second, not achieving the purpose of the cover letter confuses your prospective client. In your cover letter, you should tell your prospective client what you will do for them. The body of your sales proposal, then, details how you plan to deliver your promise. Many times, proposal writers go off track from the original intent as stated in the cover letter. Making an outline for the proposal body will ensure that you stick with the original proposal theme.

For a free booklet, Top 6 Reasons Sales Proposals Don’t Win the Job, email: sue at thewriterscottage dot com.

Happy Writing!

~~Sue

It’s a brand new year, so there’s no time like TODAY to grab a new book (preferably lined) or start a new file on your computer titled: JOURNAL 2010. Scientific studies have shown some advantage to handwriting over typing on a computer keyboard–something about the physical motion of the hand on the paper connecting more directly to the language center in the brain. As a teacher of writing and English as a Second Language (ESL), I used to be pretty firm about my students handwriting in their journals. But, then I stopped journaling for a period of time. After about a year, I asked myself why I had stopped. It was then that I realized I had become so accustomed to typing so fast (about 110 words a minute) on a laptop keyboard, that handwriting was just too slow for the flow of my thoughts that came tumbling out every time I picked up my paper journal to write.

So, now I tell my students—use whatever technique feels right for you and supports your inner writing muse in his/her journaling. Just do it—start with five minutes a day, every day. After just a few days of this practice, you will feel so great about your new language skills and/or the amount of original writing you are creating, that you will most likely increase your journaling time.

What are you waiting for? Go start that journal!

Happy New Year of Writing!

Sue