Melonade

This week mental_floss has got a guest blogger- a grammarian! She's written some really nice refresher pieces on grammar and punctuation, and an interesting etymology piece. Tomorrow she's answering reader questions. Check it out. Your commas will thank you.

By the way, June is shaping up to be a lovely music month. Well, late June, that is, as both Great Big Sea and KC Clifford are delivering new music to their fans and soon-to-be fans. Let the countdown and change collection begin!

Another week, and I'm looking back thinking, "Where did it go?"

I got some work done on the book, but not enough. Last night we had yet another tornado scare, and I had to rush home from the grocery store to make sure my sister had stopped panicking. And it's hard to concentrate when you know the weatherman could tell you to seek shelter at any moment. Hopefully tornado season will be over soon.

I've gone back to editing a hard copy rather than directly on the computer. For now, I think it's best. I'm working on the first 12 chapters, and I've posted the first 8 on Urbis to get some stranger feedback. This is where the frustration kicks in.

Urbis is a great writing community site. If you're a writer and you want to get useful criticism on your work, I recommend it. The only problem is that you have to wade through some of the less-than-helpful reviews to get to the good stuff. Lately I've been longing for some specific criticism, and I get fluff that doesn't help at all.

Am I going to stop using Urbis? Certainly not. Several of my submissions are the top-rated in the YA category, and I intend to add to that list. If nothing else, there is the thrill of seeing that someone new has read my work, and the tension of wondering whether they will like it or not.