On Writing – (Specifically, MY Writing)

Anyone who has tried to actually become a professional writer knows two things:

• It is damned hard work. It’s right up there with working in salt mines. On an asteroid. With a leaky Vacc suit and only an old roll of duct tape to help you patch the holes. And the salt is radioactive. (Non-writers will think this hyperbole. Fools.)

• It cannot actually be done. Logically it is impossible. Grammar is imperfect, and so, perfect works, must remain continually marred by imperfect, outdated, avant-guarde, passe, cliched, too flashy, too boring or too something or other grammar. This however, is something we can live with. But punctuation, oh, sweet mercy, punctuation…well, what do you think that Naggon up there is huh? That’s right, the Naggon is punctuation.

For the elucidation of the pedants and the grammar Nazis (Hi my sweet, sweet, editor), I have decided to collect a few of my writing idiosyncrasies here, though my editor would probably refer to them as idiot-syncrasies.

A small warning: This is pretty long and also, I try to offend everyone equally so as to be fair about it. If you are a writer or an editor or anyone interested in language, grammar or punctuation in general, or if you are American, English or French, or religious, or sensitive, or some damn hippie thing or other, then some part of this post is almost guaranteed to get you to bite at your keyboard rabidly whilst foaming at the mouth.

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