Burblings

Last month I (briefly) went to a dark place. There wasn’t anything wrong, really. There were no awful life events or catastrophes. I wasn’t depressed. It’s just that my novel, which had been stuck, ended up taking me somewhere Not Fun. My main character wasn’t coming out right, and in order to understand where she…

Learning Korean has given me a fascinating sense of perspective. I’ve learned other languages: I did a double major in French and English in university and I took a year of German back when I thought a master’s degree in Comparative Literature would be a hoot (actually, it probably would be a hoot, but that’s…

When I took my first editing course, our instructor gave us a valuable piece of advice: don’t correct someone else’s grammar/spelling on social media. Ever. Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and internet forums (are they still A Thing? I am old) are the textual equivalent of a casual conversation. Do you stop someone mid-conversation to correct their…

Last fall, when I first started learning Korean, I told a friend about it and she said, “Umm…OK, but why?” It’s a fair question. I live in a province with a Korean population of just over 1000 according to the 2016 census. I don’t work in tech, I don’t want to teach abroad (or locally,…

2018 was the year I got hooked on romance novels. I don’t know about you, but I was raised with a general attitude of scorn towards all things romance-novel-y. My mom called them “bodice-rippers” and wouldn’t have been caught dead reading one, so, even though I’m a grown-ass woman who can (surely!) make up her…

Sometimes word choices are technically correct…but they just plain bug me. Case in point: last year I read a couple of books where the word “fisted” was used as a verb. Frequently. Noticeably often. It really bothered me. I couldn’t think of a single instance where I’d seen the word “fisted” used as a verb…