"I hate writing." Oh, how many times I heard that as an English teacher. But, it's just like talking, which we all like to do. The difference is that you have to put in those pesky marks to help your reader in making sense of it all. Now, that's like learning the technical aspects of anything. Got to get to the "nitty gritty" to get to the fun part. For example, I like to drive but have no interest in learning what makes the car go. I leave that to those who think its interesting and fun. Same here. You talk your words on paper; I make them go. I'm the word mechanic. You can do it yourself though. Check out the writing tips page, and e-mail me if you have questions. Good writing!
A book on grammar? That's about as appealing as a beach with no sun - a hot dog with no dog - a BLT with no B. Well, you get the picture. But, if you're a writer or teacher of writing, then grammar is your buddy, your companion, your friend?. Maybe not the latter. Anyhow, you're always looking for the rule, the example to lean on and depend on to make your writing clean and exact, even though it may not be the most entertaining reading.
Well, I found a grammar book that's all of that - Eats, Shoots, & Leaves byLynne Truss. She makes being a stickler for punctuation a virtue instead of a malady suffered only by teachers and writers. And, she does it with a touch of humor and includes the ifs, ands, and buts of differing opinions on certain items. The title comes from a joke about a panda.
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds the explanation:
Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots, and leaves.
Even if you're not a professional writer, but a lover of words, you'll enjoy this journey down the punctuation trail.
You have a website. Looks great, except for one thing. It's so outdated. Content is old. Photos dreary. So, why haven't you sent updated info to your web master? Oh, you have? Numerous times? No response? Aaaaahhhhhhgggggggg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had that experience 3 times. Then I discovered do-it-yourself web design & hosting sites. Wow, did my world open up. After lots of trial and error, with hours spent looking at, and even doing trial versions, of many of these sites, I finally settled on 3 that work for me. Now, I'm no web master, that's for sure. But, I think I've created some pretty decent websites for me and a few other folks.
So, with the encouragement of a few friends, I decided to offer my expertise to others who might need a website for a small business, non-profit, or other group.
You know, you can spend hours and hours (literally) trying out different designing tools. Then you actually begin to design a site, and , BOOM. there's a glitch, a major glitch with a capital G.
Tech support? Depends on who you get. What's with this Live Chat? I thought live meant living, breathing, right in front of you. Live here means a living, breathing person is pecking away at a keyboard somewhere in the mountains of a little country across the big pond. After a few sentences back and forth, you decide that the person has that manual you wish you had. When he says that he'll be back in a "few moments", he's frantically searching the index for the answer to your problem.
One tech told me the problem might be that I have a different design on the page that wouldn't work. HuH? These sites have designs that are one size fits all. Very few allow for making any changes to the pages' designs.
Ah, but when you find one that works beautifully and has lots of features, you're in amateur web designer heaven. Up and running.
So, that's where I come in. I just love doing this stuff, glitches and all.
