Author: darin

My writer friends and I often talk about the tools we’ve discovered to actually help us put words on a page. Those tools range everything from hardware to software, pens to moleskine journals, settings to environments, snacks to libations. I’ve been singing the praises of a few of my writing tools here in a series of posts. You can revisit posts on hardware, software, references & resources, accouterments and some of my social media tools.

This installment of the tools that help my writing heart tick will be a little different. With this one I’m really going to promote a discipline more than things. Reading. People who are a lot smarter than me have said if you want to write you need to excel at reading. Lest you think I’m kidding:

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” ― Stephen King

“Read everything–trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.” ― William Faulkner

Think I’m kidding? Erasmus is considered one of the great human minds of all time. What did he think of reading? “When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes.” — Erasmus

Personally, I have tended to practice the Faulkner quote above. I woke up to the reality a few years back that the only books I was reading were those recommended to me because they would gel with my wiring and thinking. In other words, I’d find kinship with the author, the subject matter or story. I made an intentional change. I started reading different points of view, different styles and voices. I picked up some genres I’d never read before. And I believe my writing craft has grown for it.

I’d encourage you, make time in your day–every day–for some reading. Your writing will benefit.

In case you’re curious, here are a handful of titles I’ve read in the past twelve months (some of which I’d recommend, others which I would not!) to give you an idea of the diversity: Team of Rivals (Doris Kearns Goodwin), Platform (Michael Hyatt), Aesop’s Fables, Love is an Orientation (Andrew Marin), Off Magazine Street (Ronald Capps), Atlas of the Human Heart (Ariel Gore), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle).

What are you reading these days? What reading has fed your writing life recently?

Health Inspectors mandate that signs be posted in restaurant and grocery store restrooms reminding employees to wash their hands before returning to work. Misplace the sign, and the establishment will be fined. Misspell the sign, and, well … it becomes a job for Grammar Man!

The Case of There, Their, They’re Confusion.

There, there! It will be okay. I am a trained professional. As a trained professional, I’ve seen more than my share of there, their and they’re abuse. Would you look at that sign? Meant to enforce health standards, while at the same time numbing our culture’s literary senses at the same time. To the rules we go!

There is primarily used in our language to represent a place. Consider it in comparison to the word here. It’s either here, or it’s there. Now–steady yourself–there can be used as an adverb, a noun, a pronoun, an adjective and even as an interjection. There, there! But primarily–say it with me–there represents a place.

Their is a possessive pronoun. It is used to show possession, as in ‘who does this belong to?’ It’s theirs. Some grammar geeks recognize their as a possessive adjective where contrast is inherent in the sentence–this is our car; that is their car–because it stands in adjectival description. (And just so you know, moms and dads will light up with pride when their son or daughter uses the phrase stands in adjectival description in a sentence. Try it sometime.) A clue: if you can ask the question ‘whose ____?’ then their is your word. Too bad our sign maker didn’t ask that question. Whose hands? Employees? Oh–so THEIR hands. Voila!

They’re should be the easiest not to confuse. It’s a contraction. The apostrophe replacing the missing letter is a dead giveaway. They’re is short for they are. Only use they’re if you’d be able to say the same thing using they are. But–and here’s the real gem–be sure to use they’re if you’re meaning to convey they are. Most common of all the there, their, they’re confusion is for people to mean they are and mistakenly choose there or their. There coming for dinner. NO! Their on their way now. NO! They’re coming. They’re on their way.

Be vigilant about this, my dear friends, because spell-checker won’t be. It’s true. When you write a document and spell-check it, unless it has a grammar component to it, your spell-checker will fail to point out these misuses. If they’re spelled correctly, though they are there in your document, their particular grammatical usage may go unchecked. So there is no substitute for you knowing how to use there, their and they’re. Get it right. Make Grammar Man proud. And don’t eat in an establishment that gets the hand washing sign wrong. I mean, if the sign is wrong, how much confidence do you have in their ability to wash their hands?

What grammar gaffes have you spotted recently? Egads!