Here Comes the Sun: A happy, faithful fan of the Fictional Café Dear Faithful Fans: It was a long, cold lonely winter, but at last we can tell you that our hard work has brought forth the redesigned, completely revamped, Fictional Café! I want to thank Shari Ryan of Author Needs for months and months of demanding [and often frustrating] work to develop our new site. Shari and I have worked together for nearly five years now, and I greatly appreciate her creativity and perspicacity. She’s also an author and you ought to check her out. Our newest barista, Mike Mavilia, has worked about sixteen times harder on the site than I. He has learned an awful lot about the arcane world of WordPress, teaching me quite a lot in the bargain. Thanks, Mike, for keeping us…
Official Relaunch of The Fictional Café
On Monday, June 1st, The Fictional Café will be cutting its virtual ribbon to celebrate the relaunch of our site. We welcome you to stop by and celebrate with us! We will be posting our monthly submissions again in the Member Writing & Art section, as well as blogs in the News, Reviews and Interviews section from each of us baristas commenting on the writing and art world. Poke around and see what we’ve changed, or if you’re new, explore the wonderful creativity contributed by writers and artists from all over the world. Be sure to check out The Fictional Café on Facebook and Twitter to access exclusive content. Stop by Monday, June 1st, and share a cuppa creativity with us! We’d love you to write a comment or two on what you see.
The War on Spelling and Grammar is Never Over
We here at The Fictional Café tend to notice when a comma is used when a semicolon is necessary and when a person decides to lay down instead of lie down. Sometimes it makes us pull our hair out, but other times it elicits a hearty chuckle from us. Fortunately for you and me, the omnipresent eye of the internet notices too. Here are two of my favorite sites for fail-induced guffaws. Oh, and I had to include one great blog for accurate, easy to understand grammar and spelling tips. You know, to balance out the facepalminess. http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/ http://www.lowercasel.com/ http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl
Gramer? Speling? Who Cares?
OK, this is so unbelievable I had to include the absolute proof that it happened – on the radio. In fact, I had to go back and listen again just to make sure I understood what I heard. No mistake, I heard what I heard. The show was Ask Me Another, segment “Like A Confused Boss“, on NPR. A contestant was a college student, apparently graduating, asking her professor for help with her C.V., and annoyed with his advice. But listen for yourself. This post is definitely open for your comments! Please click on the arrow below to listen.
Beating Procrastination With HOKAIC
HOKAIC (“hawk-ache”) by Jason Brick HOKAIC. It sounds like a Klingon curse word, but actually it’s the most important concept for success in any writing endeavor. It’s an acronym that stands for Hands On Keyboard Ass In Chair HOKAIC is absolutely the key to success as a writer because writers…well, we write. Maybe not for pay. Maybe not for publication. But we write. So at the end of the day, you’d better have spent some time with your hands and ass in the right place. It’s not always as easy as I’m making it sound, but it’s exactly that simple. Kick writer’s block where it hurts, then get busy writing. This is just part of the day for most people who make a living at our craft. For folks who still struggle with this, here are…